Social Experience and Anthropological Knowledge

204 Pages·2005·1.53 MB·English

Social experience and anthropological knowledge
Anthropological knowledge is embodied in words, and yet most social experience—such
as fieldwork—lies beyond language. Social Experience and Anthropological Knowledge
focuses on this paradox and on the actual processes leading from individual experiences
in the field to the production of anthropological knowledge.
The contributors emphasize the value of fieldwork in the process of knowledge
production. Against the background of recent debates in anthropology on subjectivity,
they challenge the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity, redefine what we
should mean by ‘empirical’, and demonstrate the complexity of present-day
epistemological problems by way of concrete examples. They trace the route from the
field experience to the analytical results, showing how fieldwork enables the
ethnographer to arrive at an understanding, not only of ‘culture’ or ‘society’, but also of
the processes by which cultures and societies are transformed.
Social Experience and Anthropological Knowledge shows a clear way out of the
impasse created by postmodernism and its claim to have dismantled science. By
demystifying subjectivity in the ethnographic process and re-emphasizing the vital
position of fieldwork, the book will do much to renew confidence in the anthropological
project of comprehending the world.
Kirsten Hastrup is Professor of Social Anthropology, and Peter Hervik is Senior
Research Fellow, both at the Institute of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen.
EUROPEAN ASSOCIATION OF SOCIAL
ANTHROPOLOGISTS
The European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) was inaugurated in January
1989, in response to a widely felt need for a professional association which would
represent social anthropologists in Europe, and foster cooperation and interchange in
teaching and research. As Europe transforms itself in the 1990s, the EASA is dedicated to
the renewal of the distinctive European tradition in social anthropology.
Other titles in the series
Conceptualizing Society
Adam Kuper
Revitalizing European Rituals
Jeremy Boissevain
Other Histories
Kirsten Hastrup
Alcohol, Gender and Culture
Dimitra Gefou-Madianou
Understanding Rituals
Daniel de Coppet
Gendered Anthropology
Teresa del Valle
Syncretism/Anti-Syncretism
Charles Stewart and Rosalind Shaw
Fieldwork and Footnotes
Han F.Vermeulen and Arturo Alvarez Roldán
Social experience and
anthropological knowledge
Edited by Kirsten Hastrup and Peter Hervik

London and New York
First published 1994
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or
Routledge's collection of thousands of eBooks please go to
w.w.w. eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
© 1994 Kirsten Hastrup and Peter Hervik, selection and editorial
material; the 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
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0-203-44964-9 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-45664-5 (Adobe e-Reader Format)
ISBN 0-415-10657-5 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-10658-3 (pbk)
Contents

Notes on contributors vi

Introduction 1

Kirsten Hastrup and Peter Hervik
1 Incomers and fieldworkers: a comparative study of social experience 10

Tamara Kohn
2 Making sense of new experience 21

Ingrid Rudie
3 Vicarious and sensory knowledge of chronology and change: ageing in 34
rural France
Judith Okely
4 Veiled experiences: exploring female practices of seclusion 49

Karin Ask
5 Shared reasoning in the field: reflexivity beyond the author 59

Peter Hervik
6 The mysteries of incarnation: some problems to do with the analytic 76
language of practice
Angel Díaz de Rada and Francisco Cruces
7 On the relevance of common sense for anthropological knowledge 91

Marian Kempny and Wojciech J.Burszta
8 Where the community reveals itself: reflexivity and moral judgment in 104
Karpathos, Greece
Pavlos Kavouras
9 Time, ritual and social experience 125

Andre Gingrich
10 Space and the ‘other’: social experience and ethnography in the Kalahari 135
debate
Thomas Widlok
11 Events and processes: marriages in Libya, 1932–79 150

John Davis
12 Anthropological knowledge incorporated: discussion 168

Kirsten Hastrup

Name index 181
Subject index 187
Contributors
Karin Ask is Research Fellow at Chr. Michelsen’s Institute, Bergen. She has done
fieldwork in Pakistan, and applied studies in Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Her
publications include ‘Life-course, stress and diagnosis: the case of a Pakistani
immigrant woman’, in K.Ask, R.Grønhaug, A.Teslie and J.Chr. Knudsen, eds, Health
and International Lifecourses (1986); and ‘Ishq aur Mohabbatt: contrastive ideas on
love and friendship in a northern Pakistani community’, in T.Bleie, V.Broch-Due and
I.Rudie, eds, Carved Flesh/Cast Selves: Gendered Symbols and Social Practices
(1994).
Wojciech J.Burszta is Associate Professor at Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan. His
publications include Jezyk a kultura w mysli etnologicznej (Language and Culture in
Ethnological Thought) (1986), O zalozeniach interpretacji antropologicznej (On
Assumptions of Anthropological Interpretation), coauthored with Michal Buchowski
(1992), Wymiary antropologicznego poznania kultury(Dimensions of Anthropological
Cognition of Culture) (1992).
Francisco Cruces is Associate Fellow in the Department of Social Anthropology at the
Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia in Madrid. He has done fieldwork in
rural areas of Extremadura, and in the city of Madrid, on festivals, discourse and
politics. Francisco Cruces has co-authored various publications with Angel Díaz de
Rada, among them ‘Public Celebrations in a Spanish Valley’, in J.Boissevain, ed.,
Revitalizing European Rituals (1992).
John Davis is Professor of Social Anthropology at Oxford University. He has done
fieldwork in Italy and Libya. His publications include Libyan Politics: Tribe and
Revolution (1987), and Exchange (1992).
Angel Díaz de Rada is Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Anthropology at
the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia. He has carried out field research
in Spain. His publications include Rituales y proceso social. Un estudio comparativo
en cinco zonas espanolas, co-authored with Jose Luis García, Honorio Velasco et al.
(1992).
Andre Gingrich is Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Vienna.
He has done extensive fieldwork in Syria, Saudi-Arabia, and the Yemen. His
publications include Beiträge zur Ethnographie der Provinz Sa’da, with Johann Heiss
(1986), and Studies in Oriental Culture and History (1993).
Kirsten Hastrup is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Copenhagen. She has
done fieldwork and historical research in Iceland. Her publications include Nature and
Policy in Iceland 1400–1800: An Anthropological Analysis of History and Mentality
(1990) and Island of Anthropology: Studies in Icelandic Past and Present (1990).
Peter Hervik is Research Fellow of the Institute of Anthropology at the University of
Copenhagen. He has carried out fieldwork among the Yucatec Mayas of Mexico. His
publications include ‘Learning to be Indian: aspects of new ethnic and cultural identity
of the Yucatec Maya’, Folk (1992); ‘Maya culture—beyond boundaries’, Ethnos (1992).
Pavlos Kavouras is Lecturer Designate in the Department of Social Anthropology at the
University of the Aegean, Mytilene, Greece. His publications include The Medea of
Euripides: an anthropological perspective’, Dialectical Anthropology (1989); and
‘Dance at Olymbos, Karpathos: cultural change and political confrontations’,
Ethnographica (1992).
Marian Kempny is Assistant Professor in Culture Theory Unit, at the Institute of
Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. His publications include
Wymiana i społteczenstwo (Exchange and Society) (1988); Struktura, wymiana,
władza (Structure, Exchange, and Power), as co-author and co-editor (1993);
Kulturowy wymiar zmiany spotecznej (The Cultural Dimension of Social Change), as
co-author and co-editor (1993).
Tamara Kohn is Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Durham. She has done
extensive fieldwork both in the Inner Hebrides, Scotland, and in east Nepal. She is
currently working on a monograph based on her Scottish research, entitled Becoming
Scottish: An Ethnograpic Study of Incomers, and is co-author of J.Klama, ed.,
Aggression: Conflict in Animals and Humans Reconsidered (1988).
Judith Okely is Reader in Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh. She has
carried out fieldwork in France and in England. Publications include The Traveller-
gypsies (1983), Simone de Beauvoir (1986) and Anthropology and Autobiography,
with Helen Callaway (1992).
Ingrid Rudie is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oslo. She has done
fieldwork in Norway and Malaysia. Her publications include ‘A hall of mirrors:
autonomy translated over time in Malaysia’, in D.Bell, P.Caplan and W.K.Karim, eds,
Gendered Fields. Women, Men & Ethnography (1993); and Visible Women in East
Coast Malay Society (in press).
Thomas Widlok studied anthropology, philosophy, and theology at the Universities of
Münster and Cologne before beginning postgraduate training in Social Anthropology
at the London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London. He
has completed one and a half years of field research with Hai||om in northern Namibia
(1990–2) as part of his Ph.D. project. Since 1992 he has been working with the
Cognitive Anthropology Research Group in Nijmegen, Netherlands.

Introduction
Kirsten Hastrup and Peter Hervik
The aim of this volume is to elucidate the process from individual experiences in the field
to the production of general anthropological knowledge.1In spite of its crucial position in
our discipline, this process is far from clear. The lack of clarity is owed to several
interrelated difficulties inherent in the specific nature of anthropological research, as
based in fieldwork. First, processes are difficult to render in words, which by their nature
punctuate and distort what they claim to represent. Further, the production of
anthropological knowledge is not comprehensible solely in the traditional scientific terms
of objectivity and rationality as something distinguishable from subjectivity and intuition.
Together these two factors seem to have effectively blocked discussion of the route from
ethnographic experience to analytical results.
Until recently, even the ethnographic experience was only reluctantly dealt with, as
experience that is; what mattered were objective analytical results. They are still the core
of anthropological knowledge, of course, but they are no longer seen as absolutely
separate from subjective experiences in the field. Anthropology and autobiography merge
in the process of knowledge production, as recently demonstrated in an important volume
(Okely and Callaway 1992). Apart from this recent attempt at stock-taking in the busy
backyard of the anthropological showrooms, the last one and a half decades have
witnessed a number of experimental monographs and autobiographical works. If nothing
else, these works have demonstrated a heightened awareness of the intricacies inherent in
the process of acquiring information about people in the first place. ‘Selves’ and ‘others’
have been deconstructed as objective entities, and shown to be categories of thought.
The process from the experiences of the self to a valid knowledge of the others has
remained obscure, however. The present volume seeks to straddle the gap. While
acknowledging the indubitable significance of autobiography and the situatedness of the
anthropologist, the starting-point is not the self, but the field into which the ethnographer
invests her powers of imagination. Through this investment, the ethnographer arrives at
an understanding not only of ‘culture’ or ‘society’, but more importantly of the processes
by which cultures and societies are reproduced and transformed.
Societies are conceptualized in a number of different ways, locally and analytically
(Kuper 1992). What unites them is some sense of corporateness, however. The social
body may be marked by dynamics and unclear boundaries; but this is still only
ascertainable in relation to a concept of social integration beyond the individual, or within
a particular tradition of knowledge (cf. Barth 1993a). For a time, it seemed that the ‘new
world’ defied analysis, being too fragmented to deal with at all within an anthropology
that some way or the other still saw itself as in many ways tied up with holism. Truly,
‘our “present” appears to be substantially different from the “present” that our
predecessors confronted, even just a short time ago’ (Fox 1991:1). The words used to