Alternative Anthropology

The principle role of alternative anthropology as a major operational subsystem of the metasystems framework is the provision of consulting, background research and basic design implementation for project proposals, as well as the provision of human development resources that are required for successful application of such project undertakings. At the same time, Alternative Anthropology pursues its own projects and agendas that center around cross-cultural research, institutional research and human development.

Alternative Anthropology seeks and gains its research resources and symbolic legitimacy independently of established funding structures for academic anthropological inquiry. Alternative Anthropology is part of the Xyztems applied systems framework that is represented, among other things, on-line by an integrated web-system. Alternative Anthropology gains and shares resources through this larger framework of interest and involvement.

The basis for the development of alternative anthropology is devising an integrated systems-based methodology that is both holistic and analytical in orientation and that can be used for comprehending a large variety of different kinds and levels of problems. Alternative anthropology seeks to combine therefore both traditional anthropological, sociological and psychological research methodologies, in an non-exclusive manner, with methods that are rooted in systems-based thinking and systems-based applications, including the use of computing and computer analysis in description of complexities and in the solution of complex variables, and the construction of systems-based frames of reference, meta-frames and models of complex phenomena.

Research in Alternative Anthropology constitutes the foundation for knowledge construction and information collection and organization that informs and defines application and adaptation of alternative systems upon different levels of articulation and in different ways of operation for the sake of promoting and facilitating human development and the contexts that are conducive to positive human development.

The objectives of Alternative Anthropology are the better understanding of human systems, and the engineering of alternative development systems that will lead to global, regional and local integration and stabilization of human systems in a non-destructive, non-violent manner that is adaptive in the context of the long run and that permits and promotes the full realization of human productive potential, both individually and collectively.

Alternative Anthropology has adopted a human or anthropological systems approach as the appropriate framework for its theoretical and methodological articulation. This approach has a specific set of theoretical and methodological forms that are rooted in an organic and organismic perspective, stressing gestalt holism of the human organism and being as an integrated entity. Human symbolic functioning plays a vital, pivotal role in this process of integration of reality.

A human systems approach is holistic, and based upon an organic approach to human behavior and organismic functioning within a larger life-world. It is informed by advanced principles of philosophy, psychology, sociology, cognitive science, biology, and systems theory, and is therefore inherently inter-disciplinary in approach.

Change informs all systems. All things change, and all things change complexly. The patterning found in change constitutes the basis for our empirical sciences and it is observation of systematic change that allows us to theorize about the structural patterns upon which such change is based.

Systems of any kind, including human systems, all have a life-cycle and trajectory of development. The developmental trajectory of different systems tends to be non-linear and underdetermined in its patterning. We seek predictable or at least stochastically describable outcomes.

Unitary systems furthermore interact with their environment in complex ways and these interactions lead to a variety of alternative outcomes. Controlling environmental variables becomes a basis for controlling the behavior of unitary systems in environments--we refrigerate microbes to slow their growth; we control the amount of sunlight plants will receive to limit or facilitate their growth; we confine people with overtly violent behavior in order to limit their sphere of violence.

Change occurs upon multiple levels simultaneously. Because systems stratify upon multiple levels that co-occur, changes upon one level may affect what happens to systems upon many other levels. The development of a malignant cancer tissue in an organ of a person's body may affect the entire functioning of that person in many ways, leading eventually to that person's death. Infection by a small mosquito of a plasmodium bacteria may have a similar outcome upon a person. We may treat the disease and the person with the disease, and we may also seek to control those environmental variables that result in such contagion or that may exacerbate the symptoms and susceptibility to such a disease. We do approach a problem like disease infection in such a manner, treating the many variables as they occur upon different levels with hope and expectation of having a decisive influence upon the final outcomes of the disease's development.

From a systems standpoint, we see a holistic approach to disease treatment that does not focus exclusively upon a single treatment method, but incorporates a number of different methodologies upon multiple levels. No solution set that is comprehensive can afford to ignore variables and factors that occur upon multiple levels of analysis in any kind of developmental problem set.

Alternative Anthropology has been provided a renewed emphasis and new interest in its development and application in the world. It consists of the appropriate framework for the promotion of alternative human development, as well as a sufficient methodological context for the promotion of new programs and projects that are tied to basic research problems in human development.

While the basic theoretical and applied intent of Alternative Anthropology remains unaltered, the applied context of its programmatic and methodological development will be greatly enhanced and elaborated. The critical focus of this renewed effort lies with the central area of human development, broadly defined to encompass a number of different problem sets, including, but not limited to, problems in human reproduction, acquisition, socialization, education, health, social harmony and well being, social equality and socio-structural development, human growth and maturation, nutrition, human play and anti-structure.

Alternative Anthropology adopts a holistic systems-based approach to problem solving in human worlds, upon multiple levels that these worlds are articulated in everyday life. We recognize the uniqueness of humanity in the universe, its strengths and weaknesses, its achievements and its goals.

Alternative Anthropology has been organized as a non-academic approach to anthropological knowledge, research and application within a contemporary developmental framework. Prejudices, structurally reinforced patterns of discrimination in hiring, promotion and funding, have all contributed systematically to the general failure of anthropology as a legitimately received and realistically applicable science of humankind. Anti-Free Thinking Conformity and Political-Cultural Correctness have served to stiffle the Anthropological paradigm in general that has been derivative in part from a secular tradition of human social philosophy.