Agenda
Modernism versus Postmodernism
Decolonization discourse and Orientalism
European origins
Postmodernity in Anthropology
Time and the Other
Delicensing voices
Postmodernist Literature
Critique
POSTMODERNISM
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
THE ITERATION OF AN
ERA 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
MODERNIZATION THEORY
IN SOCIOLOGY & ECONOMICS
primitive
traditional
taken-for-granted:
the ‘modern’ pattern
is the end-point of
social evolution
the notion that a
further pattern of
social economy
would follow was
unconsidered
premodern
modern
• predominantly urban society in a
democratic nation-state
• thriving industrial economy tweaked by
restrained government intervention
• secular education provided by state
• consumer economy
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
Postmodernism
Postmodernist anthropology is the culmination of a series of
internal critiques
Feminist
Structuralist
Marxist
Ethnoscience
interpretive
POST WORLD WAR II ANTHROPOLOGY
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...
1. THE DECOLONIZATION DISCOURSE
AFRICA, 1950
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
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
2. THE ORIENTALIST DEBATE
THE ORIENTALIST DEBATE
Publication in 1978 of Edward
Saïd’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
NOTE
(1) ‘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
THE METHODS
OF 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
THE METHODS
OF 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
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 neocolonial political and economic domination
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
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 selfawareness 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’...
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
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
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
European Origins
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
Jacques Derrida 1930-
 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.
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
Michel Foucault
1926-1984
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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.
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
Johannes Fabian 1937 -
 all particular ethnographic
knowledge is affected by
historically established
relations of power and
domination between the
anthropologist’s society and
the one he studies
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.
 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.
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
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.
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
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
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.
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
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
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
‘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
• 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
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
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
James Clifford
Its tools: monographs, museums, and
research institutes
For example, at major museums like the American Museum
of Natural History, authoritative accounts of Polynesian
cultures are
displayed
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...
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
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 selfdoubts
the knowledge presented situated in terms of how
the ethnographer collected it
Reflexivity
Reflexivity first became an issue to American cultural
anthropologists in the late 1960s because of the Vietnam war
Anthropologist doing fieldwork in the Third World could not
help but face the falseness of their position when challenged by
local outraged by the US international power playing
A typical reflexive effort will contain a discussion of its writers
biographical ties (or lack thereof), to the events and people being
discussed; and admission that the anthropological project of
describing human diversity was created as part of the larger
Western colonial project of divide and rule
ideally, reflexivity should produce a corpus of
ethnographic knowledge, the conditions of whose
production are contained in the work and
transparent to the reader, conjoined to a set of
reflections by the author on the methods which
produced it
reflexive ethnographies don’t aim at generalization,
but contain minutely detailed particularizations of
social and cultural detail as these play out in the
lives of individuals
reflexive ethnographies tend to read more like
diaries or autobiographies than the conventional
ethnographic genre
Examples of the subjective-reflexive genre:
Paul Rabinow, Reflections on fieldwork in Morocco
Kevin Dwyer, Moroccan dialogues
Carlos Castañeda, Don Juan: a Yaqui way of knowledge
Challenged the normal distinction between subject field
memoir and objective ethnographic monograph by melding
two together
L to R:
Rabinow
Dwyer
Castañeda
Reflexive ethnography solves a number of problems of
ethnographic authority and representation, but does not
lend itself to comparison or generalization...
• each case unique
• extreme particularization
• produces ‘insights’ rather than ‘conclusions’
• one such work incommensurable with another
such work
• does anthropology end and become a sort of
literature?
‘ANTHROPOLOGY AS CULTURAL CRITIQUE’
Comprehensive survey of
‘the postmodern turn’ in
Anthropology — probably
the most influential
theoretical work of the
1990s
Argue that Anthropology’s
heritage was critical — an
implicit reflexive critique of
the West by comparison to
‘other’ societies less
wealthy and more humane
Postmodernist Critique
anthropology’s foundationalist epistemology and
scientism is shown to be Western provincialism
Ethnographies distort reality at best and have political
implications
since ethnography is a form of writing, much of its selfproclaimed objectivity and empirically grounded authority
would be better seen as rhetorical effects of the way the
ethnographic genre was constructed rather than as either
defensible claims or contestable givens.
With the corollary implication that if constructed, such
texts could be, should be, opened up for inspection, and
strategically de-and reconstructed.
BREAKDOWN OF
NATIONAL SCHOOLS
DEVELOPMENT OF
SPECIALIZATIONS
1940
1950
AMERICAN
CULTURAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
1960
1970
ECOLOGICAL ANTH.
NEO-EVOLUTIONISM
CULTURAL
MATERIALISM
C&P
ETHNOSCIENCE-CUM-COGNITIVE
INTERPRETIVE
BRITISH
SOCIAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
FRENCH
ETHNOLOGIE
NEO-STRUCTURALISM
(LEACH, GLUCKMAN,
BARTH, BAILEY,
STRATHERN)
1980
1990
2000
Schools and
analytical theories
in abeyance
Main duality:
Political Economy
vs.
Interpretive &
Deconstructionist
approaches
MAUSS — LÉVI-STRAUSS:
FRENCH STRUCTURALISM
MODERN PERIOD
POSTMODERN PERIOD
2010
Critiques of Postmodernism
Taken to its logical extreme postmodernism
comes close to turning anthropology into a sub
field of literature.
If all writing is nothing more than
interpretations of interpretations then
ethnography is fiction
And no conclusions can ultimately be reached
about anything
anthropology is a representational genre
rather than a clearly bounded scientific domain
Postmodernist Legacy
There is not any real new change inn practice
most central influence is on the nature of ethnography
1970s ,1980s 1990s anthropologists began to write ethnographies
in which their recounting of their own experiences and feelings
takes a prominent role.
The recounting of field experiences can become the narrative
device by which anthropological experiences can become the
narrative device through which anthropological understanding is
conveyed Eg Rosaldo
The awareness of rhetorical devices can inform our own writing
and help us evaluate the writing of others
anthropologists must now ask how new forms of authority and
voices other than their own can be included in the ethnography