Agenda Modernism versus Postmodernism Decolonization discourse and Orientalism European origins Postmodernity in Anthrop

1. Agenda • Modernism versus Postmodernism • Decolonization discourse and Orientalism • European origins • Postmodernity in Anthropology • Time and the Other • Delicensing voices • Postmodernist Literature • Critique

2. POSTMODERNISM

3. Modernism • derived from the study if art and literature • developed along with the development of the capitalist state • Attributes • detachment, • the assumption of a position of scientific neutrality • rationalism

4. THE ITERATION OF ANERA AFTER THE MODERN • Anthropological theory largely developed on the assumption that the ‘Modern’ paradigm of society • mass, industrial societies± democratic and pluralistic • was the evolutionary end-point of all social change • But by the mid ’80s many social theorists began to posit a post-modern era

5. MODERNIZATION THEORYIN SOCIOLOGY & ECONOMICS pre- modern primitive traditional modern • predominantly urban society in a democratic nation-state • thriving industrial economy tweaked by restrained government intervention • secular education provided by state • consumer economy taken-for-granted: the ‘modern’ patternis the end-point of social evolution the notion that afurther pattern ofsocial economywould follow wasunconsidered

6. Postmodernism • literally means “after modernity • An extremely diffuse concept • Provided a major focus of debate and commentary • Postmodernists challenge modernist assertions • believe that objective neutral knowledge of another culture, or any aspect of the world is impossible • The postmodernist challenge has led anthropologists to examine the basis of their discipline

7. Postmodernism • Postmodernist anthropology is the culmination of a series of internal critiques • Feminist • Structuralist • Marxist • Ethnoscience • interpretive

8. POST WORLD WAR IIANTHROPOLOGY • Proliferation of theoretical schools as the number of anthropology departments and anthropologists increased... • hardly a corner of the world ethnographically unstudied • all the classic studies re-studied (Trobriand Islands, Nuer, Tepoztlán) • rising resistance by governments of Third World countries to studies which implied ‘primitiveness’ • rising discomfort on the part of anthropologists as the Decolonization Discourse and Orientalist Debates unfold...

9. 1. THE DECOLONIZATION DISCOURSE

10. AFRICA, 1950

11. THE DECOLONIZATION DISCOURSE • For the first time, Anthropology directly criticized as the ‘handmaid of colonialism’... • assisting in the pacification of peoples • use of ethnographic information about them in their own subjugation • providing justifications for the colonial system

12. THE DECOLONIZATION DISCOURSE • Many-sided critique from anthropologists originating in Third World countries... • Talal Asad (1973) Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter • and from Western anthropologists who reassessed the previous century... • Kathleen Gough • Peter Worsley • Eric Wolf

13. 2. THE ORIENTALIST DEBATE

14. THE ORIENTALIST DEBATE Publication in 1978 of EdwardSaïd’s Orientalism — • scathing analysis of Western scholarship on the Middle East • this scholarship = an ideological tool of domination • the West creates a simplistic stereotype of the Orient and subsequent scholarship studies not the Orient but rather reaffirms the stereotype

15. NOTE • ‘Orient’ in French sense, implying the ‘Middle’ East as well as the Far East • (2) Saïd’s critique not directed toward Anthropology in particular, but at • Western scholarship in the Middle East in general • Saïd’s Orientalism begins with a capsule history of ‘Oriental Studies’ in Western universities in the Middle Ages: • Arabic, Persian courses at Sorbonne, Padua, Oxford • accumulation of libraries of North African and Asian books and manuscripts in the original languages • research on cultures, arts, peoples

16. THE METHODSOF ORIENTALISM • ignores the variability of Middle Eastern society and substitutes a single ‘mentality’ to stand for the Orient • evidence selected to fit the schema and contrary evidence ignored • creates a stereotypical character — at once religiously ‘fanatical’ and at the same time devious and calculating • the construction of an ‘Other’, not like ourselves, but fundamentally different

17. THE METHODSOF ORIENTALISM • the ‘other’ presented as timeless, changeless, essentialized (in contrast to Westerners’ concept of themselves as individuals in particular historical contexts) • the power relationship between the constructing subject and constructed object ignored

18. THE CONSTRUCT ‘OTHER’ The ‘oriental’ of Western scholarship is constructed as exotic, driven by hidebound Tradition, thinks ‘differently’ from ourselves, is envious of the West, but at the same time incapable of shuffling off the (sometimes rather charming) superstitions which make his society backward Subtext: he needs our help to attain his full potential Since the publication of Orientalism, virtually all anthropologists have had to come to terms with the argument that links stereotyped academic representations of non-European peoples to structures of colonial and neo-colonial political and economic domination

19. Challenges to anthropological theory posed by (a) Colonial discourse, (b) Orientalist debate, and (c) growing recognition of the condition of postmodernity: • challenge to the notion of objectivity in Anthropology • challenge to ethnographic authority and privileged knowledge • challenge to the conception of culture as an entity

20. OBJECTIVITY • Demonstration of hidden (colonial) agendas in earlier anthropological theory and practice raised the question: ‘is any objective stance possible’... • some say ‘yes’ — our growing historical self-awareness as a discipline allows us to become aware of and thus correct for such biases (example: gender studies) • others say ‘no’ — the very notion of objectivity in the midst of global geopolitics is an illusion • others say ‘no’ — but at least some sort of cross-cultural consistency can be attained if ethnographers routinely ‘study up’...

21. STUDYING ‘UP’ Taking as the starting-point and anchor of studies the oppressed, victimized, colonized, marginalized in any social situation and analyzing the situation of their oppression (etc.) through their eyes... rather than (à la Political Science or Management Studies) starting at the top and studying ‘down’ — e.g. seeing the society as a series of managerial or control problems

22. ETHNOGRAPHIC AUTHORITY • Numerous dissections of ethnography-as-literature in the 1990s... • showing the conventions by which the ethnographer constitutes her/his authority (‘writing culture’) • demonstrating that classic ethnography is, indeed, a conventional genre in which the author establishes a ‘voice’ • maintaining the voice consistently is constitutive of the author’s authority

23. these critiques failed to confront with sufficient reflexivity, the dilemmas of an anthropology torn between affiliation to science, rationalism, universalism and also and affiliation to the diverse voices represented in the ethnographic record • There was debate about whether anthropology was to be modeled after the natural sciences, like biology or the humanities like history, • But there was a consensus that the truth about another culture could be obtained • Post-modern anthropology questions that assumption • According to this view a postmodernist critique appears an overdue reassessment of anthropology

24. French philosopher, whose work originated the school of deconstruction • Deconstruction shows the multiple layers of meaning at work in language • all cultures construct autonomous self-contained worlds of meaning • Thus ethnographic description distorts native understandings by forcing them into our own society’s ways of conceptualizing the world • much of his writing he is concerned with the deconstruction of texts • Derrida argues that the author's intentions in speaking cannot be unconditionally accepted. European Origins Jacques Derrida 1930-

25. French philosopher who argued that social relations between people are characterized by dominance and subjugation • Dominating people or classes control the ideological conditions under which knowledge, truth, and reality are defined • Because modernity is viewed alongside other configurations of knowledge, as the product of power, the objective character of scientific knowledge is shown to be an historical construct • his work upsets the conventional understanding of history as a chronology of inevitable facts and replaces it with layers of suppressed and unconscious knowledge in and throughout history Michel Foucault 1926-1984

26. Postmodernity in Anthropology therefore has focused on 1. an examination of the power relations according to which the Other has been constructed 2. examinations of the rhetorical devices and preoccupations of ethnographers themselves

27. Throughout the history of anthropology anthropologists have claimed to be authorities on other cultures • this claim fortified with emphasizing the mystique of fieldwork and by explaining other cultures to their audiences through written descriptions. • The hermeneutic and deconstructionist approaches led many anthropologists to ask a variety of questions about the relationship between the ethnographic texts and the fieldwork experience upon which those texts are based. • the filtering of exotic otherness through the constructions of social theory is exposed as a literary excursion disguised as scientific reportage

28. Postmodernist view of Fieldwork • Fieldwork is crucial in the creation of ethnographic texts. • anthropologists can never be unbiased observers of all that goes on in culture • Fieldworkers must of necessity be in specific places at specific times. • As a result they see some things and not others • The particular circumstances of fieldwork, the political context in which it occurs, the investigator’s preferences and predilections, and the people met by chance or design all condition the understanding of society that results.

29. Postmodernist view of ethnography • Writing ethnography is the primary means by which anthropologists convey their interpretations of other cultures • Traditionally written as if the anthropologist was a neutral, omniscient observer • Postmodernists claim that because the collection of anthropological data is subjective, it is not possible to analyze the data objectively. • Postmodernists question the validity of the author’s interpretations over competing alternatives • And examine the literary techniques used in the writing of ethnographies

30. Ethnographies have traditionally followed some basic literary conventions • rather than saying “I am writing my interpretation of what the natives were doing” authors claim to represent the native point of view. • But an anthropologist cannot possibly present the point of view of everyone in a society • He or she works with informants • So the anthropologist chooses who speaks for the society and in his or her translation of the native language decides what words are presented to the audience. • Another device: writers claim to describe completely other cultures or societies, even though anthropologists actually know only the part of a culture that they personally experience

31. The Omniscient narrator. • Instead of writing “I saw my informant pour ketchup on their ice cream: which is the result of direct observation, many ethnographies contain statements such as “The people of San Marcos pour ketchup on their ice cream” • The authoritative third person observer who replaces the fallible first person. • The use of the omniscient narrator heightens the sense of scientific objectivity projected but the text.

32. Time and the Other • Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes its Object 1983 • to maintain objectivity Anthropologists need a mechanism to keep subject and object apart • all particular ethnographic knowledge is affected by historically established relations of power and domination between the anthropologist’s society and the one he studies Johannes Fabian 1937 -

33. all anthropological knowledge is political knowledge • time is a key category by which we conceptualise relations between us and our objects • Anthropologists use time to distance themselves from the cultures they observe • evolutionary sequences were not politically neutral • By claiming to make sense of contemporary society in terms of evolutionary stages time allowed the justification of colonization.

34. Under the evolutionary scheme all living societies were placed on a temporal slope • and it provided a host of terms by which to describe other cultures • Civilization, • evolution, • development, • acculturation, • modernization (and industrialization, urbanization) • all are terms whose conceptual content derives from evolutionary Time • “Primitive” being essentially a temporal concept, it is a category, not an object of Western thought.

35. the anthropologist uses a different conception of time in the field than in the reports of that experience • human interaction is unthinkable without reference to time • If the anthropologist wants to represent what is going on in a society that dimension cannot be eliminated from his interpretations • In the field anthropologists share the same time as their subjects • they are coeval - coevalness means of the same age, duration of epoch • but when they come to writing their ethnographies describing and analyzing the society they lived and studied in they deny this coevalness to the other • in the ethnography they have a different time • we use devices, political, rhetorical and to deny coevalness • one of these devices is the ethnographic present

36. The Ethnographic Present • the ethnographic present is the practice of giving accounts of other cultures and societies in the present tense. • anthropologists using the ethnographic present say things such as `the Trobriand Islanders are matrilineal' • although used for stylistic purposes it expresses conceptions of time and temporal relations • has been used to freeze the frame of action of non-western societies at the time of observation • and contrast them with our own, where progress & historical change is integral. • it ignores the fact that they have changed • it implies that primitive societies are repetitive, predictable and conservative.

37. What if anthropologists said `the X were matrilineal' • in one sense this is more accurate because the anthropologists is reporting on a situation that was in his or her past • But if the past tense is used it poses a problem of historical accuracy • the stated fact is no longer subject to direct verification or falsification • Using the present tense makes it sound more objective/scientific

38. It could be claimed that the ethnographic present is merely a literary device • used to avoid the awkwardness of the past tense • but the ethnographic present is the most pervasive characteristic of anthropological writing • temporal forms are one of the ways a writer communicates with a reader • they are signals exchanged between the participants • The present tense signals the writer's intent to give a discussion or commentary on the world is. • ethnographic accounts in the past tense would make them a history indicating perhaps a humanistic rather than a scientific intent on the part of the writer

39. Because one must write ethnographies using certain literary conventions (tense, voice and so on) the act of writing is a literary construction of the writer. • Anthropologists construct meaning by writing ethnographies and using certain literary conventions • Readers in turn impose their own interpretation on the author’s text • In other words, the writing and reading of ethnographic texts involves the piling on of layer upon layer of interpretation • Deconstruction of devices in order to better understand the biases that have influenced their writing.

40. Delicensing voices • Postmodernists maintain that if a text is an author’s representation. And if that author’s work is taken as an authoritative account, then all other voices and interpretations are silenced. • Because everything is an interpretation in the postmodern view, the only way authors can generate an interpretation that is accepted as true is to “delicencse” all other interpretations. • But can one person’s interpretation be more valid than another’s? • Postmodernists say no insisting that the acceptance of an interpretation is ultimately an issue of power and wealth

41. Historically, the interpretations voiced by white protestant males in Western industrialized nations have delicensed all others and silenced them. • They ask why the Anglo-American view of events is the only acceptable interpretation • claim that deconstructing the mainstream work allows other opinions to be expressed

42. Postmodernist Literature • 1969 Reinventing Anthropology edited by Dell Hymes a series of essays which confronted American anthropology’s till then largely unexamined colonial past and contemplated the international and national power dynamic within which its contemporary professional activities continued to be carried out • Writing Culture:The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography.(Clifford and Marcus 1986) major theme in the collection is that anthropology has moved (or should move) from the espousal of scientific ethnography to the study of ethnographic texts themselves

43. ‘WRITING CULTURE’ Term associated with the study of ethnographic writing as a genre – the assumptions embedded in traditional works – the modes of exposition and development of argument – the way in which the writing itself constructs the ‘Other’... Approach pioneered in the works of James Boon

44. premise that what is being presented is a factual, objective, account, judiciously scaled down from a more comprehensive survey to represent the whole by a carefully selected part • that the ethnographer has a privileged (godlike) perspective on what’s going on •  cf. Malinowski on the Trobrianders’ limited knowledge of the Kula Ring • ‘study a village and write a monograph about a culture’ • use the pronoun ‘I’ only sparingly

45. James Clifford’s Predicament of Culture (1988) applies a variant of Edward Saïd’s analysis of ideological authority to anthropology itself Clifford traces ‘the breakup of ethnographic authority’ in the late-Modern and early Postmodern eras

46. Ethnographic authority was characteristic of ‘the Modern’ — it was the official narrative explaining the significance of the antecedent cultures out of which the National-State cultures of the Modern era were composed Its tools: monographs, museums, and research institutes James Clifford

47. For example, at major museums like the American Museum of Natural History, authoritative accounts of Polynesiancultures are displayed

48. the ‘whole’ represented by a few artifacts selected by the curator, usually with an eye to the predominantly Western aesthetics of the audience... encased, labeled, spotlighted, and interpreted by the dominant culture...

49. The very fact of collecting artifacts and writing ethnographies is an act of hegemony... • ethnography cannot be separated from history and politics — the Tlingit do not write ethnographies of Euro-Canadians, but Euro-Canadians do of Tlingit • the culture ‘is’ because the Anthropologist says it is • it does not speak for itself but is spoken for • The Anthropologist as ‘expert’ in aboriginal land cases, Canada, US, Australia

50. REFLEXIVITY • With what to replace objectivity? • Consensus solution: reflexivity — not the unintentional mirroring of the author’s culture in a descriptive work about the Other, but a self-aware reflexivity: • detailed disclosure of the terms and conditions of the fieldwork • discussion of interpersonal relationships with informants that led to acquisition of the knowledge reported • self-analysis of author’s motives, agendas, and self-doubts • the knowledge presented situated in terms of how the ethnographer collected it