Signifying Identities: Anthropological Perspectives on Boundaries and Contested Values

193 Pages·2000·3.05 MB·English

by  Anthony P. Cohen

Signifying Identities
The question of what identities are and what they signify is central to the
study of anthropology. Just as significant is the related concept of
boundaries, the things which distinguish the identity of one group or
individual from others.
This collection examines the ways in which relations between members of
national, ethnic, cultural and gender groups are underpinned by each
group’s perceptions of their distinctive identities and of the nature of the
boundaries which divide them. Questions of boundary and identity are
confronted in detailed ethnographic case studies, ranging from Australasia
and the Indian subcontinent to Europe and the Americas.
The theoretical arguments and ethnographic perspectives of this book
place it at the cutting edge of contemporary anthropological scholarship on
identity. It will be of value to scholars and students of social and cultural
anthropology, human geography and social psychology.
Anthony P. Cohen is Professor of Social Anthropology, and Provost of Law
and Social Sciences at the University of Edinburgh.

Signifying Identities
Anthropological perspectives on
boundaries and contested values
Edited by Anthony P. Cohen
London and New York
First published 2000
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, 2001.
© 2000 Selection and editorial matter, Anthony P. Cohen; 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.
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
Signifying Identities: Anthropological perspectives on boundaries and
contested values / edited by Anthony P. Cohen.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Group identity congresses. 2. Identity (psychology) congresses.
3. Boundaries congresses. 4. Social groups congresses.
I. Cohen, Anthony P. (Anthony Paul), 1946– .
HM753.S54 1999 99-30607
305–dc21 CIP
ISBN 0–415–19237–4 (Print Edition)
ISBN 0–415–19238–2 (Print Edition)
ISBN 0-203-00691-7 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-18932-9 (Glassbook Format)
Contents
Notes on contributors vii
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction: Discriminating relations – identity,
boundary and authenticity 1
ANTHONY P. COHEN
Beginnings 1
Boundary, identity, authenticity 2
Discriminating relations 4
The volume 6
PART I
Boundary 15
1 Boundaries and connections 17
FREDRIK BARTH
Boundaries and distinctions 17
On the sources and uses of concepts 19
The need for cognitive theory 20
The image of group boundaries 22
Other images of social groups 23
Methodology 25
When people draw boundaries 27
Cognition, social structure and change 30
An analytical concept of boundaries 34
2 Maori and modernity: Ruatara’s dying 37
ANNE SALMOND
Reflections 52
Contents vi
3 Violence and the work of time 59
VEENA DAS
The ethnographic context 59
Precarious thresholds 61
A sketch or a fragment 66
Silence at the edges of speech 67
PART II
Identity 75
4 Aboriginality, authenticity and the Settler world 77
ROBERT PAINE
Introduction 77
Authenticity 79
The imagining and bestowal of Aboriginality 81
Self-bestowal of Aboriginality: problems and responses 89
Frontiers 98
Post-Settler society? 104
5 Peripheral wisdom 117
JAMES W. FERNANDEZ
Introduction: centering the argument and getting it straight 117
Boundaries and bees: on the coincidences of the human condition? 120
Border ballads: the Celtic fringe and other popular geographies 123
Centres and peripheries and the dynamic of the categorical in
social understanding 131
Conclusion: peripheral wisdom – national news and news
from nowhere 135
6 Peripheral vision: nationalism, national identity and
the objective correlative in Scotland 145
ANTHONY P. COHEN
Introduction: rights, values and peripherality in Scottishness 145
The problem of the objective correlative 150
Personal nationalism and the national interest 154
Peripheral vision 163
Index 170
Contributors
Fredrik Barth is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the University of
Oslo.
Veena Das is Professor of Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics.
James W. Fernandez is Professor of Anthropology at the University of
Chicago.
Robert Paine is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the Memorial
University of Newfoundland.
Anne Salmond is Professor of Anthropology and Maori Studies, and Pro
Vice-Chancellor of the University of Auckland.
Acknowledgements
Grateful acknowledgement is made of the generous financial assistance
provided by the following in supporting the participation of the
contributors to this volume at the 1996 Edinburgh conference, ‘Boundaries
and Identities’:
The Royal Anthropological Institute (Anne Salmond)
The British Academy (Veena Das and James Fernandez)
The Foreign Affairs Ministry, Government of Norway; and the Munro
Committee, University of Edinburgh (Fredrik Barth)
The Association of Social Anthropologists of the Commonwealth, and the
Centre of Canadian Studies, University of Edinburgh (Robert Paine)
The European Commission, Representation in Scotland; the European
Association of Social Anthropologists; British Airways plc.
A.P.C.
Introduction
Discriminating relations: identity, boundary
and authenticity
Anthony P. Cohen
Beginnings
All the chapters published here, apart from the editor’s, originated as
plenary lectures to the 1996 conference, ‘Boundaries and Identities’, which
was held to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of social
anthropology at the University of Edinburgh. The selection of the
conference theme was not intended as a summation of local interests,
although these were certainly reflected in it. Rather, we were looking for a
rubric within which to display notable contemporary issues and work in
world anthropology. The plenary lecturers were asked to address the
organizing theme and, in doing so, to refer to one or more of the topics to be
pursued at the conference through parallel sessions.1 They responded by
producing a strikingly coherent set of contributions, an unusual feat for such
a broad-ranging conference. These focused on ways in which cultural and
social boundaries of various kinds mediate the perception and presentation
of fraught conditions and ambiguous behaviour, including violence against
women; cultural imperialism and religious domination; relations between
putative centres and their peripheries; and the mutual attribution,
valorization and denigration of identities. The following interrelated
arguments recur, the first two summing up positions well established in the
literature, the others developing them significantly:
(cid:127) that the definition or ascription of a group’s identity may be the subject
and outcome of a cross-boundary struggle for control;
(cid:127) that the social identity of a group may also be contested within the
group itself, on grounds related to the cross-boundary interaction;
(cid:127) that discourse about identity within the boundary tends to focus on its
absolute character. The claims which are made by the Basseri, the Maori,
the Aboriginal, the White Settler, the Asturian and the Scot are explic-
itly self-referential, even though informed by the ‘presence’ of the
Other: regarding their integrity, the truth of their religion, their crea-
tivity and ingenuity, their ‘authenticity’, etc. It is in cross-boundary
transaction and discourse that identity and its predicates may become