Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Adolescence: an anthropological inquiry

1991; Association of College and Research Libraries; Volume: 29; Issue: 04 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5860/choice.29-2185

1943-5975

Alice Schlegel, Herbert Barry,

An Anthropological Definition of AdolescenceAn anthropological definition of adolescence, in common with psychological and sociological definitions, recognizes adolescence as a social stage intervening between childhood and adulthood in the passage through life.(We will have more to say about a second stage, youth, in some but not all societies.)Adolescence can be seen as a period of social role learning and restructuring: not simply a period in which early learning is crystallized, but rather one in which unlearning and new learning take place.Along with training for specific roles, there is learning in the sense of cognitive and affective reorganization away from the behavioral modes of childhood and toward adult modes.The child is characterized by dependency, subordination, and social asexuality, even as these vary across cultures.As his social scope, responsibilities, and expectations enlarge, the adolescent assumes greater autonomy, more of a peer relationship with same-sex adults, and an interest in sexual activities.Such unlearning and relearning is unlikely to be without cost to adolescents or to their families, who must also undergo changes in the ways they respond to their maturing children.To be successful, socialization must be both responsive and anticipatory, that is, it must help the individual both to operate in the present and to prepare for the future.Anticipatory socialization becomes accelerated sometime after about age 10, when major changes are propelling the individual toward biological adulthood; yet the young person is not a full adult and does not receive whatever respect and deference are due to adults of the same sex and social status.There is a certain ambiguity to the conflicting goals of adolescent socialization, which seek to maintain some of the subordination and dependency of childhood while moving the adolescent toward adulthood.Possibly this ambivalence accounts for the social awkwardness so typical of adolescents around the world.Much of their psychological discomfort and lack of social poise may result from these conflicting socialization goals.Unlearning and relearning are necessary because of the particular biological and social characteristics of our species.One consequence of the long period of immaturity is that dependency, necessary for survival, is deeply engrained in the child.The child's strongest bonds are to the family, yet the incest taboo and customs that militate against incest direct the adolescent to consider or actively pursue the formation of an intimate bond with someone outside this close circle.The fact that human beings live in socially integrated communities rather than as social isolates or in isolated families means that, at some point before full adulthood, young people must prepare for an active role in the community.In anticipating the social and sexual relationships and responsibilities of adult life, the adolescent is shifting focus away from a predominant attention to the household and toward attention to both the household and the community, from members of the family to persons who will 230 ADOLESCENCE majority of all food.The information on agriculture usually specifies one of three types of cultivation: cereal grains, root crops, or tree crops.Cereal grains include wheat, millet, rice, and corn.Root crops include yams, cassava, and potatoes.Tree crops include plantains, coconuts, and bananas.Additional information when applicable specifies that cultivation is on permanent fields, with irrigation, or with plow animals.Abipon 183 or Mepene, the Chaco, northeastern Argentina, 27° to 29°S, 59° to 60°W, 1750, after having acquired horses introduced to South America by the Spaniards.Raiders of Spanish settlements, nomadic, independent communities, Christian influence, hunting, also gathering and cattle husbandry.Abkhaz 55, Russian Caucasus, 42°50' to 43°25'N, 40° to 41 °35'E, 1880.A sedentary chiefdom, some are Christians or Moslems, primarily cattle herding, secondarily cultivating cereal grains.Ahaggaren 41 or Tuareg, Algeria, 21 ° to 25°N, 4° to 9°E, 1900, prior to French occupation.A small state of nomadic bands, Moslems, herding sheep, goats, and camels, also cultivating cereal grains and trading.Ainu 118 or Saru Ainu, southeastern Hokkaido, Japan, 42°40' to 43°30'N, 142° to 144°E, 1880, prior to Japanese colonization.Dispersed, independent communities, technologically primitive, fishing, also hunting and gathering.Ajie 103, New Caledonia and Loyalty Islands, east of Australia, 21 °20'S, 165°40'E, 1845, prior to European influence.A small chiefdom of sedentary villages, cultivating root crops, also fishing and trading.Aleut 123, Aleutian Islands, Alaska, 53° to 57°30'N, 158° to 170°W, 1778, prior to pervasive Russian influence.Chiefdom, fishing.Alorese 89 or Abui, island of Alor, Indonesia, between Java and New Guinea, 8°20'S, 124°40'E, 1938, under Dutch rule.A small chiefdom of sedentary small communities in the mountains, cultivating cereal grains and root crops.Amahuaca 170, eastern Peru, 10°30'S, 72° W, 1960, almost completely unacculturated.Independent groups in small sedentary but impermanent communities, primarily cultivating cereal grains, secondarily hunting.Amhara 37, central Ethiopia, 11 ° to 14°N, 36° to 38°45'E, 1953.A large nation of sedentary villages, Coptic Christians, cultiving cereal grains with plow animals, also milking cows and trading.Andamanese 79, islands east of India, 11 °45' to 12°N, 93° to 95° lO'E, 1860, prior to disruption by a penal colony established in 1858.Small nomadic independent communities on the seacoast, technologically primitive, fishing, also gathering and hunting.Aranda 91 or Arunta, central Australia, 23°30' to 25°S, 132°30' to 134°20'E, 1896.Small nomadic independent communities, technologically primitive, hunting, also gathering.Armenians 56, Russian Caucasus near Turkey, 40°10'N, 44°30'E, 1843, ruled by Russia, prior to political disruption in the late nineteenth century.A numerous ethnic minority, Christians, primarily cultivating cereal grains with plow animals, secondarily milking cows.Focus is the city of Erivan and surrounding villages.