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Final written exam for Anthro. 681, Sociocultural Guidance, the Cultural Anthropology graduate core course at the University of Oregon.
In its current operating mode, Cultural Anthropology finds itself apologizing for the transgressions of its past. Attacks by Said (1989) and others (Keesing, 1994) have questioned the methods that anthropologists use to represent other cultures, including the construction of the abstracted Other. In its original incarnation, Anthropology operated as a tool of colonial power, representing the dominated to the dominators, thereby justifying the act of domination. With the decline of imperialism and the growth of mass media, marginalized groups participated increasingly in the global marketplace of goods and ideas, prompting a rethinking of anthropology as an activist tool. Anthropologists more often than not now posture themselves as working with the groups they study (Colson, 1985), and aiding their representation to the larger world. With the eclipse of the imperialist superpowers, Anthropologists will increasingly find themselves actually working for their "subjects" of study, not just as activists or interlocutors representing the group to the global society, but also translating dialogues moving the opposite direction.
Rampant deconstruction of cultural process has paralyzed theoretical anthropology. With our heroes open to suspicion and our methods subject to scrutiny, ethnographers may fail to represent anything at all anymore other than highly-disciplined autobiography (Keesing, 1994). To my mind, this may not be an entirely bad thing. Marcus & Fischer (1986) characterize postmodernist texts as ironic, in the sense of having a heightened self-awareness, manifested in dialogic or multivocal narratives incorporating a variety of perspectives and voices. Clifford (1986) describes postmodernist texts as nonrepresentational, and questions the very goal of representation. Mascia-Lees, et al. (1989) counter that Clifford's shunning of representation is the sour-grapes attitude of the formerly-dominant: if I now longer have the power to represent the Other, then no one has the power to represent anything. Rather than resign in disgust, Ortner (1984) suggests a move towards the practice approach of anthropology, which I take to mean a reemphasis on the interactivity of systems and participants, and on the political implications of behavior, an approach also advocated by Keesing (1994).
Postmodernists have rightly focused on the structure of narrative (Clifford, 1986). Previously monolithic univocalities (which assume an omniscient objective observer), have given way to densely-layered multivocal narratives. The power differential between observer and observed (previously poorly-addressed) is explicit in the multivocal narrative. Alternative narratives also lay bare the tensions between strata or factions within a groups, as well as the multiplicity of individual views (Walker, 1983; Price, 1983).
I fear that postmodernists, in their rush to present all sides of "the Truth," risk incoherence (Mascia-Lees, et al., 1989). Alternative narrative structures are interesting to look at, but sometimes difficult to read (as with Price's split-page structure in First-Time ). Postmodernist theory, since it must define its own modes of operation, also tends to be highly jargonistic. With so many voices clamoring to be heard, we may wind up hearing none at all. If all sides are worthy of equal air-time, then all perspectives represent equal takes on What Actually Happened, and are therefore equally valid. Natural scientists have largely avoided this trap, since it can produce bizarre results; the fluorescence of Creation Science comes to mind. Young anthropologists may conversely reject all alternatives as equally unlikely, and equally invalid, and conclude: perhaps nothing actually happened.
If the the representation of culture has more or less collapsed, then anthropologists have begun to dissassemble the very notion of "culture" itself. Prevailing anthropological theory thoroughly deconstructs the cultural concept, leaving loosely-constrained notions of cultural negotiation and change in its place. Borofsky (1994) describes the transformation of the cultural concept from stressing coherence and structural homeostasis (as with Structural-Functionalism and Structuralism) to stressing tension, conflict, and consciousness (Neo-Marxism). Borofsky focuses on the rift in classical anthropological theory between those researchers stressing intrinsic or ideational factors (Boas, Durkheim, Levi-Strauss), and those stressing extrinsic -- economic or environmental -- factors (Steward, Kroeber, Harris). Borofsky probes the ambiguities of change and continuity, postulating that the two may not be the polar opposites that old-school anthropologists would imagine them to be, but rather behave as two aspects of a similar process. Finally, Borofsky sees the borders of culture as fuzzy; a situation especially apparent with increasing globalization.
Goody (1994) warned against the tendency towards characterizing "culture" or "a culture" as singular or homogeneous. Goody compared the working definitions of culture of European historians, who see culture as a complex and temporal behavior, to the definitions of culture among anthropologists. Goody advocates a multidimensional definition, with cultural boundaries constantly shifting along several axes (spatial, temporal, vertical).
Keesing (1994) sees dual trends in the anthropological representation of the culture concept. He fears that anthropologists seek to essentialize "a culture" as a single entity, and to mystify its alienness. In this regard, Keesing also holds postmodernists accountable, despite their presumed goals of de-reification. Keesing accuses postmodernists of invoking "radical alterity" to hold the Other at long-arm's length, only this time with a deeply interior manifestation: not only does the Other behave very differently from us, but s/he also thinks differently as well. Secondly, Keesing worries that anthropologists use atomic notions of "a culture" as a discretely bounded object to press particular agendas (as in a utopian Other lacking a certain discord of hyperindustrial societies, for example). In such a case, a culture represents the unsullied, romanticized Other, floating above and outside the global hypermarket
Keesing posits a cultural theory borrowed in large part from formal cultural studies, which may represent a return on some levels to historic particularism. To Keesing, we can only understand the cultural historically; that is, within the framework of a particular situation. Such a theory is complexly interwoven with power differentials and the manipulation of ideal symbologies, for example through myth. In Keesing's view, anthropologists again cannot easily attach boundaries to cultural "units," since these units are subject to the fluid dynamics of the power structure, and its inequities and instabilities.
On the ground, performance studies have taken up the task of shredding Culture as a static or monolithic entity. Structual anthropologists such as Levi-Strauss (1987) and Geertz (1972) focused on the textual analysis of performance and ritual, hoping to expose the inner workings of Culture as reenacted symbolically within the texts of performance. Bauman (1974) examined the framework of performance, and postulated that the contexts under which performances occur say more about cultural relationships than the text contained in modal frames. Schieffelin (1985) suggests that performance arbitrates the relationship of individuals to each other and to their "culture".
Myers' (1994) description of the performance of two Australian Aborigines at the Asia Society Gallery in New York exposes the negotiated nature of transcultural communication. While the Papunya men from Australia generated personal as well as cultural narratives in and around the sandpainting performance, the spectators generated another, sometimes conflicting view of Aboriginality, while Myers and the other "experts" created yet another. The areas of overlap between these groups represented the negotiated territory of representation: the concept of Otherness that each group carried away from the experience.
Appadurai (1991), while strictly speaking probably not a performance theorist, analyzed the imagination of cultural relationship in the film Indian Cabaret. Appadurai observes that the dancers and customers of Indian Cabaret consciously create their own and each other's social identities. Emergent identities aren't "imaginary" in the sense of lacking reality, but "imaginary" in the sense of "imaged," or created within the cabaret context.
Performance theorists like Myers, Bauman, and Schieffelin present the cultural as a temporal process. Social participants actively manipulate the frames of reference that define nonstandard or "plain" speech in ways that negotiate social relationships. In postmodern performance theory, the context and method of symbol manipulation are more important than the symbols being manipulated.
The new generation of anthropologists will enter the profession in the next decade with a handful of deconstructed theories. We can no longer manipulate the once-sacred tenets of anthropology--culture, text, representation. Culture, if such a thing exists (Borofsky, 1994), is described as something imagined or negotiated (Appadurai, 1991; Myers, 1994) or fluid and multivariate (Goody, 1994); at any rate, we have no particular right to its representation (Said, 1989; Schieffelin, 1985; Keesing, 1994). Human behavior is characterized as unrepresentable essentially (Clifford, 1986), leading the currently ascendant generation of anthropologists to focus instead on power relationships and the interactions of system and participant (Ortner, 1984; Keesing, 1994). Confronted with overwhelming self-doubt, the ironic mode of postmodernism has deepened in the minds of the newest school of anthropologists. I would characterize this sentiment as sardonicism : profoundly cynical, self-aware and self-questioning, and shot through with dark humor and a resignation to our newly-acquired villainous roles.
Savvy future anthropologists (whom I call submodernists, since I find the term "post-postmodernists" a little awkward), realize that there exists little of the old order left to demolish (or at least few new tools of demolition). Rather than reconstruct an anthropology perhaps best left unassembled, we will instead begin the construction of testable models of cultural processes. The natural and earth sciences have been working in this mode for a decade or more, with increasing reliance on computer and statistical modelling, coupled with the rise of Chaos and Complex Systems theories. Perhaps natural scientists can de- and re-construct unworkable models more comfortably than social scientists, since the models that natural scientists build are less politically charged. The emphasis in Anthropology will shift from discussions about theories to discussions about models (metamodels), since we find the more hypothetical model less intimidating. Models, by definition, must be constantly retooled and tinkered-with, until finally a better model presents itself, at which point we can cannibalize the old one for useful parts. But anthropologists have volumes to say about the way human beings behave, and we need to stop wringing our hands over how to say it, and just offer our insights to the world: here's what we imagine to be real .
Postmodernist anthropologists questioned the veracity of Reality; submodernists will assert that Reality's veracity is now a moot point--it no longer matters whether there exists an objective reality or not, since our instruments of observation are limited by the rules that govern such a reality. The student of Reality-- philosopher, artist, and/or scientist-- can construct a framework that explains the universe as observed , and hope that this framework is sturdy enough to hang a few predictions on. From the repetoire of prevailing theories and paradigms, the submodernists can select the ones that present effective analytic tools, useful ways of thinking about human activity, without appropriating a theory's entire philosophical package. If radical postmodernists say we can't be sure anything is really real, so cover all your bases by describing as much as possible from several different angles, the submodernists will say surely something must be really real, so let's think about ways of guessing what that something looks like. We know and acknowledge that these are only guesses , and can't ever be anything more.
The world we live in, as it fills with people and with their advanced communications technologies, demands that we live in intimate proximity with our neighbors, both physically and culturally. We must deal with their funny smelling food and their funny clothes and their funny languages. We can recoil in disgust, batton down the hatches, declare war. Or we can reflect a moment on how we imagine the Other, and how they must imagine us. We can delight in the variety in our crowded world, as we would delight in the variety in a crowded marketplace. Or we can lock our doors, close the blinds, and order a pizza. Anthropologists love crowded marketplaces; if this is to become the paradigm in which the world operates, why shouldn't anthropologists have a role in its formation?
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