Things As They Are: New Directions in Phenomenological Anthropology

288 Pages·1996·10.828 MB·English

by  Michael Jackson (editor)

Things as
They Are
Things as
They Are
NEW DIRECTIONS IN
PHENOMENOLOGICAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
edited by
Michael Jackson
Indiana
University
Press
BLOOMINGTON AND INDIANAPOLIS
© 1996 by Indiana University Press
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
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Things as they are : new directions in phenomenological anthropology /
edited by Michael Jackson,
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-253-33036-X (cl : alk. paper). — ISBN 0-253-21050-X (pa :
alk. paper)
1. Phenomenological anthropology. I. Jackson, Michael, date.
GN33.T55 1996
301'.01—dc20 95-45911
1 2 3 4 5 01 00 99 98 97 96
CONTENTS
Preface / Michael jackson vii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Phenomenology, Radical Empiricism, and
Anthropological Critique / M ichael jackson 1
Honor and Shame / lila abu-lughod 51
Struggling Along / Robert desjarlais 70
The Cosmology of Life Transmission / rené devisch 94
Reflections on a Cut Finger:
Taboo in the Umeda Conception of the Self / Alfred gell 115
Space and Sociality in a
Dayak Longhouse / Christine helliw ell 128
In Defiance of Destiny: The Management of Time and Gender at a
Cretan Funeral / michael herzfeld 149
Suffering and Its Professional Transformation: Toward an
Ethnography of Interpersonal Experience / Arthur kleinman and
JOAN KLEINMAN 169
Hand Drumming: An Essay
in Practical Knowledge / shawn lindsay 196
On Dying and Suffering in Iqwaye Existence / jadran mimica 213
If Not the Words: Shared Practical Activity and Friendship in
Fieldwork / keith ridler 238
After the Field / jim wafer 259
Contributors 273
PREFACE
In teaching and advising graduate students at Indiana University, I have been
asked often to explain phenomenology, clarify its relationship to existential­
ism, radical empiricism, pragmatism, and critical theory, and justify its rel­
evance for contemporary socio-cultural anthropology. This book is, in part, a
response to these requests.
My previous work Paths toward a Clearing (1989) was steeped in existential­
ist-phenomenological thought. But 1 chose to foreground the radical empiri­
cism of William James and the empirical naturalism of John Dewey because,
though these philosophers evolved and applied ideas similar to those of
continental thinkers such as Husserl, Heidegger, and Schutz, the Americans
were, I believed, easier to understand and closer to home.
The trans-Atlantic links between philosophers like James and Husserl are
well known (Edie 1987; Ihde 1986; Stevens 1974; Wilshire 1968), and there is
always a certain arbitrariness in one’s choice of intellectual forebears and
reference points. But phenomenology and existentialism command our atten­
tion, not only because these schools of thought have influenced the develop­
ment of anthropological ideas in both Europe and the United States, but
because many contemporary ethnographers are drawing inspiration from these
traditions and making such leitmotifs as practice, embodiment, experience,
agency, biography, reflexivity, and narrative central to their work. It is perhaps
time to explore the genealogy of these notions, to survey the ways in which they
have been and are being used in anthropology, and to indicate how they imply
a critique of doctrinaire forms of objectivism and subjectivism.
I also see this anthology as a way of bearing witness to the vitality of
contemporary ethnography. I hope it will help illuminate some of the shared
themes and preoccupations which inform the work of some of the most
enterprising ethnographers writing today, and outline new directions for
anthropology. These essays testify to the potential of anthropology to encour­
age and sustain cross-cultural dialogue in the vexed and uncertain climate of
our times.
Finally, I wish to acknowledge the critical suggestions of colleagues who
contributed essays to this volume. But in doing so, I should note that while
phenomenology has provided a repertoire of developing ideas that has deep­
ened our understanding of the manifold and ambiguous character of lived
experience, our quite different genealogies and research experiences have
determined different intellectual trajectories. No consensus is reached, or
reached for. In this sense, one might well reiterate Roger Poole’s observation
that “there is no definitive account of phenomenology, no general agreement
VÜi PREFACE
on terms, nor could there ever be. It is a subject in development, everyone
making of it what he [she] will for his [her] own work. The insight has been
fruitful, the doctrine remains a challenge” (Poole 1972:81).
REFERENCES
Edie, James M. 1987. William James and Phenomenology. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press.
Ihde, Don. 1986. Consequences of Phenomenology. Albany: State University of
New York Press.
Poole, Roger. 1972. Towards Deep Subjectivity. London: Allen Lane.
Stevens, Richard. 1974. James and Husserl: The Foundations of Meaning. The
Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Wilshire, Bruce. 1968. William James and Phenomenology: A Study of uThe
Principles of Psychology.” Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Some of the essays in this volume were previously published.
“Honor and Shame,” by Lila Abu-Lughod, is reprinted from Writing
Women’s Worlds: Bedouin Stories, chapter 5, in a slightly amended version, with
permission of the author and the Regents of the University of California and the
University of California Press.
“Struggling Along,” by Robert Desjarlais, is reproduced by permission of
the American Anthropological Association from American Anthropologist 96:4,
December 1994.
“The Cosmology of Life Transmission,” by René Devisch, is excerpted from
Weaving the Threads of Life: The Khita Gyn-Eco-Logical Healing Cult among the
Y oka, with the permission of the author and the University of Chicago Press
(© 1993 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved).
“Reflections on a Cut Finger: Taboo in the Umeda Conception of the Self,”
by Alfred Gell, is reprinted from Fantasy and Symbol: Studies in Anthropological
Interpretation, edited by R. H. Hook, 1979:133-148, with permission of the
author and Academic Press London and Bailliere Tindall (© 1979 by Academic
Press Inc. [London] Ltd.).
“Space and Sociality in a Dayak Longhouse,” by Christine Helliwell, is a
substantially revised version of “Good Walls Make Bad Neighbours: The Dayak
Longhouse as a Community of Voices,” first published in Oceania 1992, vol. 62
(3): 179-193. It is reprinted here with the permission of Oceania Publications.
“In Defiance of Destiny: The Management of Time and Gender at a Cretan
Funeral” by Michael Herzfeld is reprinted here from American Ethnologist 1993,
vol. 20 (2):241-255, with permission of the author and the American Anthro­
pological Association.
“Suffering and Its Professional Transformation: Toward an Ethnography of
Interpersonal Experience,” by Arthur Kleinman and Joan Kleinman is reprinted
here from Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 1991 vol. 15 (3):275-301, by
permission of the authors and Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The
Netherlands.
Back to things themselves.
—Edmund Husserl, Logical Investigations
And they said then, “But play, you must,
A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,
A tune upon the blue guitar
Of things exactly as they are.”
—Wallace Stevens, The Man with the Blue Guitar
If every event which occurred could be given a name,
there would be no need for stories. As things are here,
life outstrips our vocabulary.
—John Berger, Once in Europa
Introduction
Phenomenology, Radical Empiricism,
and Anthropological Critique
MICHAEL JACKSON
How can we understand someone else without
sacrificing him to our logic or it to him?
—Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1964:115)
My intention in this introduction is to draw on several overlapping traditions
of ideas, both European and non-European, in an eclectic and opportunistic
endeavor to sketch some guidelines for a phenomenological anthropology. But
though phenomenology provides a focus for our field, it is anthropology and
not philosophy which is our central concern.
The unifying assumption of the phenomenology outlined here is that
philosophies and theories, like political opinions, should be regarded as part
and parcel of the world in which we live rather than transcendent views that
somehow escape the impress of our social interests, cultural habits, and
personal persuasions. The measure by which the worth or truth of any view is
judged must be a worldly one. Whether one calls upon correspondence to the
facts or force of personal conviction in claiming merit for one’s point of view,
such invocations indicate ways we construct, contest, and experience our
worlds; they are not notions which can be arbitrated decisively, or regarded as
arguments that can be won. It is not that phenomenology gives up on empirical
rigor or critique, as we shall see. Rather, it refuses to invoke cultural privilege
as a foundation for evaluating worldviews or examining the complex and
enigmatic character of the human condition. It is a way of illuminating things
by bringing them into the daylight of ordinary understanding.1
It is commonly but mistakenly thought that phenomenology is a kind of
intuitive, solipsistic, or introspective philosophy that repudiates science
(Schutz 1962:99-100). In fact, the domain of phenomenology is being-in-the-
world, and this cannot be construed strictly in terms of “self-enclosed features
of human subjectivity” (Casey 1991:xix). What phenomenology stands against
is the fetishization of the products of intellectual reflection. Thus, objectivism