Existential anthropology: events, exigencies and effects

248 Pages·2005·11.58 MB·English

by  Michael Jackson

Methodology and History in Anthropology
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EXISTENTIAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
Events, Exigencies and Effects
Michael lackson
Berghahn Books
New York Oxford
First published in 2005 by
Berghahn Books
02005 Michael Jackson
All rights reserved. Except for the quotatioh of short passages for the
purpose of criticism and review, no part of this book may be repro-
duced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, includ-
ing 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-PublicationD ata
Jackson, Michael, 1940-
Existential anthropology : events, exigencies and effects 1 Michael Jackson.
p. cm.
ISBN 1-57 18 1-476-0 (acid-freep aper)
1.P hilosophical anthropology. 2. Existentialism. I. Title.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Printed in Canada on acid-free paper
ISBN 1-5 718 1-476-0 hardback
ISBN 1-84545-122-8 paperback
'CONTENTS
Acknowledgements vii
Preface: The Struggle for Being ix
1. The Course of an Event 1
2. The Space of Appearances 15
3. Violence and Intersubjective Reason 3 5
4. Custom and Conflict in Sierra Leone: An Essay on Anarchy 5 3
5. What's in a Name? An Essay on the Power of Words 7 5
6. Mundane Ritual 93
7. Biotechnology and the Critique of Globalisation 111
8. Familiar and Foreign Bodies 127
9. The Prose of suffering 143
10. Whose Human Rights? 159
11 . Existential Imperatives 181
Bibliography 195
Index 2 11
...
for several decades now our world has been changing. At the very
depths of its hatred, reciprocity reveals itself; even those who enjoy
emphasizing their differences must be willing to ignore a fundamental
identity. This new disturbance, this modest but stubborn attempt to
communicate across the incommunicable, is not the stale and always
somewhat stupid desire for an inert and already realized universal; this
is what I should prefer to call 'the movement of universalization'.
Nothing is possible yet; no agreement is foreseen among the experi-
mental creatures; our universals separate us; they provide the perma-
nent occasion of private massacres. But if one of us, stirred by anxiety,
turns back on his singularity to go beyond it; if he tries to recognize his
solitude in order to escape it, to launch the first bridges, whatever the
cost - in a strange, empirical language like the speech invented by the
aphasiac -between the islands of the archipelagos; if he replaces our
intransigent loves - which are disguised hatreds - by applied prefer-
ences; if he tries, in circumstances that are always individual and
dated, to ally himself with others whom he scarcely approves of and
who do not approve of him, to make the reign of Injustice a little less
unjust, then he will force those others to reinvent this same stubborn
effort, to ally themselves by the recognition of their diversities.
Jean-Paul Sartre, 'Of Rats and Men', Foreword to AndrC Gorz's The
Traitor (1989:32-33).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book owes much to conversations with Ghassan Hage and Galina
Lindquist in 2002, and to my students and colleagues at the Institute
of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen, who have so patiently
and generously listened to my evolving ideas and provided me with
incisive critiques. I would also like to thank Ronda Cooper, Lena
Egberg, Joachim Halse, Kassim Kone, Francine Lorimer, Susanne
Lundin and Michael Whyte for crucial references, Jan Starcke for his
magnanimous bibliographical assistance, and Tine Gammeltoft,
Sophie Geisler, Alf Hornborg, Galina Lindquist, David Parkin, Sarah
Pike, Tine Tj~rnh~j-Thomseann d Susan Reynolds Whyte for invalu-
able comments on some of the chapters in this book. In Sierra Leone,
my fieldwork in 2002 and 2003 would have been impossible but for
the friendship and hospitality of the Honourable S.B. Marah, Rose
Marah and Noah B. Marah. Several chapters of this book were drafted
during my tenure of a Guest Professorship at the Department of Cul-
tural Anthropology and Ethnology, University of Uppsala, in
February-March 2003 where Sverker Finnstrom, Mikael Kurkiala,
Inga-Lill Aronsson and Hugo Beach, among others, provided inspira-
tion, support and a home away from home.
Three chapters of this book are revised versions of already-pub-
lished articles: 'The Exterminating Angel: Reflections on Violence and
Intersubjective Reason' (European Journal of Anthropology, 39,2002b:
137-148 [Chapter 3]), 'Biotechnology and the Critique of Globalisa-
tion' (Ethnos, 67(2),2 002c: 141-154. [Chapter 7]), 'Familiar and For-
eign Bodies: a Phenomenological Exploration of the Human-
Technology Interface' (Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute,
8(2), 2002d: 333-346 [Chapter 83). Parts of chapters 4, 9, and 10
have previously appeared, in slightly different form, in my book In
Sierra Leone (University of Chicago Press, 2004). Grateful acknowl-
edgement is made for permission to reprint these materials.

PREFACE:
THE STRUGGLE FOR BEING
Ultimately, the focus has to be on what life we iead and what we can and
cannot do, can or cannot be.
Amartya Sen, (1988: 16)
With this book I bring to an end a journey I embarked on forty years
ago. Although beginnings are as arbitrary as endings, hindsight per-
suades me that my path was decided by a sense that I did not altogether
belong in the place where I was raised, and by a growing conviction
that in other places, living another life, I might make good what I felt I
lacked and somehow come into my own. The first anthropology book I
ever bought was Malinowski's Argorlauts of the Western Pacific. It was
not prescribed reading for the first year anthropology course in which I
was enrolled at the University of Auckland, and I picked it up in a book
sale, but Malinowski's closing remarks spoke to me with far more
immediacy that his exhaustive descriptions of the Kula.
We cannot possibly reach the final Socratic wisdom of knowing ourselves
if we never leave the narrow confinement of the customs, beliefs and prej-
udices into which every man is born. Nothing can teach us a better lesson
in this matter of ultimate importance than the habit of mind which allows
us to treat the beliefs and values of another man from his point of view.
(1922: 518)
Without a doubt, this tension between the parochial world that shaped
me early on, and the lifeworlds to which I gravitated in an endeavour
to reshape myself has governed my career in anthropology. It also
explains why I have always seen human existence as a struggle
between contending forces and imperatives.
x Preface
At times this 'sheer and reeling need to be' (DeLillo 2003: 209)
takes the form of a search for oneself, at other times as a search for
belonging. At times it consists in working to transform the world into
which one is thrown into a world one has a hand in making - to strike
a balance between being an actor and being acted upon. At times it
entails a struggle to go on living in the face of adversity and loss. At
times it is a struggle for being against nothingness -for whatever will
make life worth living rather than hopeless, profitless and pointless.
That being is precarious and unstable is obvious from the ontologi-
cal metaphors with which we typically describe it. Quotidiane xistence
is marked by ups (being high, feeling on top of things,) and downs
(being blue, feeling down) - and'often compared, in popular thought,
to changes in the weather or market oscillations between profit and
loss. Allusions are also made to fullness (being full of life) or emptiness
(being drained), or the contrast between activity (being on the move,
being creative, making something of oneself, going places) and stasis,
which is often synonymous with nothingness (being stuck, being
trapped, getting nowhere). That one's sense of wellbeing is susceptible
to constant change is shown by the way that an affectionate glance, a
gesture of recognition or concern, the company of close friends, or an
unexpected gift can make one's day, while a cutting remark, a snub, ill-
health, the loss of a job, or a falling out with a friend can cast a pall
over everything. Although this minutia of everyday life suggests recur-
ring symbolic motifs - the need to be recognised, healthy, loved, happy,
or free, to have security, wealth, an identity, a fulfilling job, a family and
friends, and to do well in life - it is important to note that being is never
an 'eitherlor' thing, but a 'more or less' question (Hage 2003: 16).
Being is always what Jaspers calls 'potential being' (1967: 63-66).
Not only is it in continual flux, waxing and waning according to a per-
son's situation, but the very wherewithal for being is, as Bourdieu
argues 'unequally distributed' (2000: 241). However, inequality is not
wholly politico-economic, as Amartya Sen has eloquently argued.
'You could be well off,w ithout being well. You could be well, without
being able to lead the life you wanted. You could have got the life you
wanted, without being happy. You could be happy, without having
much freedom. You could have a good deal of freedom, without achiev-
ing much' (198 8: 1).T hus, while it is often argued that in today's glob-
alised world, the distribution of infectious diseases and individual
pathologies reflect 'social fault lines' and entrenched social inequalities
(Farmer 2001: 5), and that education, employment and wellbeing are
not shared by everyone in equal measure, it would be facile to reduce
the meaning of a person's existence to either such external circum-
stances or to some inner essence.