Venus Noire.
A case study on the effects of preconceived cultural biases on research.
The perception and world view of a researcher remains a crucial matter of consideration when it comes to studying culture. We experience everything globally not as it is, but only as the world comes to us through our sensory receptors. From there, our brains pass our experiences through the filters of our censor screen, our decoding mechanism, and the collectivity of everything we have learned from the day we were born ( Martin & Nakayama, 2013, p.9) Naturally, human beings have filtering lenses through which we view the world. This could be ascribed to the cognitive dimension of our very own cultures. Our social perceptions, conceptions, attributions, and connotations could influence our study of other culture. Therefore, we must unpack how preconceived biases could be destructive to research.
For a long time, evolutionary anthropology and theories such as Social Darwinism have reinforced scientific racism by masquerading the idea that Asians come after white people and black people come after everyone else. In turn, this conviction has had detrimental effects on studying cultures that are different from white culture. Consider the case of one Saartjie Baartman famously known as the “Hottentot Venus”. In an attempt to explore South African culture, William Dunlop, a man of European descent, manipulated Saartjie into signing a contract that he never intended to honour. The contract highlighted promises of a better life, however, shortly after her departure to Europe, Sara became one of the first black women to be subjugated to human sex trafficking primarily because European culture perceived her body as freakish and of an ‘inferior breed’. She was paraded naked before jeering mobs, exhibited in a metal cage, and, sold to an animal trainer (Martin & Nakayama, 2013). Years after her death, parts of her body remained confiscated and displayed in the Musée de l’Homme, a French museum in Paris. It was only in 2002 that the late Nelson Mandela successfully negotiated an agreement for her remaining parts to be flown back home after years of wrangling between South Africa and France. Saartjie Baartman’s remains were finally buried at Hankey in the Eastern Cape Province.
The case of Marion Sims, the “father of modern gynaecology” is no different. Sims developed surgical techniques from operating on black enslaved women. The women were not presented with the option to consent because as the culture would have it, black women are largely considered to be at the bottom of the food chain. The stereotype continues to unfold in modern medicine. Black women experience the highest maternal mortality rate due to disparities rooted in ethnicity and race. At the time of Sim’s experiments, anaesthesia did exist but was not used on these women. Sims also experimented on enslaved babies. These procedures had a 100% mortality rate.
Against this background, I conclude that ethnocentricism poses a serious threat to research. For the sake of the common good, we ought to liberate ourselves from this prejudice. The study of cultures different from our own is the study of the realities of other people. It is largely our duty to safeguard and uphold these realities.
References.
Holland, B. (2018, Dec 4). The ‘Father of Modern Gynecology’ Performed Shocking Experiments on Enslaved Women.
Howard, M. (2018, September 22). (Sara) Saartjie Baartman (1789–1815).
Martin, J. & Nakayama, T. (2013). Intercultural Communication in Contexts.
