An Anthropology of Indirect Communication (A.S.a. Monographs, 37)

321 Pages·2001·1.32 MB·English

by  Joy Hendry

An Anthropology of Indirect
Communication
Sometimes we convey what we mean not by what we say but by what we do,
wear or eat; sometimes it is by a gesture of the hand, a curl of the lip or a
raising of an eyebrow. The authors of this new volume ask what kind of
communication occurs when we employ these indirect means of conveying
our intentions. Anthropologists soon learn that understanding the codes of
conventional behaviour in a foreign setting requires paying special attention
to what is notsaid as much as to what is.
From patent miscommunication, through potent ambiguity to pregnant
silence, this incisive collection examines the many possibilities of indirect
communication. A complex and important aspect of social life, indirection
itself has rarely been the focus of ethnographic study.In this volume,for the
first time, different modes of indirect communication are brought together
and examined in the light of anthropological ideas and concepts.
Drawing on their experiences in the field,from a Mormon theme park in
Hawaii,through carnival time on Montserrat,to the exclusive domain of the
Market,the case studies examine the many ways in which we can communi-
cate indirectly, both verbally and non-verbally. The authors discuss how
indirect communication can be deliberate and how the most expressive form
of communication is often the most indirect.By illustrating how food,silence,
sunglasses, martial arts and rudeness can all constitute powerful ways of
conveying meaning,An Anthropology of Indirect Communication is a fascinating
and engaging text which provides a challenging introduction to this growing
area of thought and study.
Joy Hendry is Professor of Social Anthropology at Oxford Brookes
University.Her main area of interest is Japan and her publications include An
Anthropologist in Japan (1999). C. W. Watson is Senior Lecturer in
Anthropology at the University of Kent at Canterbury. He is a specialist on
Indonesia and Malaysia and his publications include Multiculturalism(2000).
ASA Monographs 37
Titles available:
24 Reason and Morality
Edited by Joanna Overing
29 Anthropology and Autobiography
Edited by Judith Okely and Helen Callaway
30 Contemporary Futures:Perspectives from Social
Anthropology
Edited by Sandra Wallman
31 Socialism:Ideals,Ideologies,and Local Practice
Edited by C.M.Hann
32 Environmentalism:The View from Anthropology
Edited by Kay Milton
33 Questions of Consciousness
Edited by Anthony P.Cohen and Nigel Rapport
34 After Writing Culture
Edited by Allison James,Jenny Hockey and Andrew Dawson
35 Ritual,Performance,Media
Edited by Felicia Hughes-Freeland
36 The Anthropology of Power
Edited by Angela Cheater
37 An Anthropology of Indirect Communication
Edited by Joy Hendry and C.W.Watson
An Anthropology of
Indirect Communication
Edited by Joy Hendry and
C. W. Watson
London and New York
First published 2001
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.
© 2001 Association of Social Anthropologists, for selection and
editorial matter; individual chapters, the contributors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
An anthropology of indirect communication / edited by Joy
Hendry and C. W. Watson.
p. cm. – (A.S.A. monographs; 37)
Papers presented at the ASA Conference held 1998,
Canterbury, Eng.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Nonverbal communication–Congresses. 2. Communication
and culture–Congresses.
I. Hendry, Joy. II. Watson, C. W. III. Association of Social
Anthropologists. Conference (1998: Canterbury, England.)
IV. Series.
P99.5 .A58 2001
302.2'22–dc21 00-051705
ISBN 0-203-42857-9 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-43871-X (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0–415–24744–6 (hbk)
ISBN 0–415–24745–4 (pbk)
Contents
Notes on contributors viii
Acknowledgements xii
Introduction 1
JOY HENDRY AND C. W. WATSON
PART I
Intercultural communication and the anthropologist 17
1 Communicational distortion and the constitution of society:
indirection as a form of life 19
NIGEL RAPPORT
2 On the ontological status of honour 34
ROGER JUST
3 Not talking about sex in India:indirection and the
communication of bodily intention 51
HELEN LAMBERT
4 Talk,silence and the material world:patterns of indirect
communication among agricultural families in northern
England 68
PIA CHRISTENSEN, JENNY HOCKEY AND ALLISON JAMES
vi Contents
PART II
Indirection beyond language 83
5 Eating your words:communicating with food in the
Ecuadorian Andes 85
NICOLE BOURQUE
6 Sunglasses,suitcases and other symbols:intentionality,
creativity and indirect communication in festive and
everyday performances 101
SARAH PINK
7 Trust,privacy,deceit and the quality of interpersonal
relationships:‘peasant’society revisited 115
URSULA SHARMA
8 The temple and the theme park:intention and indirection
in religious tourist art 128
TERRY D. WEBB
PART III
Bodily possibilities 143
9 Dance,dissimulation and identity in Indonesia 145
FELICIA HUGHES-FREELAND
10 Don’t talk – blend:ideas about body and communication
in aikido practise 163
TAMARA KOHN
PART IV
Intricacies of language explained 179
11 Licence revoked:when calypso goes too far 181
JONATHAN SKINNER
Contents vii
12 Indirect speech:heteroglossia,politeness and rudeness in
Irula forest festivals 201
NEIL THIN
13 Straight talk,hidden talk and modernity:shifts in discourse
strategy in Highland New Guinea 218
LISETTE JOSEPHIDES
14 Unwrapping rudeness:inverted etiquette in an egalitarian
enclave 232
PETER PARKES
PART V
English – with diplomacy 253
15 Ambiguity and verbal disguise within diplomatic culture 255
ANNABEL BLACK
16 Delay and deception in Thai–British diplomatic encounters
of the early nineteenth century 271
ANDREW TURTON
17 Diplomacy and indirection,constraint and authority 290
JAMES G. CARRIER
Index 301
Contributors
Annabel Black did research on the topic discussed in this book as a
Research Associate at Oxford Brookes University. She has lectured in
European Community Studies at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and has
worked as Spouse Employment Adviser in the British Foreign Office.She
is currently training to become a furniture restorer.
Nicole Bourque is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and
Anthropology at the University of Glasgow.Her research interests include
popular religion and syncretism in the Andes,and conversion to Islam in
Britain.
James G. Carrier teaches Social Anthropology at the University of
Edinburgh.His recent publications include the edited collections Meanings
of the Market (Berg 1997) and Virtualism (with D. Miller; Berg 1998). He
has begun research on political economy and environmental protection in
the Caribbean.
Pia Christensen is a Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of
Hull.Her main interests and publications are in the anthropological study
of children’s everyday lives and of children’s health,with a particular focus
on the individual and collective actions of children. Her most recent
research (with A.James and C.Jenks) is a study of the perception,under-
standing and social organisation of children’s time,a project funded by the
ESRC under the Children:5–16 research programme.
Joy Hendry is Professor of Social Anthropology at Oxford Brookes
University.She has worked in various parts of Japan over the last twenty-
five years,and her recent publications include Wrapping Culture:Politeness,
Presentation and Power in Japan and Other Societies (Clarendon Press 1993),
An Anthropologist in Japan (Routledge 1999),and The Orient Strikes Back:A
Global View of Cultural Display(Berg 2000).
Jenny Hockey is a social anthropologist and Senior Lecturer at the
University of Hull.She has published widely on ageing,death and bereave-
ment, including Beyond the Body: Death and Social Identity (co-authored
with E.Hallam and G.Howarth;Routledge 1999).
Contributors ix
Felicia Hughes-Freeland is a Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at the
University of Wales, Swansea. She has edited Ritual, Performance, Media
(ASA Monograph 35), and Recasting Ritual (EASA series, with Mary
Crain), and the film Taybuan: Dancing the Spirit in Java. A monograph on
Javanese dance is forthcoming.
Allison James is Reader in Applied Anthropology at the University of Hull.
Her main research interests are in childhood, ageing and the life course.
Her most recent publication is Theorising Childhood (with C.Jenks and A.
Prout; Polity Press 1998). She has just completed a study of children’s
perception and understandings of time (with P.Christensen and C.Jenks)
on a project funded under the ESRC Children 5–16 research programme.
Lisette Josephides teaches anthropology at Queen’s University,Belfast.Her
most recent publication,‘Disengagement and desire:the tactics of everyday
life’,appeared in the American Ethnologist.Her continuing interest in poli-
tics and the deployment of social knowledge now includes research
interests in issues of morality and human rights.
Roger Just is a Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of
Melbourne.His recent publications include A Greek Island Cosmos:Kinship
and Identity on Meganisi(James Currey Publishers 2000).
Tamara Kohn is a Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Durham
and teaches Human Sciences at the University’s Stockton campus (UDSC).
She has conducted fieldwork in the Scottish Hebrides, East Nepal, the
north of England and California. She is currently working on a mono-
graph based on her recent research with martial artists in California.
Helen Lambert is a Senior Lecturer in Medical Anthropology at Bristol
University. Her research interests include popular Hinduism, medical
pluralism and kinship in India, and medical anthropology in relation to
public health issues.Recent publications include ‘Illness,auspiciousness and
modes of healing in rural Rajasthan’,Contributions to Indian Sociology (n.s.)
31(2) 1997;‘Caring for the well:perspectives on disease prevention’,in T.
Kohn and R. McKechnie (eds) Extending the Boundaries of Care: Medical
Ethics and Caring Practices (Berg 1998);‘Methods and meanings in anthro-
pological, epidemiological and clinical encounters: the case of sexually
transmitted disease and HIV control and prevention in India’, Tropical
Medicine and International Health 3(12) 1998;and ‘Sentiment and substance
in north Indian forms of relatedness’, in J. Carsten (ed.) Cultures of
Relatedness:New Approaches to the Study of Kinship (Cambridge University
Press 2000).
Peter Parkes lectures in the Department of Anthropology at the University
of Kent at Canterbury, and has previously taught at Goldsmiths College,
London and at the Queen’s University,Belfast.He is the author of several