Can anyone define anthropoemic?

Question

And if possible could you give me an entymology of the "poemic" (I know "anthro-" refers to humans).

Answer 1

The anthropoemic mode consists in vomiting the abnormal ones into protected spaces — hospitals, asylums, prisons

ANTHROPOPHAGIC AND ANTHROPOEMIC SOCIETIES

A generation of social commentators have been fascinated by the categories of inclusion and exclusion suggested by Claude Lévi-Strauss in Tristes Tropiques. 'Primitive' societies, he argues, deal with strangers and deviants by swallowing them up, by making them their own and by gaining strength from them. They are anthropophagic, whereas modern societies are anthropoemic; they vomit out the deviant, keeping them outside of society or enclosing them in special institutions within their perimeters.

Such a viewpoint was quickly embraced by radicals perhaps because it involves a dystopian transition (so attractive left of centre): from a tolerant Arcadian world of the past to the intolerant, sickening and ensickened modern world of the present (see Cooper, 1967; Young, 1971). There is little doubt that such a contrast was Lévi-Strauss' intent, although it is debateable whether the swallowing rather cannibalistic world of anthropophagy is any more tolerant than the anorexic, expelling world of anthropoeia. I doubt it: but the concepts themselves, without the gross conflation of all pre-modern societies into one or the evocation of an inevitable downward decline in tolerance, I think are eminently useable. Particularly if, as embellished by Zygmunt Bauman (1995, p.234), we can acknowledge that all societies have both swallowing and ejecting aspects and we take on board Stan Cohen's (1985) observation that different sections of the population can be included or excluded in the same process. Thus the middle class can be counselled and cosseted into remaining in their job when personal difficulties occur whilst the lower working class can be speedily consigned to prison and sink estate at the first signs of lawbreaking.

Answer 2

JOCK YOUNG

Middlesex University, UK

'Above all we should realise that certain of our customs might appear, to an observer belonging to a different society, to be similar in nature to cannibalism, although cannibalism strikes us as being foreign to the idea of civilization. I am thinking, for instance, of our legal and prison systems. If we studied societies from the outside, it would be tempting to distinguish two contrasting types: those which practise cannibalism - that is, which regard the absorption of certain individuals possessing dangerous powers as the only means of neutralizing those powers and even of turning them to advantage - and those which, like our own society, adopt what might be called the practice of anthropoemy (from the Greek émein, to vomit); faced with the same problem, the latter type of society has chosen the opposite solution which consists in ejecting dangerous individuals from the social body and keeping them temporarily or permanently in isolation, away from all contact with their fellows, in establishments specially intended for this purpose. Most of the societies which we call primitive would regard this custom with profound horror; it would make us, in their eyes, guilty of that same barbarity of which we are included to accuse them because of their symmetrically opposite behaviour.' (Claude Lévi-Strauss, Tristes Tropiques, 1992 (1955), pp.287-8)

anthropoemy (from the Greek émein, to vomit)

Answer 3

"anthropo" refers to humans, and "emic" refers to vomiting, as in "emetic".

"Anthropoemic is a term defined (coined by Bauman, I believe) which is not yet in any of the regular dictionaries. It means "vomiting out", in the sense of a society getting rid of those it doesn't want. Here's a typical usage:

"Modern societies keep order by using anthropoemic (‘vomiting out’) and anthropophagic ('ingesting') techniques for excluding or absorbing alien 'others'. Anthropoemic techniques ... included capital punishment, transportation of ... surplus or difficult people ... to Australia from Britian, and genocidal dispersal ... characterized by dispossession of Indigenous people."
Macquarie Law Journal (2005), http://www.law.mq.edu.au/html/MqLJ/volume5/vol5_havemann.pdf

Answer 4

Actually it breaks down like this

anthropo- human beings

emic - of or relating to or involving analysis of linguistic or behavioral phenomena in terms of the internal structural or functional elements of a particular system.

Answer 5

Hmm seems to have something to do with cannibalism. ( I think)
try this site...
http://www.malcolmread.co.uk/JockYoung/cannibal.htm

Hope it helps :D

Answer 6

Huh!