Twins Talk by Davis Dona Lee;

Author:Davis, Dona Lee;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Anthropology
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Published: 2014-11-23T16:00:00+00:00

6: Culture

Twins are a biological and a social fact.

—Stewart 2003

One must avoid the error of locking twins in their twinhood.

—Zazzo 1978

What is physically double is structurally single and what is mystically one is empirically two.

—Turner 1969

We are simpatico for all our lives.

—Caroline Satchell and Janice Morris, NPR StoryCorps twins, 2007

At the 2007 ICTS research conference, in his presidential address to members, Jaakko Kaprio (2007), also representing the Finland Twin Registry, presented a lecture on the current status of twin research. He summarily concluded that the future of twin studies lay in longitudinal studies based on collaboration of those who had large, national databases on twins. In his PowerPoint presentation, Kaprio projected a scattergram that featured a clustering of twin research specialties. The largest centered cluster consisted of related medical fields interested in twin research with genetics being the central core. Psychology and education were small clusters that were set apart from the centralizing cluster of genetics. What was most interesting to me, however, was that ethnology was also a category on the chart. Yet ethnology was located on the margins, relegated to the farthest point in the lower right corner of the chart. Ethnology was the most isolated and distanced “special field” on the chart. There were no other clusters associated with it or even located in the vicinity.

On the chart two references exemplified the field of ethnology. These were the names Quetzalcoatl and Clytemnestra. Both are twins. Quetzalcoatl is an Aztec god of the sun, and Clytemnestra, a woman of Greek mythology.26Now, even taking into account that Finnish ethnology is more similar to folklore than American usage of the word, why does Kaprio refer to ethnology in terms of named entities—one, a figure of religion, and the other, a figure of myth? Both of these mythical historical personages come from centuries past. They are far removed from the “real” and the here and the now. Yet, as a seasoned ethnologist, I found every presentation I attended at the ICTS in 2007 to be a proper topic for ethnological analysis. They all evidenced expressions of core values embedded in Western historical and cultural constructions of individualism, competition, and control, as well as the triumph of scientific rationalism over common sense or mythical beliefs. In my view, the entire underlying background of all the clusters on Kaprio’s chart should have been ethnology.

This chapter utilizes the cross-cultural comparative method of anthropology (as ethnology) and cultural psychology to illuminate some cultural blind spots of twins researchers. Already we have seen cultural factors being denied by geneticists and ignored by psychologists. Kaprio (2007) deserves credit at least for keeping culture—that is, ethnology—in the picture. There is a bit of irony here because the ICTS social programs planned for participants actually celebrate the cultures and heritages of the places where they hold their meetings. Local food and wines are served during evening events. In Denmark we were treated to Hans Christian Andersen plays, and in Ghent an evening in the local castle was hosted by actors in the garb of medieval lords, ladies, and fools.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.