Corsican fragments: difference, knowledge, and fieldwork

216 Pages·2010·2.291 MB·English

by  Matei Candea

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“A book of extraordinary brilliance,
compelling honesty and logic,
and rich insight.”
—Michael Herzfeld C
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The island of Corsica has long been a popular destination for travelers
in search of the European exotic, but it has also been a focus of French r
F r a gMe n t s
concerns about national unity and identity. Today, Corsica is part of a vibrant
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Franco-Mediterranean social universe. Starting from an ethnographic study
in a Corsican village, Corsican Fragments explores nationalism, language, i
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kinship, and place, as well as popular discourses and concerns about
violence, migration, and society. Matei Candea traces ideas about inclusion
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and exclusion through these different realms, as Corsicans, “Continentals,”
tourists, and the anthropologist make and unmake connections with one
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Difference,
another in their everyday encounters. Candea’s evocative and gracefully Difference
written account provides new insights into the dilemmas of understanding KKnnoowwlleeDDggee,
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cultural difference and the difficulties and rewards of fieldwork. aannDD
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Matei Candea is Lecturer in Social Anthropology at
Durham University. He is editor of The Social after g
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Gabriel Tarde: Debates and Assessments.
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New Anthropologies of Europe
Daphne Berdahl, Matti Bunzl, and Michael Herzfeld, founding editors t
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M a t e i C a n d e a
INDIANA
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University Press
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Bloomington & Indianapolis ia
www.iupress.indiana.edu n
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1-800-842-6796
printer: I have wrapped just a hair. of the spine onto the front panel to
keep the front image from wrapping onto the spine.
CorsiCan Fragments
New ANthropologies of europe
Daphne Berdahl, Matti Bunzl, and Michael Herzfeld, founding editors
C o r s iC a n
F r a g m e n t s
Difference, Knowledge, and Fieldwork
Matei Candea
iNdiANA uNiversity press
Bloomington and Indianapolis
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
601 North Morton Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47404-3797 USA
www.iupress.indiana.edu
Telephone orders 800-842-6796
Fax orders 812-855-7931
Orders by e-mail [email protected]
© 2010 by Mathieu Candea
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University
Presses’ Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National
Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI
Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Candea, Matei.
Corsican fragments : difference, knowledge, and fieldwork / Matei Candea.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-253-35474-7 (cl : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-253-22193-3 (pb : alk.
paper) 1. Ethnology—France—Corsica. 2. Kinship—France—Corsica. 3. National
characteristics, French. 4. Corsica (France)—Social life and customs. I. Title.
DC611.C818C36 2010
944'.99—dc22
2009051157
1 2 3 4 5 15 14 13 12 11 10
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Prologue: Roadmap 1
1 Arbitrary Location 9
2 Mystery 39
3 Place 69
4 Things 85
5 People 97
6 Languages 119
7 Knowing 145
8 Anonymous Introduction 163
Notes 179
Bibliography 185
Index 197

Acknowledgments
My first thanks go to my neighbors and friends in “Crucetta”, both Corsican
and Continental, for their kindness during my stay there in 2002–2003. As an
anthropologist, I learnt much from them about the challenges and rewards of
living together in one place that is also many places—and this I have tried to set
down in this book. But as a disorientated 22-year old, I learned much more from
them of friendship and hospitality than I could contain in these pages—this I carry
with me. I also owe a profound debt to the bilingual schoolteachers who not only
introduced me to the Corsican language, but also infused me with the energy of a
project which they share with anthropologists: the difficult task of conjoining dif-
ference and similarity, of maintaining both a plurality of perspectives and a mutual
communicability.
My next thanks go to four anthropologists without whom this book would
never have seen the light of day. First is Maryon McDonald, to whom this work
is indebted in a way which is not exhausted by the language of referencing. The
same is true of Marilyn Strathern, whose comments and discussions in the course
of the writing-up seminar in Cambridge were more influential than a bibliography
can tell. Michael Herzfeld’s close reading, encouragement, and advice have been
invaluable; in particular, I thank him for encouraging me to write ethnographically.
Finally, James Laidlaw’s keenness of vision and critical acumen have saved me from
many an intellectual blunder over the years, while his friendship, infallible advice,
viii | Acknowledgments
and ever-inspiring conversation have been a constant reminder of the value, both
academic and human, of the examined life. I also owe profound debts to the fol-
lowing colleagues and friends: Tom Yarrow for his invitation to see archaeologically
and for countless other seeds of thought; Alexandra Jaffe for her detailed comments
on chapter 6 and for her encouragement and intellectual generosity since the days
of my fieldwork; Barbara Bodenhorn for her comments on the section on kinship
and for her friendship and guidance ever since our first supervisions on Marx;
Christina Toren for giving me that final salutary nudge out of postmodernism at the
St. Andrews senior seminar; Martin Holbraad for pointing my way into the maze
of the one and the many; Caroline Humphrey for patiently navigating through it
over many lunches in the King’s College SCR; and Basim Musallam for his thoughts
on hospitality and scale and for much else besides. I also owe thanks to Matteo
Mameli, Alexander Scheckochihin, and Stefan Uhlig, who perhaps did not suspect
that our heated arguments about citizenship and multiculturalism would help to
refine this work. The late Susan Benson’s close reading and helpful comments on
early versions of this work were as inspirational as her earlier guidance during my
undergraduate days. I also wish to thank Andrew Barry, Susan Bayly, Ozlem Biner,
Michael Carrithers, Jo Cook, Alberto Corsin-Jimenez, Giovanni Da Col, Jeanette
Edwards, Mark Elliott, Harri Englund, Mark-Anthony Falzon, Paola Filippucci,
Sarah Green, Dave Gullette, Penny Harvey, Laura Jeffery, Sian Lazar, James Leach,
David Leitner, Nick Long, Martha de Magalhaes, Chloe Nahum-Claudel, Yael
Navaro-Yashin, Morten Pedersen, Adam Reed, Joel Robbins, Michael Scott, Niko-
lai Ssorin-Chaikov, Rupert Stasch, Catherine Trundle, Soumhya Venkatesan, Piers
Vitebski, Eduardo Viveiros De Castro, Gwyn Williams, Lee Wilson, and all my
former colleagues at King’s College and the Department of Social Anthropology
in Cambridge, where this book was written under the aegis of the Sigrid Rausing
Lectureship in Collaborative Anthropology. My gratitude goes also to Miki Bird,
Daniel Pyle, Merryl Sloane, Rebecca Tolen, and all at Indiana University Press
whose fantastic editorial work have made this book possible.
An earlier version of chapter 3 appeared in Anthropological Theory (Candea
2008; SAGE Publications, Inc. ©), while parts of chapters 7 and 8 appeared in the
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (Candea 2010B; Blackwell Publishing,
inc. ©). I am grateful to both for allowing the partial reproduction of this work here.
Last but not least, I want to thank my family: Alexandru Papilian, Victor I.
Stoichita, Victor A. Stoichita, and Pedro and Maria Stoichita, for their direct and
indirect roles over the years in shaping not just this book, but the person who wrote
it; Catherine Candea, for her close reading of many versions of this work and for
her strength, wisdom, and unerring judgment; and finally, Katherine Sturgess, for
her curiosity and insight on the good writing days, her forbearance and patience
on the bad, and for her love and friendship throughout.
CorsiCan Fragments