Paul Radin and Contemporary Anthropology

In 1965, nearly twenty years before Arthur Vidich wrote an extensive introduction to Paul Radin's classic treatise, The Method and Theory of Ethnology he published a revealing essay on the significance of Radin's historical approach to ethnology. The essay in many ways reveals as much about Vidich's commitment to being an outside observer of society as it does about Radin. Indeed in this essay Vidich explains why participant observation, as a tool of historical analysis, is necessary for understanding primitive as well as modern society. While Vidich focuses on the importance of personal history when studying primitive societies, he clearly believed that participant observation techniques are central to gathering that personal history. Vidich takes exception to anthropologists who have exorcised the historical record from ethnographies of primitive societies by focusing on cross cultural linguistic analysis or patterns of culture abstracted from specific events.

Participant observation might very well be considered an oxymoron.  How can one actively participate in the life of a primitive society and still be an outside observer maintaining the values of a western educated anthropologist?  According to Radin, while the task maybe nearly impossible, the effort is still worth it.  Vidich contends that "Radin's perspective was that of the humanist historian who attempts to understand society from the point of view of its meaning to its participants. When one approaches primitive society with this attitude, it is clear that there is no way to eliminate the individual and his actions as the central datum of social science investigation." 

In this context, Vidich believed the participant observer needed to undergo a form of self-analysis before he or she could be divested of the cultural and professional biases that unduly colored personal observations.  Radin's personal antidote to western bias amongst anthropologists was to immerse himself in the culture of the Winnebago's - a society he studied throughout his life.  Through extensive immersion in a culture, a participant observer might identify so called "weekly truths" that seemingly shed light on a passing phase of a culture only to disappear as "falsehoods" after years of more extensive exposure to the nuances of that culture. For Vidich, participant observation was the lifeblood of a true anthropologist; it required a self effacing commitment to the divestiture of personal and cultural values and an uncanny ability to empathize with and accept the value of the members of primitive societies. 

While this 34 page essay addresses several topics that are also contained in Vidich's introduction to Radin's The Method & Theory of Ethnology, this essay clearly emphasizes the importance of understanding history through the words and experiences of individuals. This challenge is inordinately more difficult when a participant observer plays the role of an anthropologist - who has never immersed himself in a given culture - compared to a sociologist undertaking a similar study but within his own society.