"Personhood"

The concept of "personhood" has been used by researchers and writers in the field of anthropology for the last four decades. Despite sustained interest in, and the sustained use of, the concept of "personhood," there is not a coherent understanding of the concept in the literature. In addition the concept of "personhood" is often conflated and confused with the concepts of "person," "self" and "identity." The concept of "personhood" in the anthropological literature can be traced back to the publication of Marcel Mauss's paper entitled "A Category of the Human Mind: The Notion of Person; The Notion of Self." The concept of "personhood" was then further elaborated on by the likes of Fortes, Poole, Kirkpatrick, A. Strathern and others. This dissertation adds to the intellectual history of the field of anthropology by creating a meta analysis of how the concept of "personhood" is used in anthropology. In Part One of this discussion, the original emergence of the concept of "personhood" in the field of anthropology, as well as its development as a concept over time, is explored. As part of this discussion, a definition of "personhood" is offered. In Part Two of this dissertation, there is a continuation of the effort to clarify the use of the concept of "personhood" in the anthropological literature by comparing usages of the concept of "personhood" with usages of several often-conflated concepts: "person," "self" and "identity." This comparison is designed to illustrate how the concepts are conflated and confused by anthropologists, and to pinpoint how the concepts might actually be distinguished from one another. In the conclusion, the question of why the study of "personhood" (and the study of the related concepts of "person," "self," and "identity") is such a minefield is answered, with the blame placed on: a reliance on evolutionary thinking; the ethnocentrism of anthropologists; the inappropriate application of Western terms; the lack of good coherent cross-field discussion between anthropologists and psychologists; and, finally, sloppy and casual work done by anthropologists.