When other had developed the approach of anthropology in forensic, medical, and other sub anthropology Indonesia only focus on social anthropology. Sometimes it made me think why anthropology was not know well in Indonesia. I'm shy, sad with this reality. May anthropology grow up, cause anthropology is a knowledge about who is human and who are them in their community.
Ideally speaking the uniqueness of Anthropology is to study issues related of Man in terms of cultural, biological and environmental factors. There are issues that concerns where culture and biology interact. Having said so, since each branch of Anthropology so vast, it had developed its own methodologies problems that are more concerned within each area of research as such Cultural or Social anthropology specializes its methodological issues and problems more related to cultural with least interaction with other areas.
Indonesia geographically is an interesting island and has rich history of anthropological interest: primates, paleontology, physical archeology and early human habitation etc, which are of interest for both cultural, physical and archeological anthropology. There are a good classical examples of studies dealing with cultural, biological and other issues of Man. e.g. Kuru disease is one such best study that can be cited. Though it is a very complex problem, required several experts to get into it and got even nobel prize as well.
A great deal of the corpus of medical anthropology was derived from the study of medical pluralism in Indonesia and Malaysia.
Also, Kuru is a form of "mad cow" disease. The study of kuru helped us understand mad cow.
Thanks Ricardo. I am glad this open plaftorm is helping us to improve communication across a variety of scholars and their works. I am glad to know about you and Indonesia. It is a wonderful place for Anthroplogical works, as we already have significant contributions. The study of antrhopology and its development depends on scholars, scientist who are interested in a variety of issues. Some are more confined and speciliazed to some areas of research that may restrict their work to cultural, biological, linguistic, medical, archeological, paleontological, psychological etc. I beleive and expect this will enrich the field of Anthroplogy as a Human Science dealing with diverse issues and hope it will not remain fragmentary. If possible take interests some issues that might address both social, cultural, and other aspects of Man/society which will be full fledged touching different dimensions of the human issue or problem. Best wishes
Dr. Geoff Kushnick at the University of Washington has done a great deal of research on the Karo Batak. He would be a valuable source. His email is [email protected]. He is on his way back to Indonesia on a Fullbright Scholarship. He is a wonderful man and fabulous professor.
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