Making Knowledge: Explorations of the Indissoluble Relation Between Mind, Body and Environment

212 Pages·9.227 MB·English

Making Knowledge
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute Special Issue
Book Series
The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute is the principal journal of the oldest
anthropological organization in the world. It has attracted and inspired some of the
world’s greatest thinkers. International in scope, it presents accessible papers aimed at
a broad anthropological readership. We are delighted to announce that their annual
special issues are also repackaged and available to buy as books.
Volumes published so far:
Making Knowledge: Explorations of the Indissoluble Relation between Mind, Body and
Environment, edited by Trevor H.J. Marchand
Islam, Politics, Anthropology, edited by Filippo Osella and Benjamin Soares
The Objects of Evidence: Anthropological Approaches to the Production of Knowledge,
edited by Matthew Engelke
Wind, Life, Health: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives, edited by Elisabeth Hsu
and Chris Low
Ethnobiology and the Science of Humankind, edited by Roy Ellen
MAKING KNOWLEDGE
EXPLORATIONS OF THE
INDISSOLUBLE RELATION BETWEEN
MIND, BODY AND ENVIRONMENT
EDITED BY TREVOR H.J. MARCHAND
Royal Anthropological
Institute
A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication
This edition fi rst published 2010
© 2010 Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain & Ireland
Originally published as Volume 16, Special Issue May 2010 of The Journal of the Royal Anthropological
Institute
Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s publishing
program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientifi c, Technical, and Medical business to form
Wiley-Blackwell.
Registered Offi ce
John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United
Kingdom
Editorial Offi ces
350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK
The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK
For details of our global editorial offi ces, for customer services, and for information about how to apply
for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/
wiley-blackwell.
The right of Trevor H.J. Marchand to be identifi ed as the author of the editorial material in this work has
been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of
the publisher.
Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may
not be available in electronic books.
Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand
names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered
trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor
mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information
in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged
in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services
of a competent professional should be sought.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Making knowledge : explorations of the indissoluble relation between mind, body and environment /
[edited by] Trevor H.J. Marchand.
p. cm.—(Journal of the royal anthropological institute special issue book series ; 4)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4443-3892-8 (pbk.)
1. Philosophical anthropology. 2. Knowledge, Theory of. 3. Mind and body. 4. Cognition and
culture. I. Marchand, Trevor H.J.
BD450.M26265 2011
306.4′2—dc22
2010040512
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Set in 10/12pt Minion by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited
Printed in Malaysia
1 2010
Contents
Notes on contributors vii
Preface xi
Trevor H.J. Marchand Introduction: Making knowledge:
explorations of the indissoluble relation between mind, body,
and environment 1
1 Greg Downey ‘Practice without theory’:
a neuroanthropological perspective on embodied learning 21
2 Tom Rice Learning to listen: auscultation and
the transmission of auditory knowledge 39
3 Anna Odland Portisch The craft of skilful learning:
Kazakh women’s everyday craft practices in western Mongolia 59
4 Nicolette Makovicky ‘Something to talk about’: notation
and knowledge-making among Central Slovak lace-makers 76
5 Trevor H.J. Marchand Embodied cognition and
communication: studies with British fi ne woodworkers 95
6 Tim Ingold Footprints through the weather-world: walking,
breathing, knowing 115
7 Konstantinos Retsikas Unconscious culture and conscious
nature: exploring East Javanese conceptions of the person
through Bourdieu’s lens 133
8 Soumhya Venkatesan Learning to weave; weaving to
learn ... what? 150
9 Roy Dilley Refl ections on knowledge practices and
the problem of ignorance 167
10 Emma Cohen Anthropology of knowledge 183
Index 193
Notes on contributors
Emma Cohen is a researcher in the Research Group for the Comparative Cognitive
Anthropology attached to the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology,
Leipzig, and the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen. She has con-
ducted fi eldwork on an Afro-Brazilian religious tradition in Belém, northern Brazil,
focusing primarily on concepts, behaviours, and practices associated with spirit pos-
session. Her publications include The mind possessed (Oxford University Press, 2007).
She is currently researching the ways people (across cultural and religious contexts)
represent the relationship between minds, bodies, and persons. Research Group for
Comparative Cognitive Anthropology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropol-
ogy, Leipzig, Germany.
Roy Dilley is Professor of Social Anthropology and Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the
University of St Andrews. He specializes in the study of Haalpulaaren (Tukulor) social
organization and culture in Senegal, and published Islamic and caste knowledge prac-
tices among Haalpulaaren, Senegal: between mosque and termite mound (Edinburgh
University Press for the International African Institute, 2004). Other research interests
include anthropological theory and cultural economics, and he is editor of two the-
matic collections entitled Contesting markets: analyses of ideology, discourse and practice
(Edinburgh University Press, 1992) and The problem of context (Berghahn, 1999).
Department of Social Anthropology, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, UK.
Greg Downey is Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at Macquarie University. His
research bridges cultural anthropology with biological and neurological studies of
sport and embodied knowledge. He is author of Learning capoeira: lessons in cunning
from an Afro-Brazilian art (Oxford University Press, 2005) and co-editor (with M.
Fisher) of Frontiers of capital: ethnographic refl ections on the New Economy (Duke
University Press, 2006). He is completing a monograph on The athletic animal with
support from the Wenner-Gren Foundation. Department of Anthropology, Macquarie
University, Sydney, Australia.
Tim Ingold is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen. He
has conducted fi eldwork among Saami and Finnish people in Lapland, and has
written extensively on comparative questions of environment, technology, and social
viii Notes on Contributors
organization in the circumpolar North; evolutionary theory in anthropology; biology
and history; the role of animals in human society; and issues in human ecology. He is
currently exploring the interface between anthropology, archaeology, art, and archi-
tecture, and his latest book is Lines: a brief history (Routledge, 2007). Department of
Anthropology, School of Social Science, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeeen, UK.
Dr Nicolette Makovicky is Lecturer in Russian and Eastern European Studies at the
School of Interdisciplinary Areas Studies, University of Oxford. She obtained her PhD
in Anthropology at University College London, followed by a Junior Research Fellow-
ship at Wolfson College, Oxford. Her research considers the impact of socio-economic
reforms and EU-integration on historically embedded modes of economic activity in
Central Europe. Examining the political and social context of production and innova-
tion in textile crafts since the early 20th century, she has a particular theoretical inter-
est in processes of value creation, work ethics, entrepreneurialism, gender and
citizenship in post-socialist society. An external tutor in the department of the History
of Design at the Royal College of Art since 2007, she has also published on the relation-
ship between craft, modernity and ideology, as well as memory and the domestic
interior. Wolfson College, Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Trevor H.J. Marchand is Professor of Social Anthropology at the School of Oriental
and African Studies, where he teaches the anthropology of space, place, and architec-
ture. He has conducted fi eldwork with masons in Arabia and West Africa, and as an
ESRC Fellow (2005-8) he studied training and practice among English woodworkers.
His research focuses on embodied cognition and communication and he is the author
of Minaret building and apprenticeship in Yemen (Curzon, 2001) and The masons of
Djenné (Indiana University Press, 2009), and co-producer of the documentary fi lm
Future of mud (2007). Department of Anthropology, School of Oriental and African
Studies, London, UK.
Anna Odland Portisch is a Postdoctoral Associate of SOAS, where she also received
a Ph.D. for her studies among the Kazakh of western Mongolia. Her research examines
learning and skill-based knowledge in felt-craft production, and her work is focused
on apprenticeship, cognition, and identity formation. She recently curated an exhibit
on Kazakh textiles for the SOAS Brunei Gallery, and was an ESRC Fellow at Brunel
University, where she lectured on anthropological and psychological perspectives on
learning. School of Oriental and African Studies, London, UK.
Konstantinos Retsikas is Lecturer in Anthropology of South East Asia at SOAS. His
research focuses include phenomenology, identity, and Islam. Recent publications
include ‘The Semiotics of violence: ninja, sorcerers and state terror in post-Soeharto
Indonesia’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (2006) and ‘Knowledge
from the body: fi eldwork, power, and the acquisition of a new self’ in Knowing how to
know: fi eldwork and the ethnographic present (eds) N. Halstead, E. Hirsch & J. Okely
(Berghahn, 2008). Department of Anthropology and Sociology, School of Oriental and
African Studies, University of London, London, UK.
Tom Rice received his Ph.D. in social anthropology from Goldsmiths and was a
postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge. He is currently a Teach-
Notes on Contributors ix
ing Fellow at the University of Exeter. His research explores the sonic environments
of institutions and the types of auditory knowledge used and applied in these settings.
He has published articles on ‘auditory anthropology’ in Anthropology Today, Critique
of Anthropology, and The Senses and Society. Room 313, Department of Sociology and
Philosophy, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK.
Soumhya Venkatesan is a Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of
Manchester. Based on fi eldwork with Muslim mat-weavers in South India and carpet-
weavers in Bukhara, her research focuses on materiality and the relationship between
people and things, and explores issues of embodiment and the transmission of skills.
Her present research on Indian potters and sculptors of venerated idols considers the
relation between makers and objects. She is currently preparing a book manuscript
based on her doctoral research. Social Anthropology, University of Manchester,
Manchester, UK.
Preface
Trevor H.J. Marchand School of Oriental and African Studies
In 2005, with funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC),
I commenced a new project with woodworkers in East London that built upon my
previousstudiesofbuilding-craftknowledgeandapprenticeshipinYemenandMali.In
addition to the fieldwork and theoretical investigations into motor cognition and
embodiedformsofcommunication,theprojectalsoallowedmetoinviteanthropolo-
gistswithsharedinterestsinskill-learningtopresenttheirresearchinaseminarseries
andasubsequentone-dayworkshop,bothhostedattheSchoolofOrientalandAfrican
Studies(SOAS)in2007.Thisvolumegrowsoutoftheproceedingsofthatprogramme,
initiallytitledThetransmissionofknowledge.
Itisnowthreedecades,andlonger,sincejrati_1606h11..14eworksof Foucault(1977),deCerteau
(1984),andespeciallyBourdieuushered‘everydayknowledgeandpractice’totheforeof
thesocialscienceagenda,andthisfocalconcernisretainedbythevolumecontributors.
ButwhileparticipantsintheseminarsandworkshopgratefullyacknowledgedBourdieu’s
seminalroleinexcavatingMauss’s‘techniquesofthebody’(Mauss1934)anddeveloping
a theory of habitus (Bourdieu 1977),they were invited to consider the limitations of
‘practice theory’(e.g.Bloch 1991; Farnell 2000; Jenkins 1992) in advancing their own
empirically based accounts of learning,situated practice,and embodied cognition.A
projectstatementandsetof questionsframedtheseminarprogramme.Inparticular,
participants were asked to consider: How might social anthropologists effectually
chroniclemanifestationsofhumanknowledgethat‘exceedlanguage’,includingbodily
and perceptual practices? In which ways can‘know-how’ be cogently described and
representedinourethnographicaccounts?How,andunderwhatcircumstances,arenew
practices taken up and honed? And by what combination of cognitive and social
mechanismsdotheybecomestabilizedas‘memory’or‘habits’thatareconsciouslyor
unconsciouslyenacted?Whatdrivesimprovisationinactivity?Andhowdoinnovations
in practice become publicly recognized and validated? How are different domains of
knowledge co-ordinated within the mind-body complex, thereby resulting in both
intelligentandintelligibleperformance?Howaredifferentwaysofknowingvariously
communicatedandinterpretedbyparticipatingmemberswithinfieldsofpractice?And
crucially, how might we appropriately account for the necessary but ever-changing
relationsoflearningtothephysicalandsocialenvironmentinwhichitunfolds?
xii Trevor H.J. Marchand
Thefollow-upworkshopprovidedanintensiveforumforseminarspeakersandan
invited panel of discussants to present and debate issues of theory and method,and
consider anthropology’s current and future contributions to the enduring, cross-
disciplinary study of human knowledge. During the roundtable session we critically
assessedtheword‘transmission’anddebateditsappropriatenessforaccuratelydescrib-
ingthemyriadofcomplexwaysinwhichknowingisarticulated,acquired,andtrans-
formed in situ, involving communities of actors engaged in co-ordinated (and
sometimesdiscordant)practicesandcommunication.Inthesocialsciences,‘transmis-
sion’hasbeenregularlyemployedasashorthandforthecombinedprocessesofteach-
ing and learning, or for the operations of socialization and enculturation across
generations,and several contributing authors rightfully use the term in this manner.
Butitcanalsobearproblematicconnotationsofmechanicalreproductionandhomo-
geneoustransferraloffactsandinformationfromonehead(orbody)toanother.Lave
hasarguedthat‘transmissionandinternalization[arenot]theprimarymechanismsby
whichcultureandindividualcometogether’,proposinginstead‘thatactivity,including
cognition, is socially organized and quintessentially social in its very existence, its
formationanditsongoingcharacter’(1988:177).Inwantingthetitleof ourcollective
work best to convey our shared aims in representing learning and knowing, I have
renamedthevolumeMakingknowledge.‘Making’,Ifeel,moreaccuratelycapturesthe
processes and durational qualities of knowledge formation; and rather than being
suggestiveofhierarchicalandmethodicaltransfer,itfostersthinkingaboutknowledge
as a dialogical and constructive engagement between people, and between people,
things,andenvironment.
ThisspecialvolumeoftheJRAIfeaturestheworksofleadingscholarswhopromote
bold, innovative approaches to understanding the nature and social constitution of
humanknowing.Notably,thetheme,‘makingknowledge’,isnotanintendedrevivalor
perpetuation of the‘anthropology of knowledge’subfield that emerged in the 1970s.
Rather,thecollectionrepresentsaconcertedinvestigationintothecoreactivityof all
anthropology: namely‘the making of knowledge about the ways other people make
knowledge’.The ethnography,theory,and methods presented expose possibilities for
interdisciplinarycollaborationandlaysolidfoundationsforfurtherinvestigationsinto
embodiedcognitionandconceptualthinking.Ideasarecouchedinlong-term,world-
widefieldwork;andahostofintriguingcommonalitiesanddifferencesemergeacross
thecollection.Alltheauthorsaredeeplyunifiedintheirconcernfortheappropriate
studyandrepresentationofknowledgeinitsdiverseformsandexpression.Knowledge
isexploredbothinitsvariousmodesof articulation(i.e.motor,sensory,andpropo-
sitional)andinitsrangeofsocial,cultural,andmaterialmanifestations.Conclusively,
knowledgeandpracticearenotfixed;noraretheyhostagetounconsciousreproduc-
tion. Rather what the chapters demonstrate is that our human knowledge, like our
physicalbodies,isconstantlyreconfiguredintheactivitiesandnegotiationsofeveryday
workandlife.
I thank the seminar speakers and workshop discussants for their co-operation in
realizingthisproject,andtheESRCfortheirgenerousfunding(Res-000-27-0159).The
workshop discussants included Emma Cohen, Anna Portisch, and Charles Stafford.
ChaptercontributionsfromCohenandPortischareincludedinthiscollection.Regret-
tably,RitaAstuti,SusanneKuechler,andHarryWesthadtowithdrawfrompublication,
buttheirindividualcontributionstotheseminarserieswerehighlyvalued.Ialsothank
Richard Fardon and my fellow colleagues at SOAS for their support throughout the