Out of the Study and into the Field: Ethnographic Theory and Practice in French Anthropology (Methodology and History in Anthropology)

307 Pages·2010·2.03 MB·English

by  Robert Parkin and Anne de Sales (Editors)

OUT OF THE STUDY AND INTO THE FIELD
Methodology and History in Anthropology
General Editor: David Parkin, Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford
Volume 1 Volume 12
Marcel Mauss: A Centenary Tribute An Introduction to Two Theories of Social
Edited by Wendy James and N.J. Allen Anthropology: Descent Groups and Marriage
Alliance
Volume 2 By Louis Dumont. Edited and Translated by
Franz Baerman Steiner: Selected Writings Robert Parkin
Volume I: Taboo, Truth and Religion
Franz B. Steiner. Edited by Jeremy Adler and Volume 13
Richard Fardon Navigating Terrains of War: Youth and
Soldiering in Guinea-Bissau
Volume 3 By Henrik Vigh
Franz Baerman Steiner: Selected Writings
Volume II: Orient politik, Value, and Civilisation. Volume 14
Franz B. Steiner. Edited by Jeremy Adler and The Politics of Egalitarianism: Theory and Practice
Richard Fardon Edited by Jacqueline Solway
Volume 4 Volume 15
The Problem of Context: Perspectives from A History of Oxford Anthropology
Social Anthropology and Elsewhere Edited by Peter Rivière
Edited by Roy Dilley
Volume 16
Volume 5 Holistic Anthropology: Emergence and
Religion in English Everyday Life: Convergence
An Ethnographic Approach Edited by David Parkin and Stanley Ulijaszek
By Timothy Jenkins
Volume 17
Volume 6 Learning Religion: Anthropological Approaches
Hunting the Gatherers: Ethnographic Edited by David Berliner and Ramon Sarró
Collectors, Agents and Agency in Melanesia,
1870s–1930s Volume 18
Edited by Michael O’Hanlon and Ways of Knowing: Anthropological Approaches
Robert L. Welsch to Crafting Experience and Knowledge
Edited by Mark Harris
Volume 7
Anthropologists in a Wider World: Essays on Field Volume 19
Research Difficult Folk? A Political History of
Edited by Paul Dresch, Wendy James and Social Anthropology
David Parkin By David Mills
Volume 8 Volume 20
Categories and Classifications: Maussian Human Nature as Capacity: Transcending
Reflections on the Social Discourse and Classification
By N.J. Allen By Nigel Rapport
Volume 9 Volume 21
Louis Dumont and Hierarchical Opposition The Life of Property: House, Family and
By Robert Parkin Inheritance in Béarn, South-West France
By Timothy Jenkins
Volume 10
Categories of Self: Louis Dumont’s Theory Volume 22
of the Individual Out of the Study and Into the Field:
By André Celtel Ethnographic Theory and Practice in French
Anthropology
Volume 11
Edited by Robert Parkin and Anne de Sales
Existential Anthropology: Events, Exigencies
and Effects
By Michael Jackson
OUT OF THE STUDY AND INTO THE FIELD
Ethnographic Theory and Practice in French Anthropology
Edited by
Robert Parkin and Anne de Sales
Berghahn Books
New York (cid:129) Oxford
Parkin & DeSales text_v4:Layout 2 5/25/10 4:51 PM Page iv
First published in 2010 by
Berghahn Books
www.berghahnbooks.com
©2010 Robert Parkin and Anne de Sales
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages
for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book
may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information
storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented,
without written permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Out of the study and into the field : ethnographic theory and practice in French
anthropology.
p. cm. -- (Methodology and history in anthropology vol.22)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-84545-695-5 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Anthropology--France--Philosophy. 2. Anthropology--France--Field work. 3.
Anthropology--France--Methodology. I. Parkin, Robert, 1950- II. Sales, Anne de.
GN585.F8O88 2010
301.010944--dc22
2010018543
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Printed in the United States on acid-free paper
ISBN: 978-1-84545-695-5 (hardback)
CONTENTS
List of illustrations vii
List of authors discussed in this volume ix
Preface xi
Introduction: ethnographic practice and theory in France 1
Robert Parkin and Anne de Sales
1. ‘Keeping your eyes open’: Arnold van Gennep and the autonomy
of the folkloristic 25
Giordana Charuty
2. Canonical ethnography: Hanoteau and Letourneux on Kabyle
communal law 45
Peter Parkes
3. Postcards at the service of the Imaginary: Jean Rouch,
shared anthropology and the ciné-trance 75
Paul Henley
4. Eric de Dampierre and the art of fieldwork 103
Margaret Buckner
5. What sort of anthropologist was Paul Rivet? 125
Laura Rival
6. Alfred Métraux: empiricist and romanticist 151
Peter Rivière
7. Roger Bastide or the ‘darknesses of alterity’ 171
Stefania Capone
8. The art and craft of ethnography: Lucien Bernot, 1919–1993 197
Gérard Toffin
9. André-Georges Haudricourt: a thorough materialist 219
Alban Bensa
vi Contents
10. Louis Dumont: from museology to structuralism via India 235
Robert Parkin
11. Will the real Maurice Leenhardt please stand up? Four anthropologists
in search of an ancestor 255
Jeremy MacClancy
Notes on contributors 273
Subject index 277
Name index 289
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Figures
1.1. Arnold van Gennep, aged 80, lighting a bonfire on the summer solstice
(21 June 1953), also the saint’s day of St John the Baptist. 26
2.1. Commandant Adolphe Hanoteau at Fort-Napoléon, 1861. 47
2.2. Opening column of qanunrulings transcribed in Arabic with French
translation by Captain Alphonse Meyer, military interpreter at Dellys, 1864. 50
2.3. Dedication of Ait Iraten qanunrulings submitted to Hanoteau by Si Mula,
ca. 1859/60. 52
2.4. Submission of the Kabyle tribes to Marshall Randon in 1857. 64
2.5. Hanoteau and two Tuareg, 1858. 65
3.1. Jean Rouch shooting in a market in the Gold Coast in 1954. 76
4.1. Eric de Dampierre at Madabazouma, thirty kilometres from
Bangassou, Central African Republic. 104
5.1. Paul Rivet. 126
6.1. Alfred Métraux, seated second from right, doing fieldwork among
Chipaya in Bolivia, 1931 or 1932. 152
7.1. Roger Bastide, seated left on bench, Ifanhin, Bénin, 1958. 172
8.1. Lucien Bernot, on the occasion of his being honoured with a Festschrift
at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, 1987. 198
9.1. André-Georges Haudricourt: ‘le maître à la recherche de la petite bête
ou le maître dans l’exercice de ses fonctions’, June 1972. 220
10.1. Louis Dumont, taken by himself, among the Kallar, Tamil Nadu (India),
with his chief informant, Muttusami Tevar, 1949. 236
11.1. Maurice Leenhardt (back row, centre), with Melanesian pastors
during a conference, Nouvelle Calédonie 1916. 256

LIST OF AUTHORS DISCUSSED
IN THIS VOLUME
Authors dealt with in this volume, their dates and main fieldwork
area(s) and/or peoples of interest.
Author Dates Main fieldwork area(s)
and/or peoples of
interest
Roger Bastide 1898–1974 Afro-Brazilians (north-
east Brazil)
Lucien Bernot 1919–1993 Marma, Cak
(Bangladesh, Myanmar)
Eric de Dampierre 1929–1997 Nzakara (Central African
Republic)
Louis Dumont 1911–1998 India
Adolphe Hanoteau 1814−1897 Kabyle (Algeria)
André-Georges Haudricourt 1911–1996 Vietnam
Aristide Letourneux 1820−1890 Kabyle (Algeria)
Maurice Leenhardt 1878–1954 New Caledonia
Alfred Métraux 1902–1963 Argentina and other
South America, Haiti,
Easter Island
Paul Rivet 1876–1958 Ecuador, Colombia
Jean Rouch 1917–2004 Songhay (Niger)
Arnold van Gennep 1873–1957 France, Europe