Strathern, Concrete Topographies

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Concrete Topographies

Author(s): Marilyn StrathernSource: Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 3, No. 1, Place and Voice in Anthropological Theory (Feb.,1988), pp. 88-96Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/656311

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Commentary:Concrete Topographies

Marilyn Strathern

Departmentof SocialAnthropologyManchesterUniversity

Displacingthe fallaciesof representation y conceiving a literary ormthatwill engagethe readerof ethnographiesn a deliberatelyevocativeexercise finds

one concrete magein the encountersof fieldworkexperience. Tyler'scontrolled

vision of postmodern thnographyas a return o the therapyof aestheticintegra-tionenticesone to understand vocationin a particularway. Thetext will be "an

evocation of quotidienexperience . . . by means of the concrete" (1986:136);and "A post-modern thnographys fragmentary ecause it cannotbe otherwise.

Life in the field is fragmentary" 1986:131). The attempt ncludesrestructuringtheexperienceof (the reader's)everyday ife through heethnographer's-insofar

asethnographytself is a meansof experience or writerandreaderalike. Perhaps,though, a hesitationshould be voiced about the image of evocation itself. We

cannotsimply visualize Locke's once-empty cabinet as crammedwith experi-ences thatthe new aesthetic is bound to rearrangen a manner herapeutic o the

subject.There s the somewhatstrongerproblematic act that anethnography"is

not the author'scognitive utopia since no authorcan fully control the reader's

responses"(1986:138). Itbearson Rabinow's observation hatif we "attempt o

eliminate social referentiality,other referentswill occupy the voided position"

(1986:251), althoughI referto referentialityn a verygeneral way. The question

is notjust aboutthe rangeof past individualexperiencesthataffect the writingandreadingof ethnographybutaboutthe inescapableconsequencesof theirprior

arrangement.If one may so personifythem, holism and structureguide not only the de-

vices by whichanthropologists f a particular enerationarrangedheirtexts;we

mayrecognizetheirworkingsin the mind that thinks itself open to concreteex-

perience,preparedo registerthe fragmentary ndincompletenatureof life. The

ideas throughwhich experienceis recalledas "experience" hardlyform a flat-

land-ordered, sequenced,and connected to one another, mpressionscannot be

flattenedby fiat. We know this from the fateof a numberof anthropologicaldeasthattryto convey the otherwiseineffablecharacter f particular thnographico-

cations.

The concreteattachmentof particularanalytical conceptsto particular ul-

tures and societies looks on the surfaceas nothingmore thanthe registrationof

88



COMMENTARY 89

that concreteness-this place suggests ideas aboutpollution, thatplace is best

grasped hroughunderstanding ierarchyorcaste. Indeed,on the surface,the an-

thropologist'sglobal experience is thus properlyfragmentedby these disparateinstancesof the concrete. Yet to tracetheoutlinesof the topography o produced

suggests thatthe perceptionof instances entails its own structuring.We should

look to thefacilityof the anthropologisto concretizecertain deas as thoughtheyarose from local experience.

Particularities

I draw on the several voices at the symposium, which have prompted his

reflection.'Forinstance,it was PaulDresch who illustratedhow anthropologicalconceptshave theirown histories, throughpursuingEvans-Pritchard's otionof

segmentation o its roots (via RobertsonSmith) in the Arabianpeninsula. The

interestingpointto a Melanesianist s thatwhen segmentary ineage theorywas

exportedto Melanesia, Evans-Pritchard's nd Fortes's Africaninstantiationsof

the concepthad become the exemplar.Places thusbecome exemplars.One maythinkof thegift-the constantlyregenerateddebate about the Maorihau, despitethewide-ranging thnographic copeof Mauss'soriginalessay andLevi-Strauss's

subsequentenlargementof the concept of reciprocity;or the historythatArjun

Appadurairaces for hierarchy,conceived by Dumont as a centraltropefor un-derstandingHinduIndia,but derivedin the firstplace fromsources that included

Hocart'swork nFijiandPolynesia.2Ofcourse, inpart,suchregional ocalization

is an artifactof the historical role that the concepts played in the scholarshipof

(say) Evans-Pritchard,Mauss, andDumont. To take Mauss:he gave eminence to

the Maorihau inthewayhe developedhisgeneral heory,andone is merelygoingback to his sources, it seems, to refurbish he Maori case. The Maoricase pro-videdMauss withanindigenousconcepthe was lookingfor, althoughhe claimed

that it was in Melanesia, not Polynesia, that "the potlatch" is better or more

highly developed (1954:18), with the Trobriandkula "an extremecase of gift-exchange" (1954:41). But there is more than the originalpresentation f a thesis

at issue. The cathexis between "the gift" and the Trobriandkula enduresin a

particularly trong orm. Infact, contemporaryMelanesianists end to appropriategift exchange(especially "ceremonialexchange") as an indigenousinstitution,with a glance perhapsat the NorthWestcoast to establish the distinctivenessoftheMelanesian orm,but withbarelyanyconsideration f thePolynesianmaterialthatfigured o significantly nMauss's account. As far astheyareconcerned,giftexchangebelongsto Melanesia. A complex etymologicalchainis thusreduced o

a singular ocation, and the gift is concretizedthrough ts local manifestation.Itbecomes a concept throughwhich the quotidienexperienceof Melanesiansoci-

alitycanbe conveyedto others.

Whatevergoes into the experienceof the ethnographicencounter "in the

field," it cannotbe recreated implyas a matterof personaldispositionorhistor-ical conjuncture,of the occurrenceof conversationsor of colonial constraints.The ethnographer'spersonalvision is shaped through deas thatby theirnature



90 CULTURALANTHROPOLOGY

mustbe derived fromelsewhere. "Ideas" areno more a transparent ehicle for

theethnographicmagination hanrealism n writing style. As concepts, segmen-

tary ineage systems, gift exchange, and the rest direct heethnographer'snternalthoughts.Why some regionsappear o be particular xemplarsof particular on-

ceptsand its correlate,whycertainregionsappear entral o anthropologicalheo-

rizing,havea part o play in the externalization f suchthoughts.I take my cue from Appadurai'sobservationsaboutgatekeeping concepts

thatseem to limitanthropologicalheorizingaboutparticular laces. He asks:"If

places become guardiansof particular ulturalfeaturesor of particularorms of

sociality, does this not affect the way these cultural ormsand features are ana-

lyzed in otherplaces?" (1986:358). He asks why it is thatMelanesianstudies

providesuch strong critiquesof theoriesof social structuregenerated n Africa.Indeed,Melanesia is intriguing n affordingclearexamplesof gatekeepingcon-

ceptsbothimportedandexported.I would also suggestthatthemetaphorof gate-

keepingis particularly ptfor a specifichistoricalphase in anthropologicalwrit-

ing.

Best Instances

Inraisingthetopics of lineagesystem, gift exchange, andhierarchy,I have

touchedon three elementsin contemporary escriptionsof Melanesiansocieties.The last has been naturalized-Melanesia has become a sourceof examplesfor

nonhierarchicalig-manpolitical systems, and it is notnecessaryto referto other

forms of polity. The parentconcept, so to speak, becomes delocalized(one mayrefer o "nonhierarchical"ystemsin a disembodiedway). However,lineageand

gift preservea local identity.Theconceptof segmentaryineagesystemis treated

as an import;the concept of (ceremonial)gift exchange as a potentialexport.Thus,the one appears o be anexampleof a model developedelsewhere andap-

plied to Melanesiain a disputedmanner(Africanlineage models), whereas the

natureof Melanesiansociality appears tself to prompta generaltheoreticalde-

velopmentof gift exchange. Melanesia endorses the conceptof gift exchangeas

a fundamental rincipleof social life; whatevercomparisonsaremade,exchangeis nowregardedas indigenousto anthropologicaldescriptionsof the area.

Theseprovide examplesof how concepts appear o belong and thus charac-

terize certainregions. A handfulof African and Melanesiansocietieskeep recur-

ringas exemplarsof the analyticalconstructs,embodiedin "first" monographson the subject-notably (in these examples)those of Fortes andEvans-Pritchard

and of Malinowski.Theresult s thattheethnographicworld seems a fragmented

topography f analyticalexamples, with "best instances"of variousconceptstobe foundhere, or there.

The success with which best instancesare constructed s based on the per-

spectivalpremisesof "modernism"in anthropology.3Thisparticularorm of ex-

ternalization pproachesone society from the viewpointof another,a move that

in turnreplicates he encompassingperspectiveof viewing all "other" societies

fromthevantagepointof "our own."'Forthere s a hiddenorinternal opography



COMMENTARY 91

thatI wish to bringto view as an important ourceof analyticalinventiveness.

We are aware of the dualisminherent n the tendencyto pairoff the sourceand

applicationof concepts, so that the lineage systems of partsof Africabecome asinglesourcefora model thatwas thenappliedto Melanesia,especiallywhen the

New GuineaHighlandswas firstexplored.But I surmise that what made the Af-

ricansourceso powerfulwas its originalconstruction n the context of a further

dualism. In the appropriationf segmentary ineage theoryfor these Africansys-tems, fresh contrasts had been created with accepted categories of Western

thought.The Africandynamicbetweenkinshipandpolitywasdisplayedas a rad-

ical departurerom the Westernexperienceof family and state. In fact, the seg-

mentary ineagesystem implementeda doublecontrast, n the notionsof stateless

politiesand politicized kinship. If these societies became the place at which tothinkaboutkinshipas politics or social orderwithoutcentralizedauthority, heir

distinctiveness hus received an impetusfrom the way in which "their" social

formswere seen to negate"our" ideas aboutdomestic ife andgovernment.Dual-

ism throughnegationsits side by side with the dualismof "comparison"or the

"application"of ideas fromone place to another.The successful localization of

ideas in recentanthropologicalhistoryhas depended,I suspect, on an interplaybetween both.

The Topography of a Complex Society

It is commonplace o observe thatfrom a Westerner'spointof view descrip-tions of "other" societies are mediatedthrough he languagedevelopedin one's

"own"-refined andextendedas thatlanguagemay be to accommodate he un-

expected.The same is trueof concepts. Whetheror not the ethnographer enter-

ing" the field consciously derives his/her analytical concepts from elsewhere,

they have an elsewhere status about them: in the first instancederivativefrom

anthropologicaldebate, whose natural anguagein the case of Westernanthro-

pologists is also his or her own in a cultural sense. Patently, the simultaneousconstruction ndcomprehensionof otherness s accomplished hrough he modi-ficationof ideas already n the head. Withoutbeing whimsical, one can observe

thatthe ethnographer'shead becomes a microcosm of the world's cultures,ex-

periencedas internalcomplexity, thepersonalpossibilityof anencompassingvi-sion. And this resonates with the ethnocentric(Western)assumptionabout the

complexnatureof the society or culturefrom which the ethnographeromes.Thissense of complexityis echoed back from anexternal opography: ll of

the world's cultures can be comprehended n the confines of the one language/

culture,which must thusout-complex any one of them. The experienceis madeconcretethrough he localization of concepts. It is as thoughthe externaltopog-raphypresenteda networkof totemiccorrespondencies.Otherculturesareknown

aphoristicallyhrough his orthat set of features-whereas only thereceivingcul-ture of interpretationan graspall of the features,able to describe with moreorless equal facility, through ts single analytical anguage,initiationritualhere andstate ceremonial here.




Perhapst is an inevitableprocessin theframingstrategyof modernism.The

greatstrengthof that strategy, setting off "them" and "us" lay in its literary

scope (Strather 1987). It prompted he extension and refinementof analyticalconceptsthroughcontrast,most powerfullythrough he subversionof taken-for-

granted oncepts n thenaturalanguage.I thus referto aphenomenonwider than

thatwhich Marcusand Fischer(1986:129) denote as the submergedcritiqueof

Westernsociety that rested on a utopianvision thatothercultures still preservevalues "we" have lost. I refer to the manipulation f conceptsthemselves. Kin-

shipcould be exteriorizedas politics, segmentarypolities were conceived as the

antithesisof stateorganization,the gift upturneda distinctionbetween personsandthings, and so forth.Gatekeepingconceptsthatmonitoredentryinto the dis-

tinctivenessof othercultureswere an artifactof a perspectivalvision, in whichall otherplaces were in a sense peripheral o the central, single observer.They

lay on his/herhorizon.

Oneform of these binocularstrategieswas thatof negation,marked,for in-

stance, in the recentregenerationof the dichotomybetweengift andcommodityeconomies (e.g., Gregory 1982). The one appearsas the negative form of the

other. The artificeof such a dichotomysits uncomfortably: ow could it be that

Melanesiangift exchange s such a neat nverseof Westerncommodityexchange?Of course it is not: instead we have to understandhat the characterof the Me-

lanesianeconomy is most efficiently graspedthroughsubvertinga particular etof Westernconcepts, namelythosehavingto do withcommodification.Butwhen

this strategy s repeatedfor a rangeof oppositionsbetween "our" and "their"

concepts, the resultant xternaltopography akes the form of one to one congru-ences/inversions,a paradeof dualisms(theydo this, we do that).Extensive cross-

culturalanalysis only reinforcesthe duality: "we" constructa base analytical

conceptfrom which to compareall of the "others" amongthemselves.

It is a curiousphenomenon,however, thatnegationdoes not always work,thatcertain nversions akebetter hanothers,that s, the line betweenus andthem

is moreeffectivelydemarcated.Some peopleappear oo transparentor study, inRenatoRosaldo'sphrase,andmayeven appear o be withoutculture.Perhaps he

primeexample is the egalitarianismof Bushmen and Eskimo societies, where

similarities n kinship designationand individualityappear o mergethem with

rather handifferentiate hem from "us."4 Forthe cultureswe find most difficult

to placeare those whose gatekeepingconceptsdo notpresentthemselvesas can-

didatesfor inversion.

Appadurai rguesthat the studyof complexnon-Western ocieties has been

a second-classcitizen in anthropological iscourse-involving "a kind of reverse

Orientalism,wherebycomplexity, literacy,historicaldepth, andstructuralmes-siness operateas disqualificationsn the struggleof places for a voice in metro-

politan heory"(1986:357). Anthropologicalheorizingbecomeslimitedthroughthe samegatekeeping trategyby which "simple" societies are known-the sim-

plicityis transferredo the concepts:"A few simpletheoreticalhandlesbecome

metonymsandsurrogates or the civilizationor society as a whole: hierarchy n

India, honor-and-shamein the circum-Mediterranean,filial piety in China"



COMMENTARY 93

(1986:357). But while they simplify entryinto these complex systems, they aremuch less successful as exports.5Their local manifestationsappear ntractable,

nonexportable,as in the case of caste.Thispromptsone last comment on inversion,whichperhaps ustifiesthe to-

temic metaphor used earlier. Possibly it is not just that caste does not in any

simple way upturn ndigenousWesternconcepts-indeed, the long traditionof

comparing t with class would suggest the reverse. Whatmay also be relevant sthat tdoes notchallengea significantrelationshipbetweenconcepts,that s, theirstructure.The lineage and the gift, by contrast,derivepowerfrominvertingal-

readyexisting conceptualrelationships-between political and domestic life inthe first case and betweencommoditytransactionsandgift giving in the second.

An internaland structuredopography s externalizedthrougha negative movethatyields a sense of new experience, of a shift in thoughthaving takenplace,insofaras the self-containednatureof negationmay be graspedas a completeorholistic synthesisof what is novel about the new situation. In the long view, of

course, self-referential tructures-the internalcontrastssignificantto the inter-relationof ideas-which determinethe limits of the operations hat can be per-formedmay be perceivedas a limitation.Only certainpresumptionsof a "com-

modity"economycanbe criticizedthrough he modelof a "gift" economy, andso on.

Now it is not thecase that theoretical oci areendlesslypluralized,the same

congruencesand inversionsrepeatedagain and again. As JamesFernandezob-serves for anothercontext, often one place comes to stand for many, or a singleplace as a partfor a region as a whole. Perhapswhatgives successful conceptstheir ocal character ies in the inventiveprocess of inversionitself. Inversion san extremelylimited maneuver,and inventioncan takeplace only once. PaulFriedrichndicates the importanceof keeping in mindthe naivete andopennessof the first ieldencounter-but thatalready ixes itself as anexperienceof akind,one thatcannot be repeated.Similarly,an ideaseen to have been inventedat one

juncturecannotbe reinvented:rather,it is then "applied" elsewhere. Thus wehavebothoriginalandderivativeexemplarsof conceptsof whichAfricanmodelsin the New GuineaHighlands s itself an exemplar.And thus writerson gift ex-

changeconstantlygo back to the Maorior the Trobriands,or on lineage systemsto the Nueror Tallensi. These were the sites of a firstinvention.I say inventionrather handiscoveryto keep in mind thatwhat they celebrateis the successfuland creativesabotageof alreadyestablishedconcepts-personified objects andorderedanarchy, ndeed!

The Lure of the Concrete

Thepropensity o concretizeparticular oncepts, to lodge them in exemplarsof a local character, s a symbolicmove thatmustbe considered n relationto itsreferentialdimension.It is one momentof what arealso the organizingandclas-

sificatorydimensionsof perception.Thusthe registrationof experienceto evoke"an emergentfantasyof a possible world" (Tyler 1986:125), an "intimationof




a possibleworldalreadygiven to us in fantasyandcommonsense" (1986:134),is boundup with the structuringof evocation and intimation tself. For within

anthropologicalhought,theconcretenessof particular oncepts,their ocation asself-evidentfacts aboutthe particularity f places, comes fromestablishing heirtakenforgranted tatusthroughcomparisonwith others. Thuswe cantalk of the

relativeexportabilityof concepts. I have given a brief illustrationn consideringthe localization of the segmentary ineage system and gift exchangeon the one

hand and of caste on the other. The formeremerge throughcertainrelationsof

inversionwithexisting metropolitan oncepts;the latter s fixedby its intimation

of a rivalcomplexity.I have also suggestedthatthoseparticularmoves belongto a specificperiod

of anthropological istory.What of the future?No longer restingour view on anus/themdichotomywe shall no longerwish to retainthe structure f internaland

external opographies.Perhapsour totemicsystemwill collapsefromlack of in-

terest n layingout theprinciplesof otherpeople'sorganizationn specificrelation

to those of our own. Yet instead of disparaging hatinternal opography,which

appearsas acomplexandcosmopolitanadjudicator f all theworld'scultures,we

should nvestigate t. What s there,afterall, aboutWestern deas of relationshipsandpersonsthatthey areopento new scrutiny?What is the (internal) tructuringof these ideas thatthey shouldbe susceptibleto rearrangement? here are one or

two operations till to be performeduponthe old concepts.I havereferred o the powerof inversion.Dualitycan alwaysbe replicated:whatthrough he vicissitudesof anthropologicalhistoryare the accumulations f

multiplenegationsand reversalscan always be reducedto a fresh, single inver-

sion. This is the case with the current ontrastbetweengift andcommodityecon-

omies thatkeepsthe othernessof Melanesianculturealwaysin mind. The recent

historyof thepolitical-domesticdichotomyshows a similarsetof maneuvers.Yet

suchdescriptionsblock otherdescriptions.One way to sidestepthe determiningnature f thisparticulartrategy s illustratedby GeorgeMarcus'sanalysisof Sah-

lins'sdisquisition

onhistory

andstructure.Heanalyzes

thecreativity

of Sahlins's

chiasmus-reversing the orderingof concepts in orderto breakthe hold of con-

ventionaliseddichotomies.Opposed conceptsareseen to contain one another-

no longer separate,they alternatewith or permeateone another.But a further

strategysuggests itself from the fact that the success of inversionsdependson

theirscale, that s, thedelimitingof theclass of phenomena hatpermitscompar-ison. If I wish to compareWesterneconomicconceptsandMelanesianones, I can

do so througha limited contrastbetween gift/commodity,but am still talkingabout economic concepts. The inversionis framed. And the frame, of course,

signalsthe sourceof the pairingof ideas:the conceptualizationof both gift and

commodityderivesfrom whatmaythusknow itself as the worldviewof a "com-

modity" economy. How, then, does one slip roundthe edge of the determining

descriptionof thatworldview?By relativizing he inversionthroughexposing its

base. What has to be canceled is the basis of comparison,which herewould be

theveryideaof economy.Let me return o whereideas areplaced;they lodge in ourheads. Particular

external ocalities become exemplarsbecause they elicit particular esponsesin



COMMENTARY 5

respect of the categories and concepts structured there. Negation is one form such

process takes. But making explicit the inversion of received concepts in the in-

terests of comparison betrays their limitation and raises the further possibility of

canceling the grounds of comparison. "Melanesian" and "our own" concepts

need not be taken as isomorphic, any more than Melanesian and Western society

are isomorphs of one another. But how would one convey that? Perhaps one might

stage a patently artificial encounter between alien conversers-possibly High-

lands men and women and Western feminists. This would require being open to

a form of negation that did not just deny one proposition in favor of another, by

reversing its terms, but refused to "see" that a proposition had been put forward

at all. A distinction between gift and commodity economies would, after all, carry

little weight if one's interest were in men and women's respective power over the

manipulation of things.The anthropologist, unable to represent the one voice completely in terms of

the other, would mediate between the two. And in exposing the noncomparabilityof their voices would cancel any easy assumption about anthropology's own self-

sufficiency as a single analytical language. The trick would be to demonstrate

noncomparability. But through the control of such artifice, one might in the pro-cess reinvent the experience of natural encounters by being aware, among other

things, of where both it and they take place.

Notes

'The session was entitledPlace and Voice inAnthropologicalTheory,and was heldat the

85th annualmeeting of the AmericanAnthropologicalAssociation in Philadelphia,De-

cember 1986. Where I have occasion to refer to thecontributors, hey aredenotedby first

as well as surname.My Melanesianemphasisis promptedby the subjectof theconference

organizedby RichardFardonon Regional Traditionsof EthnographicWriting,St. An-

drews,January1987, forwhichI havewrittena companionpaper,"Negative Strategies."This takesupa similarthemethrougha rathermoredetailedexaminationof postwarmon-

ographs romthe New GuineaHighlands.

2So that one may talk, criticallyor not, of African models in the New GuineaHighlands(Barnes 1962; A. Strathem1982), consider whether the Maori gift fits the Indiancase

(Parry1986);or think of hierarchy,of which "the most famousexemplar" comes from

"India," in Polynesia(Ortner1981:358).

3Adisputeduse of the term,but one I adoptafter Ardener 1985.

4Interestingly, othpromptan obsessive anthropological oncernwith cultureas materialtechnology.

5Conversely,one may say thatnonexportable oncepts signal an impossiblecomplexity.Thus to non-Melanesianists,Melanesiamay appearcharacterized y an involute attentiontoritualandsymbolicprocessesthatdefy simplecomprehension,andpresenta complexitythatcan be contrastedwith nothingbut a lesser degree of complexity (MichaelGilsenanandRichardFardon,pers. comm.).



96 CULTURALNTHROPOLOGY

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Strathern, Concrete Topographies