Diverse paths to human understanding

GREG Downey encountered the berimbau when conducting field work in Brazil for his PhD in anthropology from the University of Chicago. Its music accompanies the complicated dance cum martial arts form capoeira, and he was so fascinated by it that he mastered and then taught the instrument and the physical discipline.

GREG Downey encountered the berimbau when conducting field work in Brazil for his PhD in anthropology from the University of Chicago. Its music accompanies the complicated dance cum martial arts form capoeira, and he was so fascinated by it that he mastered and then taught the instrument and the physical discipline.

He developed an insight that has informed his scholarship ever since. "I realised how important physical education is to shaping children - the games we play, the sport we teach our children - that sport is a profound influence on them and who they look up to, the qualities they seek," the Macquarie University lecturer says.

Sport and physical education is a primary way in which young men are socialised. But, he says, our wider society rarely reflects on the fact that we leave boys in the hands of coaches and each other to handle that socialisation. "We only think about it when there is a scandal."

This is part of a generally casual attitude, he says. "Especially with young men, we are often not conscious of what we are doing.We tend to be clear in our minds about what `good' girls do, but we don't talk about it for boys, except when they fail."

Capoeira illustrated for him a different kind of male socialisation. "Capoeira is so different from other martial arts and other ways of being male. In Brazil you have to have dramatic and aesthetic flair and a performative sense, and that to me was another way of seeing and experiencing my own cultural assumptions."

Downey cites his experience in Brazil as an example of the breadth of the discipline of anthropology. This diversity covers themes from native title to migration, and from prostitution to ethical engagement with animals, and human dreaming.

But, he says, the diffuse nature of the field is the source of an image problem. "Name recognition," he says of anthropology. "No one knows what it means." Asked what they do, anthropologists tend to identify themselves by their specific interest. "We tend to focus on the area of our specialty and not the big picture, such as `migrants in Thailand from Burma', instead of saying, `I study human diversity': if you add us all up, that's what we do."