Term for semi-fake field of study
June 22, 2019 10:44 AM Subscribe
What would you call the field of study of a human who studies what aliens tell their people about humans?
Question for all the academics and academic adjacent folk out there: In my next story, which is science fiction, my main character studies what other intelligent species tell their people about humans. What would be a fancy realistic sounding name for that field of study? I'm thinking of something that would follow "Professor of" or "the Chair of".
A restatement of the problem:
Species A tells people of Species A about Species B: "Green hair is seen a sign of imminent doom."
Species B tells people of Species B about Species A: "Raised scales indicates they wish to discuss food."
My protagonist is a member of Species A, who studies what Species B tells Species B about Species A, and writes papers on things like "Species B thinks our raised scale response is only about food, here's why they don't know it also indicates a desire to go bowling."
The reason I called this semi-fake is that this field probably does exist on Earth. The US government gives people traveling abroad on government business a primer on "how not to offend people by being overly American." It includes such things as (paraphrasing): "Americans consider a funny joke or anecdote an ice breaker in a serious business meeting, Germans consider it very rude and out of place." Or "American engineers are held to a different standard of dress than American business people (the "rumpled nerd" stereotype), whereas in Italy engineers are held to the same standard of dress as everyone else."
Since the US government does this, it stands to reason that Germany has a similar set of presentations too, including the US. So there's probably someone in the US State Department who studies what other countries tell their people traveling to the US about American culture. There's probably someone in the German government who studies what other countries tell their people about Germans. And so on and so on, for each country about each other country, within the limits of budgets and commercial/political/military interests.
"The study of alien studies of humanity." What would you call that academic department?
Thanks!
Question for all the academics and academic adjacent folk out there: In my next story, which is science fiction, my main character studies what other intelligent species tell their people about humans. What would be a fancy realistic sounding name for that field of study? I'm thinking of something that would follow "Professor of" or "the Chair of".
A restatement of the problem:
Species A tells people of Species A about Species B: "Green hair is seen a sign of imminent doom."
Species B tells people of Species B about Species A: "Raised scales indicates they wish to discuss food."
My protagonist is a member of Species A, who studies what Species B tells Species B about Species A, and writes papers on things like "Species B thinks our raised scale response is only about food, here's why they don't know it also indicates a desire to go bowling."
The reason I called this semi-fake is that this field probably does exist on Earth. The US government gives people traveling abroad on government business a primer on "how not to offend people by being overly American." It includes such things as (paraphrasing): "Americans consider a funny joke or anecdote an ice breaker in a serious business meeting, Germans consider it very rude and out of place." Or "American engineers are held to a different standard of dress than American business people (the "rumpled nerd" stereotype), whereas in Italy engineers are held to the same standard of dress as everyone else."
Since the US government does this, it stands to reason that Germany has a similar set of presentations too, including the US. So there's probably someone in the US State Department who studies what other countries tell their people traveling to the US about American culture. There's probably someone in the German government who studies what other countries tell their people about Germans. And so on and so on, for each country about each other country, within the limits of budgets and commercial/political/military interests.
"The study of alien studies of humanity." What would you call that academic department?
Thanks!
Metaanthroplogy or metaxenoanthropology?
posted by rodlymight at 10:49 AM on June 22, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by rodlymight at 10:49 AM on June 22, 2019 [1 favorite]
It would probably be a subset of xenopology, no?
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 10:53 AM on June 22, 2019
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 10:53 AM on June 22, 2019
I would either do a play on anthropology or intercultural communication.
posted by k8t at 10:56 AM on June 22, 2019
posted by k8t at 10:56 AM on June 22, 2019
There is a tradition that the word 'barbarian' originated as a mocking allusion to the crudeness of the speech of outlanders, so I think I would be very tempted to call it 'Barbarology', because a lot of the subject matter would be negative stereotypes, and because local equivalents of bars would seem to be prime venues for field research.
posted by jamjam at 11:19 AM on June 22, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by jamjam at 11:19 AM on June 22, 2019 [1 favorite]
Best answer: In real life, we have botany (the study of plants) and ethnobotany (the study of a particular group's knowledge of plants). So in science fiction, we might also have xenology (the study of aliens) and ethnoxenology (the study of a particular group's perspective on the study of aliens) or perhaps xenoxenology (the study of alien xenologies). My feeling is there's no particular reason for the ethno- prefix to be limited to humans, and from the aliens' perspective, xenology would be the study of other aliens like humans. But if you want the terms to be specific about human vs. non-human, you could use anthropology (the study of humans) and xenoanthropology (the study of alien studies of humans) or xenoethnoanthropology (the study of alien ethnoanthropologies).
posted by Wobbuffet at 11:20 AM on June 22, 2019 [12 favorites]
posted by Wobbuffet at 11:20 AM on June 22, 2019 [12 favorites]
I agree with k8t and wobbuffet, but I think it depends on where this character's academic "home" is and why they study what they do.
To me, xenoanthropology (and similar options) implies that the purpose of the study is to understand alien behavior and society. While the research could contain practical insights, that wouldn't be the purpose; the purpose could instead be, for example, understanding how cultural concepts and construction of "the other" functions in this alien society. Their home would be a department dedicated to the study of alien behavior and society more broadly. If they need to take a more practical role in your story, they could be asked to consult, especially if there isn't (yet) a more practically-oriented pool of experts to pull from.
I think this could be "realistic" (for sci-fi values of "realistic") because what you describe strikes me as a fairly narrow research question - the kind of thing that handful of researchers might specialize in, but would not get its own department.
If this person studies this question specifically to improve communications/relations, then I would put them into a communications , diplomatic studies - or even business! - department. Whether something like "interplanetary business" is a separate department from "business", or an institute within the "business" department, will depend on your ideas of how big the demand is for this type of study/how it developed over time.
Also, you could conceivably have people in each of these departments studying the same data, through different perspectives and with different purposes.
In any case, if you're saying that they are the Chair of something, it will probably be of their home department, not of their specific subfield/question, because Chair is an administrative position. If you're saying they're the Professor of something, it will usually also be of their home department, but you can also get more specific and name a subfield if the context calls for it.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 11:25 AM on June 22, 2019 [1 favorite]
To me, xenoanthropology (and similar options) implies that the purpose of the study is to understand alien behavior and society. While the research could contain practical insights, that wouldn't be the purpose; the purpose could instead be, for example, understanding how cultural concepts and construction of "the other" functions in this alien society. Their home would be a department dedicated to the study of alien behavior and society more broadly. If they need to take a more practical role in your story, they could be asked to consult, especially if there isn't (yet) a more practically-oriented pool of experts to pull from.
I think this could be "realistic" (for sci-fi values of "realistic") because what you describe strikes me as a fairly narrow research question - the kind of thing that handful of researchers might specialize in, but would not get its own department.
If this person studies this question specifically to improve communications/relations, then I would put them into a communications , diplomatic studies - or even business! - department. Whether something like "interplanetary business" is a separate department from "business", or an institute within the "business" department, will depend on your ideas of how big the demand is for this type of study/how it developed over time.
Also, you could conceivably have people in each of these departments studying the same data, through different perspectives and with different purposes.
In any case, if you're saying that they are the Chair of something, it will probably be of their home department, not of their specific subfield/question, because Chair is an administrative position. If you're saying they're the Professor of something, it will usually also be of their home department, but you can also get more specific and name a subfield if the context calls for it.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 11:25 AM on June 22, 2019 [1 favorite]
Exoxenopsychoriography...
Though my vote is actually for xenoxenology as suggested by Wobbuffet above, which struck me as significantly more elegant and non-attention-seeking-sounding for use in a story context.
posted by protorp at 1:15 PM on June 22, 2019
Though my vote is actually for xenoxenology as suggested by Wobbuffet above, which struck me as significantly more elegant and non-attention-seeking-sounding for use in a story context.
posted by protorp at 1:15 PM on June 22, 2019
xeno²logy. x10y.
posted by zengargoyle at 2:50 PM on June 22, 2019
posted by zengargoyle at 2:50 PM on June 22, 2019
It might even be an alien word.
posted by nickggully at 6:21 PM on June 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by nickggully at 6:21 PM on June 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
Since "Critical Anthropology" is the branch of the field which turns its lens on the practice of anthropology itself, perhaps Critical Xeno Anthropology, or Xeno Critical Anthropology would do.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 7:38 PM on June 22, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 7:38 PM on June 22, 2019 [3 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by skewed at 10:49 AM on June 22, 2019 [8 favorites]