Anthropological View of Understanding the Self

THE SELF AND PERSON IN CONTEMPORARY ANTHROPOLOGY

            The anthropological self takes a holistic dimension of the individual person. It considers both the
biological and environmental aspects of the person. The genetic component plays a significant role in the
cultural development of an individual. The genes of the person living in a particular community are already a
necessary component for the enculturation of the person. In the same way, environmental exposure is also a
vital component in the creation of the cultural self. Environmental exposures start soon after birth. It is
suggested that the environmental exposures start during conception, the child inside the womb already hears
the language, tastes the food, and feels the mother’s emotion. These experiences then are solidified as soon as
the child is born.
            The growing years of the child is very crucial in anthropological perspective. This is the time when the
child develops the psychological construct of dependency or independency. In many western cultures where
independence is the cultural emphasis, the child is usually provided with a room and is trained to be
independent by giving less physical contact from parents or carers. On the contrary, in most part of Asia and
Africa, children are reared in close contact with parents, especially the mother, thus developing a sense of
dependence on significant others and the immediate community.
SELF-AWARENESS
            Anthropology defines self-awareness as that which permits one to assume responsibility for one’s own
conduct, to learn how to react to others, and to assume a variety of roles. The child starts to conceptualize self-
awareness at the age of two, as observed. However, studies also show that self-awareness is conceptualized
much earlier by children sleeping with parents and are exposed to a variety of stimuli like touch, and the like.
Stimulation is maximized when the child is in close contact with the mother or the carer and all other members
of the family. This develops the neural circuitry or hard wiring of the brain faster than with the children with
less stimulation. This is particularly advantageous for us Filipinos because most of the time, our cultural
practice is to sleep with our parents until at least school age.
            Following the faster process of enculturation and self-awareness is the importance of attachment of
positive values to one’s self. The child must be able to get the culturally correct values necessary for adult life.
Parents, immediate family and the community play a vital role in the development of a child’s values. What
the child observes from what the adults are doing or thinking will more likely be adopted and imitated by the
child. However, in the continued process of self-awareness, the child will eventually develop his own identity.
This identity is further intensified by a practice common to all cultures- the naming ritual.
            Naming individualizes a person. It gives a person his own unique traits, experiences, personality,
identity and status. The latter, however, gives the person’s name its place as a member of the group. The
person’s name is also a symbol of one’s status in the community. It either gives you honor or stigma. The
person’s name is at the same time a project in progress. The self that bears the name continues to establish an
identity of the name in the community.
THE SELF EMBEDDED IN CULTURE
            When the self is able to distinguish what is acceptable behaviour and what is not, it only follows that
the self is already able to recognize the differences of one’s self and the other. This ability to manage the
differences between the selves is what makes the self embedded in culture. Psychological anthropologists
recognize the thin line that distinguishes the cultural self and the actual self. The latter includes the feelings,
thoughts, experiences, biological and psychological constitutions, language and memory. However, the actual
self is also being shaped by all these same elements and more. Therefore, what remains in this distinction is the
solid identity of the self in relation to everything else.
            The claim of the self as embedded in culture can only be embraced when the self recognizes its relation
to everything else. The complexity of cultural identities of peoples, things, and events shall be recognized and
respected by the self. The individual self must remain reflexive of the similarities and unique differences of
everything around it. This shows that the self should not maintain the individualistic, independent and
autonomous entity but that the self should be able to maintain his solid cultural reflexive identity in relation to
everything and everyone else.
            Culture is also not a force or causal agent in the world, but a content in which people live out their
lives. Anthropology liberates the self from the fallacies of dominant ideas. In this most liberating science, the
self is no longer seen as an entity with innate IDEAS, READY TO FACE THE WORLD, AND AS IF
PROGRAMMED to respond to the demands of time. Likewise, the self is not seen as a blank slate, ready to
encode all the details of everyday experiences, so that it becomes limited only to what is written on the slate. In
anthropology, the self is recognized as biologically attuned to respond to his environment, variably self-aware
of the mechanisms of the element of culture working within the self, and self-reflexive of the uniqueness and
differences of all other-selves and everything else around.