Anthropology, by Comparison

282 Pages·2002·1.36 MB·English

by  Andre Gingrich

Anthropology, by Comparison
Comparison has long been the backbone of the discipline of anthropology. But
recent developments in anthropology, including critical self-reflection and new
case studies sited in a globalized world, have pushed comparative work aside. For
the most part, comparison as theory and method has been a casualty of the
critique of ‘grand theory’ and of a growing mistrust of objectivist, hard-science
methodology in the social sciences.
Today it is time for anthropology to resume its central task of exploring
humankind through comparison, using its newfound critical self-awareness
under changing global conditions. In Anthropology, by Comparison an
international group of prominent anthropologists re-visits, re-theorizes and re-
invigorates comparison as a legitimate and fruitful enterprise. The authors
explore the value of anthropological comparison and encourage an
international dialogue about comparative research. While rejecting older,
universalist comparative methods, these scholars take a fresh look at various
subaltern and neglected approaches to comparison from their own national
traditions. They then present new approaches that are especially relevant to the
globalized world of the twenty-first century.
Every student and practitioner of anthropology and the social sciences will
find this thought-provoking volume essential reading. Anthropology, by
Comparison is a call to creative reflection on the past and productive action in
the present, a challenge to anthropologists to revitalize their unique
contribution to human understanding. Anthropology, by Comparison is an
indispensable overview of anthropology’s roots—and its future—with regard to
the comparative study of humankind.
Andre Gingrich is Professor and Chair at the Institute for Social and Cultural
Anthropology, University of Vienna. Richard G.Fox is President of the
Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research.

Anthropology, by
Comparison
Edited by Andre Gingrich
and Richard G.Fox
Foreword by Marilyn Strathern

London and New York
(cid:160)
First published 2002
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
(cid:160)
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
(cid:160)
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003.
(cid:160)
' 2002 selection and editorial matter, Andre Gingrich and
Richard G.Fox; individual chapters, the contributors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized 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.
(cid:160)
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library
(cid:160)
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Anthropology, by comparison/edited by Andre Gingrich and
Richard G.Fox.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Ethnology(cid:151)Methodology. 2. Cross-cultural studies. I. Gingrich,
Andre. II. Fox, Richard Gabriel.
GN345 .A579 2002
306(cid:150)dc21 2001048452
ISBN(cid:160)0-203-46390-0(cid:160)Master e-book ISBN
(cid:160)
(cid:160)
ISBN(cid:160)0-203-46793-0(cid:160)(Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-26053-1 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-26054-X (pbk)
Contents
Notes on contributors ix
Foreword: not giving the game away xiii
MARILYN STRATHERN
Acknowledgements xviii
Introduction 1
RICHARD G.FOX AND ANDRE GINGRICH
Comparison and anthropology’s public responsibility 8
Reinvigorating past comparative methods 13
New methods of comparison 16
Notes 21
Bibliography 22
PART I
Comparison and anthropology(cid:146)s
public responsibility 25
1 Anthropology’s comparative consciousness: the
case of human rights 27
KIRSTEN HASTRUP
Language: law and the levelling of difference 30
Experience: individuality and moral horizons 35
Conclusion: theory and comparative conscience 39
Bibliography 41
v
vi Contents
2 Action comparison: efforts towards a global and
comparative yet local and active anthropology 44
JAMES PEACOCK
Globalism, Bildung, Volkskunde, ethnography: comparison in
historical perspective 49
Towards action comparison 54
(cid:160) Ethnographic grounding 54
(cid:160)
Cases in action comparison 57
Issues for anthropology’s action comparison 63
Conclusion 65
Notes 67
Bibliography 68
3 Issues of relevance: anthropology and the
challenges of cross-cultural comparison 70
MARIT MELHUUS
Positioning the subject 72
Issues of relevance: public pressures 73
Issues of relevance: a view from within 76
Challenges of cross-cultural comparison 79
Problems of context 82
Notes 88
Bibliography 90
PART II
Reinvigorating past comparative methods 93
4 Conditions of comparison: a consideration of t
wo anthropological traditions in the Netherlands 95
JAN J.DE WOLF
The development of Steinmetz’s ideas 97
Nieboer’s work on slavery 99
Other comparative studies instigated by Steinmetz 102
A.J.F.Köbben and the statistical method 104
The Leiden tradition of regional-structural comparison 108
Lévi-Strauss and the Leiden School 111
Conclusion 115
Bibliography 119
Contents vii
5 Some current kinship paradigms in the
light of true Crow Indian ethnography 124
EMMANUEL DÉSVEAUX
Crow Indian kinship terminology 127
Underlying logic 129
Ethnographic context 134
Conclusion 137
Notes 139
Appendix 5A: Kin term abbreviations 140
Appendix 5B: Crow kinship terms 140
Bibliography 141
6 Comparison and contextualization: reflections on South Africa 143
ADAM KUPER
Modalities of comparison 144
Comparison in Southern African ethnography 148
Khoisan studies 153
Structural transformations 156
A common humanity 161
Notes 162
Bibliography 163
7 The study of historical transformation in American anthropology 167
RICHARD G.FOX
Franz Boas and the historical method 168
Alexander Lesser and ‘careers in time’ 168
Fred Eggan and controlled comparison 170
Julian Steward and the study of ‘developmental regularities’ 172
Eric Wolf and the ‘lifeline’ of a civilisation 173
Sidney Mintz and the return to ‘careers in time’ 176
Clifford Geertz, Marshall Sahlins and doing history backward 177
Sikh culture in the making 179
Transformations of Gandhian protest 180
Conclusion 181
Notes 183
Bibliography 183
viii Contents
PART III
New methods of comparison 185
8 Comparison and ontogeny 186
CHRISTINA TOREN
Becoming who we are 188
(cid:160)
Mind and intersubjectivity 193
(cid:160)
The language aspect of becoming who we are 196
The phenomenology of learning 198
Conclusion 200
Notes 201
Bibliography 202
9 The notion of art: from regional to distant comparison 204
THOMAS FILLITZ
Cross-cultural studies of art and society 204
Regional comparison in the anthropology of art 208
Meaning, aesthetics and comparison 211
‘Distant’ comparison 217
Conclusion 222
Notes 222
Bibliography 222
10 When ethnic majorities are ‘dethroned’: towards a
methodology of self-reflexive, controlled macrocomparison 225
ANDRE GINGRICH
Situating comparison in a present-day world 226
Comparing ‘dethroned majorities’ in the collapse processes of two empires 233
Conclusion 240
Notes 245
Bibliography 246
Index 249
Contributors
Emmanuel Désveaux is maître de conférences at the École des Hautes Études en
Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. He did extensive fieldwork among the
Northern Ojibwa in Canada, working on myth, ritual and social organization.
In 1999 he received his Habilitation degree from the Department of
Anthropology at the University of Paris X Nanterre, submitting a thesis titled
Quadratura Americana: Essai d’anthropologie lévi-straussienne, which was
published in 2001. One of his latest works in English is ‘Dravidian
nomenclature as an expression of ego-centred dualism’, in the 1988 volume
Transformations of Kinship, co-edited by M.Godelier, T.Trautmann and F.E.
Tjon Sie Fat. He was recently appointed scientific director of the Musée du
Quai Branly, the new Museum of Mankind in Paris.
Thomas Fillitz is Director of the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology
of the University of Vienna. His major research topics are theoretical
anthropology and the anthropology of art. He has conducted field research in
northern Nigeria on political movements and in Côte d’Ivoire and Benin on
contemporary art. He recently concluded project direction on ‘The practice
of intercultural teaching and learning: a case study of eighteen schools in
Vienna and Upper Austria’. His most recent publication is the 1999 article
‘Globalisierung, Welt der Kunst und zeitgenössische Kunst afrikanischer
Künstler’ (‘Globalization, the art world and the contemporary art of African
artists’) in the Mitteilungen der Anthropoiogischen Gesellschaft Wien.
Richard G.Fox is President of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological
Research in New York City. A fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study,
Princeton, in 1971 and a Guggenheim Fellow in 1987, Fox is the author of
numerous books and articles, among them Gandhian Utopia: Experiments with
Culture (1989). He is the co-editor (with Orin Starn) of Between Resistance
and Revolution: Dissent and Cultural Protest, published in 1997.
Andre Gingrich is Professor at the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology
at the University of Vienna and a member of the Austrian Academy of
Sciences. He has conducted research and published extensively on local
ix