Migration - Networks - Skills: Anthropological Perspectives on Mobility and Transformation 9783839433645

Table of contents :
Table of Contents
Introduction: Migration, Networks, Skills. Anthropological Perspectives on Mobility and Transformation
The Kashmiri Diaspora in Britain and the Limits of Political Mobilisation
From Ultimogeniture to Senior Club. Negotiating Certainties and Uncertainties of Growing Older between Rural Mexico and Urban Chicago
Secular Mood, Community Consensus. The Identity of the Bulgarian Muslims in Zlatograd
The Pervasion of the Ancient and Traditional Value of “Hospitality” in Contemporary Greece. From Xenios Zeus to “Xenios Zeus”
How Solomon Bibo from Germany Became an Indian Chief. And Other Glimpses of Jewish Life in the Wild West
The Modernity of the Mafia. Personalized Network Efficiency versus State Institutional Lethargy
The Ethnographic Validity of Paternity Denial (alias “Virgin Birth”)
Hamburg HafenCity Revisited. Reading Mental Maps as an Approach to Urban Imaginaries
Towards an Ethnography of Rivers
Hands, Skills, Materiality. Towards an Anthropology of Crafts
About the Authors
Waltraud Kokot: Publications 1982 – 2013

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Astrid Wonneberger, Mijal Gandelsman-Trier, Hauke Dorsch (eds.) Migration – Networks – Skills

Culture and Social Practice

Astrid Wonneberger, Mijal Gandelsman-Trier, Hauke Dorsch (eds.)

Migration – Networks – Skills Anthropological Perspectives on Mobility and Transformation

Printed with the support of the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Hamburg.

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http: //dnb.d-nb.de © 2016 transcript Verlag, Bielefeld

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 publisher. Cover layout: Kordula Röckenhaus, Bielefeld Cover illustration: »Luanda morning«, oil on canvas, 100x70cm, Michael Pröpper (www.michaelproepper.de) Proofread by Astrid Wonneberger, Mijal Gandelsman-Trier, Hauke Dorsch, Rosemarie Oesselmann Typeset by Astrid Wonneberger Printed in Germany Print-ISBN 978-3-8376-3364-1 PDF-ISBN 978-3-8394-3364-5

Waltraud Kokot, Albania 2003

Table of Contents

Introduction: Migration, Networks, Skills. Anthropological Perspectives on Mobility and Transformation

Astrid Wonneberger, Mijal Gandelsman-Trier and Hauke Dorsch | 9 The Kashmiri Diaspora in Britain and the Limits of Political Mobilisation

Martin Sökefeld | 23 From Ultimogeniture to Senior Club. Negotiating Certainties and Uncertainties of Growing Older between Rural Mexico and Urban Chicago

Julia Pauli and Franziska Bedorf | 47 Secular Mood, Community Consensus. The Identity of the Bulgarian Muslims in Zlatograd

Milena Benovska-Sabkova and Iliya Nedin | 67 The Pervasion of the Ancient and Traditional Value of “Hospitality” in Contemporary Greece. From Xenios Zeus to “Xenios Zeus”

Eftihia Voutira | 85 How Solomon Bibo from Germany Became an Indian Chief. And Other Glimpses of Jewish Life in the Wild West

Sabine Lang | 101 The Modernity of the Mafia. Personalized Network Efficiency versus State Institutional Lethargy

Christian Giordano | 131 The Ethnographic Validity of Paternity Denial (alias “Virgin Birth”)

Hartmut Lang and Astrid Wonneberger | 149 Hamburg HafenCity Revisited. Reading Mental Maps as an Approach to Urban Imaginaries

Kathrin Wildner | 177

Towards an Ethnography of Rivers

Henk Driessen | 195 Hands, Skills, Materiality. Towards an Anthropology of Crafts

Clemens Greiner and Michael Pröpper | 209 About the Authors | 231 Waltraud Kokot: Publications 1982 – 2013 | 237

Introduction: Migration, Networks, Skills Anthropological Perspectives on Mobility and Transformation A STRID W ONNEBERGER , M IJAL G ANDELSMAN -T RIER AND H AUKE D ORSCH

M IGRATION , N ETWORKS , S KILLS The title of this book can only hint at the wide range of topics of Waltraud Kokot, the scholar who is to be honoured in this Festschrift. Migration, networks, skills refer to several of her academic interests, without being exhaustive. The thematic cluster of migration studies, to begin with one of her longest lasting interests, includes such various approaches and concepts as transmigration, transnational social spaces, diasporic social networks, globalisation, local and global space, just to mention a few key themes, to which Waltraud Kokot has worked and published over more than two decades (see complete list at the end of this book). The step from migration to her second major focus, urban anthropology, is an artificial one, as both thematic clusters are empirically closely interwoven, as diasporic and other social networks are often centred in urban settings. The concept of skills leads us to more analytical and theoretical frameworks, but it also connotes the practices of actors. As it is presented here, it also opens a new field of studies and reflects Waltraud Kokot’s keen interest in innovative approaches and her openness to new subjects. It is, however, the will to understand the longue durée of only seemingly new and surprising phenomena that characterises Waltraud Kokot’s work and which is also reflected in the contributions to this Festschrift. Due to the complexity of these foci, it is not surprising that Waltraud Kokot has never shied from taking in multiple approaches, considering and discussing perspectives and findings from colleagues of other disciplines who studied similar phenomena. Her projects on port cities, Hamburg St. Pauli and homelessness,

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for instance, included scholars from archaeology, sociology, European cultural anthropology (“Volkskunde”) and geography; her study on street musicians in Hamburg was partially carried out by musicologists and her research on migration and diaspora included academics from history, migration and refugee studies, economy and political sciences, to mention just a few examples. Therefore it is not surprising that the authors in this volume represent not only Social and Cultural Anthropology, but also Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies and often apply interdisciplinary approaches in their contributions. A disclaimer seems necessary: Festschriften have often been criticised for being a loose and more or less coincidental collection of themes that are at best only connected by the research interests of the honouree, and, indeed, we have to expose ourselves to this criticism. However, we had very good reasons to proceed as we did by including such a large variety of subjects. First and foremost, there is Waltraud Kokot’s understanding of true scholarship: any restriction to only one topic would just not do justice to her academic profile. For this reason, we decided during the planning process of this Festschrift not to set too narrow a thematic guideline but rather proceed in a way we hope Waltraud Kokot would also appreciate: namely to leave the decision to each contributor to stick to a topic that in his or her opinion would show the thematic connection to Waltraud Kokot’s work in a most suitable way. Secondly, it is an inherent strength of the Festschrift genre that it combines studies and research from rather distant fields and thus often implements or at least inspires an interdisciplinary approach, which – we hope – is also the case in this volume. This also reflects the work of our honouree, who was always open to collaborations with colleagues from other disciplines. Moreover, as Horowitz (1991: 237) points out, “still, Festschriften persist and multiply. Why? Because they are not just retrospective, but prospective.” This is also very true for this collection, and this also reflects one of Waltraud Kokot’s achievements for social and cultural anthropology in Germany and particularly in Hamburg. Waltraud Kokot has always been and still is open to new topics and keen on re-thinking seemingly old-fashioned and stale themes. Her interests are characterised by an exploratory spirit; her enthusiasm for new subjects is very contagious and often resulted in new workshops or study groups, members of which are also represented in this volume. Thus, she initiated many new thematic core themes during her professorship in Hamburg, and some of the articles in this volume can be seen in this tradition as starting points for new thematic clusters that might even develop into new fields of investigations or even subdisciplines in anthropology.

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Finally, the collection is not as thematically heterogeneous as we had anticipated. Despite the thematic range from migration to networks, from kinship to skills, from rivers to cities, from minorities to diaspora and back to migration, and despite a range of collectives examined, which include Muslim Bulgarians, British Kashmiris, Jews identifying with Native Americans, Mexican migrants in the U.S. and modern Mafiosi among others, all articles contain an underlying theme of mobility and transformation: They deal with diaspora as a result of spatial mobility, but also of social movement and mobilisation; with lived realities in transnational communities shaped by uncertainties emerging out of changes in economic, social and ideological conditions; with fluid and conversed identities after political transformations; with changes of traditional values and perceptions of immigrants; with flexible and ever transforming network structures; with transformation of urban spaces and their images; and finally, with shifts in academic discourses and fields of interests, particularly regarding the concept of crafts and rivers as both a very flexible site of ethnographic research and a metaphor of the fluid and changing nature of the ethnographic field. The themes of mobility and transformation also run like a unifying thread through Waltraud Kokot’s academic work and we have therefore chosen it as the subtitle of our book. We hope that this Festschrift will serve to inspire new research interests, as it is a superb collection of articles which do not only present field results but also open up new research questions and directions for the future of social and cultural anthropology not only in Hamburg but far beyond.

A T RIBUTE

TO

W ALTRAUT K OKOT

This Festschrift is dedicated to Waltraud Kokot as a farewell present after her retirement from the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Hamburg in 2012. It brings together distinguished scholars who have all close connections with her, either as colleagues, friends or (former) students – and in many cases all at the same time. Therefore it is not surprising that many topics have been mutually influenced by close cooperation. However, before we introduce the topics in more detail, we will take a look at Waltraud Kokot’s curriculum vitae and her manifold scientific interests. Born in Cologne in 1952, Waltraud Kokot started to study social and cultural anthropology, linguistics and social psychology at the University of Cologne in 1974. After four years studying social sciences and cultural anthropology abroad at the University of California at Irvine, she returned to Cologne with a complet-

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ed PhD in 1981, where she took over the position of an assistant at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology (Institut für Völkerkunde) at Cologne University. Equipped with a scholarship from the German Research Foundation (DFG) for three years, Waltraud Kokot went to Thessaloniki/Greece in 1983 where she carried out fieldwork in Kato Toumba, a neighbourhood for refugees from Asia Minor. This project, studying cultural models, cognition and social identity in the local quarter (e.g. Kokot 1996), became the starting point for her long-lasting interest in refugee, exile and diaspora studies. Back in Cologne, she continued working as a lecturer and researcher at the Department, where – after a four year training and practice in psychotherapy and intercultural individual and family counselling – she completed her Habilitation in 1995. By that time she had already been selected for a full professorship at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology (Institut für Ethnologie) at the University of Hamburg. When Waltraud Kokot took up her new position in Hamburg in 1995, she brought with her a number of innovations, renewals and initiatives which were to shape the Department’s academic profile over the next almost two decades. As far as research interests were concerned, such topics as migration, diaspora and transnationalism, urban anthropology, cognitive anthropology, the anthropology of law, material culture and a regional focus on Europe (particularly South Eastern Europe) enriched the portfolio of themes that had until then only marginally, if at all, been studied and taught at the Department. But she did not only introduce these topics as part of her own research projects, one of her major contributions to the Department’s learning culture was to include them in her projectand research-oriented lectures and seminars, always encouraging students in all phases of their curriculum to participate in setting up and developing new thematic clusters. In doing so, she also contributed to establish and strengthen the Department’s focus on teaching (and applying) research methods. She has always been convinced that learning by doing is the best way to become a good anthropological field worker; any enthusiastic student could and should principally learn and carry out research, and the anthropological field not only existed in tropical rain forests, remote mountain villages or craggy islands, but also – and often equally exotic – in Europe, particularly in Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, Ireland and even Hamburg. Cities and urbanity were among the most relevant starting points for Waltraud Kokot’s projects (Kokot, Hengartner and Wildner 2000). Under her guidance, Hamburg became in fact a very popular place for ethnographic research, for undergraduate and graduate students alike (e.g. Kokot 2002b). A group of students carried out field work in and on the urban quarter of St. Pauli between

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2001 and 2004 (Kokot 2002a, Sökefeld and Wonneberger 2004). Culture(s) of homelessness in the inner city of Hamburg was another of her long-term interests containing several empirical phases carried out by various students from 2001 until 2010 (Kokot 2007, Kokot and Gruber 2007, Kokot 2004b, Kokot, Axster and Gruber 2002). “Street musicians in the city centre of Hamburg” was another interdisciplinary research project, conducted in cooperation with musicology (Kokot, Rösing, Reich and Sell 2004). The international cooperation project “Port Cities as Areas of Transition”, funded by the EU from 2002 to 2006, contained several subprojects focusing on Hamburg (Kokot 2004a, Kokot 2006), just as the research cluster on cultural identities in the diaspora, which channelled several undergraduate and graduate projects, some of which again studied diasporas in Hamburg (Kokot 1999). It should be emphasised that Waltraud Kokot never had reservations to cooperate with partners beyond the academic scene. She has always enjoyed getting in touch and sharing her experiences with people who are open for adapting a new perspective on (human) life. As an example the project “Denkwerk Ethnologie: Familie in der Diaspora“ (2006-2011) should be mentioned here: aiming at a closer collaboration between universities and schools, in this project pupils from five schools in the Greater Hamburg area were trained to conduct their own ethnographic fieldwork projects in their immediate neighbourhoods (Wonneberger 2008, 2010, 2011). All these projects prove that culture is not something that exists in geographically distant and exotic places, but likewise next door, be it in St. Pauli and the inner city of Hamburg, in Sofia or Thessaloniki. They also show that social and cultural anthropology refers to very current affairs, which can be studied not only by advanced scholars but also by beginners, provided they are guided by professionals to look at the world around them with open and curious eyes. Waltraud Kokot has thus helped to implement cultural anthropology as a science in and of Europe and our own society, as well as cultures all over the world. Beside urbanity and urban studies, migration has been the second key area, which has shaped Waltraud Kokot’s research and teaching activities in Hamburg; and both topics were often closely intertwined. The already mentioned port city project is a good example: as crossroads in the global flows of goods, capital and people, port cities can also be interpreted as places of spatial networks, of mobility and movements (Kokot, Gandelsman-Trier, Wildner and Wonneberger 2008). Studies of migration and diaspora have dominated Waltraud Kokot’s research interests for more than two decades, following various approaches and perspectives:

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The research project “Cultural Identity in the Diaspora” focused, explicitly or implicitly, on collective identities which seemed less “rooted” and less based on localities, regions or nations than older notions of ethnic or other cultural groups would have it. However, the more studies were completed, the more it became obvious that diasporas are always shaped by their temporal and spatial contexts. They might not be bound within one location, but localities and places, both symbolic and real, do also play a role in forming and maintaining diasporic networks (Kokot, Tölölyan and Alfonso 2004). Although firmly rooted in ethnographic research and anthropological theoretical debates, these studies reached beyond anthropological confines and were published in history journals and used as instruction material at the Fernuniversität Hagen for their distance learning courses in history (Kokot and Dorsch 2004, Kokot and Dorsch 2006). In 2006, when everything concerning the “D-word” (as Waltraud Kokot’s topic had been labelled by then) had seemingly been said and done, new open questions emerged which slowly led to yet another perspective on this matter. The project “Diaspora as a resource – transnational networks as cultural capital” linked the idea of diaspora to the investigation of social and economic networks and locality. This project approach has also stimulated many researchers in Hamburg to investigate into these questions as well as international partners (Kokot, Giordano and Gandelsman-Trier 2013). Throughout history and until today, diasporas have been points of contact between home countries, societies of residence and other diaspora groups. As nodes of exchange, they provide important contributions to economies, politics and culture for home and host countries. In cultural terms diaspora can be seen as an entity that shares to a large extent cultural knowledge. However, to regard a diaspora in this way implies the risk of assuming a homogeneous unit. To be sure, diasporas are heterogeneous social formations, fragmented and conducted by differing interests. Within the diaspora studies in Hamburg one aspect has always been of great importance: the interdependence between diaspora and urbanity. As mentioned before, both concepts reflect two major areas of research of Waltraud Kokot, and she combined them in the idea of “diaspora cities”. Diasporas shape the urban space they live in, and cities have always been a resource for diasporas. Apart from new thematic focus points, Waltraud’s commitment to the Department is also characterised by other innovations: In 1999, she initiated both the foundation of the Hamburger Verein für Ethnologie (the Hamburg Association for Cultural and Social Anthropology) and the publication of the first issue of the departmental journal Ethnoscripts. Running now in its 18th year and dealing with current anthropological debates and topics in German and English, Ethnoscripts has served as a frequent publishing platform for many of Waltraud Ko-

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kot’s and her students’ research projects, just like Lines, the second journal she brought into life. While the former has developed into a widely read and firmly established journal for anthropologists in German speaking countries and beyond touching on the entire span of anthropological themes, the latter focuses on urban ethnographic topics. Waltraud Kokot has also strongly intensified the Department’s international profile by expanding cooperation with anthropologists from other countries, particularly in international research projects. Therefore it is not surprising that the contributions in this book are written by sixteen scholars from twelve different universities in six countries, ranging from north-western to south-eastern Europe. Among numerous international conferences the editors and some of the contributors to this volume vividly remember a very successful example of this international cooperation: a workshop on cognitive anthropology by Claudia Strauss and Naomi Quinn, which was organised by Waltraud Kokot. It reflects another important field of her interests, manifested in several of her early publications and later teaching activities. Finally, in 2003, Waltraud Kokot received the “Fischer-Appelt Preis für hervorragende Leistungen in der akademischen Lehre” (“Fischer Appelt Award for outstanding performance in teaching”) from the University of Hamburg for her inspiring and innovative lectures and seminars.

M IGRATION , N ETWORKS , S KILLS – S TROLLING THROUGH W ALTRAUD K OKOT ’ S R ESEARCH I NTERESTS Clustered by the catchphrases of the title of the book, the contributions in this Festschrift cover a large part of Waltraud Kokot’s wide-spread research interests, which she has developed and dealt with over the years, approaching the connections and overlapping with her work in very different ways: some of them professional, others more personal. Our stroll through her academic life will start with the probably most important and longest lasting field of interest which we have already outlined above. The thematic cluster of migration, including the related areas of diaspora and transnationalism, after Waltraud Kokot’s arrival in Hamburg soon developed into one of the largest research projects in Hamburg and resulted in more than 25 final theses (Magister, doctoral and Habilitation theses) and two international conferences: “Locality – Identity – Diaspora” (10-13/02/2000) and “Diaspora as a Resource: Comparative Studies in Strategies, Networks and Urban Space” (0406/06/2010). Both these conferences took place in the Warburg Haus in Ham-

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burg Eppendorf, a location which could hardly have been a more suitable venue for these topics. Built in 1925-1926 for Aby M. Warburg, heir to the Warburg family bank, this building was designed as a library for his private comprehensive collection of literature on iconography and the history of culture and as a meeting room for seminars with eminent scholars from various fields. After 1933, as a Jew Warburg was forced to emigrate to London, taking with him a major part of his library of over 60.000 books. The building was expropriated and used for various purposes until 1993, when it was bought by the city of Hamburg and dedicated to the university to be used again for its original purpose: as a library and a centre of academic exchange. Martin Sökefeld begins the series of articles dealing with questions of diaspora and migration by departing from a critique of conceptualising diaspora as community. While diaspora has become a popular concept in the social and cultural sciences because it promised to overcome reifications of “cultures” or “communities” as rooted in space and place this promise was only partially fulfilled. In fact, diaspora is mostly conceived as community rooted “elsewhere”, in some country of origin. Instead, he suggests conceptualising diaspora not simply as a result of spatial mobility/migration but of social movement and mobilisation. More often than not, diasporic mobilisation is contested; it may also be temporal and reversible. Focusing on political aspects of mobilisation and a campaign for the recognition of Kashmiri identity, Sökefeld discusses the case of Kashmiris in Britain suggesting distinguishing different aspects of diasporic commitments in order to avoid essentialist conceptions that take activists’ constructions of diaspora for granted. Julia Pauli and Franziska Bedorf then take us to Mexico and the USA. Many Mexicans on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border agree that fulfilled ageing is tightly connected to the everyday presence and care of family members and the family in general. Such perceptions are part and parcel of wider Mexican kinship and family ideologies. However, lived realities in transnational communities between rural Mexico and the USA diverge from these idealized discourses. Based on two long-term field projects and ethnographic locations (rural Mexico and urban Chicago) the authors ask how the elderly and their families within migrant transnational communities deal with new uncertainties (and certainties) emerging out of broader changes in economic, social and ideological conditions that are linked with migration. While elder women and men in rural Mexico are confronted with the crumbling of indigenous inheritance and security systems such as the practice of ultimogeniture, their elder counterparts in Chicago face new models of living arrangements and daily routine that result in appreciated leisure time on the one hand and loneliness and abandonment on the other hand. Partici-

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pation in past time activities at Senior Clubs serves as a means to deal with this ambiguous situation and to create new social ties. Both in Mexico and Chicago migration thus crucially influences the frameworks and structures elderly Mexicans interact with, thereby necessitating new strategies for a satisfied ageing. In the new emerging realities the ideal of a family centred old age might be replaced by more diverse models of ageing. Waltraud Kokot herself was particularly interested in case studies of migration and diaspora in and from south Eastern Europe, where the next contributions are set. Milena Benovska-Sabkova and Iliya Nedin examine the reasons for a high level of tolerance (perceived or real) between Christians and Muslims in the Bulgarian town of Zlatograd, a small frontier community at the borderline between Bulgaria and Greece. The two authors address the conversion from Islam to Orthodox Christianity after 1990 as a symbolic expression of the voluntary change of marginal Muslim (“Pomak”) identity with Bulgarian one. Cases of conversion are just one way to express the changes occurring in the fluid identity of Muslim Bulgarians in Bulgaria after 1990. Eftihia Voutira addresses the issue of traditional Greek values and their progressive deterioration in the context of the “global migration crisis”. She analyses the underlying assumptions of the current public discourses concerning illegal migration and asylum seekers focusing on the paradoxical element embedded in the use of the ancient Greek obligation to provide hospitality as articulated in the concept of Xenios Zeus (the God who protects the foreigner/stranger) and its current abuse by government authorities who have invented the label “Xenios Zeus” as a brand name for their police operations and mass arrests against illegal migrants in urban centres. In this context, the traditional values of hospitality are deemed irrelevant and even penalised. Thus, the meaning of the concept “Xenios Zeus” is perverted. Although the Jewish diaspora, another of Waltraud Kokot’s interests, has been studied intensively, many aspects are still underrepresented in official historiographies. These aspects include the role of Jewish settlers in North America’s West, which is discussed by Sabine Lang in this volume. Jews are generally absent from the Anglo-American narrative of “How the West was won”, as well as from stagings of that narrative in Western movies and popular literature. Yet they were among the first to set foot onto the New World and became an integral and respected part of the settler community. At the same time, they held on to their identity, built synagogues and maintained support networks among themselves. Starting out from that Jewish presence in North America, the second focus of Lang’s contribution is on mutual interactions and perceptions of Native Americans and Jews who were both “diasporans” in the U.S. While Jews would

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sometimes harbour feelings of interethnic kinship due to shared histories of persecution and genocide, Native Americans, in turn, rather viewed Jews as one subcategory of the “whites” who interacted with them as traders, settlers, explorers or soldiers. This has changed only recently, as some Native American writers were struck by the similarities between their peoples’ experience of near extinction and the genocide suffered by the European Jews during the Holocaust. All these phenomena dealing with migration and diaspora have as a common denominator the importance of networks, which brings us to the next contributions. Studying the Mafia as a flexible network structure Christian Giordano combines three of Waltraud Kokot’s interests: The study of networks, Southern Europe and secret associations (to which she has also devoted much of her spare time). For a long time the Mafia was considered an anti-modern phenomenon that would have come to an end with society’s evolution. Contrary to this expectation, the Mafia proved to be far more resilient, so much so that it responded effectively to the challenge of globalisation. Analyses about the Mafia are often based on two myths, namely the folkloristic one and the pyramidal one. In the first one, the role of secret and occasionally gruesome rituals with an archaic aura has been voyeuristically played up, whereas the second one views the Mafia as a centralised institution on a par with a state institution. This paper highlights, instead, how the Mafia has shown to be more modern than the State on account of its strategic use of personalised networks and consolidated cores. The personalised Mafia networks and consolidated cores have proven to be far more efficient in public mistrust societies, in which the Mafia finds its most favourable habitat to flourish, and in the vast context of globalisation, where formal institutions have trouble establishing themselves and imposing their role due to structural reasons. From networks it is only a small step to the next topic: the anthropology of kinship, which has also been one of Waltraud Kokot’s recurring themes, particularly in classes, lectures and seminars. Hartmut Lang and Astrid Wonneberger deal with a debate that was for a long time a dark corner of this sub-discipline in social anthropology, namely the debate whether societies where fathers are deemed not necessary for conception have ever existed. Today, there are still three factions: proponents who feel such societies exist, opponents of this claim and those who are undecided because they feel they lack the necessary knowledge. In their article the authors investigate how good the empirical foundation is on which the proponent and opponent factions have built their positions. However, since the debate has up to now produced a big heap of literature, the study had to be exploratory. This contribution also touches on general de-

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bates in anthropology, such as the problem of exoticism and the question of how anthropologists deal with observation data and how much influence does previous knowledge have on observations and the interpretation of such data. It also deals with invented traditions in that it shows how easily recent cultural phenomena can mutate into (supposedly) old traditions. The next article in this volume represents the second large of Waltraud Kokot’s cluster of interests, urban anthropology and urban studies, and also touches on her interest on fieldwork methodology. Kathrin Wildner takes a closer look at the Hamburg HafenCity, its perceptions and imaginaries and their changes within the redevelopment process of the port area. Based on the analysis of mental maps collected in 2002 and 2013, Kathrin Wildner explores how the perceptions and usages of the HafenCity among various types of actors have changed. Has the HafenCity become the lively urban space developers and architects envisioned in the planning process? At the same time, this sketch is a brief approach to test and further discuss the possibilities of mental maps as a tool for analysing the perception of urban space. As we have referred to before, Waltraud has always explored new themes for ethnographic research and pioneered in such areas as prostitution, homelessness, diaspora as resource, forensic anthropology and port areas. For this reason this volume would not be an appropriate stroll through Waltraud Kokot’s academic life if it did not include contributions which do not fit into well-established thematic clusters and sub-disciplines. The attributes “towards” in the titles of the next two contributions indicate their pioneer character. Henk Driessen follows a personal approach to Waltraud Kokot’s interests in port areas, water bodies and rivers by sketching a new field of investigation which he derived from casual observations and experiences in terms of global transformations. As open, fluid and ever changing nodal sites of trade and social networks, rivers are not only an apt metaphor for the present-day notion of fieldwork in anthropology and related disciplines, they also make a fascinating research topic. In his article, Henk Driessen briefly explores in a holistic way the social and cultural life of rivers in order to point out topics for further anthropological research. The second outline of a new future field in anthropology is the contribution of Clemens Greiner and Michael Pröpper on crafts, a subject that also always interested Waltraud Kokot. Although facets of crafts/wo/manship appear in some renowned sub-disciplines of cultural and social anthropology – particularly in material culture and educational anthropology, but also in anthropologies of the body – crafts/wo/manship is amazingly absent in many others. While economic anthropology, for example, has well-developed research on techniques of food

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production (from hunting-gathering to industrial agriculture), on industrial production and on contemporary financial institutions, this sub-discipline has no visible research tradition on the production of crafts. This contribution represents a first attempt to close this knowledge gap. Starting with the task of defining the subject, the authors draw on the scattered bits and pieces of anthropological research on crafts/wo/manship to shed light on existing theoretical, conceptual and methodological approaches, as well as on an array of case studies, and close with an outline of the contours of a more integrative anthropology of crafts. Before we proceed with the actual contributions, we would like to insert a few comments on the front cover of this book. The artist of the picture is Michael Pröpper, student and colleague of Waltraud Kokot and one of the authors in this volume. Michael Pröpper is both anthropologist and artist. The two interests and passions complement and influence each other, as his art is often inspired by his ethnographic work. Having a long-lasting interest in art herself, Waltraud Kokot always showed a deep interest in Michael Pröpper’s paintings. After long discussions we finally chose, together with the author, the picture “Luanda morning”. It was created in 2012, based on a photograph which had been taken by the artist in Luanda/Angola in 2009 during a morning walk along the beach of the lagoon. 1 Apart from this geographic reference, the image serves as an apt metaphor for several themes of this Festschrift, as it symbolises mobility and transformation, insinuates networks and skills and, last not least, invites the spectator to visualise migration, waterways and port cities. In 2012, Waltraud’s term as a professor for Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Hamburg ended. She has never shied from rethinking old themes, introducing supposedly marginalised topics and approaches, asking new questions, initiating new research projects, promoting, respecting and appreciating talented students and cooperating with colleagues from various disciplines. After editing several Festschriften for her colleagues, namely Ulla Johannsen (Schweizer, Schweizer and Kokot 1993), Hans Fischer (Kokot and Dracklé 1999) and Hartmut Lang (Greiner and Kokot 2009), it is now time to honour Waltraud Kokot for her merits and achievements for Cultural and Social Anthropology in general, for the Department at Hamburg University in particular, and, above all, for being a great colleague, teacher and friend.

1

Oil on canvass, 100x70cm, taken from the series “Luanda Nights”. See also the artist’s website at www.michaelproepper.de.

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R EFERENCES Greiner, Clemens and Waltraud Kokot (eds.) (2009) Networks, Resources and Economic Action. Ethnographic Case Studies in Honor of Hartmut Lang. Kulturanalysen, Vol. 9, Berlin: Reimer. Horowitz, Irving Louis (1991) Communicating Ideas. The Politics of Scholarly Publishing. Second expanded edition. New Brunswick/New Jersey: Transaction Publishers. Kokot, Waltraud (2007) Betroffene von Räumungsklagen und Verbleib von Zwangsgeräumten: eine ethnologische Untersuchung zu Lebenssituation und Verbleibsalternativen. Ethnoscripts 9 (1): pp. 182-184. — (2006) “European Port Cities – Disadvantaged Urban Areas in Transition”: a Collaborative Project of the Community Action Programme to Combat Social Exclusion 202-2006. Transnational Exchange Programme (VS/2004/0728); Final Report – Phase II. Institut für Ethnologie, Universität Hamburg. — (2004a) “European Port Cities – Disadvantaged Urban Areas in Transition”: a Collaborative Project under the EU Transnational Exchange Programme (“Fight against Poverty and Social Exclusion”); (VP/2002/010); Final Report – Phase I. Institut für Ethnologie, Universität Hamburg. — (ed.) (2004b) Kultur der Obdachlosigkeit in der Hamburger Innenstadt: eine ethnologische Felduntersuchung. Lines: Beiträge zur Stadtforschung aus dem Institut für Ethnologie der Universität Hamburg Vol. 1, Hamburg: Hamburger Verein für Ethnologie. — (2002a) Ethnographie eines Straßenzuges auf St. Pauli: ein ethnologisches Forschungsprojekt. Ethnoscripts 4 (1): pp. 97-100. — (ed.) (2002b) Feldforschungen in Hamburg. Ethnoscripts 4/1. — (1999) Der Arbeitsschwerpunkt “kulturelle Identität in der Diaspora”: laufende Forschungen und Vorschau. Ethnoscripts 1 (1): pp. 61-63. — (1996) Kleinasienflüchtlinge in Thessaloniki: Zur Verarbeitung von Fluchterlebnissen in biographischen Erzählungen. In: Kokot, Waltraud and Dorle Dracklé (eds.): Ethnologie Europas. Grenzen, Konflikte, Identitäten. Berlin: Reimer: pp. 259-271. Kokot, Waltraud, Felix Axster and Martin Gruber (2002) Kultur der Obdachlosigkeit in der Hamburger Innenstadt: eine ethnologische Felduntersuchung. Series: Wissen schafft Verantwortung. Hamburg: Institut für Ethnologie der Universität Hamburg. Kokot, Waltraud and Hauke Dorsch (eds.) (2004) Periplus 2004 – Jahrbuch für außereuropäische Geschichte, 14. Jg. special issue “Diaspora”.

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— (2006) Diasporen in der außereuropäischen Welt: Begriffliche Einordnung und inhaltliche Bestimmung. Fernuniversität in Hagen: Westliche Wirtschaftsinteressen und globale Migration: Diasporen und Minderheiten in der außereuropäischen Welt: Kurseinheit 1, Hagen. Kokot, Waltraud and Dorle Dracklé (eds.) (1999) Wozu Ethnologie? Festschrift für Hans Fischer. Berlin: Reimer. Kokot, Waltraud, Mijal Gandelsman-Trier, Kathrin Wildner and Astrid Wonneberger (eds.) (2008) Port Cities as Areas of Transition. Ethnographic Perspectives. Bielefeld: transcript. Kokot, Waltraud, Christian Giordano and Mijal Gandelsman-Trier (eds.) (2013) Diaspora as a Resource: Comparative Studies in Strategies, Networks and Urban Space. Zürich et al.: Lit. Kokot, Waltraud and Martin Gruber (2007) Betroffene von Räumungsklagen und Verbleib von Zwangsgeräumten: eine ethnologische Untersuchung zu Lebenssituationen und Verbleibsalternativen. Münster: Lit. Kokot, Waltraud, Thomas Hengartner and Kathrin Wildner (eds.) (2000) Kulturwissenschaftliche Stadtforschung. Eine Bestandsaufnahme. Berlin: Reimer. Kokot, Waltraud, Helmut Rösing, Simone Reich and Simon Sell (eds.) (2004) “Die härteste Bühne der Welt...”: Straßenmusik in Hamburg. Ethnologische und musikwissenschaftliche Annäherungen. Lines: Beiträge zur Stadtforschung aus dem Institut für Ethnologie der Universität Hamburg Vol. 2. Hamburg: Hamburger Verein für Ethnologie. Kokot, Waltraud, Khachig Tölölyan and Carolin Alfonso (eds.) (2004) Diaspora, Identity and Religion: New Directions in Theory and Research. London et al.: Routledge. Sökefeld, Martin and Astrid Wonneberger (eds.) (2004) Hamburg: Das Tor zum Feld. Ethnoscripts 6 (1). Schweizer, Thomas, Margarete Schweizer, Waltraud Kokot (eds.) (1993) Handbuch der Ethnologie. Festschrift für Ulla Johansen. Berlin: Reimer. Wonneberger, Astrid (2011) Abschlussbericht (Jahr 5) des Denkwerks Ethnologie – Familie in der Diaspora. http://www.uni-hamburg.de/ethnologie/denk werk.html. — (2010) Zwischenbericht (Jahr 4) des Denkwerks Ethnologie – Familie in der Diaspora. http://www.uni-hamburg.de/ethnologie/denkwerk.html. — (2008) Abschlussbericht (Jahr 3) des Denkwerks Ethnologie – Familie in der Diaspora. http://www.uni-hamburg.de/ethnologie/denkwerk.html.

The Kashmiri Diaspora in Britain and the Limits of Political Mobilisation M ARTIN S ÖKEFELD

I NTRODUCTION : T HE P ROBLEMS OF D IASPORA The great euphoria about the diaspora concept 1 is certainly over. 2 While in the 1980s and especially the 1990s “diaspora” was eagerly adopted as an antidote against the “metaphysics of ‘race’, nation and bounded culture”, in Paul Gilroy’s words (Gilroy 1997: 328), and experienced ever increasing popularity, the concept evoked more cautious and critical voices in the last decade. In the discourses of social sciences and cultural studies, “diaspora” has been mostly used as a term for a “social form” among the three meanings of the concept which Steve Vertovec (1997) identified. In fact, in many cases “diaspora” has been plainly employed as another term for (migrant) community. This usage of “diaspora” has

1

When I started to develop an interest in diaspora – at that time in the Alevi case – Waltraud Kokot provided the intellectually stimulating environment at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Hamburg University, where I could pursue this interest. I am greatly indebted to Waltraud Kokot for her huge support.

2

Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Universities of Stockholm, Oslo, Bielefeld, Tübingen and Zagreb. The discussions after these presentations helped very much to improve the paper. I would like to express my gratitude to the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research which generously funded fieldwork in Britain and in Azad Jammu and Kashmir. Fieldwork consisted of eight field trips to Britain between 2006 and 2010 of two to six weeks duration each. I worked mainly in Bradford, Greater Manchester, Birmingham and London with Kashmiri activists of secular-nationalist orientation. Around two months of research in Azad Kashmir and Pakistan took place mainly in 2007.

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been criticised and it has been argued that, instead of subverting, such a concept rather bolsters the “metaphysics” of nation, ethnic group and bounded culture (e.g. Anthias 1998, Soysal 2001). Brian Axel (2001) in particular pointed to the role of ideas of “origin” in this context. Especially the practice of tying diasporas to some place of origin (e.g. Safran 1991) – as in the usual practice of naming diasporas after a presumed provenance – strengthens the metaphysics of boundedness. Axel argued that diaspora should not be thought from some place of origin, but rather from the space in which it unfolds. Some diasporas, like the Sikhs who serve as Axel’s example, create their particular “home” and “origin” from the diasporic vantage point, rather than carrying it already with them on their routes of migration. Accordingly, diaspora is not the result of some original or ongoing migration, but of a broader range of social and political processes. The critique of essentialisation notwithstanding, diaspora very often continues to be treated as a social entity and a collective actor. A prominent example for this is Gabriel Sheffer’s book Diaspora politics (Sheffer 2003). At first sight, Sheffer seems to avoid an essentialist conceptualisation of diaspora as an entity. He poses the question of how and why migrants form diasporas and thus goes beyond the simple assumption that diasporas are a direct outcome of migration. Yet once established, diasporas appear to be communities and collective actors who “do” something politically, who, for instance “extend support to beleaguered homelands and other diaspora communities of the same national origin” (p. 26). Significantly, Sheffer conceptualises diasporas in terms of maintenance of identities. Thus, diasporas continue because of their “members’ wishes to maintain their ethno-national identities and contacts with their homeland and with other dispersed communities of the same ethnic origin” (ibid.). Sheffer acknowledges the role of diaspora organisations and also of the context of the “host country” in the constitution of diaspora. Still, according to him, all this only helps to actualise what essentially seems to be already there: “[…] a degree of cohesion emerges within those [migrant] groups. Again, solidarity and group cohesion are founded on the primordial, cultural and instrumental elements in their collective identities” (ibid., p. 80). Established on such “foundational” elements, diasporas are considered as acting collectively, in quite a similar way that we colloquially use to refer to the acts (or interests, experiences, etc.) of nations or states. In Sheffer’s book phrases like “diasporas engage in” or “pursue” something abound; diasporas “achieve” their goals – or do not achieve them. I regard this way of talking about diaspora as inherently problematic. Although Sheffer does not consider diaspora explicitly as a simple outcome of migration, diaspora is viewed in terms of pre-existing phenomena. This is a very common approach which assesses diasporas in terms of continuity and change in comparison with

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the “home country”. Here, too, “origin” remains the constant reference and in spite of all changes something essential remains the same which, in the last instance, allows us to name a certain diaspora after its presumed “origin”. Elsewhere I have argued that such an approach is much too narrow and essentialising (Sökefeld 2004) and that diasporas cannot be meaningfully compared to some pristine state of origin before migration (which thereby becomes an entrenched “home”). Countering this approach I argued – following a social-constructionist approach to identity (e.g. Sökefeld 2008) – that identity is always imagined and practiced within a specific context, and that the imagination of a particular “identity of origin” (which itself needs to be contextualised) is only one factor among many that help to create particular discourses of identity. Thus, rather than taking for granted that a particular diaspora identity is “rooted” in a certain identity of origin, we need to consider why – if at all – the imagination of diasporic identity takes place in these particular terms. I suggested that the essentialisation of diaspora can be prevented by considering the formation of diaspora as a process of social and political mobilisation which can be analysed with concepts of social movement theory (Sökefeld 2006). Further, if diaspora is closely related to processes of mobilisation, diaspora can also be “de-mobilised” again. Diasporas may not only change but also fade away. In the rest of this article I will discuss such processes of mobilisation, taking the “Kashmiri diaspora” in the UK as an example.

T HE K ASHMIRI D IASPORA IN

THE

UK

This text is about “the Kashmiri diaspora” in the UK. My interest in the Kashmiri case was triggered by my earlier concern for the “political context of origin” 3 which includes the Kashmir dispute. 4 Thus my “route” towards the Kashmiris in the UK followed the rather conventional, “rooted” approach which I criticised above. When I started to do research about Kashmiris in Britain I was strongly influenced by the publications of Nasreen Ali, Zafar Khan and Patricia Ellis who studied Kashmiris in Luton in the 1990s. Luton is a small town north

3

I resort to this phrase for the purpose of avoiding to essentialise by simply naming the origin. In the case of the Kashmiris this problem is particularly pertinent, as we will see, because their “context of origin” is highly disputed and fragmented.

4

I am highly interested in the Kashmir issue since I did fieldwork for my PhD thesis in Gilgit-Baltistan, the other part of erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir State that is under the control of Pakistan. See for instance Sökefeld 2005.

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of London with a large number of people originating from Kotli district in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (subsequently AJK). AJK, one of the two sections of erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir State (subsequently J&K State) which since 1947 are under Pakistani control, is the area of origin of almost all Kashmiris in Britain. From the articles by Ali, Khan and Ellis an image of a politically very active and quite close-knit Kashmiri diaspora community emerged. A community which has influenced British foreign policy has engaged in local elections and has also exerted considerable influence in AJK (Ellis and Khan 1998, 1999a, 1999b, 2002). While Nasreen Ali argued more differentiated, pointing out, for instance, that there are different discourses of “Kashmiriness” which are authored by different kinds of actors (Ali 2002, 2003), the overall picture was that of diaspora as a collective political actor. While people of Kashmiri origin had been categorised as “Pakistanis” before, also in academic publications, 5 because AJK is under Pakistani control, because they arrived on Pakistani passports and because Pakistan acts as “caretaker” for AJK, the authors argued that Kashmiris in Britain formed a separate ethnic/diasporic community and should be recognised as such. They emphasised that “migrants from Azad Kashmir and their offspring are identifying themselves first and foremost as Kashmiris” (Ali, Ellis and Khan 1996: 230), giving other possible identifications lesser salience, but also that in the 1990s this was a quite recent change. According to their diagnosis, the change was triggered mostly by developments in the Indian administered part of J&K, namely the insurgency against Indian control which had started in 1989. They accorded a particularly significant role in this respect to the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), the secular-nationalist Kashmiri organisation which started the insurgency in Indian J&K and which had originally been established in 1977 in Birmingham by political activists from AJK. Having read these writings, I expected to find a vibrant Kashmiri diasporic community when I started fieldwork in Britain in 2006. As I was especially interested in politics, I worked mostly with activists of different parties and organisations. After more than four years of (intermittent) research, a different picture emerged. While for the political activists “Kashmiri” indeed is the first and foremost identification, this cannot be confirmed for the “community” at large. I encountered more failed projects than successful manifestations of the “Kashmiri diaspora”. While the term “diaspora” has entered the political vocabulary of Kashmiri activists, a Kashmiri diaspora in the sense of a community which identifies itself primarily as Kashmiri has apparently largely vanished – if it ever existed. On the other hand, the history of Kashmiri mobilisation in Britain turned

5

E.g. Anwar 1979, Ballard 1983, Bolognani 2007, Saifullah Khan 1977.

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out to be much more complex. It cannot be reduced to the JKLF only. 6 In this article I will outline a history of Kashmiri political mobilisation in Britain, considering first transnational politics, i.e. commitments that are related to issues in Kashmir, and then mobilisation related to British politics. After that I will dwell on failed Kashmiri projects. In the end I will offer some ideas towards a reconceptualisation of diaspora derived from the Kashmiri case.

K ASHMIRI M OBILISATION IN T RANSNATIONAL P OLITICS Individual migration from what later became AJK started already before the Subcontinent’s partition and independence. 7 From the 1950s, chain migration developed, transferring large portions of the population of southern AJK (today’s districts of Mirpur, Kotli and Bhimber), resulting in quite concentrated settlements of Kashmiris in Britain, especially in Birmingham, Bradford, different towns in Lancashire and around London. It is regularly estimated that 500,000 people of Kashmiri origin live in the UK (e.g. Ali 2003: 477). 8 Sometimes even higher numbers are given. However, because “Kashmiri” is not a census category in the UK, there are no exact and reliable figures. This is an important issue of political mobilisation, as will be seen later. Because there are close political relationships between AJK and Kashmiris in the UK, a few sentences about AJK politics are necessary in order to understand Kashmiri political mobilisation in Britain. 9 The original idea of Azad Jammu and Kashmir was to create a democratic and independent J&K State, free of the Maharaja’s feudal rule. After the turmoil of partition and in the course of the dispute between India and Pakistan over the accession of the princely state of J&K,

6

The JKLF itself is a very complex phenomenon. It has undergone a number of splits and mirrors the fragmentation of the “Kashmiri community”.

7

The most detailed history of migration from AJK to the UK is given by Kalra 2000.

8

Ellis and Khan estimated 350,000 persons of Kashmiri background in 1999 (Ellis and Khan 1999b: 103). Muzamil Khan assumed in 2006 that there were 400,000 people from Mirpur alone in the UK (Khan 2006: 43).

9

By “Kashmiri political mobilisation” I mean all kinds of political activities that are related to ideas of Kashmir and Kashmiris (as state, nation, ethnic group, diaspora, etc.). There are other kinds of political activities by people who are categorised as “Kashmiri” which I do not include in this category, such as many fields of British home affairs but also politics of Islam. This distinction is necessary in order to de-essentialise “Kashmiris”: Not everything “Kashmiris” do is “Kashmiri”.

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Azad (“Free”) Jammu and Kashmir was declared on 4th October 1947. There had been a brewing revolt against the Maharaja’s regime already since early 1947. In autumn of that year, “tribals” from Pakistan entered J&K in order to support the uprising. Feeling strongly threatened, the Maharaja declared accession with India on October 26, 1947, to allow the entering of Indian troops into the State. Thus, the conflict was turned into a war between India and Pakistan. After the ceasefire of the first Kashmir war, AJK emerged as a small strip at the south-western edge of erstwhile J&K State, separated from the Indian administered territory by the ceasefire line which was later renamed as Line of Control. Formally, AJK is a separate political body which today has a complete institutional setup including government, parliament and judiciary. De facto, however, AJK is almost completely dependent on and controlled by Pakistan. In fact, Pakistan is the only state which recognises AJK. For Pakistan, AJK serves as a kind of placeholder for the future accession of the whole J&K which is envisioned and demanded by the country as solution of the Kashmir dispute. The close relationship with Pakistan dominates formal politics in AJK. For instance, candidates for the AJK legislative assembly are required to sign a declaration of loyalty with Pakistan saying that they desire and support the accession of J&K with Pakistan. Yet not all people in and from AJK were and are content with this state of affairs. The demand for independence of J&K enjoys considerable support although it can hardly be freely articulated in AJK. A first milestone of political mobilisation in AJK against Pakistani control occurred in relation with the construction of the Mangla Dam in Mirpur between 1959 and 1967. When the large reservoir was flooded, an estimated number of 100,000 people were displaced by the rising water. Resistance against the construction of the dam in Mirpur was supported by Mirpuris, as migrants from AJK were called at that time, in Britain. The protest against the dam was ruthlessly suppressed by the AJK and the Pakistani governments. One outcome of the protest campaign was the establishment of a pro-independence party in AJK, the Jammu and Kashmir Plebiscite Front (PF), in 1965. The PF campaigned for the implementation of a referendum about the future of Jammu and Kashmir, as provisioned by the UN resolutions on Kashmir. Yet in contrast with these resolutions, the PF demanded three options for a plebiscite: beside accession with India or Pakistan also the independence of J&K State. The PF had supporters among Kashmiris in Britain although there was hardly a formal party organisation in the UK. Yet, there was a potential for mobilisation: When in 1971, after the hijacking of an Indian aircraft from Srinagar to Lahore, large numbers of PF members and supporters were arrested in Pakistan and AJK, sympathisers in Britain staged effective protests during visits of

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members of the Pakistani government, exerting pressure which contributed to the release of the prisoners. 10 From the PF derives a first string of Kashmiri political mobilisation in Britain which can be termed secular-nationalist. After the hijacking the PF had rather difficult times in AJK due to close surveillance and pressure. As a consequence, the idea emerged to establish an organised and powerful branch in Britain. In 1975, two party leaders came to the UK and in early 1977 they established the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) in Birmingham as an overseas support organisation for the PF. Yet later the president of the JKLF, Amanullah Khan, took the organisation back to Azad Kashmir and turned it into a rival of the PF. A second string of mobilisation can be termed leftist and internationalist. There was a small but very committed circle of Kashmiri activists in Britain who were influenced by the Palestinian struggle, the activism against the Vietnam War and other international issues. They conceived their activism in terms of anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism. John Hutnyk (2006) issued a very committed statement for the inclusion of leftist politics in the writings about British South Asians, and such leftist politics did indeed play an important role in Kashmiri activism. 11 Leftist activists from Kashmir formed the United Kashmir Liberation Front (UKLF) in Birmingham in the early 1970s. The group joined the efforts of PF sympathisers in the aircraft hijacking case, although they did not share the overall aims of the PF, which they regarded as rather bourgeois. The UKLF cooperated with other leftists from South Asia like the Indian Workers’ Association and the Pakistani Workers’ Association. After a few years, the UKLF was turned into the Kashmiri Workers’ Association (KWA). In contrast to the JKLF, the KWA developed strong links with British organisations like trade unions or antiracism initiatives. The KWA always remained a small group which nevertheless

10 The two hijackers from Indian administered J&K had some relations with activists of the PF in AJK. When they arrived in Lahore, they were first welcomed as freedom fighters. At that time, Pakistan still consisted of a western and an eastern part (which became Bangladesh soon after), separated by the land mass of northern India. In consequence of the hijacking incident, India closed its airspace for Pakistani aircrafts. Transport between West- and East Pakistan was interrupted. After this, the Pakistani government blamed the hijackers as “Indian agents” and put them along with many PF activists to a special trial. 11 Leftist orientation among Kashmiris was not a product of the political context in Britain but played a role already in the political struggles of pre-1947 Jammu and Kashmir.

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introduced a number of significant and influential changes in Kashmiri politics in the UK. For instance, activists of the KWA started to call AJK “Pakistan Occupied Kashmir” (POK) in analogy with the term “Indian Occupied Kashmir” (IOK) which is generally used in Pakistan to refer to the territories administered by India. Also, the KWA started to use Pahari, the regional language of Mirpur, in its public meetings instead of Urdu, Pakistan’s national language. The issue of language use is significant. “Mirpuris” were generally looked down upon by Pakistanis in Britain as kind of backward “hillbillies”. Part of this negative stereotyping was their “Mirpuri” language which was considered as an unintelligible dialect of Punjabi and not as a language in its own right. Political activities of the KWA were clearly marked by opposition against Pakistani domination of AJK. Both the secular nationalists of PF and JKLF and the leftists of the KWA favoured the independence of Kashmir. Both lines of mobilisation converged to some extent in 1984. At the beginning of this year, activists from around the JKLF kidnapped Ravinder Mhatre, an Indian diplomat in Birmingham, with the intention to force the release of Maqbool Bhat in India. Maqbool Bhat was a leader of the Jammu and Kashmir National Liberation Front (NLF), a militant wing of the PF, who was on the death row in India, having been convicted of the murder of an Indian policeman. The kidnappers did not achieve their goal. Ravinder Mhatre was killed and Maqbool Bhat executed in Delhi. The date of Bhat’s execution, February 11, became subsequently a significant day of commemoration and mobilisation for Kashmiri activists, marked by public events all over Britain. In 1984, the murder of the Indian diplomat sparked large-scale police crackdowns on politically active Kashmiris in Britain. In this situation a leader of the JKLF called the KWA for assistance, although earlier there had been a lot of friction between both organisations. Now, the KWA mobilised its quite elaborate network of nonKashmiri, white British supporting organisations, mostly from the spectrum of campaigns against racism, framing the crackdown as a racist move. After 1984 the JKLF was able to recruit many more members. Branches were established in almost thirty cities in the UK. Although the killing of Ravider Mhatre was generally condemned among Kashmiris, the events brought much publicity and with the execution of Maqbool Bhatt the JKLF had won a martyr who became a focal symbol of identification. Yet the JKLF became never as strong as it perhaps could have been because it was ridden with internal conflicts. Moreover, the alliance with others like the KWA did not last. Today, there are several different factions of the JKLF. From the early 1990s, it became obvious that the JKLF had collaborated with Pakistani intelligence agencies in triggering the insurgency in Indian administered J&K. Some Kashmiri activists in

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Britain considered Pakistan simply as another occupying force in Kashmir and were very critical of such collaboration. Soon the JKLF became largely insignificant to the struggle in Indian Kashmir because the Pakistani agencies shifted their support to Islamist groups. The secular-nationalist uprising in Indian administered Kashmir largely turned out to be a failure (Sikand 2001). As a consequence, many Kashmiris in Britain became disillusioned with the JKLF.

K ASHMIRIS IN B RITISH L OCAL P OLITICS AND THE C ENSUS C AMPAIGN From the late 1970s, people of AJK origin became involved in British local politics. In the British election system of strict majority vote minorities have much electoral weight. Being mostly labourers, the majority of people of Kashmiri background considered the Labour Party as their natural political representation. Increasingly, Kashmiris did not only vote for Labour candidates but demanded to stand for elections on Labour tickets themselves. One of the first Kashmiri councillors was Mohammad Ajeeb in Bradford, who in 1985 also became the first Lord Mayor of Kashmiri origin of a British city. British issues rather than anything connected with Kashmir were the most important reason to enter local politics. Mohammad Ajeeb’s motivation was the struggle against racism, especially in the context of employment, which first triggered his commitment to anti-racist initiatives and trade unions and then brought him to the city council. The number of Kashmiri councillors grew in the 1980s and 1990s. While for many the experience of discrimination had already been the reason to enter local politics, the difficult social situation of Asian immigrants became even more apparent through their involvement in the councils which gave access to social monitoring data. There was a perception that people of Kashmiri background were actually worse off in terms of housing, education, employment, etc. than other Asians, Pakistanis included. Statistically, however, Kashmiris remained invisible because statistics categorised Asians according to their nation-states of origin. Having no nation-state of their own, people from AJK were merged with Pakistanis. On the basis of circumstantial evidence Kashmiri councillors and activists presumed that Pakistanis were actually much better off than Kashmiris and that the data actually provided a wrong image of the Kashmiris’ social situation. According to the narrative of Kashmiri activists, Kashmiris in Britain were dominated by Pakistanis although there were presumably many more Kashmiris than Pakistanis in the UK. Being better educated and connected with British mainstream-society than Kashmiris Pakistanis acted as their representatives in

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British institutionalised multiculturalism without, however, caring for the needs of the Kashmiris. Here, too, the issue of language was significant. In the UK, immigrants are entitled to interpreting services, for instance when admitted to hospital. The interpreting business was dominated by Pakistanis, too. They offered English-Urdu interpretation which was of little use for many Kashmiris who did not know Urdu but spoke Pahari. In the 1990s, Kashmiri activists started to lobby British institutions for the need to recognise Pahari as a separate language and for Pahari language services. This meant, in fact, the recognition of Kashmiris as a separate ethnic group, distinct from Pakistanis. In a kind of surprise move, some Kashmiri councillors and activists achieved the recognition of Kashmiris by the Bradford City Council in late 1998. Pakistanis and pro-Pakistani Kashmiris unsuccessfully attempted to reverse the decision. To the contrary, more and more British towns and cities with a significant population of Kashmiri background followed the example of Bradford and recognised Kashmiris as a separate ethnic group. In monitoring of council employment, housing and other issues of local administration Kashmiris became visible. Nothing changed, however, in nationally governed policy fields such as education and health. Soon after their recognition in Bradford, Kashmiri activists came together and started a campaign for the recognition of Kashmiris on a national level. This was the Kashmiri National Identity Campaign (KNIC). Many of these activists were supporters of the independence of J&K State and were closely related to groups like JKLF or KWA. Nasreen Ali (2003) therefore discusses the KNIC in terms of the Kashmiri nation. This was, however, not the only possible reference. I asked KNIC activists whether the word national in the campaign’s name referred to the Kashmiri nation or to the British national level. My interlocutors told me that the reference to the “national” was deliberately left open and vague. The intention of this ambiguity was to avoid the campaign being drawn into the antinomies of Kashmiri politics and not to alienate people of Kashmiri background who hesitated to support the demand for independence of J&K State. The KNIC’s purpose was to make “Kashmiri” a category of the British census. The census is taken every ten years and the next one was due in 2001. Since 1991, the census asked for the ethnic self-categorisation. 12 For persons of South Asian background, “ethnicity” was again categorised in terms of the nation-state of origin. Thus, respondents could tick an “Indian” or “Bangladeshi” box but there was no “Kashmiri” box. The KNIC demanded the addition of a “Kashmiri” tick-box in the 2001 census forms. The Office of National Statistics (ONS)

12 On the inclusion of ethnic categories in the census see Ballard 1996.

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which carries out the census responded, however, that it was impossible to change the questionnaire at a rather short notice. The only option for respondents to get Kashmiri ethnicity counted was to tick the box “other ethnic group” and then to write “Kashmiri” in the blank space provided beneath. The KNIC attempted to publicise this possibility. The Campaign distributed flyers with titles like Kashmiris in Britain – no longer invisible or Be Kashmiri – be counted. Through a newsletter published in 2001 people were asked to tick the box “other” and fill in Kashmiri. The importance of the getting Kashmiri ethnicity counted was explained as follows: •

• • •

Kashmiris will be recognised in their own right as equally as any other community and not be labelled as Indians or Pakistanis depending on which part of divided Kashmir they come from. Kashmiris will be able to promote their rich culture, customs and national interests. Local and national institutions will be able to take into account and reflect the Kashmiri aspirations and needs in provisions and delivery of services. Government policies will have to recognise and reflect the large Kashmiri presence in this country (KNIC Newsletter, issue 1, 2001).

The campaign was opposed by pro-Pakistani Kashmiris, including the UK branch of the Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference, the dominant proPakistani party in AJK, and by British Pakistanis. It was argued that the campaign divided the “Pakistani community” in Britain. In order to publicise the call to get counted, the KNIC intended to publish an advertisement in the leading Urdu daily in the UK, Jang, which is a branch of the largest-selling Pakistani Urdu daily newspaper. But Jang refused to print the advert. In effect, no means for the wider circulation of the call were available. The campaign largely failed. Little more than 22,000 persons identified themselves as ethnic Kashmiris in the census. This was much less than had been expected. The number is actually negligible compared to the estimated number of 500,000 Kashmiris living in the UK which is regularly quoted by Kashmiri activists. After this failure, the campaign became dormant. The issue, however, remained pressing for some of the activists. One diagnosis of the failure was that it was due to the lack of publicity and media coverage. As a consequence, a group of Kashmiris who had been at the forefront of the KNIC and who had earlier been related also to the KWA, the JKLF and other groups established a Kashmiri satellite TV channel in 2006. The idea of the Bradford-based channel was to give Kashmiris their own media voice. The

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channel was appropriately called Aapna Channel (literally: Own channel). With another studio in AJK and correspondents in Indian J&K the intention was to create a transnational Kashmiri public sphere. In terms of response to call-in programmes and messages from the viewers the response of the British Kashmiri public to the channel was quite enthusiastic. Without well-heeded investors and sponsors, however, the channel had from the beginning financial problems. In AJK, the programme had to be very balanced politically. After just a few days of regular transmission, the channel was taken out of the local cable network distribution by the government of AJK because it had aired some critical news item. Only after much negotiation the programme could start again in Mirpur. After one and a half year in operation, the channel went bankrupt. It was replaced by another channel called Kashmir Broadcasting Corporation (KBC), based in Manchester and run by largely the same people. Yet KBC, too, broadcast for one year only. Thus, a Kashmiri voice in the media was lacking again. This was regarded with particular regret when, in view of the next census due in 2011, efforts to revive the KNIC were started in 2008. The main actor of the KNIC was now Daalat Ali, a long time Kashmiri activist of the Manchester area. Daalat Ali had already coordinated the pre-2001 campaign for some time. Now, however, it was much more difficult to muster support which was more than nominal. While non-Kashmiri organisations like some church groups supported the Kashmiri claim for national recognition, as did an Early Day Motion in the British Parliament, 13 less Kashmiris were ready to commit themselves to the campaign than ten years earlier. It was not possible to build a similarly strong and extensive network. The campaign took more to writing letters to the ONS than attempting to create public awareness and pressure. Already in autumn 2009 the ONS made clear that there would be no “Kashmiri tick-box” in the cen-

13 Early Day Motion 1268, initiated by Member of Parliament Linda Riordan and signed by 54 MPs in total. The Motion stated: “That this House recognises there is a considerable Kashmir community within the UK and praises the community for its contribution to the fabric of British life; notes that in previous census returns there has not been a separate Kashmiri ethnic group category; therefore calls on the Government to give recognition to the 600,000 Kashmiri people estimated to be living in the UK by ensuring that the 2011 census return has a separate section for Kashmiri people to identify themselves; and looks forward to Kashmiri people living in the UK being able to register their identity as the many other ethnic groups that live in the UK are able to do.” Available online: http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID= 35502 (13 October 2010). Early Day Motions are, however, a rather symbolical element of British parliamentary culture which does not carry much actual weight.

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sus questionnaire for 2011. The ONS argued that existing data did not sufficiently support the need for a separate tick-box. As many more groups demanded to be included in the census, there would be additional tick-boxes for “Gypsy or Irish Traveller” and for “Arab”, but not for Kashmiris. According to the ONS there was not sufficient space in the questionnaire for further ethnic tick-boxes. This announcement aroused much protest. After negotiations, the ONS finally agreed to carry out a “Kashmiri Research Project” on the census question. Two versions of the census forms were randomly mailed out to 27,000 households in urban areas where a high percentage of “Pakistani” population had been recorded by the census of 2001. Half of the forms contained the “Kashmiri” tickbox while the rest had the “other” tick-box only. The idea was to see whether the presence of the “Kashmiri” tick-box in the form would produce a significant different response in self-identification. The inclusion of the tick-box had indeed a significant effect: More than four times as many respondents identified themselves as “Kashmiri” compared to those who had received a questionnaire with the “other” and write-in option only. With the tick-box, the Pakistani-Kashmiri-ratio decreased from 21.5:1 to 3.7:1 (see table). Table 1: Ratios of Pakistanis to Kashmiris in the postal test survey “Kashmiri Postal Test areas” (source: ONS 2009. Kashmiri Research Project, p. 16)

Per cent of people ticking Pakistani Per cent of people ticking or writing in Kashmiri Ratio (Pakistani to Kashmiri)

Question without Kashmiri tick-box (4,944 people)

Question with Kashmiri tick-box (4,784 people)

40.8

30.8

1.9

8.4

21.5:1

3.7:1

Still, the results also show that either there are many more Pakistanis than Kashmiris (which according to other evidence is highly improbable) or that many, if not most people from AJK continue to identify themselves as Pakistanis, even if they are offered explicit identification as Kashmiris. Analysis of the further information elicited showed that there was no significant difference regarding indicators like qualification, employment, health, etc. between those who ticked “Kashmiri” and those who self-identified as “Pakistani”. The ONS concluded that the argument of the KNIC that Kashmiris are more disadvantaged than Pakistanis and that therefore social services need to be monitored ethnically

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was not valid and that accordingly the differentiation of Pakistanis and Kashmiris in the census form was unnecessary. Commenting on this argument Daalat Ali told me that Kashmiris were effectively compared with Kashmiris (who identified as Pakistanis) and that therefore effective information on social differences was still lacking. Yet also further lobbying did not help. The 2011 Census was carried out without the Kashmiri tick-box and only 25,335 persons identified themselves as Kashmiri. 14 In the failed campaign, organisations like the JKLF – or similar groups, for that matter – did not provide much public support. They had largely lost the power to mobilise people. In February 11, 2009, on the anniversary of Maqbool Bhat’s execution, I witnessed a demonstration of one JKLF faction in front of the Indian High Commission in London. The organisation had called for the demonstration in order to demand the relocation of Maqbool Bhat’s remains from an unmarked grave in Tihar Jail in Delhi to the Martyrs’ Graveyard in Srinagar, Kashmir. Less than thirty persons followed the call. In the traffic mayhem of central London the protestors were hardly discernible.

A K ASHMIRI D IASPORA IN

THE

UK?

Considering all this, what can be said about the “Kashmiri diaspora” in Britain? The present scene contrasts starkly with the image drawn by Ali, Ellis and Khan in their various articles published a decade or more ago. There are activists who use the concept Kashmiri diaspora and presuppose that there is a Kashmiri diaspora community, even if only a minority of people of Kashmiri background in the UK identify themselves (primarily?) as Kashmiris. Yet this “Kashmiri diaspora” is much more a political project than a descriptive category of a social community. The Kashmiri case is quite complex. It supports Brian Axel’s warning against conceiving of a diaspora in the first place by linking it to some place of origin. “Place of origin” or “home” are very complicated notions in the case of Kashmiris. Their “place of origin” is a fragment of a territory that is bitterly disputed in a postcolonial struggle between two much larger powers. Already the idea what this “home” is or should be is utterly disputed: Is it a future part of Pakistan, conceived as the nation-state and “home” of Muslims in South Asia? Or is it a territory and nation under occupation that needs to be liberated from both

14 See 2011 Census: Table CT0010 Ethnic group (write-in responses), available online at http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/index.html (accessed May 24, 2013).

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India and Pakistan? Political opportunities in Pakistan as well as in AJK are inimical to the latter stance. The goal of Kashmiri independence cannot be voiced freely and its adherents are strictly excluded from formal political opportunities in AJK. In Britain, however, the mobilisation of a Kashmiri diaspora around the goal of Kashmiri independence is possible, but also contested. It has to contest political perspectives which regard Kashmir as a rightful part of Pakistan. Among people of AJK origin in the UK, the goal of ilhaq-e-Pakistan (the merger with Pakistan) is not totally dismissed. Pro-Pakistani Kashmiri parties like the Muslim Conference have their branches and activities in Britain, too. In contrast to the strict opposition in the past, however, Muslim Conference activists, in spite of their Pakistan-orientation, nowadays sometimes support the recognition of Kashmiris as a separate group in Britain. Yet political commitments of Kashmiris in the UK are not limited to what may be called “home-issues”. The British multiculturalist system with its concept of community provides political opportunities for Kashmiris. In the UK, multiculturalism is largely organised and institutionalised at the municipal level. In many cases, local authorities assumed a corporate unity among ethnic minorities and dealt with them through “community leaders” who were themselves interested in conveying an image of unity of the section of the population which they claimed to represent (Vertovec 1996). 15 This way, multiculturalism came to “convey a picture of society as a ‘mosaic’ of several bounded, nameable, individually homogeneous and unmeltable minority uni-cultures” (Vertovec 1996: 51) which are referred to as “communities”. 16 The statistical monitoring of “communities” at municipal level enables the formal recognition of a group, as has been achieved by Kashmiris in many places. So far, however, this recognition is restricted to municipal affairs only and could not be extended to the national level. Because migrants from Azad Kashmir have settled in a concentrated manner in certain towns and cities and because of the British election system Kashmiris wield considerable electoral power in these places. There are many Kashmiri city councillors now and there is considerable competition for council seats. Yet the strong participation in elections engenders a certain fragmentation of the “community” along political lines. Fragmentation is augmented by the continuing importance of biraderis. Biraderis are kinship networks based on the norm

15 See Werbner 1991 for the analysis of such “community” politics in Manchester. 16 Knott (2009) details how British Hindus became a “faith community” largely in response to official “community discourse”.

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of reciprocity. 17 The two dominant, rivalling biraderis of people from AJK in Britain are Jats and Rajas. Biraderis play an important role among British Kashmiris, also in elections, because they are essential for the mobilisation of support and votes. 18 There is neither an overarching organisational framework that binds Kashmiris together as Kashmiris, nor a shared pattern of identity practices or events which could overcome this fragmentation. If we accept that there was a vibrant Kashmiri diaspora community in the 1990s as described by Ali, Ellis and Khan, the question arises what changes have occurred since that time. I see basically three points. First, Ellis and Khan have emphasised the role of the insurgency in Indian J&K against Indian rule. After the initial phase of strong popular mobilisation, which was mirrored among UK Kashmiris, the insurgency led to a long-lasting and brutal war between militant Islamist groups and Indian state forces. Diasporic support for the struggle dwindled and fragmented. This is embodied in the fragmentation of the JKLF 19 into various factions, which often charge each other of being Indian or Pakistani agents. Although Indian forces continue their very repressive regime in Jammu and Kashmir (Duschinsky 2009, 2010), there is very little commotion among British Kashmiris in terms of public protest against the atrocities and solidarity with the victims. “Home issues” that arouse action among British Kashmiris, like elections, for instance, are mostly limited to issues in AJK. 20 It seems that in terms of practical action and commitment the idea of a Kashmiri nation which includes the whole of the former princely state does not carry very far today. 21 Secondly, in consequence of the ongoing “war against terror” there is a strong inclination, especially among the younger generation of Kashmiri origin,

17 Biraderi is a quite complex and ambiguous concept the discussion of which goes much beyond the scope of this paper. See Alavi 1972, Ahmad 1977. 18 For biraderi and politics among British Pakistanis see Akhtar 2013 and Werbner 1989 who writes about zat which is largely a synonym of biraderi. 19 Pat Ellis and Zafar Khan’s emphasis of the role of the JKLF may in part also be triggered by the fact that Zafar Khan continues to be an important activist of one of the party’s factions. 20 More precisely, they are mostly limited to the migrants’ areas of origin in southern AJK. Until recently, British Kashmiris from Mirpur cared little for what happened in AJK’s capital Muzaffarabad, for instance. This changed to some extent through the devastating earthquake of 2005 which was followed by strong transnational efforts to provide relief (Rehman and Kalra 2006). 21 This is reciprocated by Valley Kashmiris from the Indian side for most of whom people from Mirpur are at best seen as being very marginally “Kashmiri”, if at all.

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to disregard the more parochial and particularistic identification with a “Kashmiri nation” in favour of the much more universal identification as Muslims (Sökefeld and Bolognani 2011). In the years since I started research, public space in the urban areas with considerable Kashmiri/Pakistani population has been strongly Islamised, in terms of Islamic banking, Islamic bookshops, clothing and the like. There is a strong appeal to Muslim solidarity and a feeling that Muslims are globally pressurised and put into danger. Young Kashmiris easily take out demonstrations against the war in Gaza and for the liberation of Palestine, but at present cannot be mobilised to the same extent for any issue relating to Kashmir. Kashmiri independence politics have mostly had a very secularist orientation (Sökefeld 2012) which apparently has less appeal today. Kashmiri activists formulate a third, interrelated point: There is a lack of “Kashmiri consciousness”, especially among the younger generation. Daalat Ali, for instance, laments that whenever “home countries” become a topic in English schools, young Kashmiris learn about Pakistan and not about Kashmir. According to his diagnosis, British multicultural education neglects and obscures Kashmiri history and culture – another consequence of the non-recognition of Kashmiris at the British national level. This lack is not balanced by a strong transmission of Kashmiri culture and “consciousness” within the families. Indeed, “being Kashmiri” is mostly a domain of middle-aged and older males. Young people and women of all ages were conspicuously absent from the public meetings on Kashmiri issues which I attended during my research. Thus, although there is at present hardly a Kashmiri diaspora community in Britain in the strong and conventional sense of the concept “community” which implies unity, closeness and homogeneity and – since Ferdinand Tönnies (1887) contrasted “community” with “society” – largely conveys ideas of “interpersonal warmth, shared interests, and loyalty” (Baumann 1996: 15) 22 there are (male) activists who still struggle for the formation and mobilisation of such a community; activists who attempt to mobilise people from Kashmir to self-identify as Kashmiris and who in their efforts already presuppose the Kashmiri community. The Kashmiri diaspora is a kind of community in the making. It is basically a discourse produced and sustained by diaspora activists, combined with certain (political) practices that intend the institutionalisation of a community. Putting the Kashmiri diaspora into question does not mean to negate transnational relations between people from AJK in the UK and people in AJK. It asks, however, whether these relations are framed by actors, explicitly or implicitly, as

22 For critical views on community see Cohen 1985, Alleyne 2002, Amit 2002, Amit and Rapport 2002.

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relations among Kashmiris. My emphasis that there is no Kashmiri diaspora community in the strong sense of the term does not mean that there are no diasporic or transnational relations and commitments by the people that are categorised as “Kashmiri” by Kashmiri activists. There are plenty of such relations and commitments in many areas of their lives. Yet these are not necessarily transnational relations as Kashmiris, but, perhaps, as Pakistanis, as Mirpuris, as people from Dodiyal or Chakswari village, as Jats or as Rajas, as Muslims, as followers of the Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference or some other party, or simply as aapne (“our own”). All these relations produce different social groupings which do not conflate in an overarching, inclusive “Kashmiri community”. The distinction of these diverse diasporic and transnational commitments may perhaps seem trivial or pedantic, at first sight. Yet it is not. Only the distinction between different lines of relationships and commitments enables us to avoid an essentialist conception of diaspora that simply presupposes what needs to be ascertained. It enables us not to simply equate activist discourse with social scientific analysis. The presence of people from AK in Britain is not a sufficient condition for a Kashmiri diaspora. In order to establish such a diaspora successful processes of mobilisation are required. Although diaspora is mostly theorised in terms of movements and relations across borders, mobilising diaspora implies the construction of boundaries which circumscribe the intended “community”. While case studies of diaspora and diaspora theory have mostly focused on the boundary between the immigrant and the native, non-migrant population, 23 the Kashmiri case shows that boundaries between different migrant groups may have a particular significance for the construction of diaspora. 24 What is emphasised by Kashmiri activists in the UK is the difference and boundary between Kashmiris and Pakistanis, not the difference between Kashmiris and native “white” British. Significantly, however, this endeavour of boundary-making takes place in an institutional arena which is provided by the “host” society. The strategy is to demand the recognition of the boundary and the difference between Kashmiris and Pakistani by the British institutional structure and not to directly address a Pakistani community in the UK.

23 Cf. the well-known definition of “diaspora” by William Safran (1991). 24 This is also true for the Alevi case which I studied earlier (Sökefeld 2008). Alevis in Germany in the first place point out their difference from Sunni Turkish immigrants and emphasise their compatibility with the native German population. For a comparison of Alevis and Kashmiris see Sökefeld 2014.

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C ONCEPTUALISING D IASPORA Focusing on the Kashmiri case, I have outlined an example of a history of mobilising diaspora. Mobilisation has remained limited so far. There is a considerable and apparently growing gap between the actual level of mobilisation and the diaspora community that is imagined, invoked and claimed by its activists. There is no diaspora in the sense of a unified community, an entity, a collective actor. Rather, there are claims for and discourses about community (and, significantly, its others). Further, there is a great variety of actors, some of whom organise collectively to a certain extent, who establish and keep moving a web of crisscrossing, sometimes overlapping and often contradicting activities. What light does the Kashmiri example throw on the conceptualisation of diaspora? First, when we consider processes of social and political mobilisation as a necessary condition for diaspora, we have to take into account that mobilisation may not only grow but also wane, and, in the last instance, even fail and disappear. Diaspora may be mobilised, but also “de-mobilised” again. Thus, what was a thriving, self-conscious community more than a decade ago may today appear as a rather forlorn imagination of a few remaining activists. Like other social forms, diaspora is not forever. It is dynamic also in the sense that it may expire. Second, from an analytical point of view the conventional conceptual twinning of “diaspora” and “community” is highly problematic. It is very prone to simply replicating actors’ emic essentialist concepts and perspectives. As I have pointed out for the Kashmiri example, although there is hardly a clear-cut, unambiguously outlined diaspora community, there is a multitude of diverse transnational, diasporic relationships which are sustained and reproduced by people of Kashmiri background. In order to overcome essentialist notions of “community” the metaphor of a cloud may help to conceptualise diaspora: What we find is “clouds” of dynamic and changing transnational, diasporic relationships which partly overlap but sometimes separate, which may concentrate and condense at one point but dissolve and vanish at another time. Like other social concepts, the concept of diaspora is intended to create order in an increasingly complex world. It is used to sort people according to their “origins”, in most cases, and thereby puts those who are apparently out of place back into a place. In his book Organizing Modernity, John Law, following Zygmunt Bauman (1991), has referred to (social) order as “the dream, or the nightmare, of modernity” (Law 1994: 2). Law points out that order is, luckily perhaps, never fully achieved: “Perhaps there is ordering, but there is certainly no order […] Instead there are more or less precarious and partial accomplishments that

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may be overturned”, he writes (p. 1f.). John Law turns order into ordering, the noun into a verb and the intended product into a process. Ordering works through the basic twin operations of exclusion and inclusion that attempt to determine who belongs to which category (and in which way) and who does not. Yet ultimately, neither inclusion nor exclusion fully achieves its goal. There are competing ways of ordering. People sometimes resist being excluded or included; but sometimes they also do not care. Many “cases” simply remain ambivalent. Order is always threatened and challenged by a kind of social entropy. Order, a neat categorisation of people, is never totally achieved. In this sense, diaspora can be considered as an ordering concept. It is used to categorise people and to claim or to negate relationships of belonging. It is used as such by actors, whether they belong to the claimed diaspora category or not, and by social scientists as observers. If we conceive of diaspora as concept of ordering (which never, finally, achieves order), we cannot regard diaspora as an entity. Instead, diaspora should be viewed as a process. Diaspora is not a community, except we consider community as a process, too – a social process of attempting to recruit people and to exclude others, of struggling to disseminate certain ideas of belonging in the place of others, a process of drawing and challenging boundaries. Community, like diaspora, is essentially a process of mobilisation. Mobilisation may be “hotter” or “cooler”, depending, for instance, on how disputed it is, or on the extent to which mobilisation congeals into institutions. Yet like diaspora, community as an entity is never finally achieved.

R EFERENCES Ahmad, Saghir (1977) Class and Power in a Punjabi Village. New York: Monthly Review Press. Akhtar, Parveen (2013) British Muslim Politics: Examining Pakistani biraderi networks. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Alavi, Hamza (1972) “Kinship in West Punjab Villages.” Contributions to Indian Sociology 6: pp. 1-27. Ali, Nasreen (2002) Kashmiri nationalism beyond the nation-state. South Asia Research 22: pp. 145-160 — (2003) Diaspora and nation: Displacement and the politics of Kashmiri identity in Britain. Contemporary South Asia 12: pp. 471-480. Ali, Nasreen, Patricia Ellis and Zafar Khan (1996) The 1990s: A time to separate British Punjabi and British Kashmiri identity. In: Singh, Gurharpal and Ian

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Talbot (eds.): Punjabi identity: continuity and change. Delhi: Manohar: pp. 229-256. Alleyne, Brian (2002) An idea of community and its discontents: towards a more reflexive sense of belonging in multicultural Britain. Ethnic and Racial Studies 25: pp. 607–627. Amit, Vered (ed.) (2002) Realizing community: Concepts, social relationships and sentiments. London and New York: Routledge. Amit, Vered and Nigel Rapport (2002) The trouble with community: Anthropological reflections on movement, identity and collectivity. London: Pluto Press. Anthias, Floya (1998) Evaluating “diaspora”: Beyond ethnicity? Sociology 32: pp. 557–80. Anwar, Muhammad (1979) The myth of return: Pakistanis in Britain. London: Heinemann. Axel, Brian Keith (2001) The nation’s tortured body: Violence, representation and the formation of a Sikh “diaspora”. Durham: Duke University Press. Ballard, Roger (1983) Emigration in a Wider Context: Jullundur and Mirpur Compared. New Community 11: pp. 117-136. — (1996) Negotiating race and ethnicity: exploring the implications of the 1991 Census. Patterns of Prejudice 30 (3): pp. 3-33. Baumann, Gerd (1996) Contesting culture: discourses of identity in multi-ethnic London and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (1991) Modernity and ambivalence. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Bolognani, Marta (2007) The myth of return: Dismissal, survival or revival? A Bradford example of transnationalism as a political instrument. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 33: pp. 59-76. Brubaker, Rogers (2005) The “diaspora” diaspora. Ethnic and Racial Studies 28: pp. 1-19. Cohen, Anthony P. (1985) The symbolic construction of community. London: Routledge. Duschinski, Haley (2009) Destiny effects: Militarization, state power, and punitive containment in Kashmir Valley. Anthropological Quarterly 82: pp. 691718. — (2010) Reproducing regimes of impunity: Fake encounters and the informalization of everyday violence in Kashmir valley. Cultural Studies 24: pp. 101132.

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Ellis, Patricia and Zafar Khan (1998) Diasporic mobilisation and the Kashmir issue in British politics. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 24: pp. 471488. — (1999a) Political allegiances and social integration: The British Kashmiris. In: Weil, Shalva (ed.): Roots and routes: Ethnicity and migration in global perspective. Jerusalem: Magnes Press: pp. 119-134. — (1999b) Hopes and expectations: Kashmiri settlement in the United Kingdom. In: Mucha, Janusz (ed.): Dominant culture as foreign culture: Dominant groups in the eyes of minorities. Boulder, Col.: East European Monographs: pp. 97-111. — (2002) The Kashmiri diaspora: Influences in Kashmir. In: Al-Ali, Nadje and Khalid Koser (eds.): New approaches to migration? Transnational communities and the transformation of home. London: Routledge: pp. 169-185. Gilroy, Paul (1997) Diaspora and the detours of identity. In: Woodward, K. (ed.): Identity and difference. London: Sage: pp. 301-346. Hutnyk, John (2006) The dialectic of “here and there”: Anthropology “at home”. In: Ali, Nasreen, Virinder S. Kalra and S. Sayyid (eds.): A postcolonial people: South Asians in Britain. London: Hurst: pp. 74-90. Kalra, Virinder S. (2000) From Textile Mills to Taxi Ranks: Experiences of Migration, Labour and Social Change. Aldershot: Ashgate. Khan, Muzamil (2006) Devotional Islam in Kashmir and the British diaspora: The Transmission of popular religion from Mirpur to Lancashire. Unpublished PhD thesis, Dept. of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Liverpool. Knott, Kim (2009) Becoming a “Faith Community”: British Hindus, Identity, and the Politics of Representation. Journal of Religion in Europe 2: pp. 85114. Law, John (1994) Organizing modernity. Oxford: Blackwell. ONS (2009) Kashmiri Research Project. Available online at http://www.ons. gov.uk/census/2011-census/2011-census-questionnaire-content/question-andcontent-recommendations-for-2011/index.html (accessed 05/20/2010). Rehman, Shams and Virinder Kalra (2006) Transnationalism from below: Initial responses of British Kashmiris to the South Asian earthquake of 2005. Contemporary South Asia 15: pp. 309-323. Safran, William (1991) Diasporas in modern societies: Myths of homeland and return. Diaspora 1: pp. 83-99. Saifullah Khan, Verity (1977) The Pakistanis: Mirpuri villagers at home and in Bradford. In: Watson, James L. (ed.): Between two cultures: Migrants and minorities in Britain. Oxford: Basil Blackwell: pp. 57-89.

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Sheffer, Gabriel (2003) Diaspora Politics: At Home Abroad. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sikand, Yoginder (2001) Changing course of Kashmiri struggle: From national liberation to Islamist Jihad? Economic and Political Weekly 36 (3): pp. 218227. Sökefeld, Martin (2004) Religion or Culture? Concepts of Identity in the Alevi Diaspora. In: Kokot, Waltraud, Khachig Tölölyan and Carolin Alfonso (eds.): Diaspora, Identity and Religion: New Directions in Theory and Research. London: Routledge: pp. 133-155. — (2005). From Colonialism to Postcolonial Colonialism: Changing Modes of Domination in the Northern Areas of Pakistan. The Journal of Asian Studies 64: pp. 939-973. — (2006) Mobilizing in transnational space: A social movement approach to the formation of diaspora. Global Networks 6: pp. 265-284. — (2008) Struggling for Recognition: The Alevi movement in Germany and in transnational space. New York: Berghahn. — (2012) Secularism and the Kashmir dispute. In: Bubandt, Nils and Martijn van Beek (eds.): Varieties of secularism. Anthropological explorations of religion, politics, and the spiritual in Asia. London: Routledge: pp. 101-119. — (2014) Diaspora und soziale Mobilisierung: Kaschmiris in England und Aleviten in Deutschland im Vergleich: In: Nieswand, Boris and Heike Drotbohm (eds.): Kultur, Gesellschaft, Migration. Die reflexive Wende in der Migrationsforschung. Wiesbaden: Springer VS: pp. 225-253. Sökefeld, Martin and Marta Bolognani (2011) Kashmiris in Britain: A Political Project or a Social Reality? In: Bolognani, Marta and Steve M. Lyon (eds.): Pakistan and its diaspora: Multidisciplinary approaches, New York: Palgrave: pp. 111-131. Soysal, Yasemin (2001) Citizenship and identity: Living in diasporas in post-war Europe? Ethnic and Racial Studies 23: pp. 1-15. Tönnies, Ferdinand (1887) Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft. Abhandlung des Communismus und des Socialismus als empirischer Culturformen. Leipzig: Fues Verlag. Vertovec, Steven (1996) Multiculturalism, culturalism and public incorporation. Ethnic and Racial Studies 19: pp. 49-69. — (1997) Three meanings of “diaspora” exemplified among South Asian religions. Diaspora 6 (3): pp. 277-299. Werbner, Pnina (1989) The Ranking of Brotherhoods: the dialectics of Muslim caste among overseas Pakistanis. Contributions to Indian Sociology 23: pp. 285-315.

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— (1991) The fiction of unity in ethnic politics: Aspects of representation and the state among British Pakistanis. In: Werbner, Pnina and Muhammad Anwar (eds.): Black and ethnic leadership in Britain. London: Routledge: pp. 113-145.

From Ultimogeniture to Senior Club Negotiating Certainties and Uncertainties of Growing Older between Rural Mexico and Urban Chicago J ULIA P AULI AND F RANZISKA B EDORF

I NTRODUCTION Although millions of elder Mexicans are not living close to most of their kin and family, the ideal of spending the last part of one’s life surrounded by family and kin strongly persists among transnational Mexican families. Ideally, grandmother and grandfather are living with and being cared for by numerous daughters, sons, daughters-in-law, sons-in-law and grandchildren. This normative sentiment is well expressed in one of Chicano unionist and political rights activist César E. Chavez’ famous speeches given in Texas in 1971. Chavez proclaims: “Charity begins at home. For instance, who’d ever have dreamed that one would even consider sending Mama or Papa to a nursing home because they’re old? Never! Shameful! Because we have family unity and love as Mexicans.” (Jensen and Hammerback 2002: 62)

Similarly, Margarita Gangotena writes that “the vision of la familia continues to be a form of discourse that provides Mexican Americans with identity, support, and comfort in an often hostile environment.” (Gangotena 1994; cf. also Rodriguez 2009) 1 However, lived realities in transnational communities between rural Mexico and the USA diverge from these idealized discourses. In March 2013, over a cup

1

Cf. also Del Castillo 1993; Gutmann 1996; LeVine and Sunderland Correa 1993; Lewis 1960; Pauli 2004 for further discussions of this common Mexican discourse.

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of coffee in her kitchen in the small village of Pueblo Nuevo in the Mexican countryside, Regina 2, a woman then in her 60s who had spent almost all of her life in the village, told us that for her the family had to stay together, no matter what. Only then one could be happy. When asked how she felt about the absence of four of her six children due to labor migration in Mexico and to the USA she said that this was exactly what brought pain into her life. Nevertheless, she was prepared to cope with it. She knew how difficult it was to make a living in rural Mexico. The children had to go. But it remained painful. Similarly, in January 2011 on the other side of the border, in the Logan Square neighborhood in Chicago, Susana and Luís were reminiscing about the family life in their Mexican home town San Luis Potosí. The two of them, both in their late 50s, had migrated to Chicago 40 years ago, but they were still yearning for the “unity with the family” 3 in San Luis Potosí which they said was revived whenever they went back for some weeks, spending “every day with the family. We are so many, everybody brings food, we laugh, we talk.” In Chicago, by contrast, the only family member left was their youngest son Alex. Their two older sons and their families lived in California and North Carolina. While Susana and Luís had accepted the fact that their children had moved away from Chicago for the sake of their careers, they were nonetheless struggling with a feeling of loneliness they associated with the absence of close relatives. This was particularly true on holidays like Thanksgiving, when most people they knew, Susana said, used to celebrate and gather for large family dinners. The two of them usually went to a restaurant downtown, “and we invite a friend that’s lonely too.” 4 In our paper we want to describe and analyze some of the ambivalences ageing in transnational families implies. By examining how old age is imagined and lived in two contexts that, tightly interconnected by migration, in many ways form a common space spanning Mexico and the U.S., we assume a transnational perspective (Basch, Glick Schiller and Szanton-Blanc 1995, Smith 2006), which was among others advanced by Waltraud Kokot (Kokot, et. al 2013, Kokot 2002). Kokot has significantly contributed to research on transnationalism, both in theoretical and in methodological terms. Her critical discussion of the concept and her analysis of the different dimensions it entails (Kokot 2002: 99, 100) have sharpened our understanding of border spanning relationships in the migration context. Regarding transnational methodology, Kokot’s call for comparative

2

All names have been changed.

3

Interview Luís Valdez, 24/01/2011.

4

Interview Susana Valdez, 24/01/2011.

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fieldwork at various places connected by migration (Kokot 2002: 107) is reflected in our perspective guiding the design of this article, to think our fields transnationally and compare ideals and realities of growing older on both sides of the Mexican-U.S. border. We argue that despite strong normative discourses idealizing old age in the midst of family and kin, on both sides of the border the lives of most of our elder informants are de facto characterized by the absence of close kin. We want to then ask how, with what and with whom these absences are being filled by our elder informants. Further, we want to scrutinize potential differences between our two research fields, i.e. rural Mexico and urban Chicago. Thus, we will first present our methodological approaches and the data we collected, followed by a brief ethnographic description of migration patterns and the emergence of transnational families on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border. After this background information we will focus on individual cases and families in rural Mexico and urban Chicago. In a final section we will compare these ethnographic findings to better understand patterns and differences of growing older in a transnational setting.

G ROWING O LDER T OGETHER : L ONG -T ERM E THNOGRAPHIC F IELDWORK IN M EXICO AND

THE

USA

“Today you are learning about us, but to understand us, you will have to grow old with us.” (STOLLER 1989: 6)

In 1995, one of the authors, Julia Pauli, started her long-term fieldwork in the village of Pueblo Nuevo, Estado de México, in Central Mexico. Over the course of almost twenty years she continuously returned to “the” field. 5 These returns lead to a specific form of entanglement between her life and that of (some of) her informants. Births of children, marriages, migrations, accidents, and deaths were not only being narrated during the course of one field visit but were being lived

5

Michael Schnegg and since 2010 also Liliana Schnegg accompanied Julia Pauli on most of her field stays. In various ways both were essential for shaping the development of the field works and the various projects.

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through at least partially together. 6 As Kirin Narayan has pointed out, this time depth may also lead to new questions and topics: “Returns to the field allow a better understanding of how individuals creatively shape themselves and their societies through time. Finally, repeated returns to the field force an anthropologist to reconsider herself and her work not just from the perspective of the academy but also from that of the people she purports to represent.” (Narayan 1993:677)

Thus, while the topic of Julia Pauli’s first fieldwork for her dissertation thesis (1995 to 1997) was child bearing, in the 2000s she focused more on middle phases in life and on migration to the USA. This refocus was also a consequence of an immense increase in the number of villagers between the ages of twenty to fifty who during the 2000s started migrating undocumented to various U.S. destinations (cf. the next paragraph and Pauli 2000, 2007, 2008, 2013). In 2010, Julia Pauli returned to the village together with her doctoral student Franziska Bedorf. During previous visits and interactions it had become more and more evident that migration fundamentally altered kin and family relations not only in Pueblo Nuevo but also in the transnational family extensions in the USA. How and where one should take care of ageing parents had turned into one of the most central questions in the village. Many migrants, returning very infrequently to Pueblo Nuevo, were unsure how to manage their own and their parents’ old age. Further, some migrants started to ponder the option of not returning to Mexico at all and spending their old age on the other side of the border. When Franziska Bedorf, funded by a DFG (German Research Foundation) research grant, began conducting her doctoral fieldwork in Pueblo Nuevo and the wider valley of Solís (particularly the village of San Antonio) in 2010, it was this topic – the rationales for returning or not returning to Mexico upon retirement – she sought to explore. After a couple of months in Central Mexico, using the contacts acquired in the valley of Solís, Franziska Bedorf continued her multi-sited ethnographic research in Chicago. Chicago has been one of the main migratory destinations for Mexicans in general since the beginning of the 20th cen-

6

This is especially true for the family of Angela Martínez. From May 1996 until July 1997 Angela worked as Julia Pauli’s field assistant. As godparents of their daughter, Julia and Michael Schnegg became compadres of Angela and her husband Lupe in 1997. Since then they always stay in Angela’s house when in Pueblo Nuevo. In 2010, Angela and Lupe also welcomed their doctoral student Franziska Bedorf and in 2013 their master student Susanne Lea Radt into their home.

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tury (Arredondo 2008: 16) and for the people of San Antonio since the 1970s. 7 However, when Franziska got acquainted with the San Antonio community in Chicago, she realized that despite this fairly long migration history, very few of the migrants were approaching retirement, because the first cohort migrating in the 1970s had been surprisingly young when they headed north. Accordingly these people were in their 40s and early 50s at the time of the research and did not consider retirement yet. Hence the original idea of linking the two field sites, i.e. the valley of Solís in Central Mexico and Chicago in the U.S., was only partially successful and we decided to include people from other parts of Mexico living in two Chicago community areas – (1) Pilsen and Little Village and (2) Logan Square – into the Chicago ethnographic sample. Ethnographic data about Pueblo Nuevo stems from participant observation, life and migration histories, network data, and several ethnographic census surveys and questionnaires (cf. Pauli 2000, 2013). Ethnographic data about Pilsen/ Little Village and Logan Square in Chicago is based on twelve months of participant observation, semi-structured and structured interviews on migration histories, dimensions of life and belonging in Mexico and Chicago as well as network data.

M IGRATION H ISTORIES : A M EXICAN V ILLAGE AND

A

U.S.-AMERICAN C ITY

After the Mexican revolution, in the 1930s, a group of landless peasants from the nearby small town of Contepec migrated to the valley of Solís and claimed communal land that had become available after the fall of the former hacienda of the valley of Solís. All of them called themselves mestizos or mexicanos, highlighting their mixed descent of Spanish and indigenous ancestry. None of them spoke an indigenous language but only Spanish. They named their village Pueblo Nuevo, the new village. Population grew rapidly and within only a few decades there was not enough land left for subsistence cultivation, mainly corn and beans (for further information cf. Pauli 2000). From the 1960s onwards villagers migrated to Mexico-City (approximately three hours by bus) and other urban Mexican destinations and worked as unskilled laborers in the expanding urban industries and in the service sector. In the 1980s Mexico experienced a substan-

7

The data on San Antonio’s migration history is based on informal interviews with people from several villages in the valley of Solís (San Antonio, Pueblo Nuevo, Solís and San Miguel), which Franziska Bedorf conducted during her stay.

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tial economic crisis and a devaluation of the Mexico Peso. Thus, from the 1990s onwards more and more people in the valley of Solís and other parts of Mexico decided to try their luck and migrated to the USA. Most of these migrations were done without legal documents. Despite 9/11, illegal migration from Mexico to the U.S. continued throughout the 2000s on high levels. Only with the global economic crisis in 2008 did the situation change. During our last visit to Pueblo Nuevo in March 2013, many migrants had returned to the valley of Solís and had little intentions to migrate again soon. They were frustrated by the increasing costs of the illegal border crossing, the difficulties in finding employment in the U.S. and the new racisms they were facing in the USA. As census figures from 1997 to 2013 show, there are hardly any families in Pueblo Nuevo that have not been affected by transnational migration: sons, daughters, husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers leave the valley or are being left. Table 1: Absolute numbers and percentages of men with migration experiences to U.S. destinations, census data Pueblo Nuevo (1997, 2000, 2013)

Time Until June 1997 Until September 2000 Until May 2013

N Men 15 years and older 243

N Men migrating to U.S. destinations

Percentage

51

21%

290

128

44%

347

158

46%

As table 1 demonstrates, almost half of all adult men (15 years and older) have migrated to U.S. destinations. 8 Until today, much more men than women from Pueblo Nuevo migrate to the U.S., especially to California, the Carolinas and Chicago. These absences are also visible in the village’s landscape. While most houses of the 1990s were still made out of local materials, house construction has become one of the central arenas for spending ones’ migradólares, migration money (cf. Pauli in print; 2008). This building of belonging has also been observed for other parts of the world with very high levels of transnational migra-

8

The ethnographic census conducted in June 1997 is the baseline for this data. The restudies asked about all men (and women) considered in the first census und then supplemented the data with men (and women) who had reached age fifteen in 2000 and 2013 respectively. Thus it is a type of de jure census (and not a de facto census).

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tion, e.g. the Philippines (Aguilar 2009), Ghana (Nieswand 2011), Madagascar (Thomas 1998), Albania (Dalakoglou 2010), Turkey (Bendix and Löfgren 2007, dD÷ODU 2002), and Peru (Leinaweaver 2009). The colorful and creative houses that today dot the village are often empty. Parents, taking care of the property of their migrating children, often prefer to stay in their own local style houses. These living arrangements are already indicating some of the changes elder villagers have to face due to the migration of their children. These will be elaborated in the following paragraph. Chicago is the city with the second largest Mexican population in the United States after Los Angeles (De Genova 2005: 117, Lowell et al. 2008: 16). According to the most recent census in 2010, half a million Mexicans (578,000) live in the city. 9 Mexicans account for almost 20 percent of the city’s population of 2.7 million, and 10 percent of the population is Mexican-born. 10 These numbers which, considering Chicago’s distance to the Mexican border, seem surprisingly high stem from Chicago’s industrial history (Arredondo 2008: 16, De Genova 2005: 113, Padilla 1985: 22). At the turn of the 19th century Chicago constituted one of the country’s main manufacturing centers. Its railroads, steel mills and meatpacking industries required workers who were either hired by labor recruiters in Mexico (a process called “el enganche” – the hook), or heard of the work available in Chicago and migrated to the city on their own. Once Chicago had been established as a migration destination and a considerable number of Mexicans lived in the city, “network mediated migration” (Wilson 2009) started, and social ties of kinship and friendship contributed further to a growing Mexican population. By and large Mexican migration to Chicago mirrored the course of Mexican migration to the United States in general, the numbers of migrants decreasing after the Great Depression in 1929 as many Mexicans were deported and “repatriated”, and again increasing significantly during the bracero 11 years (1942-1965). The most rapid growth occurred in the late 1960s and

9

This number, as well as the following ones, is based on the 2010 U.S. census.

10 In this study, following the terminology applied by the Pew Hispanic Research Center, we use “Mexican” when referring to individuals living in the United States and identifying as Mexican (that includes all individuals of Mexican origin, irrespective of their place of birth, that is both individuals born in Mexico and individuals who trace their ancestry to Mexico) and “Mexican-born” when referring to Mexicans who were born in Mexico and live in the U.S. We use the term “Mexican migrant” synonymously with Mexican-born. 11 The bracero program was a bilateral agreement between Mexico and the United States introduced in 1942 to counteract the agricultural labor shortage in the U.S. created

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early 1970s when the Mexican population within the city limits grew more than six-fold, to 352,560 (De Genova 2005: 116). Influenced by altered legal provisions 12 and changing economic conditions in Mexico and the U.S., in the 1970s and 1980s the character of migration patterns shifted from migration being a mainly seasonal phenomenon, where workers went contratados (with documents), to a permanent, undocumented movement (Gomberg-Munoz 2011: 33, Passel et al. 2012: 20). Today, Chicago is visibly shaped by its Mexican population, with stores selling Mexican products, churches offering services in Spanish and street vendors pushing carts with nieve (a Mexican water-based ice cream) and elotes (corn on the cob) through the streets. This is particularly true for those areas in Chicago where Mexicans account for the majority of the population, such as Pilsen and Little Village (also known as “La Villita”), which are located south of the city center. But also in ethnically more mixed neighborhoods like Logan Square, a neighborhood in the West of the city, Mexican traces are apparent. Most of the correspondents included in this research lived in one of these two areas. They were first generation migrants and had come to Chicago between the 1960s and the 1980s (see table 2). Usually they had migrated alone or with their spouse, largely leaving most of their immediate family like parents and siblings behind, and established themselves in Chicago with the goal of returning to Mexico after a few years. However, most of the migrants never realized this idea of going back, the intention of return turning into a “myth” (Anwar 1979), not least because of children (and later grandchildren) who were born in Chicago and were supposed to get a good education and “progress” in the U.S.

mainly by WWII (García y Griego 1996, Massey et al. 2002: 34-41). The agreement allowed U.S. agricultural employers to hire workers from Mexico on annual contracts and was extended after its first year to include other industries. When the bracero program ended in 1964 a total of almost five million bracero workers had come to the United States (Calavita 1995: 60, Gomberg-Munoz 2011: 31). 12 In 1965 both the end of the bracero program and the amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act caused a change in migration patterns since the legal provisions curbed legal migration and more and more migrants started to enter the country undocumented (Calavita 1995: 62, Gomberg-Munoz 2011: 31, Martin 2008: 138). Many migrants nevertheless continued to move seasonally back and forth between Mexico and the U.S. without documents, until the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986 implemented repressive border controls and tightened immigration policies further, favoring permanent migration (Calavita 1995: 65, Lowell et al. 2008: 13, Martin 2008).

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Table 2: Time of arrival in Chicago, n = 66 Time of arrival in Chicago 1954 - 1965 1965 - 1986 After 1986 Total

Number of people 8 53 5 66

Percentage 12% 80% 8% 100%

At the time of the research many of the correspondents still maintained some kind of attachment (in the form of sending remittances, travelling there or talking on the phone) to Mexico, but most of them intended to stay in Chicago after retiring or to engage in a back and forth movement, spending parts of the year in Chicago and parts of it in Mexico. Overwhelmingly their decision was based on sentiments of belonging socially, culturally and spatially, while more pragmatic considerations such as economic or health aspects played a minor role. Regarding the social belonging children living in Chicago and other parts in the U.S. figured prominently while ties to kin and friends in Mexico had dwindled over the years, confirming the assumption of sociologist Rogers Waldinger who, examining migration from Central American countries to the U.S., observed that “ties to the home environment wither: the locus of significant social relationships shifts to the host environment as settlement occurs” (Waldinger 2008: 9). However, even if people’s immediate families constituted one central factor tying them to Chicago, most of the migrants did not experience the kind of family centered old age they envisioned as ideal. They tended to live alone or with their partner and only rarely shared the household with their children and grandchildren who had “adapted” to the American style of family arrangements and working life. Instead of caring for their kin and being cared for, many elderly Mexicans in Chicago turned to other institutions and activities. Senior clubs for example provided an important space of interaction and social belonging, as did the parishes.

F ROM P OWER T HE E LDERLY

TO P ITY : IN P UEBLO

N UEVO , C ENTRAL M EXICO

After her marriage in the 1950s Doña Chula, born in 1940 in a village near Pueblo Nuevo, moved into her husband’s parents’ house in Pueblo Nuevo. They received a tiny room. Vividly she recalls the many conflicts she had with her

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mother-in-law. 13 She describes her as very dominant and commanding. All day long Chula had to work for her, cooking, cleaning, grinding corn and making tortillas. Several of her 14 children were born during this time. Of her 14 births only six children survived into adulthood. Chula describes her father-in-law as not as violent as her mother-in-law but nevertheless as rather distant and unfriendly. He was the one with the final say regarding economic matters. Chula’s husband was working under the command of his father. After several years of feeling like a prisoner in her mother-in-law’s house, her husband’s father finally gave them a small plot of land to build their own house. 14 After moving out Chula nevertheless continued to visit her parents-in-law daily. When her parents-inlaw needed old age care, Chula and the other daughters-in-law supported the youngest daughter-in-law who had moved into the household after Chula had left. The youngest son and daughter-in-law remained in the house and inherited it after the parents died. Although Chula can describe in detail many fights and conflicts between various family members, the description of the old age of Chula’s parents-in-law nevertheless matches the ideal of a fulfilled ageing expressed by Mexicans on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border. Chula’s parents-in-law spent their last years surrounded by a large extended family. Chula’s daughters went through similar cycles of social becoming as Chula. However, because they received a plot to build on from their father (and not the husband’s father), they built their houses close to their parents’ and not the husband’s parents’ houses. When Chula’s only son Ronaldo decided to get married, things were also different. Although Chula pressured him to bring his fiancée and move with her into a small room in Chula’s local style house the son resisted. He migrated to the U.S., while his fiancée remained in her parents’ house. Over the course of a couple of years, the son had made enough money to enlarge the house of his sister María. Ronaldo and his fiancée then moved into their part of the house. They never lived as a couple in Ronaldo’s parents’ house. Together with his sister’s husband Ronaldo continued to work in the U.S. When María’s husband died due to unknown circumstances, María, too, was forced to migrate. María’s only son then moved into his grandmother Chula’s house. Until our last visit in 2013 Chula’s grandson was living with her. From her daughter María

13 Most of the information presented here stems from an interview with Chula in March 2013. However, because of the long-term interaction (since 1996) some information comes from early interviews (especially a detailed life history and a network questionnaire in 1997). 14 For more ethnographic information and further examples of similar experiences cf. Pauli 2007, 2008.

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Chula received monthly remittances. With this money Chula paid the living costs for herself, her husband and the grandson. Chula was worried how she would manage if María should one day decide to stop sending money. Occasionally María had mentioned to take her son with her. Chula very much worked against such plans, clearly knowing that her care for her grandson was also securing her and her husband’s own, precarious living situation. Contrary to the powers her parents-in-law still had in their old age, Chula felt that she had no power but depended very much on the pity of her children. People in Pueblo Nuevo know very well that their survival in old age crucially depends on the care of their family and kin. This also helps to explain the persistence and centrality of an ideology of family care in old age in the now transnational village. Hardly any villager receives substantial old age support (state or non-state funded). 15 To secure their old age, until recently elder people have depended on a specific household system very common in Mexico (Pauli 2000, 2007, 2008, Robichaux 1997). Chula’s time in her mother-in-law’s house is an example of this kind of household system. In his comparative analysis of household and inheritance patterns throughout Mesoamerica, David Robichaux has described this “Mesoamerican household formation system” in detail: “[…] it is characterized by virilocal residence rules and runs its course as older sons marry, reside virilocally, and then set up separate households near the parental home. The cycle culminates in male ultimogeniture in the inheritance of the house in the replacement phase.” (Robichaux 1997:150)

One result of such a system is a specific power, exchange and generational structure. However, variations of this system are becoming more numerous, especially a shorter duration of time at the husband’s parents’ house and a strong increase in neolocal residence (Pauli 2007, 2008, 2013). Like Ronaldo and his fiancée, the younger generation often opts for not staying with the parents at all. Instead, they use their migration money to become economically and socially independent at an early age. Almost all new and fancy houses that have been built in the course of the last twenty years are owned by younger migrants, often not living in the village permanently. Many of these houses are being taken care of

15 Since the mid-2000s the Mexican state has started the national program Oportunidades. Oportunidades includes old age support and is also available in Pueblo Nuevo. However, financial support is very small (in general only a monthly food basket). Elder people are not at all able to live from this. A handful of villagers receive state funded pensions because they used to work in government institution like the military.

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by the elder parents of the migrants. While until the 1990s the younger generation served and supported the elder generation, now the younger generation, often full of pity for their left behind parents, supports the parents. Inheritance, especially ultimogeniture of the parents’ house, used to grant security to many elder people. Today’s younger sons and daughters often do not care if they inherit their parents’ house or not. The children prefer their own, “modern” houses built with their migration money. Caring for left behind grandchildren is one of the few tokens the elder generation still has at its disposal. Thus, power structures have become reversed, leaving a lot of elder people in a state of uncertainty and even fear.

F ROM F AMILY TO L OTERÍA AT THE S ENIOR C LUB : T HE E LDERLY IN “M EXICAN ” C HICAGO , USA To get an impression of the ideals and realities of Mexican migrants growing old in Chicago today and how these resemble the Pueblo Nuevo case or differ from it is illuminating to introduce one example and examine the situation of Eva Rodriguez. Eva was born in Mexico City in 1936. Growing up in an affluent upper middleclass household she enjoyed higher education and became an executive secretary until she followed her husband to Chicago at the age of 32. Leaving Mexico was painful for Eva, particularly because her family stayed behind and she was not able to return until she had acquired permanent residence. “I lost a lot of things, a lot of family events,” 16 she recalls. Since her husband’s death some years ago Eva has been living alone, even though her three children and two grandchildren all reside in the Chicago region as well. For almost her entire Chicago life Eva lived and worked in the Pilsen neighborhood where she still has her primary social ties. After her retirement in 2005, however, her children convinced her to move to Crest Hill, a gated community an hour from Chicago, where they bought her a bungalow. In spite of the distance Eva still drives to Pilsen several times a week to gather with friends and play lotería (the Mexican version of bingo) in one of the senior clubs. This helps to combat the loneliness that sometimes overwhelms her, but nevertheless she misses family life, which she strongly associates with Mexico: “In Mexico we love being with the family, always, united“, Eva told me. She was tempted to return to Mexico in order to spend more time with her remaining siblings there, but decided to stay in the

16 Interview Eva Rodriguez, 02/05/2011, translation from Spanish to English by Franziska Bedorf.

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Midwest due to the security situation in Mexico and her children in Chicago, albeit lamenting the absence of family life she had to cope with: “Here I struggle a lot with loneliness, because I cannot oblige them [my children], they have their duties, they have their professions. I have to resign myself to seeing them when they have time.”

Like Eva, many of the Mexican elderly in Chicago are faced with family models and living arrangements different from the ones they have known in Mexico prior to migrating. Even if (some of the) children often live in or close to Chicago as well (see table 3), they rarely share the same household with their parents (the mean household size of the correspondents being 2.55), but have their own place, often in a considerable distance from their parents’ home. The daily routines of many elderly therefore included less family time and family related tasks and duties, such as caring for grandchildren or cooking for the entire family. Table 3: Children’s place of residence, n = 66

Children in Chicago Children in Mexico Children at other place

Number 64 10 20

Percentage 97% 15,2% 30%

Concurrently, families were not only more dispersed but also more economically independent. All of the informants received or were going to receive Social Security after retirement and most had additional income sources (savings, employer pensions, property) at their disposal, which made them independent from their children’s support. All in all this resulted in living arrangements where kin relationships, above all the contact with children and grandchildren, were highly cherished (social belonging representing one of the reasons tying the migrants to Chicago) but rarely constituted a core of life in terms of time spent together and mutual support and care. Spaces occupied by the family in Mexico had turned into voids in Chicago, implying both positive and negative connotations. On the one hand, people felt they had more personal freedom, with time for leisure and social activities outside the family. Very popular in this respect were so called senior clubs, which several public parks in Chicago had established. The clubs usually met twice or more times a week, offering sports and other activities such as arts and crafts or dancing as well as an affordable lunch for $1. At times collective outings were organized. Most importantly, however, the senior clubs provided a social space for people to chat, play lotería, and just spend

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time together and form friendships. As for Eva, who attended her lotería circle in Pilsen at least once a week, the senior clubs constituted one, if not the most, important social activity filling to a certain extent the void of the absence of family gatherings for many elderly Mexicans. One of the senior centers in Pilsen, Casa Maravilla, did not only provide activities for seniors, but included adjacent housing for people aged 55 and above, thus covering another realm, which according to the ideal in Mexico was the family’s responsibility. These activities, on the other hand, often failed to completely fill the void the transformed living arrangements had caused. Like in Eva’s case, sentiments of feeling lonely and abandoned remained. While most elderly migrants said they felt proud and satisfied that their children were pursuing their careers, had established their own families and adapted to the “American” lifestyle, they mourned at the same time the intimacy and meaning of “la familia” that was lost. For several of the informants this transformation contributed considerably to a romantic sense of nostalgia they cherished for Mexico because there, as Leticia, one of the correspondents, put it “we [the family] help each other.” 17

C OMPARING THE L IVED R EALITIES OF AND M EXICAN -C HICAGO

AGEING IN M EXICO

Migration has considerably transformed the conditions people face when growing older in both rural Central Mexico and the urban U.S. Midwest. While these changes are related to the absence of large parts of the younger generation who decided to “go north” in Pueblo Nuevo, the elderly generation of Mexicans in Chicago is confronted with a context diverging from the ideal of family centered old age because they migrated themselves. Our examples have shown that the transformations in the lived realities of ageing are of broadly similar character in both settings – affecting household systems, the role of family life (including duties and benefits) and the economic basis in old age –, albeit exhibiting differences when it comes to the details. In Pueblo Nuevo virilocal residence and ultimogeniture are fading. The elderly live increasingly in a state of uncertainty and even fear of not being able to secure their living. Household size has also become smaller with some elders even living all by themselves. Households in Mexican Chicago, too, tend to be relatively small because the migrants’ children have often moved to their own places. Concomitantly, the family takes a minor

17 Interview Leticia Raymundo, 20/07/2011, translation from Spanish to English by Franziska Bedorf.

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role in the elderly’s daily routines in both settings both concerning the tasks and duties associated with family life (such as cooking and cleaning for the extended family and caring for the grandchildren) and its social and emotional benefits. While according to the ideal of “la familia” – reflected both in the nostalgia for Mexico of the informants living in Chicago and the yearnings for a better past of the elderly in rural Mexico – kin constituted the center of daily life, it de facto occupied a significantly reduced space in both lived realities. 18 This was not only true regarding mutual social and emotional care and support, but in the case of Mexican Chicago with respect to economic security as well. Whereas the elderly in Pueblo Nuevo tended to depend on their children’s financial support in a new way (before they had lived together in joined households, now they received remittances from absent children), the informants in Chicago mostly lived off social security and additional pensions and assets and were largely independent from their offspring. Nevertheless, the symbolic and emotional importance of kin relations remained central. All in all both realities of old age diverged from the ideal of ageing in “la familia” in a similar way regarding the meaning of family for living arrangements and daily routines. However, Pueblo Nuevo differed from Mexican Chicago in terms of the strategies people resorted to in order to cope with the changes and fill the emerging blanks as well as the effects these transformations exerted on their status and role in society. In Mexican Chicago many of the correspondents built their social life around senior clubs and got actively engaged with parishes. In Pueblo Nuevo the elderly’s absent children were replaced by both migrant houses and grandchildren remaining “home” in Mexico to be cared for. 19 Whereas the changes in Mexico appeared to be primarily painful for the older generation whose position changed from power to pity, the elderly migrants in Chicago had an ambiguous view on their conditions for ageing, enjoying their independence and leisure time on the one hand and craving for the intimacy of the extended family on the other.

18 These dynamics are probably similar in urban Mexico. 19 For the sake of the argument we are focusing on kin relations between grandparents and grandchildren. However, there is another shift in kin relations connected to the transnationalization of the village. Today, matrilocal family structures have become common in the village (Pauli in print, 2013). Thus, it is not only grandparents interacting with grandchildren but also mothers (and parents) interacting with their daughters, sisters and female cousins that constitute the everyday practice of kin relations in the community.

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C ONCLUSION In this paper we set out to trace how migration has affected the conditions for and experiences of ageing for migrants on both sides of the Mexico – U.S. border. Following the transnational perspective, we suppose that migration tends to create fields that span national borders. The lived experiences of people staying behind in their home country are as much impacted by migratory processes as the lives of the migrants themselves. At the same time the people who migrated continue to relate to “at home” in Mexico, be it ideologically or socially. Drawing on fieldwork in Pueblo Nuevo, a village in central Mexico, on the one hand and the city of Chicago in the U.S. on the other we started from the observation that a strong normative sentiment of family centered old age prevailed among Mexicans in both Mexico and the United States. The normative discourse, our examples have shown, prescribes an old age in the midst of the extended family, focused on caring and being cared for. Presenting two individual cases, one from Pueblo Nuevo and one from Chicago, we then explored in how far people’s lived realities deviated from this ideal of a fulfilled later life as depending on the presence of close kin. In both settings the elderly’s situations and the conditions they encountered were considerably different from the ideal of “la familia”. In Pueblo Nuevo, as a result of migration movements large parts of the younger generation (children and grandchildren) were absent most of the time and the elderly faced transformed residence and social security systems. Similarly, the living arrangements and routines of retiring Mexicans in Chicago were only to a very limited extent based and focused on kin relations as most children lived independently with their own families, work taking much of their time. We further found that people differed in their strategies of coping with those transformations and emerging voids. While migrant houses and grandchildren turned into the new objects of care for the elderly in Pueblo Nuevo, senior clubs and church activities filled the social and emotional time spaces of ageing Mexicans in Chicago. Besides altering people’s social embeddedness, migration also affected old people’s economic security, shifting their resources to remittances in Mexico and to government funded Social Security in the United States. For Mexicans growing old in Pueblo Nuevo or Chicago the transnational migratory experience they have been involved in has thus created a range of new uncertainties. At the same time it has added possible new certainties, such as appreciated leisure time and new social relations. The ideal of “la familia” meanwhile prevails, but rather as a romantic image in a both spatial and temporal distance. Our analysis has shown that it can be illuminating to take a transnational methodological perspective and take both sides of the border into account when

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exploring phenomena like ideas and lived realities of old age. While our cases do not constitute a transnational social field (Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004) in the narrow sense since our research settings did not form one single community spanning borders, they nevertheless serve to show how Mexico and the U.S. are tightly interlinked in terms of similar ideas prevailing (la familia) and social structures being transformed by migration in both settings.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Parts of the research on which this paper is based were funded by the DFG (German Research Foundation). We would also like to thank the Department of Anthropology at East Carolina University (ECU) in Greenville, North Carolina, for sponsoring Franziska Bedorf’s visa and welcoming her as a visiting scholar for the course of her research period in the United States. Special thanks to Professor Christine Avenarius at ECU who offered tremendous support during the visa application procedure as well as during Franziska Bedorf’s stays in Greenville. A draft of this article was presented at the 12th EASA Biennial Conference “Uncertainty and Disquiet”, in Nanterre, France in July 2012. We are grateful to the conveners of the workshop “Uncertain life courses. Growing older and chronic disquiet”, Susan White, Liv Haram, and Bjarke Oxlund, as well as to the workshop’s participants for valuable comments and suggestions. Waltraud Kokot has been a source of inspiration in thinking our fields transnationally; her perspectives on migration have significantly influenced our reflections. Last, and most importantly, we are indebted to many individuals in Pueblo Nuevo and San Antonio, Mexico, and Chicago, U.S., who agreed to be interviewed and shared parts of their lives with us.

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Basch, Linda, Nina Glick Schiller, and Cristina Szanton Blanc (1995) Nations unbound. Transnational projects, postcolonial predicaments and deterritorialized nation-states. London: Routledge. Bendix, Regina, and Orvar Löfgren (2007) Double homes, double lives? Ethnologia Europea 37 (1-2): pp. 7-15. dD÷ODU $\úH (2002) A table in two hands. In: Kandiyoti, Deniz DQG $\úH Saktanber (eds.): Fragments of culture. The everyday of modern Turkey. London: I.B. Taurus: pp. 294-307. Calavita, Kitty (1995) U.S. immigration and policy responses: The limits of legislation. In: Cornelius, Wayne A., Philipp L. Martin, and James F. Hollifield (eds.): Controlling immigration: A global perspective. Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 56-82. Dalakoglou, Dimitris (2010) Migrating-remitting-“building”-dwelling: Housemaking as “proxy” presence in postsocialist Albania. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 16 (4): pp. 761-777. De Genova, Nicholas (2005) Working the boundaries: Race, space, and “illegality” in Mexican Chicago. Durham: Duke University Press. Del Castillo, Adelaida R. (1993) Covert cultural norms and sex/gender meaning: A Mexico City case. Urban Anthropology 22 (3-4): pp. 237-258. Gangotena, Margarita (1994) The rhetoric of La Familia among Mexican Americans. In: González, Alberto, Marsha Houston, and Victorie Chen (eds.): Our voices. Essays in culture, ethnicity, and communication. Los Angeles: Roxbury Publishing Company: pp. 70-83. García y Griego, Manuel (1996) The importation of Mexican contract laborers to the United States, 1942 – 1964. In: Gutiérrez, David G. (ed.): Between two worlds: Mexican Immigrants in the United States. Wilmington: Scholarly Resources Inc.: pp. 45-85. Gomberg-Munoz, Ruth (2011) Labor and legality: An ethnography of a Mexican immigrant network. New York: Oxford University Press. Gutmann, Matthew C. (1996) The meanings of macho: Being a man in Mexico City. Berkeley: University of California Press. Jensen, Richard J. and John C. Hammerback (eds.) (2002) The words of César Chávez. College Station: Texas A& M University Press. Kokot, Waltraud, Christian Giordano, and Mijal Gandelsman-Trier (eds.) (2013) Diaspora as a resource. Comparative studies in strategies, networks and urban space. Wien: LIT Verlag. Kokot, Waltraud (2002) Diaspora und transnationale Verflechtungen. In: Hauser-Schäublin, Brigitta and Ulrich Braukämper (eds.): Ethnologie der

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— (2007) Zwölf-Monats-Schwangerschaften: Internationale Migration, reproduk tive Konflikte und weibliche Autonomie in einer zentral-mexikanischen Ge meinde. Tsantsa. Zeitschrift der schweizerischen ethnologischen Gesellschaft 12: pp. 71-81. — (2008) A house of one’s own: Gender, migration and residence in rural Mexico. American Ethnologist 35 (1): pp. 171-187. — (2013) “Sharing made us sisters”: Sisterhood, migration and household dynamics in Mexico and Namibia. In: Alber, Erdmute, Cati Coe, and Tatjana Thelen (eds.): The anthropology of sibling relations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan: pp. 29-50. — (in print) Gebauter Lebenssinn. Häuser in transnationalen mexikanischen Familien. Sociologus. Robichaux, David L. (1997) Residence rules and ultimogeniture in Tlaxcala and Mesoamerica. Ethnology 36 (2): pp. 149-171. Rodriguez, Richard T. (2009) Next of kin: The family in Chicano/a cultural politics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Smith, Robert Courtney (2006) Mexican New York. Transnational lives of new immigrants. Berkeley: University of California Press. Stoller, Paul (1989) The taste of ethnographic things. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press. Thomas, Philip (1998) Conspicuous construction: House, consumption and “relocalization” in Manambondro, Southeast Madagascar. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 4: pp. 425-446. Waldinger, Roger (2008) Between “here” and “there”. Immigrant cross-border activities and loyalties. International Migration Review 42 (1): pp. 3-29. Wilson, Tamar Diana (2009) Beyond bounded communities. Network mediated migration from an urban colonia in Mexicali, Mexico. Urban Anthropology and Studies of Cultural System and Word Economic Development 28 (2, 3, 4): pp. 149-167.

Secular Mood, Community Consensus The Identity of the Bulgarian Muslims in Zlatograd M ILENA B ENOVSKA -S ABKOVA AND I LIYA N EDIN

A N ECESSARY R EMINDER : W HO ARE THE B ULGARIAN M USLIMS ? The Bulgarian Muslims (also known as Pomaks) “are Slavic Bulgarians who speak Bulgarian as their mother tongue, but their religion and customs are Islamic” (Poulton 1993: 111; cf. also Brunnbauer 1999: 39). They are now living in several Southeast European countries: Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey (Georgieva 1998: 287). Similar groups, though known under different self-appellations (Gorani, Torbeshi) live also in Albania, Kosovo and the Republic of Macedonia (Georgieva 1998: 287). The very name “Bulgarian Muslims”, considered to be politically correct by most Bulgarian authors, has sometimes been challenged (Neuburger 2004: 2); the synonymous “Pomaks”, however, is pejorative or even derogatory (Garnizov 1997: 71, Georgieva 1998: 287); its use in emic as well as in etic contexts creates ambiguity. Therefore, it is problematic. In the outlined meaning and in accord with the majority of authors, we shall use the name “Bulgarian Muslims”; yet, we use the name Pomaks when referring to Bulgarian Muslims in Greece, respecting the preference they give to this self-appellation. The Bulgarian Muslim community was formed during the rule of the Ottoman Empire in Southeastern Europe. The Islamisation processes in Bulgaria were noted in the historical sources from the end of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th centuries but they reach significant intensity during the 17th century. This is probably the same time as the consolidation of the historical and the politically significant community of the Bulgarian Muslims. The reasons behind the adoption of Islam amongst the Bulgarian Muslims (just as among the Bosnian Muslims and the Albanian as well) are disputed and not entirely clear, therefore the

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discussions around this topic (both academic and political) continue being hard (Georgieva 1998: 288, 290). The “in-between position” of the Bulgarian Muslims associated with Bulgaria with respect to their language and origin, and with the Ottoman Empire (respectively, with Turkey) with respect to their religion, is the reason they are being considered as a threat to the nationalistic efforts to accomplish homogenous nations-states in Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey. In the common model of the Balkan nationalisms the “assimilation of the small ethnic and religious communities in the large majority is a constant task” (ibid. 292). Due to this, the Bulgarian Muslims are a target of restrictive and/or openly repressive policies since the end of the 19th century which reach their highest intensity and scale in Bulgaria. The most memorable among them are the series of campaigns (different in scale and geographic spread) for the change of their Muslim Arab-Turkish names with Bulgarian, particularly in 1912-1913, 1942, 1962-1964, 1971- %ĦFhVHQVFKĦW]  >@ -85, 97-105, Georgieva 1998: 293, Gruev and Kalyonski 2008: 13-64). At present, the Bulgarian Muslims in Bulgaria are defined as “a religious minority” (Poulton 1993: 111; cf. also Brunnbauer 1999: 39). Qualifying the Bulgarian Muslims as a minority is disputable because the status of the “Pomaks” [is in] an in-between position between the majority and “the national” minorities %ĦFKVHQVFKĦW]  >@ , Georgieva 1998: 287). This will also be dealt with later in this article. Research interest in the Bulgarian Muslims (especially in Bulgaria) has been high during the past twenty five years. 1 A huge body of literature has been accumulated and is still growing (Voss and Telbizova-Sack 2010, Troeva 2011, Petkova 2013; for overview cf. Ghodsee 2010). The speed with which the number of studies are increasing is also indicated by the emergence of several new studies published after the completion of the first draft of this text in the second half of 2013 (Petkova 2013, Ivanova 2013, 'DUDNþL   %RWK LQWHUQDWLRQDO and Bulgarian publications on the Bulgarian Muslims almost obligatorily adopt a victimising approach, entailing in some cases bias and doubtful scientific accuracy. It is one of our objectives here to show the internal differentiation among the Bulgarian Muslims and the different identities corresponding to it. Researchers’

1

Cf. overviews of literature in Georgieva 1998: 286-308, Georgieva 1999: 59, Konstantinov 1997, Brunnbauer 1999: 38, Troeva 2011. Concerning Pomaks in Greece cf. Tsibiridou 1995: 53-70, Tsibiridou 1998: 185-196, Tsibiridou 2000, Markou 2002: 41-53, Michail 2003, Steinke and Voss 2007.

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attention has most often been drawn by the Bulgarian Muslims’ strategies of distinction and of outlining cultural boundaries between them and other groups of the population. Moreover, the part of the Bulgarian Muslims who define themselves as Bulgarians have almost not been object of scholars’ interest during the past two decades at all. 2 This has most probably been due to the authors’ strivings to stay away from the theses of Bulgarian nationalistic rhetoric. In this sense we must state that we definitively disassociate from the latter. The main objective of our work is to analyse the strategies of accepting a Bulgarian identity among the Bulgarian Muslims in Bulgaria, due to the lack of studies on this topic. As we mentioned above, competing nationalisms (Bulgarian, Greek, Turkish etc.) attribute Bulgarian, Greek, Turkish etc. affiliation to the Bulgarian Muslims, and various means are put to use: from assimilation policies to academic and media discourses (cf., for instance, Poulton 1991: 8, 32, Apostolov 2001: 108, Ghodsee 2010: 22). Within this complicated context it is not easy for researchers to combine academic objectivity with political correctness. Neither is it surprising that in response to the pressure exerted for decades on end by the national state, Bulgarian Muslims in Bulgaria have been responding by instability and often by fluidity of collective and personal identities. The heterogeneous and disputed character of the identity of Bulgarian Muslims has been analysed by various scholars. Ulf Brunnbauer defines: a) Bulgarian identification according to the language belonging; b) identification depending on religion – as Muslims; c) Pomak identity “in the ethnic meaning of the word”; d) Turkish identity (Brunnbauer 1999: 38). Evangelos Karagiannis presents a more detailed classification, adding nuances to the “Muslim-Pomak”, “Bulgarian-Muslim”, “political-Pomak” options of the identification (Karagiannis 1997: 60; cf. also Karagiannis 2000: 149-153). Mario Apostolov, in turn, outlined the typology of identities in statistical terms: “About 196,000 Pomaks lived in Bulgaria in the 1990s. In the 1992 census in Bulgaria, out of all those who declared themselves to be Pomaks, 70,251 identified themselves as ethnic Bulgarians, 65,546 as Bulgarian Muslims, Pomaks or Muslims, 25,540 as Turks whose mother tongue is Bulgarian and about 35,000 as Turks.” (Apostolov 2001: 109) 3

The strategy of adopting Bulgarian identity has firmly manifested itself in the region of the Central Rhodopes. This is also the region where the Rodina

2

For one of the exceptions cf. Gruev and Kalyonski 2008.

3

A similar typology cf. in Garnizov 1997.

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[Homeland] Association (1937-1947) had developed its activities in the past. This was a cultural and educational organisation of the Bulgarian Muslims, targeted at growing closeness with the Bulgarian Christian majority (Sbornik Rodina 1939, Ivanova 2002, Gruev and Kalyonski 2008). This paper has been based on field work in the town of Zlatograd in the Central Rhodope Mountains: a town, perceived and self-perceived as inhabited by Bulgarian Muslims and Bulgarian Christians. We studied the town of Zlatograd as a model case for adopting a Bulgarian identity among Bulgarian Muslims. Field research in Zlatograd was carried out by both co-authors in the period from May 2004 to May 2014 in five short investigations, each one lasting from a few days to a week. Taking part in them were also university students from the South-West University of Blagoevgrad and from the New Bulgarian University (Sofia). The methods applied included observations, 24 autobiographical interviews and numerous informal interviews. Autobiographical narratives, as well as keeping daily protocols of the informal talks, are a means of registering identityrelated statements unprovoked by the researcher. Besides the ethnographic methods applied, we studied written sources: archive sources, local publications, periodicals. We also studied a personal archive. 4 Useful for the understanding of the local specificities in Zlatograd has been our field work experience in other settlements inhabited by Bulgarian Muslims (the village of Draginovo, Velingrad region, 1996-2003, cf. Benovska-Sabkova 2006; the village of Pletena, Goce Delchev region, 2011, cf. Benovska-Sabkova 2011) and also one-year long stay of Iliya Nedin in Zlatograd (1979-1980), during his military service. The shortages in the official Bulgarian statistics do not make it possible to assess the number of Bulgarian Muslims claiming Bulgarian identity. Available in the 1992 census, quoted by Mario Apostolov, was the option “Pomak” or “Bulgarian Muslim”; subsequent statistical studies, however, excluded it from the census form. The latest 2011 census in Bulgaria, for instance, excluded the options “Bulgarian Muslim” or “Pomak” from the census form. For that reason, after 1992 data concerning identity of Bulgarian Muslims have been only indirect. So the 2001 census showed that “131,531 persons of the Bulgarian ethnic community profess Islam” (Naselenie [Population] 2001). We perceive these data as an indirect expression of the Bulgarian ethnic identity among 131,531 Bulgarian Muslims in 2001.

4

Personal archive of Constantin Peryov. The archive contains documents concerning the local history of Zlatograd: scanned photographs, copies of publication in the local press, original documents, printed or manuscripts (diaries, letters). We are grateful to Mr Peryov for his kind cooperation.

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The 2011 census presents data on ethnic belonging only by municipalities. In 2011 the population of Zlatograd was 7,166; 7,080 of them declared Bulgarian ethnic belonging. The remaining 86 people declared Turkish or “other” identity, or failed to identify (Naselenie [Population] 2011). There were no people stating a Roma identity. Statistics produce an almost identical picture in the nine villages also belonging to the Zlatograd municipality. The population of these villages is 4,248; only 64 among them stated a non-Bulgarian identity (ibid.). Although less homogeneous, the stated ethnic affiliation in the neighbouring Central Rhodopes municipalities is similar to the one in the Zlatograd municipality. Whether and how far have the data of official statistics been correct, or, conversely, have a manipulative character? A comparison between statistical data and the data produced by our research should be an answer to this question.

Z LATOGRAD

AND ITS

P OPULATION

Zlatograd became part of the Bulgarian state territory in 1912, after the First Balkan War, alongside most of the territory of the Rhodopes. Until that time the town had been part of the Ottoman state. In 1912 the population of Zlatograd consisted of 120 families of Bulgarian Christians and 200 families of “Pomaks” (Miletiþ 7KHIROORZLQJZDUVDQGSHDFHWUHDWLHVVSOLWZKDWKDGRQFH been the Zlatograd county [kaaza LQ7XUNLVK@0LOHWLþ-292) and some of its villages remained in the territory of Greece until today. In the same way as in the early 20th century, today, one hundred years later, the border still exerts essential influence on the town’s everyday life. According to unofficial assessments, under socialism Muslims in Zlatograd exceeded Christians by five times. 5 Under socialism the economic upsurge of Zlatograd and the neighbouring municipalities were considerably stimulated by the development of the mining industry, particularly by the opening of the Gorubso state enterprise after the 1950s (cf. Gruev and Kalyonski 2008, Ghodsee 2010, Archive Konstantin Peryov). 6 The establishment of a private complex of

5

Surkova 2012; interview taken with K.P. 08/07/2013. Despite the socialist policy of settling Bulgarian Christians (especially highly skilled specialists) from other regions of the country in Zlatograd, the number of Muslims increased under socialism due to migration from the neighbouring villages to the town.

6

The closedown of Gorubso in 1990 exerted a strong negative influence on the postsocialist economy of Zlatograd and the neighbouring municipalities (cf. Ghodsee

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ethnographic museums and artisanal workshops (called by owners “Ethnographic Areal Complex”) in 2001 by businessman Alexander Mitushev and ethnographer Boris Tumangelov (1935-2007) 7 had a positive impact on the development of tourism and on the town’s cultural appearance. The ethnographic observations in Zlatograd have shown a complicated, multilayered and dynamic picture concerning identities and levels of identification. One of the first topics which Zlatograd inhabitants discuss spontaneously and on their own initiative with visitors of the town has been the unproblematic and good, in their view, cohabitation of Christians and Muslims. The visitor can quite easily observe the contrast to some other settlements of Muslim population, where the newcomer feels tension in communicating or experiences direct forms of distrust (Benovska-Sabkova 2006). The expressions of mutual respect to “the others” in the town, of openness and goodwill are among the first signs of the specific situation and atmosphere in Zlatograd. This paper addresses different indicators of identity. Researchers most often investigate the identity of Bulgarian Muslims by analysing the use of personal names (Konstantinov and Alhaug 1995, Karagiannis 1997, Krasteva-Blagoeva 2001), the signs in clothing (Georgieva 1999, Neuburger 2004: 116-141, Benovska-Sabkova 2006, Nahodilova 2010: 41-44), practices of discourse (Benovska-Sabkova 2006). In addition to these indicators, we will also analyse mixed marriages of Christians and Muslims; bi-confessional common cemetery where Muslims and Christians are buried side by side; and internal tensions in the local community.

T HE U SE

OF THE

P ERSONAL N AMES

AND

D RESS

Bulgarian Muslims’ choice of personal names testifies at present of an advanced, though incomplete process of adopting the Bulgarian identity. The political significance of the use of names should be construed in the context of the repressive campaigns of changing Muslims’ names in Bulgaria during the period 19121989 (cf. above). Bulgarian Slavic names predominate in Zlatograd at present, names related to Christianity not being avoided. The interviews have shown that, starting from the early 1960s, the strategy has also been emerging with Muslim

2010). In our time the activities of Gorubso are already being resumed, but this time as a private company. 7

Boris Tumangelov (1935-2007) is a long-term researcher at the Ethnographic Institute with Museum who settled in Zlatograd after his retirement (authors’ note).

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families choosing Bulgarian Slavic or Christian names for their new-born children by their own free will. As a rule, under socialism this was the choice of families of activists or members of the Bulgarian Communist Party. For that reason, there are middle-aged people in Zlatograd who had not suffered the forceful change of their names. Though more seldom, the reverse process could also happen: people born under socialism and having (involuntarily) received a Bulgarian name at birth, changed their Bulgarian names for Arabic and Turkish ones after the end of the socialist period. This has been a trend among the local Muslim religious activists, for instance. The use of two (or even more) personal names (formally the Bulgarian, and informally an Arabic-Turkish one in the family environment) can also be found in Zlatograd, but has not by far been ubiquitous. Clothing in Zlatograd has been completely standard European since the time of fieldwork and can serve as a marker of religious identity only in individual cases. This is rather an expected fact, due to the emphatically urban appearance of Zlatograd. In comparison with most of the Rhodope towns, becoming towns relatively late under socialism, people of Zlatograd have developed a specific urban culture since the beginning of the 19th century. Migrants from the nearby villages moving into Zlatograd under socialism did not change that. It is only on Fridays that women (less so – men, too) with different clothing can be seen coming for the market day or to take part in the Friday prayer in Zlatograd. They mostly come from the neighbouring villages (either Bulgarian Muslim or Turkish), as well as from the Greek Pomak villages across the state border. Their clothing has signs of Muslim belonging, like characteristic knitted men’s caps, suitable for the Friday prayer; women’s stricter head scarfing and specific dress: manta, resembling mackintoshes; or longer skirts, characteristic for women coming from the neighbouring Muslim villages in Greece.

D ISCOURSES

OF

B ELONGING

Among the Bulgarian Muslims in Zlatograd, the discourse practices revealing Bulgarian identity are various. During the field research we did not ask questions concerning the interlocutor’s identity. Yet, we witnessed spontaneous statements of Bulgarian identity. Trying to suggest that Muslim religion does not exclude Bulgarian ethnic affiliation, an interview partner of ours spontaneously stated, “I am a Bulgarian!” demonstratively bringing out his Bulgarian passport. What is also important is the context of this statement: the autobiographical story points to the thought that Islamic religion and Bulgarian identity are not incompatible. The first part of the narrative was devoted to the career of our interlocutor as a

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functionary of the Bulgarian Communist Party (i.e., atheist “by default”) under socialism; the second part narrates about his two pilgrimages (hadj) to Mecca after the end of the socialist age. 8 Occasional conversations also outline trends in the dynamics of identities. In May 2012, we became acquainted with a woman, while visiting her old-time Rhodope house. She invited us to get in and asked us where we had been accommodated. Hearing the names of the hotel owners, she added, “We are relatives! Pass to them our best regards”. The conversation was repeated at the hotel, when we conveyed the greetings. “We are relatives!” was the reaction of our hosts, as well. One of the parties in this apparently common dialogue is a family of Muslim origin, and the other – the family of Eastern Orthodox Christians. We heard similar conversations after that case, too. Although we do not exclude the existence of actual kinship ties, we have rather been interpreting this discourse as a strategy of building symbolic bridges between the two communities, as an expression of the wish for surmounting the borders between them.

R ELIGIOUS C ONVERSION In her autobiographic narrative, one of our interviewees R. D. mentioned that she adopted Christianity together with her family after the end of socialism in 1989. The Muslim origin of the family has been kept secret from the grandchildren until their adolescence. During her story R. D. also showed two donation certificates by which the family had sponsored the painting of icons for chapels under construction in Zlatograd. 9 A year later, her husband showed us the icon, donated by their family, when we visited together one of the chapels. Notwithstanding that they adopted fundamental Christian symbols (baptism, lighting of candles, taking part in the construction of Christian temples), R. D. and her family rarely go to church. The conversion from Islam to Orthodox Christianity has rather been a sign of change of cultural identity than prompted by religious motivation. This particular case has been related to a more general process of conversion to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, which started in Zlatograd in the early 1990s and included also the neighbouring settlements of Nedelino and Startsevo and acquired national publicity through the media. 10 Publicly performed group con-

8

Interview, taken with S. P., 11/07/2013.

9

Interview, taken with R. D., 04/05/2012.

10 About a similar but much more widespread conversion of Muslims to Orthodox Christianity in Georgia cf. Pelkmans 2006.

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versions are a complicated matter, which requires independent investigation and for this reason cannot be analysed here. We would only remark that in 1993 several group conversions of people from the region took place in the vicinities of Zlatograd on the initiative of Eastern Orthodox missionary Father Boyan Sarâev, himself of Muslim origin. Apart from becoming popular in the media in the 1990s, these events have also been reflected in the metric book of the Church of the Assumption of the Holy Virgin in Zlatograd. During the past few years, however (after the end of the 1990s), the processes of conversion have changed. According to the opinion of believers playing an important role in the life of the Orthodox parish in Zlatograd, Father Sarâev withdrew from the practice of group conversions. At the same time, both the metric book and the interviews testify that conversion has been going on, but individually. When we studied the metric book with the help of a student in September 2012 (Haidushka 2012), in the church we were warned not to put down and make public the names of the newly converted, because of the categorical wish of some of them that their conversion remain secret. In some of the cases, change of religion has been prompted by pragmatic reasons. Migrants or people wishing to emigrate to countries of powerful influence of the church (Greece, Spain) take the decision for conversion in anticipation of this facilitating their integration in these countries. Because of strivings to discretion, the metric book is only partially informative about the scales of conversion. According to the wishes of many of the newly converted, incomplete data are put down in the book. Slower conversion, its individual proceeding and the existence of opportunistic motifs in some of the cases do not play down the significance and complexity of this process as a sign of adopting a Bulgarian identity (latter tacitly but firmly perceived as Orthodox Christian). According to the local priest, he has converted to Orthodox Christianity 200 people during the period 2011-2014. 11

B I - CONFESSIONAL M ARRIAGES The last example has been related to the practice of bi-confessional marriages in Zlatograd. Interviews and informal conversations indicate that such marriages were rare in the 1960s. Today they are not by far a rarity and surprise no one, though there are no reliable data about their frequency. The mixed marital or partnership couples are becoming a connecting link between the two communities and this entails further mutual familiarization and closeness between them as

11 Interview, taken with Father C., 02/05/2014.

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well as impacts in the sphere of ritual life. The son of our interlocutor L. V. – a Christian – has a girl friend from a Muslim family. In the summer of 2013, L. V. was invited by the Muslim family to perform a prestigious role in a life cycle ritual. L. V. narrated about that event respectfully both with regard to the people and to their traditions, which she got to know in this way.

B I - CONFESSIONAL C EMETERY The topic concerning bi-confessional marriages paradoxically intersects with another one – of the mixed cemetery in Zlatograd, where since 1976 Christians and Muslims have been buried side by side. That fact is mentioned in almost all the interviews and informal conversations and it has been invariably mentioned in support of the claims of the high level of tolerance between the two population groups. It is well known that the destruction of Muslim cemeteries and the establishment of common cemeteries with Christians was part of the campaigns of repression of Muslims under socialism. However, in the collective memory of the citizens of Zlatograd, these traumatic events have been reinterpreted and the story of them (shared by Christians and Muslims alike) turns into a positive message, reaffirming mutual respect. According to the story we heard in different variants, in the arrangement of the mixed cemetery the local socialist rulers consulted the imam and the then priest Father Atanas Arolski, who had served for fifty-two years in Zlatograd and had been considered a saint in the Central Rhodope Mountains (Surkova 2012). They informed them both about the plans for a common cemetery. Initially, the imam disapproved of the idea, but then Father Arolski rhetorically asked, why should the dead be divided after they spent their life together? The imam agreed and a consensus on the delicate matter was reached. Other personal stories add supplementary levels of meaning to that shared fragment of experienced history and collective memory. The mixed cemetery is a more sensitive question for the Muslims than for the Christians, because of its establishment in the locality of St Marina, which is overlaid with Christian symbolism. 12 Two episodes of the field work illustrate this. On the 20th of September, 2012 we visited (together with students) the village of Medoussa in Greece, located less than ten kilometres away from Zlatograd and populated by “Pomaks”. In conversation with a dozen or so men from

12 Interview, taken with E. S., 20/09/2012.

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the village, they imparted that they liked Zlatograd but did not approve of the mixed cemetery. Unexpectedly, our driver, a 48-year old man from Zlatograd, joined the conversation. “Well, how can I separate them now?” he exclaimed. “My mother was Muslim, I buried her in the Muslim fashion. My father was a Christian – he died soon after her and I buried him in the Christian way. But in one place. This was their wish – I complied!” Surfacing in Dimitar’s response are the consensus discourses that are characteristic of Zlatograd (but not Medoussa): The cemetery is mixed, because in their lifetime people lived together and should not be separated after death. The mixed cemetery creates ambivalence which, in turn, engenders strategies of neutralising the ambiguity. The mother of one of our interlocutors had taught her how to behave. In entering the cemetery she had to say out loud, “Good day! Good day!” twice: first in her own name, then on behalf of the dead. “They [the Christians, M. B.] are foreign, therefore first respect to them.” Then she had to say, twice again, “Selyam aleikum – aleikum selyam”, addressing their own people, the Muslims. 13 The cemetery, like the temple, is a place where the idea of a boundary between “one’s own” and “the others” is acutely felt. The expression “they are foreign, therefore respect is due to them first” unambiguously evinces the fragile balance between the awareness of invisible borders, on the one hand, and tolerance and respect, on the other. As a comparison, we must mention the contrast with other settlements in the Rhodopes. In 2012 Muslim clerics from the nearby village of Startsevo, for instance, lodged a claim (which failed) against the mayor of Zlatograd ([Anonymous author] Zlatogradski vestnik, 12/2012). The aim of the court proceedings had been to revoke the municipal ownership of the cemetery, most probably to discontinue the burial of people of different religions there.

T HE I NTERNAL D IFFERENTIATION B ULGARIAN M USLIMS

AMONG

In the case of Zlatograd, community tolerance does not preclude rivalry between different cultural strategies or different groups of interest. Tensions exist between the actively practicing Muslims in Zlatograd, on the one hand, and the people born Muslims but expressing atheism or lay orientation, on the other. This difference is visualised in a competition in height between the newly built mosque and the trade centre under construction twenty metres away which is

13 Interview, taken with M. S., 11/07/2013.

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crowned by a high tower. This competition for spatial and symbolic supremacy has not been just a rumour. The owner of the trade centre, a man of Muslim origin, also undertook a deliberate provocation in 2012 when opening an erotic bar in the building facing the entrance to the mosque ([Anonymous author] Zlatogradski vestnik 12/2012). Obviously, for some of the people of Muslim origin in Zlatograd, the attempts of Islamic upsurge (symbolised by the overlarge and tall new mosque) are inadmissible. The conflict has been alleviated by the mediation of the local elite 14, whereby the erotic bar was closed down in return for the promise, taken and observed by the imam, that singing in the mosque be live and without amplifiers. The internal contradictions between various groups and individuals of Muslim origin in Zlatograd have manifested themselves in the ambitious programme of building four Christian chapels, planned to be located in the form of a cross in the vicinities of the town. A leading role in this project play the most influential representatives of the local economic and political elite, who are Muslims by origin. In short, this initiative aims to change the symbolic geography of the region. The conviction has become firmly established among the local elite that cooperation across the border with neighbouring Greece (from which economic advantages are anticipated) is possible only via emphasising the Christian symbolism. The Chapel of St Constantine and Helen, destroyed in the past, was rebuilt in 2006 precisely on the Bulgarian-Greek border and that was the occasion for organising a Bulgarian-Greek gathering, attended by thousands of people on both sides. “This is our Trojan horse!”, said on the occasion the main sponsor of the project, a big local businessman 15, who was convinced that only the construction of the chapel had caused Greece’s agreement to the opening of a border control check point, long delayed by the Greek side.

C ONCLUSION Analysing these cases leads us to the conclusion that influential and empowered circles of people of Muslim origin perceive the Christian identity as more prestigious and therefore they withdraw from historical and biographical trajectories relating them to Islam. Practically there is no difference between the everyday life of Christians and of people of Muslim background and what is at hand is rapprochement of their ritual traditions, as well. In the sense of what has been

14 “We managed to deal with that”, interview taken with P. Sh., 13/07/2013. 15 Interview taken with A. M., 11/07/2013.

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said so far, we must ask the question: How far does the very reference to “Bulgarian Muslims” have any meaning with respect to the groups and individuals not following the prescriptions of Islam, not identifying with it and who explicitly state that they are Bulgarians? We argue that this name is irrelevant with respect to quite a few people in Zlatograd. In these cases we suggest the phrase “people of Muslim origin” to point out the existence of a biographical relation to the Islamic traditions and the trend of adopting a Bulgarian identity. How can the consensus in Zlatograd be explained and what have been its causes? Due to space restrictions, we shall give a concise answer to this question, without going into a detailed discussion. A key expression for the understanding of the consensus in Zlatograd is that Christians and Muslims must not “divide”. In other words, an agreement is expressed on the more prestigious nature of the Bulgarian identity, symbolised also by identification with Christianity. There are different reasons for these sentiments. First, historical continuity should be pointed out. The activity of the Rodina [Homeland] Association (1937-1947) has influenced the adoption of Bulgarian names among the Bulgarian Muslims in the Central Rhodope Mountains (Krâsteva-Blagoeva 2001, Gruev and Kalyonski 2008). The town’s citizens hold the unanimous view that under socialism there had been a considerable rise in the standard of living, when Zlatograd had benefited from the policies of encouraging the development of the border regions. Another cause of the consensus sentiments in Zlatograd is also rooted in the local history under socialism. People from among the Bulgarian Muslims became part of the local communist elite at that time and took part in the campaigns of changing of names. Probably for that reason these campaigns in Zlatograd (unlike in some other Rhodope settlements) took the form of hidden political pressure, whereby open violence had been avoided 16. In this way relatively less damage was inflicted on local coexistence and trust between people of different religious identity. There are people of Muslim origin among the present-day economic and political elite of Zlatograd and the region, genealogically related to the communist leadership from the socialist period. The influence of the socialist atheist policy 17 led to an extenuating of identification based on reli-

16 “They [communist party functionaries who campaign renaming of the Muslims – authors’ note] went from house to house; they knocked at the gates at night…” (interview taken with R. D., 04/05/2012). Cf. also the interview taken with P. Sh., 13/07/2013; interview taken with S. P., 11/07/2013. 17 Ghodsee 2010 speaks about a similar result in Madan.

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gion and to domination of the secular worldview and lifestyle. Later it resulted in alleviating the alienation between Muslims and Christians. Bulgarian Muslims are a population that is characterised by a considerable degree of internal heterogeneity, concerning differences and instability of identities alike. Not a small part of the Bulgarian Muslims state Bulgarian identity and this trend can be most clearly followed in the region of the Central Rhodope Mountains. The observations made in the Central Rhodope town of Zlatograd have led to a few conclusions. The statistics of a dominant Bulgarian identity in the town are by and large confirmed by the research with ethnographic methods. This trend rests on the long years of coexistence and daily interactions between people of Christian and Muslim religious identity and on the consensual understanding that Muslims and Christians “must not divide”. The consensus has taken shape under the impact of a number of historical factors, benefiting the rapprochement of people of different religious affiliations. The conversion to Orthodox Christianity, taking place in our time among part of the citizens of Zlatograd, is rather a symbolic gesture of overcoming the cultural borders than expression of deep religious motivation. Notwithstanding that this is a complicated process and requires additional studies, it nevertheless raises the question of the suitability of names like “Bulgarian Muslims” or “Pomaks”. The name “Bulgarian Muslims” suits people who are either actively practicing Muslims, but define themselves as ethnic Bulgarians (such as part of the religious activists in Zlatograd), or people who stick to some extent to the traditional Islamic practices. The absence of differences in the everyday life, the profession of Bulgarian identity, conversion to Orthodox Christianity among some, or non-practicing of the religious prescription of Islam among others, means that in such cases it is proper to use names like “people of Muslim origin” or “people of Muslim religious identity”. The political correctness, as well as professional ethics, leads to the conclusion that there are no justifications to call such people Bulgarian Muslims or Pomaks. Though an incomplete process, the Bulgarian identification among a considerable part of the Bulgarian Muslims has been an advanced social change, deserving painstaking and correct study.

R EFERENCES [Anonymous author] (2012) Sâdât v Zlatograd zasega otriaza meracite na VWDUFHYWVL]DPRQRWHLVWLþQRJURELãWH>7KH&RXUWLQ=ODWRJUDGIRUQRZUejected the Wishes of Starcevo Villagers for Monotheistic Cemetery]. Zlatogradski vestnik 12, 03/09/2012.

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Ivanova, Evgenia (ed.) (2013) Pomacite. Versii za proizhod i savremenna idenWLþQRVW >7KH 3RPDNV 9HUVLRQV RQ WKHLU RULJLQ DQG FRQWHPSRUDU\ LGHQWLW\@ Sofia: Nov bâlgarski universitet. — (2001) Othvârlenite priobštHQLLOLSURFHVkWQDUHþHQYk]URGLWHOHQ-1989) [The Rejected-Involved or the Process Called Revival]. Sofia: Institut za izWRþQRHYURSHMVNDKXPDQLWDULVWLND Karagiannis, Evangelos (2000) The Pomaks of Bulgaria: A Case of Ethnic Marginality. In: Giordano, Christian et al. (eds.): Bulgaria. Social and Cultural Landscapes. Fribourg: University Press of Fribourg Switzerland: pp. 143158. — (1997) Zur Ethnizität der Pomaken Bulgariens. Münster: Lit. Konstantinov, Yulian (1997) Strategies for Sustaining a Vulnerable Identity: The Case of the Bulgarian Pomaks. In: Poulton, Hugh and Suha Taji-Farouki (eds.): Muslim Identity and the Balkan State. London: Hurst & Company: pp. 33-53. Krâsteva-Blagoeva, Evgenija (2001) Za imenata i preimenuvaniyata na bâlgarite miusiulmani [About the Names and Renaming of the Bulgarian Muslims]. Bâlgarska etnologia 27 (2): pp. 126-148. Markou, K. (2002) Les Pomaques de Thrace grecque et leurs choix langagiers. Etudes balkaniques. Cahiers Pierre Belon 9: pp. 41-53. Michail, Domna (2003) From “Locality” to “European Identity”: Shifting Identities among the Pomak Minority in Greece. Paper at the conference: “Becoming Citizens of United Europe: Anthropological and Historical Aspects of EU Enlargement in Southeast Europe”, Graz, 20-23 February 2003. 0LOHWLþ/LXERPLU(1918) Razorenieto na trakijskite bâlgari prez 1913. [The Ruining of the Bulgarians from Trace in 1913]. Sofia: Bâlgarska academia na nauNLWH'kU]DYQDSHþDWQLFD Naselenie (2001) 1DFLRQDOHQ VWDWLVWLþHVNL LQVWLWXW 6WUXNWXUD QD naselenieto po veroizpovedanie [National Statistical Institute. Structure of the Population according Confession]. http://www.nsi.bg/Census/Census.htm (accessed 05/08/2013). — (2011) 1DFLRQDOHQVWDWLVWLþHVNLLQVWLWXW1DVHOHQLHSRREãWLQLQDVeleni mesta i VDPRRSUHGHOHQLHSRHWQLþHVNDSULQDGOHåQRVWNkP01/02/2011 godina. [Population According Municipalities, Settlements and Ethnic Self-determination on 01/02/2011]. http://www.nsi.bg/census2011/pagebg2.php?p2=175&sp2 =190 (accessed 05/08/2013). Neuburger, Mary (2004) The Orient Within. Muslim Minorities and the Negotiation of Nationhood in Modern Bulgaria. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.

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Pelkmans, Mathijs (2006) Defending the Border. Identity, Religion, and Modernity in Republic of Georgia. Ithaka and London: Cornell University Press. Petkova, Elena (2013) Tradicia i modernizacia na vsekidnevieto na bâlgarkite miusiulmanki v Srednite Rodopi prez vtorata polovina na XX vek [Tradition and Modernization of the Everyday Life of the Bulgarian Muslim Women during the Second Half of the 20th Century]. Sofia: Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies. Doctoral Dissertation. 3HWNRYD 9HOLþND (2012) Inž. Aleksandâr Mitušev: Na vseki poželavam takava emocia: hobito mu da se prevârne v rabota i biznes. [Engineer Alexander Mitušev: I wish everyone such emotion – his hobby to get a job and business. Rodopski vesti 37, September 21, 2012: p. 7. Poulton, Hugh (1993) The Balkans: Minorities and States in Conflict. London: Minority Rights Publications. Sbornik Rodina (1939) Sbornik Rodina. Izdanie na bâlgaro-mohamedanskata kulturno-prosvetna i blagotvoritelna druzhba „Rodina” v gr. Smolen. Kn. Pârva [Collection Rodina. Edition of the Bulgarian-Mohammedan culturaleducational and Charitable Association Rodina] (1937-1938). Plovdiv, Hristo G. Danov. Surkova, Sijka (2012) Otec Arolski: V Bâlgaria niama dostoen za patriarh. Za hodope na-Yk]UDVWQLDWSRSHåLYVYHWHFýRYHNLNRQD>)DWKHU$UROVNL7KHUH is no one Dignified to be Patriarch. The most elderly priest is a living saint for the population of the Rhodope mountain. An icon man]. http://www.temadaily.bg/publication/5833. Reprint from: Presa 328, 02/12/2012. Troeva, Evgenia (2011) 5HOLJLDSDPHWLGHQWLþQRVW%kOJDULWHPLXVLXOPDQL>5eligion, Memory, Identity. Bulgarian Muslims]. Sofia: Academic Publishing House Prof. Marin Drinov. Tsibiridou, Fotini (1995) Processus de modernisation et de marginalisation. Le cas d’une minorité. In: Les mecanismes de la transition dans l’europe des transformations. Actes de deux jours sur la transition, Komotini, 6-7 avril 1995. Athenes: Komotini: pp. 53-70. — (1998) Esquisse d’une problematique sur la construction des identités dans la region montagneuse du Rhodope en Grece. Ethnologia Balkanica 2: pp. 185195. — (2000) Les Pomak dans la Thrace grecque. Discours ethnique et pratiques socioculturelles. Paris: L’Harmattan. Voss, Christian and Klaus Steinke (eds.) (2007) The Pomaks in Greece and Bulgaria. A model case for borderland minorities in the Balkans. SüdosteuropaGesellschaft. Munich: Verlag Otto Sagner.

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Voss, Christian and Jordanka Telbizova-Sack (eds.) (2010) Islam und Muslime in (Südost) Europa im Kontext von Transformation und EU-Erweiterung. Studies on language and culture in Central and Eastern Europe. Munich and Berlin: Verlag Otto Sagner. Voss, Christian (2007) Language ideology between self-identification and ascription among the Slavic-speakers in Greek Macedonia and Thrace. In: Voss, Christian and Klaus Steinke (eds.): The Pomaks in Greece and Bulgaria. A model case for borderland minorities in the Balkans. SüdosteuropaGesellschaft. Munich: Verlag Otto Sagner: pp. 177-192.

The Perversion of the Ancient and Traditional Value of “Hospitality” in Contemporary Greece: From Xenios Zeus to “Xenios Zeus” E FTIHIA V OUTIRA

I NTRODUCTION This paper addresses the transformation of traditional Greek values in the face of the “global migration crisis” and in particular what has been acknowledged by international media as a “European Refugee Crisis’, i.e. “the biggest population displacement since WW II” (UNHCR 2015). It focuses on the uses and abuses of the concept “Xenios Zeus” as articulated in the context of the New Democracy party’s police operations entitled “Xenios Zeus”, during the period 2013-2014 and analyses the underlying assumptions concerning illegal migration and asylum seekers. It focuses on the paradoxical abuse of the concept of Xenios Zeus – the god who protected the foreigner/stranger, whose cult inculcated the ancient Greek obligation to provide hospitality – by government authorities who have co-opted the label “Xenios Zeus” as a brand name for their police operations and mass arrests of “undocumented” migrants in urban centres. The paper briefly considers urban centres as the locus of survival of newcomers in Greece, and as the locus of policing and controlling of the Greek “migration crisis”. It addresses the issue of re-conceptualisation of migration as a key pathological phenomenon. In fact, as many ethnographic accounts illustrate migration has been a key survival strategy for most Greek households after World War II. There is hardly a Greek household that doesn’t have a family member in the USA, Germany, Belgium or Australia. A whole series of Greek films produced in the 1960s illustrate this phenomenon of large scale immigration and the way it impacts on social relations on the ground. This paper argues that the phenomenon of xenophobia belongs to an imported globalisation dis-

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course which is widely available through the internet and international media and articulates the image of the “Other” as an enemy within, who is not to be trusted. Such conceptualisations give rise to radical right-wing parties, such as the emergence of the Golden Dawn political party (Dalakoglou 2013). In this context, the traditional Greek value of hospitality is deemed irrelevant except when used to attract tourists or make misleading claims. Thus, the meaning of the concept Xenios Zeus, which originally referred to the obligation to provide hospitality to strangers and guests, is perverted.

U RBAN ANTHROPOLOGY , X ENOPHOBIA , X ENIOS Z EUS AND M IGRATION S TUDIES Few anthropologists have addressed the issue of “urbanity” and its discontents as systematically and comprehensively as Waltraud Kokot. Her research in the Toumpa district of Thessaloniki in the 1970s (Kokot 1995) was able to identify key actors and political ideologies in time and space. I was fortunate enough to revisit Toumpa in 2005 with Waltraud to re-examine the new spaces that had become quite unrecognisable with the passage of time. The locals sitting in the cafés could not remember any of the 1970s inhabitants, since the whole area had been remodelled and upgraded for middle class urban dwellings. However, Toumpa was one of the most important original Asia Minor refugee settlement areas in the interwar period. People still remember the prosfygika (refugee quarters), barracks with tin roofs, but this is part of the social and cultural imaginary of that particular area which locals refer to as “the past”. It is important to note that even in Waltraud’s work the xenophobic behaviour within the refugee group in Toumpa was quite widespread. 1

1

In updating this contribution, it is noteworthy that since 2009 and the acknowledgement of the Greek financial crisis urban districts like Toumpa have exhibited an interesting sociological response to this “crisis”. The area of Toumpa is one of the areas in Salonika that people have come together and have created a number of local initiatives to respond to the financial crisis and the continuous pauperisation of the local population. They have formed what are called “social grocery stores”, “social pharmacies” for distribution of medicine, social cafes for the elderly and the unemployed where they can socialise in winter and summer. Targeting the pensioners and elderly population, these new centres have become areas of social solidarity. In this context, elderly people meet and remember, reflect on the era of scarcity of their “refugee past”.

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However, in present-day Greece we see a novel manifestation of xenophobia in urban spaces which is comparable to what Kokot has studied so widely in Hamburg (e.g. Kokot 2004), in the form of the “Xenios Zeus” operation with its mass arrests of “undocumented” migrants. In this article, the term “Xenios Zeus” (enclosed within double quotation marks) is used to refer to a specific policy introduced by the Greek Ministry of Public Order and Citizen Protection in 2012 which aims to “eliminate” all immigrant squatters and homeless asylum seekers and refugees in central areas of Athens. These police operations are referred to as “sweep operations” (epixeirisi skoupa) and are part of the upgrading of urban neighbourhoods. The use of “Xenios Zeus” to describe this operation raises a key theoretical issue in contemporary Greece, “the biopolitics of hospitality” (Voutira 2014). I am referring to the public discourse about migration and refugee management, as articulated by government officials of the New Democracy party, then in power. To clarify the title of this paper: Xenios Zeus (without quotation marks) refers to the ancient Greek code of hospitality (from the term xenos, which means foreigner and guest). Modern Greeks have partly appropriated their own image as hospitality providers to help promote their tourist industry. This reference is used today as part of the brand name of Greece and can be found in internet entries advertising tourist attractions with all the paraphernalia of associated images of Greek tourism found in glossy advertisements (sunsets in Santorini, food spreads in the Plaka district in Athens, clubbing in Mykonos etc.). It is important to distinguish this particular variant of Xenios Zeus, an attribute of late modernity, from the rationale of the Homeric hospitality code discussed below. There is another philosophical, epistemological dimension alluded in the paper title: the disquotation theory of truth, as articulated by Alfred Tarski. According to this theory, “snow is white” if, and only if, snow is white. In this epistemological account, the process of disquotation is the process of validation and corroboration of the contents of the sentence (Tarski 1944). Within the history of epistemology as a distinct area of philosophy, disquotation theory provided the impetus for new developments in formal and mathematical logic and ultimately to a more language sensitive theory of truth which has led to what is known as the “linguistic turn”, a trend which has revolutionised disciplines such as history (Bentley 1999: 883). Yet, I am only using it here as a third reference point for the process of disquotation for people who remain naïve realists in the social sciences. Do the Greek authorities believe that, if they identify their police operation as hospitable, it will be validated as hospitable in people’s minds?

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T HE S TEREOTYPE OF G REEK H OSPITALITY ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE M EDITERRANEAN

AND THE

The challenge of securitisation of migration as a European Union policy has shaped EU legislation (e.g. Dublin Convention 1997, Dublin II Regulation 2003, Dublin III Regulation 2013) and impelled the building of walls in the Evros region as an obstacle to continuous immigration flows from the East. Since the introduction of operation “Xenios Zeus”, the management of refugees and illegal migrants has moved from the urban centres of Athens and Salonika to reception centres on the Greek periphery which accommodate these unwanted Others (once they have been rounded up in the cities by the police). A series of scholarly studies and international public documents have pointed out the duplicity of public discourse on “hospitality” as a traditional Greek value in conjunction with current practices of xenophobia and racist attacks against asylum seekers and refugees in Greece (e.g. Rozakou 2012, Dalakoglou 2013). The question is why the government decided to brand the current mass arrest police operation as “Xenios Zeus”. The ancient concept of Xenios Zeus is identified with one of the many qualities of Zeus, who was the protector of strangers. As we can see in Homer’s epics, the cult of Zeus obligated followers to offer hospitality and sanctuary to guests, i.e. foreigners. For example, the salience of the institution of hospitality is evident in Homer’s Iliad when Glaucon and Sarpedon, exchanging blows in the middle of a battlefield, put their swords aside once they realise that they are “friends”, since their parents had exchanged vows of friendship while offering each other hospitality (Iliad XII: 300-328). The reification of this cultural tradition of providing hospitality to the foreigner was also documented much later, in 1960s’ ethnographies of Greece and the Mediterranean (Friedl 1962, Dubisch 1986, du Boulay 1986). The logic of the Homeric system of values that legitimises the obligation of hospitality to strangers is not an abstract invocation. It is embedded in the whole social world, with the precarious conditions of survival that historians and archaeologists alike have documented for pre-historic communities (in the Dark Ages). In James Redfield’s (1975: 99) eloquent summary, “[…] the Homeric picture of society generally belongs to the Dark Age and the early age of recovery. Homer shows us people living in small groups dependent on one another for their mutual security against a hostile world. When the background condition of life is a condition of war, men must place trust in those close to them. Thus, combat generates a

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tight knit community. A Homeric community consists in effect of those who are ready to die for one another; the perimeter of each community is a potential battlefield.”

Under these precarious conditions of survival, the extension of communal boundaries to include the stranger as a friend, rather than a foe, functions as a buffer against uncertainty and a powerful mechanism of networks that can serve as safety nets against future security risks. The norms of hospitality and the legitimation of Zeus’s cult that is reinforced through their practice are based on reciprocity and the obligation to return the favour; this obligation to reciprocate is seen as the key mechanism encouraging accommodation of migrants and travellers along putative “friendship” lines in a system of norms that imposes the social obligation to receive and accept a stranger as a guest. For years, this functionalist account of the norm of hospitality in Ancient Greece supported the theoretical construction of modern Greece as a historically symbolic location at the margins of Europe (Herzfeld 1987, 1988). A similar argument about the discovery of the Mediterranean societies as an anthropological field of investigation is made by Christian Giordano (2012) in his essay on the Anthropology of Mediterranean Societies. Giordano explicitly refers to the way specific anthropological schools have introduced a hegemonic discourse in identifying the traditions of Mediterranean societies and in this way they have contributed to the maintenance of cultural stereotypes about the region and its societies. Concerning the Greek state’s management practices with reference to the migrants and refugees found in its territory, it would be fair to say that the Greek state has been practising an informal policy of imposing “invisibility” on asylum seekers and refugees, instead of offering true hospitality. (I will discuss reasons for this sharp contrast between ancient and contemporary Greece below.) This policy of neglect is reflected in the consistently lowest asylum recognition rates in the European Union, the poor reception infrastructure, the bureaucratic obstacles, numerous delays and continuous violations recorded during the asylum process. A number of scholarly accounts have documented this unwelcoming environment vis-à-vis refugees and asylum seekers (Black 1994, Sitaropoulos 2000, Skodras and Sitaropoulos 2004, Amnesty International 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, Human Rights Watch 2008, Pro-Asyl 2007, Takis et al. 2005). More recent research on the biopolitics of hospitality in Greece directly addresses ideas of humanitarianism and the management of refugees at the borders of Europe. In her anthropological research in Athens and Mytilini, Rozakou (2012) lucidly documents the complex relationships among hosts, guests and deserving refugees with her biopolitical perspective on current practices of hospi-

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tality in a political environment of restrictionism and duplicitous public discourse. Analysing public speeches by senior government officials who invoke the virtue of hospitality, Rozakou shows the duplicity involved in invoking, for foreigners and natives alike, the traditional virtue of hospitality in the context of the inauguration of a new centre of hospitality (filoxenia) for illegal immigrants arriving to Mytilini from the island of Samos. Her main hypothesis is that the vocabulary of filoxenia is, in fact, meant to help justify a policy of neglect and delay rather than hospitable accommodation of deserving asylum seekers and refugees. As she claims, “In Greece the politics of hospitality are historically related to the ways in which the nation-state has been constituted and to the processes of cultural homogenisation that define difference as danger. (…) Thus, considered as a substantial element of the national Greek character filoxenia, in fact, reflects introversion and ethnocentrism in a context where cultural difference is perceived as a threat to ethnocultural similarity (…). It sets the boundaries between outsiders and insiders and it is a practice of sovereignty and control over the stranger.” (Rozakou 2012: 565)

It is important to note that the invocation of hospitality is not a culturally specific practice when managing immigration discourses and practices. Similar debates are taking place in other parts of Europe, including France (Rosello 2001, Derrida and Dufourmantelle 2000), Norway (Gullestad 2002) and Denmark (Hervik 2004). In all of the above cases, the reference to hospitality as a cultural norm of people on the ground is invoked as a need to explain the two levels of discourse that co-exist in every society: the discourse of the state and the discourse of the people. While under democratic institutions the two are supposed to cohere, in practice however there is always a difference and, often, a reversal (Herzfeld 1992). In other words, the people may be truly hospitable, while political actors and state officials often use and manipulate public assumptions about hospitality to promote different agendas.

T HE P ARADOX OF I MMIGRATION : T HE ASYMMETRY BETWEEN “ THE R IGHT AND “ THE R IGHT TO S TAY ”

TO

R ETURN ”

In an interesting paper on migration in the early 1990’s, Agnes Heller (1993) likened the inherent paradox of immigration to a “household rule”. Anyone can leave when they want to, but they cannot enter or stay unless the members of the

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household allow them to do so; it is the household that decides if they wish the guest to enter and to stay, and for how long. This observation entails a type of anomaly in the allocation of rights concerning “coming” and “going” which further implies an imbalance from the standpoint of restriction between the right to enter and the right to stay. For Greece, this observation has some consequences in that it certainly captures many of the contemporary debates about the so called crisis of migration in the era of “globalisation”. As evident from the recent rise of right-wing anti-immigration parties, there is a growing resentment against foreigners, which some cultural critics liken to the rise of racism in interwar Europe, underpinned by the growing economic and social crisis of the times. It is not accidental, therefore, that many of the proliferating writings on migration point to the phenomenon of blaming the foreigners and indeed the refugees (Waldron 1987) – yet this is not a new phenomenon. It is a standard feature of most public debates and policy decisions taking place in the evolution of solutions of international asylum policy (Harrell-Bond 1996, 2005). I am referring here to the public and media debates concerning how much we need immigrants, how much we want them, should we let them in and under what conditions. A second type of anomaly is one normally addressed on the normative level: Some people are more “equal” than others in the sense that they receive preferential treatment as potential members of a state because of the inherent obligations of states toward their own members. For example, co-ethnic Greeks from Eastern Europe acquire Greek citizenship on the basis of jus sanguinis without having to undergo the long-term bureaucratic hardships immigrants and asylum seekers generally face (Voutira 2012, Voutira and Kokozila 2008). Hospitality is more readily offered to those who are not so clearly “others”.

T HE N EW C HALLENGES OF S ECURITISATION OF M IGRATION AND THE R ESTRICTIONIST R EGIME The issue of migration has increasingly given rise to intense political debates after an official ban on economic migration was approved by the majority of European countries in the 1980s. Migration has been linked to a wide array of socioeconomic or political problems such as criminality, breaches of law and order, unemployment, abuse of social benefits, epidemics, cultural and religious threats, social unrest and political instability. Some political leaders and media outlets have even described it as a security threat. One of the best examples is the 1990 Convention applying the Schengen Agreement of the 14th of June 1985,

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which links immigration and asylum to terrorism, transnational crime and border control. In order to prevent or dissuade people from migrating, states have taken a wide array of legislative measures to reduce access to their territory, such as visa policies and carrier sanctions. They have also reduced the entitlements of the migrants and asylum-seekers that stay on their territory, with regard to conditions for family reunification, access to the labour market and access to social benefits (Leonard 2007). The 1990 Dublin Convention (replaced by the Dublin Regulation in 2003) limits the ability of states to pass the buck in the case of applications for asylum. It sets out criteria (place of application, family links etc.) to determine the state that must process the asylum application. One of the principal aims of the Dublin Regulation is to prevent an applicant from submitting multiple applications in different member states. Another aim is to reduce the number of “orbiting” asylum seekers who are shuttled from member state to member state. However, since the country that a person first arrived in is responsible for dealing with the application, this puts excessive pressure on border areas, where states are often least able to offer asylum seekers support and protection. Currently, those being transferred under Dublin are not always able to access an asylum procedure. As Huysmans states, the Dublin Convention is heavily overdetermined by a policy aimed at reducing the numbers of applications. Making it impossible to submit applications for asylum in different member states, it reduces the chances of being accepted, which obviously deters some refugees from seeking asylum in Western Europe (Huysmans 2000).

A D IFFERENT “H OSPITALITY C ENTRE ” ON THE M ARGINS OF E UROPE Outside the village of Sidero, not far from the town of Soufli, there is a burial ground for migrants who died trying to cross the Greek-Turkish border – ironically the only “hospitality centre” able to receive those migrants. The international network “Welcome2Europe” has launched a campaign accusing the Greek authorities of creating mass graves to dispose of the bodies. Although there is disagreement about whether this mass grave exists, the fact remains that there has been a violation of the right to life and dignity in the case of these people who were seeking protection. The normal procedure is to transfer the bodies to the University Hospital of Alexandroupolis for the coroner’s examination. Recently, a DNA test has also been introduced so that the bodies can be identified, numbered and classified

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(with a protocol number on the body bag linked to the DNA sample and other personal data from the autopsy), so identification by relatives may be possible in the future. According to a human rights report, once the bodies are identified and placed in a body bag, they are handed over to the undertaker (Hellenic League for Human Rights 2011), who takes the bodies to Sidero. One of the ironies here is that the activity of burying the dead is allocated to the mufti (Muslim religious representative) of Evros, who is responsible for maintaining hygienic conditions and guaranteeing a Muslim burial on the assumption that the majority of the “illegal migrants” are Muslims. Eye witness reports suggest that the examination of the bodies for purposes of religious identification is minimal, which leads one to wonder whether these people become Islamised upon death. It is important to stress that this “forcible Islamisation after death” is not so much an intentional expansion of their religious constituency by Muslim authorities as a default practice. The Hellenic League for Human Rights report notes that “all unidentified deceased immigrants are considered Muslims for practical reasons”. Thus, they are all buried in the cemetery in Sidero according to Muslim ritual. The mufti takes care of the burial, i.e. the digging of the grave and wrapping of the corpse in special cloth, as prescribed by Islamic tradition. The above example shows the total lack of social accommodation of a migrant presence within Greek territory, and it becomes a particular example of the level of marginality attributed to the newcomers that are perceived even before arrival as others, rather than as guests. Their integration into the Muslim minority community of the region is ironic, since there is no consideration of whether they might actually be Orthodox Christian “kin” who would be allowed into the local burial grounds. Their identification as Muslim others is a solution to the problem of local integration, since there is no space for accepting outsiders into the closed communities of Northern Greece (Tsitselikis 2012: 145-165). It is true that Muslim tourists who seem to boost the local economies of Western Thrace are welcomed, and local entrepreneurs depend on the large numbers of daily tours from Istanbul to support their businesses. However, despite the references to local hospitality that proliferate in the tourist literature, the actual recognition and treatment of assumed Muslim foreigners as guests seems to escape the obligation of filoxenia in the case of unwanted, needy newcomers.

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C RIMINALISATION , B UREAUCRACY , I NDIFFERENCE AND THE P ERVERSION OF T RADITIONAL G REEK H OSPITALITY The common strategy employed by the government, the media and the general population is to turn the phenomenon of the immigration of such Muslim others whom the laws do not welcome into Greece into a criminal act. This criminalisation of migration legitimises the inhumane treatment these people receive from the federal government and local authorities. This also makes it easier for many to accept the unwelcoming practices of indifference as a necessary fact of life. A very insightful anthropological analysis of the social phenomenon of “indifference” is provided by Michael Herzfeld (1992), who sees in the symbolic practices of bureaucracy a whole field of study that has been ignored by anthropological research. In Herzfeld’s account, the social phenomenon of “indifference” means “the rejection of common humanity […] the denial of identity, and of selfhood” (1992: 1). By this he means that the State’s bureaucracy transforms civil servants into “humorless automatons sitting behind the desk” (1992: 1). In this position of power, state bureaucrats are dehumanised and, thus, they reject all those who do not fit into their little boxes (including migrants who are others and thus, we might add, denying migrants selfhood as it has been denied to the bureaucrats themselves). Herzfeld’s claim in some ways resembles Hannah Arendt’s well-known theoretical argument about the “banality of evil” (1963), in which the very category of “evil” is de-mythologised and de-demonised through the introduction of the “banal evil” of bureaucratic hierarchies. As in the case of the trial of Nazi Lieutenant Colonel Adolf Eichmann, the key mechanism for escaping responsibility is an appeal to the deeper workings of bureaucracy. As Herzfeld’s analysis illustrates and other more recent ethnographic accounts show (Lazaridis and Koumandraki 2001), dehumanisation becomes possible by subsuming one’s activities in a wider maze of legal evasions and deferments associated with efthynofobia (fear of responsibility) and of indifference (Herzfeld 1992: 143). So bureaucrats can be dehumanised, and then they can dehumanise migrants. The daily reports from the activities of Golden Dawn neo-Nazi attacks against migrants who lack official papers suggest that such practices are becoming normalised (e.g. BBC News 2013). To return to our original question about the perversion of the traditional Greek value of filoxenia, one can see that two arguments can explain this perversion: on the one hand, the bureaucratic compartmentalisation that provides a framework for escaping responsibilities for one’s actions or lack of action, as in the case of deferring asylum determination decisions. The other explanation con-

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cerns the European Union’s practice of subsuming national priorities to EU regulations. Given the priority of EU border securitisation, Greek bureaucracy can shy away from its responsibilities by invoking burden-sharing on a European level. From the standpoint of local cultures and the official discourses on national cultural values, it is important to note that the appeal of filoxenia as an ethnic characteristic of Greeks persists. In fact, in December 2007, the then Minister of Interior and Public Order of the right-wing government in Greece used the following reference to filoxenia as the key principle of the national strategy of accommodating newcomers in his inauguration speech for the “Model Hospitality Centre for Illegal Migrants and Asylum Seekers” on the island of Samos, at the sea border with Turkey: “[This is] a project that makes us proud of the level of filoksenia (hospitality) that our country offers to illegal immigrants who stay here until their return to their country of origin. This high level of hospitality is indicative of the equivalent level of guarantees we ensure for the protection of Human Rights as well as for the total respect for the value and dignity of Anthropos (the human being). After all, our tradition and culture command us to do so [emphasis added].” (Quoted in Rozakou 2012: 1)

This rhetorical appeal to respect for human rights has been shown to be wishful thinking rather than an actual commitment to the protection of human rights. Public discourses and concerned citizens’ entreaties have challenged this type of simplistic appeal to the entrenched cultural stereotype of hospitality when it comes to refugee rights and the management of asylum seekers in the Greek context. They have also undermined the perception of the “hospitality centres” as places of true hospitality by documenting the large-scale human rights violations taking place inside these centres. The recent theoretical literature on the biopolitics of refugee management in Greece discussed in this paper shows how challenges to the traditional ideal of hospitality and Xenios Zeus in the face of an economic crisis and increasing immigration paradoxically involve a perversion of the key categories of hosts and guests on the margins of Europe. The inmates of the Greek hospitality centres provide a characteristic example of the manner in which the ostensible recipients of humanitarian aid and care become victims of the abuse of power under conditions of confinement. In this context, the government’s claims about protecting human rights also become devoid of meaning and truth-value.

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C ONCLUDING R EMARKS : “X ENIOS Z EUS ” AGAIN This paper has addressed the paradoxical way norms of hospitality are applied and practised in the Greek context of managing migrants and refugees in the urban centres and the periphery. I have referred to different senses of the concept of Xenios as friend, foe, foreigner and guest, all of which are assumed but not referred to explicitly in different contexts of application. “Hospitality”, it appears, is not only a concept referring to a behavioural code, but also an activity, a performance and a performative utterance that entails obligations to act. As such, a simple rhetorical appeal to it is not enough. It is necessary to de-mythologise its meaning and, more importantly, address its political implications in the increasingly xenophobic environment observed across Europe and at its margins! The original question I posed concerned the selection of the phrase “Xenios Zeus” to refer to the urban police clean-up operations taking place in Greece during 2012-2014, with the reference to the ancient god of hospitality used as a euphemism to denote its opposite. Nowhere is such a euphemistic use of opposites better illustrated than in George Orwell’s use of “Newspeak”, which is meant to be the backbone of the new language of Oceania that limits expression and thought, in his famous novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four”. In Orwell’s ingenious fictional account of the perversion of language by political manipulators and state authorities, the invention of the new language depends on the ability to construe reality through its opposites (e.g. “ungood” used instead of “bad”, the Ministry of Peace waging war). Similarly, in the contemporary Greek context, Xenios Zeus, the protector of foreigners, becomes the exterminator of foreigners in real life situations, given that the “unwanted” and “undesirables” have to be eliminated from public life and swept away from public eyes. One would hope that Greek people will be able to address the language of Eurocentric xenophobia by drawing on a richer articulation and practice of their own local cultural traditions.

R EFERENCES Amnesty International (2004) Amnesty International Report 2004 – Greece. http://www.refworld.org/docid/40b5a1f510.html. — (2005) Amnesty International Report 2005 – Greece. http://www.refworld. org/docid/429b27e22f.html. — (2006) Amnesty International Report 2006 – Greece. http://www.refworld. org/docid/447ff7a97.html.

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— (2007) Amnesty International Report 2007 – Greece. https://www.amnesty. org/en/region/greece/report-2007. Arendt, Hannah (1963) Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: Viking Press. BBC News (2013) Greece’s Golden Dawn: “Don’t Say a Word or I’ll Burn You Alive”. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-24363776 (viewed in November 2015). Black, Richard (1994) Livelihoods under Stress: A Case Study of Refugee Vulnerability in Greece. Journal of Refugee Studies 7 (4): pp. 360-377. Bentley, Michael (1999) Victorian politics and the linguistic turn. The Historical Journal 42 (3): pp. 883-902. Derrida, Jacques and Anne Dufourmantelle (2000) Of Hospitality: Anne Dufourmantelle Invites Jacques Derrida to Respond. Rachel Bowlby trans. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Dalakoglou, Dimitris (2013) Neo-Nazism and neoliberalism: A Few Comments on Violence in Athens at the Time of Crisis. Working USA: The Journal of Labor and Society 16 (2): pp. 283-292. Dubisch, Jill (1986) Culture Enters through the Kitchen: Women, Food and Social Boundaries in Rural Greece. In Dubisch, Jill (ed.): Gender, Power in Rural Greece. Princeton: Princeton University Press: pp. 195-214. Du Boulay, Juliet (1986) Women-Images of their Nature and Destiny in Rural Greece. In Dubisch, Jill (ed.): Gender, Power in Rural Greece. Princeton: Princeton University Press: pp. 139-168. Friedl, Ernestine (1962) Vasilika: A Village in Modern Greece. New York: Holt Rinehart & Winston. Giordano, Christian (2012) “The Anthropology of Mediterranean Societies”. In: A Companion to the Anthropology of Europe. Oxford: Blackwell: pp. 13-31. Golden Dawn Party (2015) http://www.theguardian.com/world/golden-dawn (viewed in July 2015). Gullestad, Marianne (2002) Invisible Fences: Egalitarianism, Nationalism and Racism. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 8 (1): 45-63. Harrell-Bond, Barbara (1996) Refugees and the International System: the Evolution of Solutions after the Second World War. Migration 3: pp. 3-18. — (2005) Rights in Exile: Janus-Faced Humanitarianism. Oxford and New York: Berghahn. Hellenic League for Human Rights (2011) Report on the Muslim immigrants’ cemetery in Evros, Athens: Greece. http://www.hlhr.gr/detailsen.php?id=586 (viewed in April 2013).

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Heller, Agnes (1993) The Limits to Natural Law and the Paradox of Evil. In: Shute, Steven and Susan Hurley (eds.): On Human Rights. The Oxford Amnesty Lectures 1993. New York: Basic Books: pp. 149-175. Hervik, Peter (2004) The Danish Cultural World of Unbridgeable Differences. Ethnos 69 (2): pp. 247-267 Herzfeld, Michael (1987) Anthropology through the looking glass: Critical ethnography on the margins of Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. — (1988) The Poetics of Manhood: Contest and Identity in a Cretan Mountain Village. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. — (1992) The social production of indifference: Exploring the symbolic roots of western bureaucracy. New York: Berg. Homer. The Iliad. Translated by Richard Lattimore (1951). Chicago: Chicago University Press. Huffington Post (2015) Europe is Facing the Biggest Refugee Crisis since WWII. When will it Stop Passing the Buck? http://www.huffingtonpost. com/miguel-urban/the-balkans-refugees-_b_8103868.html (viewed in November 2015). Human Rights Watch (2008) Stuck in a revolving door: Iraqis and Other Asylum Seekers and Migrants at the Greece/Turkey entrance to the European Union. http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/greeceturkey1108web_0.pdf (viewed in September 2015). Huysmans, Jef (2000) The European Union and the Securitisation of Migration. Journal of Common Market Studies 38 (5): pp. 751-777. Kokot, Waltraud (1995) Kognition und soziale Identität in einem Flüchtlingsviertel: Kato Toumba, Thessaloniki. Universität zu Köln: unpubl. Habilitationsschrift. — (ed.) (2004) Kultur der Obdachlosigkeit in der Hamburger Innenstadt: eine ethnologische Felduntersuchung. Lines: Beiträge zur Stadtforschung aus dem Institut für Ethnologie der Universität Hamburg Vol. 1, Hamburg: Hamburger Verein für Ethnologie. Lazaridis, Gabriela and Maria Koumandraki (2001) Deconstructing Naturalism: The Racialisation of Ethnic Minorities in Greece. In: King, Russel (ed.): The Mediterranean Passage: Migration and New Cultural Encounters in Southern Europe. Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press: pp. 279-300. Leonard, Sarah (2007) The “Securitization” of Asylum and Migration in the European Union: Beyond the Copenhagen School’s Framework. Paper presented at the SGIR Sixth Pan-European International Relations Conference, 12-

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15 September 2007, Turin (Italy). http://turin.sgir.eu/uploads/Leonardsgir_conference_paper_final_sleonard.pdf (viewed in September 2015). Pro-Asyl (2007) The truth must be bitter, but it must be told: The situation of refugees in the Aegean and the practices of the Greek coast guard. Athens: Stiftung Pro-Asyl. http://www.proasyl.de/fileadmin/proasyl/fm_redakteure/ Englisch/Griechenlandbericht_Engl.pdf (viewed in September 2015). Redfield, James (1975) Nature and Culture in the Iliad: The tragedy of Hector. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Rosello, Mireille (2001) Post-Colonial Hospitality: The immigrant as guest. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Rozakou, Katerina (2012) The biopolitics of hospitality in Greece: Humanitarianism and the management of refugees. American Ethnologist 39 (3): pp. 562-577. Sitaropoulos, Nicholas (2000) Modern Greek asylum policy and practice in the context of the relevant European developments. Journal of Refugee Studies 13 (1): pp. 105-115. Skodras, Achilles and Nicholas Sitaropoulos (2004) Why Greece is not a safe host country for refugees. International Journal of Refugee Law 16 (1): pp. 25-52. Takis, Andreas, Calliope Stephanaki, and Chrysa Hatzi (2005) Problems in the logging and examination of asylum applications in the Athens Aliens’ Unit. Athens: Greek Ombudsman’s Office, Human Rights Section. Tarski. Alfred (1944) “The Semantical Concept of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 4: pp. 341-75. Tsatsanis, Emmanouil (2011) Hellenism under siege: the national-populist logic of antiglobalization rhetoric in Greece. Journal of Political Ideologies 16 (1): pp. 11–31. Tsitselikis, Konstantinos (2012) Old and New Islam in Greece. From Historical Minorities to Immigrant Newcomers. Studies in International Minority and Group Rights. Leiden and Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. United Nations High Comissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) (2015) Worldwide Displacement Hits All-time High as War and Persecution Increase. http://www.unhcr.org/558193896.html (viewed in November 2015) Voutira, Eftihia and Elisavet Kokozila (2008) The life of asylum seekers in Greece: Comparing “privileged” with “underprivileged” migrants. Migrance, Special Issue, Ethnicity and Migration: A Greek Story, Guest Editor: Martin Baldwin Edwards. http://www.mmo.gr/pdf/publications/other_publications/ migrance31Abd.pdf (viewed in August 2015).

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Voutira, Eftihia (2012) Jus Sanguinis and Jus Soli: Aspects of Ethnic Migration and Immigration Policies in EU States. In: Martiniello, Marco and Jan Rath (eds.): An Introduction to International Migration Studies: European Perspectives, Contribution to the IMISCOE Textbook Series International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam Press: pp. 131-154. — (2014) “Cultures of Security and Refugees’ Insecurities” (in Greek), Practices of Everyday Life, (E. Papataxiarhis ed.), Alexandria, Athens. Waldron, Sidney R. (1987) Blaming the Refugee. Refugee Issues 3 (3). Oxford: Refugee Studies Programme. Welcome2Europe (2012) Lost at border. A journey to the lost and the dead of the Greek borders. http://infomobile.w2eu.net/files/2012/01/lostatborder_ bericht_web.pdf (viewed in September 2015).

How Solomon Bibo from Germany Became an Indian Chief And Other Glimpses of Jewish Life in the Wild West S ABINE L ANG

I NTRODUCTION Jews are generally absent from the Anglo-American narrative of “How the West was Won”, as well as from stagings of that narrative in Western movies and popular literature. No prospective Jewish groom in California is waiting for a bride to be brought to him by the wagon trek led by Robert Taylor in Westward the Women (1951). No Jewish pioneers set out for the frontier and beyond in the epic How the West Was Won (1962). There are some notable exceptions, though, including the American Tail animated movies produced by Steven Spielberg, to be discussed in this contribution. 1 Indeed, Jews in the Wild West 2 long seemed an oddity even in Jewish imagination, as has been pointed out, for example, by Hasia R. Diner (2002: 37):

1

The few other exceptions include The Frisco Kid (1979, directed by Robert Aldrich) about a Polish rabbi travelling to San Francisco to work at a synagogue; Blazing Saddles (1974, directed by Mel Brooks) which features a Yiddish-speaking Native American chief (Antelyes 2009: 23-24); and, last but not least, Yentl (1983, directed by Barbra Streisand), where at the close of the movie the protagonist leaves for the U.S. This is, by the way, in contrast to Isaac Baashevis Singer’s original short story Yentl the Yeshiva Boy (1962) where no such journey is suggested at the end.

2

The term “Wild West” refers roughly to the territories west of the Mississippi in the 19th century.

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“The main currents of American Jewish culture in the twentieth century have posited the city as the Jews’ natural habitat and New York in particular as the city that most suited the Jewish temperament.”

Yet Jews may have been among the first to set foot onto the New World – some scholars even claim that Columbus himself was of Jewish descent. Jewish pioneers, including women, did travel by wagon trail to the West, and when seventeen-year old Fanny Brooks 3 and her husband Julius, who were both from Silesia, arrived in Salt Lake City on their way to California in 1854, a local resident hailed her as the “first Jewish woman to cross the plains” (Abrams 2006: 11). There were a small but influential number of 19th-century Jewish pioneers, and there were prominent fleeting visitors. Famous Jewish figures in the West include Solomon Bibo from Westphalia who became the first and only non-Native American governor of the Pueblo of Acoma; Solomon Nunes Carvalho who was the official artist of a westward expedition led by John C. Fremont in 1853, and left a vivid account of his adventures and misadventures (Nunes Carvalho 1859); 4 and Josephine Marcus, a dancer and actress who met Wyatt Earp, a legendary figure of the West, in Tombstone and became his wife. 5 Just like the Anglo-Americans, Jews were merchants, ranchers, miners, cowboys, mayors, and sheriffs. Yet, while being an integral and respected part of the settler community, many of them held on to their identity, built synagogues, and maintained support networks among themselves. 6 The present contribution will look at Jewish presence in North America, and in the U.S. in particular, from various angles. The “Wild West” was the last part

3

The Anglicized version of their surname; both were named Bruck, because Julius was Fanny’s uncle (Abrams 2006: 22).

4

Rubinstein, who devotes a subchapter of her book to Nunes Carvalho, rightfully notes that any allusion to his Jewishness is missing from his travel account for various reasons, despite the fact that he was quite active in Jewish affairs (Rubinstein 2010: 3440). In a similar vein, Fremont’s biographer Allan Nevins (1992 [1939]: 411) introduces Charleston-born Nunes Carvalho – “the first official photographer ever attached to an exploring expedition” – as “of American birth despite his Portuguese name”.

5

For a brief biographical sketch of Josephine Sarah Marcus Earp (1861-1944) see Rochlin and Rochlin 1984: 72-73.

6

It is not possible to go into detail about this in the present contribution; however, good overviews are provided by the contributors to Kahn (ed., 2002) and by Rochlin and Rochlin (1984). A concise sketch on “Jews in the American West” is given by Klinger (2004).

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of the U.S. to become colonized by Europeans, including Jews. However, Jews had been living in the European colonies of North America, and subsequently in the independent and steadily expanding U.S., long before that time. Hence, the contribution will set the stage by giving a historical summary of Jewish immigration to that part of the New World. The essay will then take a closer look at the part taken by Jews in the exploration and colonization of the Western expanses of North America roughly from the mid-1900s onward. In that context, two exemplary yet very different “Jews in the Wild West” will be discussed: Solomon Bibo, who came to the Southwest in the 1850s from Germany as an immigrant and established a trading company at the Native Pueblo of Acoma, and Aby Warburg, a European intellectual who came to the same part of the U.S. in the late 1900s as a visitor and got inspiration for his studies in art history from a stay at one of the Hopi villages. These two examples – as well as a discussion of the abovementioned American Tail animated movies which touch both on Jewish migration to the U.S. and encounters of these immigrants with Native Americans – mark the transition to the second focus of this contribution: mutual interactions and perceptions of Native Americans and Jews in the U.S. Like all Europeans who colonized North America, Jewish immigrants came in touch with the original inhabitants of the subcontinent. Such encounters are of particular interest, as they involved two groups that may be characterized as living in a diaspora. Having come to the U.S., the Jewish immigrants were, of course, still diasporans. The Native Americans, in turn, increasingly found themselves in a situation comparable to that of a diaspora on a subcontinent that used to be theirs, as they were dispossessed of huge territories they had inhabited for millennia, and relocated to reservations that were, in many cases, far away from their original homelands. Quite obviously, Jews coming from Europe and Native Americans shared experiences of marginalization and discrimination, including confinement to segregated spaces (reservations, ghettoes) and violent attempts to make them abandon their religion, embrace the Christian faith, and assimilate to European life ways. Against this backdrop, the question arises as to whether the two groups of “diasporans” were, and are, aware of these similarities. This leads to the last part of the present contribution which is concerned with the 20th century, as an awareness of shared experiences in terms of genocide and marginalization did not emerge prior to that time. Native Americans, or rather specific images of “Indianness”, came to serve as a projection screen for 20th-century Jewish artists and intellectuals to reflect, often humorously and sometimes more seriously (as discussed in detail, e.g., by Antelyes 2009 and Rubinstein 2010), on their own identity and place in American society. Native Americans, in turn, did not usual-

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ly harbour feelings of interethnic kinship but rather viewed Jews as one subcategory of the “whites” who interacted with them as traders, settlers, explorers, soldiers, and so forth. 7 This has changed only recently, as some Native American writers were struck by the similarities between their peoples’ experience of near extinction and the genocide suffered by the European Jews during the Holocaust. 8

T HE F IRST J EWS

IN THE

AMERICAS

There is no doubt that Jews – though converted to Catholicism 9 and, if at all, practicing their faith in secrecy – were among the first to set foot on American soil. Rodrigo de Triana, a converso who was a mariner on the Pinta, is said to have first sighted the shores of the New World. And Luis de Torres, who had only become baptized shortly before the departure of Columbus’ ships, was the first to step ashore in Cuba. As to Columbus himself, who shrouded the origins

7

Jewish imaginations of Native Americans have been the subject of various publications; the most comprehensive discussion is found in Rachel Rubinstein’s recent monograph, focusing on works of literature (2010). Native imaginations of Jews are much more difficult to grasp. This is, most of all, true for the period of colonization discussed in the present contribution. With regard to that time, I have come across no sources in which such Native imaginations, or perceptions, of Jewish immigrants are explicitly recorded. However, Native Americans’ perception of Jewish Americans may, to some degree, be inferred from the roles in which 19th-century Jewish immigrants interacted with the indigenous population. This is the approach taken in the present essay.

8

I wish to express thanks to Andrea Nicklisch who came up with the idea for this contribution combining my expertise as a specialist in Native American Studies with Waltraud Kokot’s special interest in Jewish diasporas.

9

Upon pressure by Queen Isabella’s confessor, Tomás de Torquemada – who was also Grand Inquisitor of Spain and of Jewish ancestry himself –, the Catholic Kings had issued an edict on March 31, 1492 according to which all Jews who were not baptized had to leave Spain by August 1. Unbaptized Jews remaining in Spain after that date were to be executed. This prompted many Jews – about 50,000 according to one source (Rochlin and Rochlin 1984: 1), up to 600,000 according to another (Bossong 2008: 58) – to convert, at least pro forma (Bossong 2008: 51-58). These included Torres, who was baptized one day before Columbus’ ships put out to sea. The edict was officially repealed as late as in 1969 (Trepp 1970: 46).

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of his family in mystery (Colón 2004: 30, Comay 1995: 86), there is an ongoing debate about his possible Jewish ancestry. 10 Jews soon began to feature in the debate about the origin of the “Indians”, which set in soon after the beginning of the Spanish conquest and was addressed in most important works of early colonial times, including those of Bartolomé de Las Casas, Francisco López de Gomara, and Bernardino de Sahagún (Rauschenbach 2011: 168). While there seems to have been general agreement that the inhabitants of the New World had migrated there, assumptions about their origins varied. Some believed that the Native Americans were descendants of Scythians, Greeks, or Romans who had sailed to the Americas; others thought that their ancestors had come from the mythical Ophir or were members of the Ten Tribes of Israel that had been dispersed after the conquest of Samaria in 722 BC (Rauschenbach 2011: 168-169). While the assumption that the Native Americans were descendants of the Ten Tribes of Israel was first elaborated by Gregorio García in his Origen de los Indios (1607), it may have originated as early as in Columbus’ writings. 11 The so-called Ten Tribes or Indian Israel theory was later picked up by Menasseh ben Israel, a Sephardic rabbi whose family had moved to Amsterdam in 1613 to escape Inquisition in Portugal, in his Hope of Israel (1652). Menasseh had made the acquaintance of a Jewish traveller, Antonio de Montezinos (also known as Aaron Levi), who claimed that he had found remnants of the Lost Tribes in a remote valley in Ecuador (Rubinstein 2010: 10-13, Rauschenbach 2011: 173). Joined by the renowned Scottish-born irenic John Drury who had come to the Netherlands in 1606, Menasseh used the Ten Tribes theory to bolster his plea for a readmission of Jews into England, where they had been expelled in 1290 (Rauschenbach 2011: 172). He argued that the existence of Jews in the New World proved that the dispersal of the tribes of Israel had progressed very far, which meant that the coming of the Messiah was imminent.

10 As to his supposed Jewish ancestry see, for example, Comay (1995: 85-86), Irizarry (2006, 2009), Pollak (1973), and Vignaud (1913) who discusses the thesis of the Spanish scholar García de Riega that Columbus’ family were Jews from Pontevedra in Galicia (on this see also Comay 1995: 86). A detailed discussion of issues concerning Columbus’ background, though without reference to his possible Jewish ancestry, is found in Ezquerra Abadia (1966). 11 Research by Trisha Rose Jacobs (University of Ghent), who is specialized in the literature on the “Ten Tribes theory”, seems to indicate that what she calls the “Indians-asJews theory” actually began with Columbus in his Book of Prophecies (Jacobs, personal communication, March 27, 2015; see also Jacobs 2014), which he wrote towards the end of his life.

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In addition, British clerics of various Christian denominations had been advocating freedom of faith and religion since 1644. Soon after Menasseh ben Israel and John Drury had made the first move to gain readmission for Jews in England, the restrictions were lifted, and King Charles I eventually guaranteed the Jews royal protection in 1664 (Rauschenbach 2011: 177). The idea that America’s first inhabitants were the “Lost Tribes” was to linger on in scholarly writings for more than two centuries. As to the first Jewish settlers in North America after its “discovery”, it is difficult to make any definitive statement. Theoretically, Jews were not allowed to become colonists in New Spain. Settlers had to “present limpieza de sangre certificates – legal proof of four generations of Catholic ancestry. Since 1449, the limpieza had been mandatory for Spaniards in key posts and for all but a few decades was required of settlers embarking for New Spain” (Rochlin and Rochlin 1984: 3). Nevertheless, Rochlin and Rochlin state that the early emigrants to the colony, beginning after the conquest of Mexico in 1521, included “a significant number of Iberians of Jewish descent” who had used “bribes and counterfeited limpiezas” (1984: 3) to gain admission to the New World. Soon, however, the Inquisition began to target crypto-Jews, just as it did in Spain. 12 The issue of early Jewish presence in New Mexico (which was part of the viceroyalty of New Spain, and the first site of European settlement in North America in the 16th century) is discussed at some length by Tobias (1990: 7-21), who concludes: “That crypto-Jews lived in New Mexico is beyond dispute. What is more difficult to establish, however, is their number, character, and the course of their evolution over generations”, and that “the primary obstacle in researching and comprehending the crypto-Jews lies in the cloak of secrecy that surrounded them” (Tobias 1990: 11). The situation was completely different in the fledgling British and Dutch colonies in North America and, after Independence (1783), in the U.S.A. British colonization began with the establishment of the settlement of Jamestown in present-day Virginia in 1609, much later than settlement by the Spaniards to the south. The short-lived Dutch colony of New Netherland – including New Amsterdam, which later was renamed New York when it came under British rule – was founded in 1624. It was there that formal Jewish settlement in North America began, and the first Jewish community emerged. In September 1664, a small group of Jews arrived in New Amsterdam. They were refugees from Brazil, which had been taken by the Portuguese from the Dutch. This meant that the re-

12 See, for example, Rochlin and Rochlin (1984: 1-7), Tobias (1990: 14-15). On the issue of the earliest Jews in the Southwest, see also Fierman (1960).

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ligious and political freedom enjoyed by the Jews under Dutch rule in Brazil came to an end. Pieter Stuyvesant, the governor of New Amsterdam, did not welcome the newcomers with open arms, and barred them from certain activities open only to citizens of Dutch Reformed faith. However, by appealing to the Jews of Amsterdam, 13 the refugees succeeded in having the restrictions lifted (Diner 2004: 14-15, Trepp 1970: 91). As far as the attitude towards Jews – first in the colony, later in the independent U.S. – is concerned, the sources unanimously suggest that it was, for the longest time, generally pragmatic and not tainted by any significant degree of anti-Semitism. With regard to the beginnings of Jewish presence, this is summed up by Diner as follows: “However negative Stuyvesant[’s] attitude towards Judaism and the Jews, those responsible for overseeing the colony primarily saw Jews not as adherents of a problematic religious tradition but as people who could augment the colony’s wealth.” (Diner 2004: 20)

Particularly the Jews’ networks and experience in trade were seen as a definite asset in this respect (Diner 2004: 21). This pragmatic attitude continued to prevail until the early twentieth century. Trepp moreover points out that “very unlike their brethren who had stayed in Europe, they could count on support on the part of the statesmen from the time of the U.S.A.’s Declaration of Independence.” These included Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and George Washington (Trepp 1970: 91, translation mine).

J EWISH P IONEERS

IN THE

W EST

In the early time of Independence, the number of Jews in the U.S. remained low, counting about 2,500 people at the time of the American Revolution (Trepp 1970: 91). From the mid-19th century onward, larger numbers of Jewish immigrants joined others in their westward push. Broadly speaking, there were two waves of Jewish immigration. The first began in the 1830s and reached a peak in the wake of the failed democratic-republican revolutions of 1848, when not only Jews, but also non-Jewish people left Western Europe and Germany in particular. About 250,000 German-speaking Jews migrated to the U.S. at the time, “of-

13 From the late 1590s onwards, Amsterdam, London, and Hamburg had emerged as places of religious and political tolerance where Portuguese and Spanish Sephards became active in various professions, most notably trade (Bossong 2008: 73-84).

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ten as part of a ‘chain migration’, in which relatives and landsleit (fellow townspeople) assisted and often followed one another in making the journey to a new land, forming Jewish merchandising networks that stretched from the East to the West Coast of the United States” (Abrams 2006: 22, italics hers). The second wave, largely from Eastern Europe, began in the 1880s and was triggered, among other things, by pogroms in Russia that lasted well into the 20 th century. 14 This wave was significantly larger than the first, and almost half of the two million Jewish emigrants who came to the U.S. between 1881 and 1914, most of them in family groups, were women (Abrams 2006: 23). With a constitution guaranteeing freedom of religion and other civic rights, the United States opened up possibilities for Jews undreamt of in Europe, despite the fact that from the mid-1900s onwards the European states “began to offer some Jews the chance to experience greater political equality, political rights, and material prosperity” in the larger cities (Diner 2004: 95), where they could embark on careers as physicians, lawyers, and in other professions (Diner 2004: 82). Still, Diner (2004: 25) draws attention to the fact that the stigma of Jewishness, which “had ipso facto put them outside the mainstream of society and rendered them different and defective”, persisted; this was different in America, where Africans, the first of whom were brought as slaves to the British colony in 1619, became that stigmatized part of the population. The same is true of the original inhabitants of the Americas, the Native Americans, who go unmentioned by Diner in the context of disadvantaged ethnic or racial “others” in the U.S. Jews, in contrast, were defined as white, and just as the other whites in the colony they owned slaves, and some of them even actively engaged in the slave trade (Diner 2004: 25-26). Jerry Klinger (2004) points out that the mindset of the “American Jew” who emerged in the process of pioneering differed from the European Jewish perspective: “American Jews no longer thought in terms of defined limitations but rather as Americans whose minds and opportunities knew no boundaries and could expand with the West.”

As the Jewish immigrants made use of the opportunities offered first by the British colony and then by the independent democratic U.S., leaving behind the spa-

14 Diner (2004: 78-82) rightfully cautions us that the line between pre-1880s (“German”) and post-1880s (“Eastern European”) Jewish immigration to the U.S. is not as cleardrawn as some scholars claim. Still, and with Diner’s caveat in mind, this rough division will be employed in the present contribution for the sake of simplicity.

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tial and social constraints they faced in Europe, such constraints were increasingly imposed on Native Americans. Just as Russia had created its Pale of Settlement, 15 the U.S. government first passed an Indian Removal Act in 1830 and then set up an “Indian Territory” between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains in 1834. In order to create room for white settlers, more than thirty tribes were forcibly moved from their ancestral lands to that territory. They were promised “that they would never be asked to cede any of this new land and that they would have the opportunity to organize an Indian State” (O’Brien 1989: 60). However, the vast territory shrank as growing numbers of white settlers pushed west; at the beginning of the Civil War (1861), it had been reduced to the present state of Oklahoma, and when Oklahoma became a state in 1907, Indian Territory was irrevocably gone. In the decades following the removal act, the United States grew; they annexed Texas in 1845, added Oregon Territory in 1846, and in 1848 won the entire Southwest in the Mexican War. The government wanted to open these new accruals to settlement by whites, and hence decided to set up reservations for the indigenous nations that lived there. By this means, the U.S. government acquired more than 174 million acres between 1853 and 1857. Once more, tribes were removed from their ancestral lands and forced to move further west (O’Brien 1989: 62). Among those who went west to make their fortune were thousands of American-born Jews and Jewish immigrants. 16 Young Jewish men coming from Europe joined others in the Gold Rush to California; many others who went west engaged in trade (cf. Levinson 1974: 285-286). The internationally most famous German Jew who came to California (in 1850) is doubtlessly Levi Strauss from Bavaria (Levinson 1974: 288). As Tobias (1990: 2) has put it with regard to the Southwest: “The Jewish immigrants came, like most Anglos, in pursuit of economic opportunity. Unlike many other western frontier pioneers, they did not come to till the soil. Between their appearance in the middle 1840s and World War II they were, using the term broadly, mainly merchants.”

15 First created by Catherine the Great in 1791, the Pale was the region of Russia where – unlike in the other parts of the empire – permanent settlement of Jews was permitted. Up to the beginning of the 20th century, about 90 per cent of the Russian Jews lived in the Pale (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansiedlungsrayon). 16 Rochlin and Rochlin (1984) and the contributions in Kahn (ed., 2002) give a comprehensive and richly illustrated account of Jewish pioneers in the West. The history of Jewish settlers in New Mexico is explored by Tobias (1990).

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As Toll, who terms this the “merchant niche”, points out, being merchants in the West enabled Jewish men and their families “in a single generation to move from medieval artisanship and itinerant merchandising to the highest civic status” (Toll 2002: 83). 17 In New Mexico, successful and well-known merchants included the Spiegelberg family in Santa Fe. Solomon Jacob Spiegelberg, who came to the Southwest from Bavaria, founded a wholesale enterprise in 1844 and was later joined by his brothers (Tobias 1990: passim, Kahn 2002: 69-70, Rochlin and Rochlin 1984: 17, 19). Other successful Jewish entrepreneurs from Germany were Charles Ilfeld who ran retail centres in Las Vegas (New Mexico) and Albuquerque, the Auerbach brothers who established a commercial empire in California and Utah, and businessman Bailey Gatzert who rendered outstanding services to the fledgling town of Seattle in the 1870s and 80s (Rochlin and Rochlin 1984: 107-116, Toll 2002: 84). Such family enterprises were often composed of brothers and their respective families (Rochlin and Rochlin 1984: 112). It was also not unusual for one man to make his way to the U.S. to establish some trade, and then have his (usually younger) brothers join him.

S OLOMON B IBO ,

THE

“I NDIAN C HIEF ”

This was the case with the Bibo brothers from Brakel, Westphalia. Their parents, Isak and Blümchen Bibo, had altogether eleven children. Solomon, who was born in 1853, left for the U.S. in 1869 to join his older brothers Nathan and Simon who were friends of the Spiegelberg family and also ran a merchandising business in Santa Fe (Tobias 1990: 77-78, Toll 2002: 103-104, Rochlin and Rochlin 1984: 84-86). For various reasons, the Bibo brothers were fascinated with the Native Americans who were their trading partners; as Rollins (1969) puts it: “They saw the opportunity to help the Indians, combined with the chance of making a profit for themselves.” Solomon set up a trading store at the Pueblo of Acoma and even learned the indigenous Keresan language spoken there. Supported by his brother Simon, he tried – unsuccessfully – to help the people of Acoma in a court case involving land rights, and in 1885 he married Juana Valle,

17 It may be noted that these processes, which also included the establishment of national and even trans-Atlantic networks, were part of the emergence of a Jewish diaspora in the U.S.

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the 21-year old granddaughter of a former governor 18 of the pueblo. The marriage, which made Solomon a member of the Acoma “tribe”, was first contracted before a local Catholic priest, then before a justice of the peace. Juana, in turn, converted to Judaism. That same year Solomon himself was appointed governor of Acoma by the Indian agent of the U.S. government (Rollins 1969), and served in that office for a couple of years. The union between Solomon and Juana seems to have worked out very well; Bronitsky (no date) comments: “The marriage was a happy and long one, despite their differences in temperament. Solomon was mercurial and volatile, Juana was calm and imperturbable; together they prospered.” 19

However, some sources suggest that his relationship with the pueblo of Acoma may have been strained by his efforts to introduce “civilization”. Rubinstein (2010: 53) comments that “Bibo’s tenure in Acoma was rather contentious and divisive; he advocated a policy of assimilation and modernization for the Acomas, which pitted him against other tribal factions that argued for the preservation of traditional religious and cultural life.” In the same vein, Bronitsky (no date) notes that while Bibo’s “greatest achievements lay in opening up new educational opportunities for the people of Acoma, […] school was quite controversial. A major goal of Indian education at the time was to ‘kill the savage and spare the child’, eliminating all the Indian habits which stood in the way of developing the child’s potential to fit into the dominant white society.” In the course of the legal battle over Acoma lands, Bibo incurred the wrath of the U.S. government and found himself charged with trying to cheat the Acomans out of land, a charge of which he was eventually cleared (Rochlin and Rochlin 1984: 85, Garcia-Mason 1979: 461). Despite his close ties with Acoma, Bibo kept to his Jewish heritage. In 1898, the couple moved to San Francisco so their six children would get a good secular and Jewish education (Rochlin and Rochlin

18 The equivalent to a “chief” in Acoma and other Southwestern pueblos where the governing structure derives from Spanish and Mexican colonial times (see Garcia-Mason 1979: 464, Fig. 18). 19 The Native-Jewish marital union of Solomon Bibo and Juana Valle was no exception. Rochlin and Rochlin (1984: 84-90) mention other such marriages, and particularly in the Southwest, unions between Jewish men and Mexican women were apparently not uncommon as well; there were also some marriages between Jews and AngloChristians. It must be kept in mind that prospective Jewish brides were scarce in many parts of the West.

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1984: 85, Rollins 1969); at least one of their sons celebrated his bar mitzvah there (Rubinstein 2010: 53). One may suspect that their move was also motivated by the tensions arising from Bibo’s aggressive efforts to “modernize” Acoma and the resistance of more traditionally oriented members of the pueblo. He successfully continued his mercantile career in San Francisco, and moved back and forth between the city and New Mexico. His and his brothers’ businesses were badly hit by the Great Depression. He died in San Francisco on 4 May 1934; Juana passed away in 1941. The story of Solomon Bibo is well suited for introducing the question of how Native Americans, in this case the people of Acoma, may have perceived their Jewish “tribesman” and vice versa. Gordon Bronitsky titled his essay “Solomon Bibo: Jew and Indian at Acoma Pueblo”. While it is true that Bibo became a member of the pueblo through his marriage with Juana Valle, it is doubtful that the Acomans viewed him as one of their own, or that he perceived himself as such. 20 By no means did he become an “Indian”; quite the contrary. In his disdain for indigenous culture and his efforts to introduce – if necessary, by force – European-style education, he did not differ from other individuals classified as whites (called “Anglos” in the Southwest), and certainly was perceived as such by the Acomans. Even after his terms as governor, he remained in fierce opposition to those at the pueblo who resisted his educational agenda. In 1889, he had the incumbent governor jailed by the Indian Commissioner, accusing the former “and ‘a little gang of his tribe’ of tying up Acoma men and boys and giving them a general horsewhipping […], a punishment for not staying out of school, having cut off their hair, and refusing to wear Indian dress” (Bronitsky no date). Hence, he was apparently disliked by part of the pueblo’s inhabitants, and twenty years

20 An example of what might be termed a “Jewish Indian” – in contrast to Solomon Bibo – is Julius Meyer who emigrated to the U.S. from Prussia in the mid-1860s. According to one source, he is said to have been captured by Sioux, lived with them for several years, learned six Native languages, and later served as an interpreter and Indian agent (The Jewish Chronicle Online, 14 April 2011, http://www.thejc.com/news/ world-news/47875/new-frontiers-wild-west-jew-who-became-sioux).

Rochlin

and

Rochlin state that he was a merchant trading with tribes in the West, and became “the chiefs’ trusted interpreter and an honored guest at tribal feasts”. A famous 1875 picture reproduced, for example, in Rochlin and Rochlin (1984: 52) shows him with the prominent Lakota leaders Sitting Bull, Swift Bear, and Spotted Tail. For some time, he had a curio shop named The Indian Wigwam in Omaha in addition to the merchant business he ran with his brother Max. The two brothers were among the founders of Nebraska’s first synagogue (http://www.jmaw.org/meyer-omaha-nebraska-jewish/).

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after he and his family had moved to San Francisco, influential people at Acoma even tried to exclude them from tribal membership (Bronitsky no date). Interestingly, Bibo’s story inspired a fantastic pseudohistorical tale about “Nahum Blanberg, Indian Chief”, a “man of great strength and size” (Rubinstein 2010: 50), who defends a Pueblo tribe against the fraudulent practices of evil whites and even converts the entire village to Judaism. Originally published in 1909 in the American Hebrew magazine, the tale circulated in Hebrew- and Yiddish-language newspapers published in the U.S. and is discussed in detail by Rubinstein (2010: 47-55). In that tale, the character modelled after Bibo is a Jewish immigrant from Russia named Nahum Blanberg, who heads west and ends up in the New Mexican pueblo of Laguna (which is actually not far from Acoma), where he acquires fluency in the language and “earns the trust of the tribe with his honest business dealings and his piety.” The people of Laguna make him their chief, put him in charge of the village’s finances, and tell him that “they were all willing henceforth to learn the ways of the Jews and to abide by their law”, whereupon he instructs them in “the Torah and the Sayings of our Sages” (Rubinstein 2010: 51). Like Bibo, Blanberg ultimately moves to a large city so his children can be in the company of other Jews, but unlike Bibo he is married to a Jewish woman from New Orleans (Rubinstein 2010: 52-53). What Rubinstein concludes about the Blanberg tale is true for Bibo’s dealings with the Acomans as well: “The story is […] unable to reconcile its colonial and countercolonial impulses: Blanberg helps the tribe assert itself against the agent of the U.S. government and exploitative bosses, but he assumes their paternalistic roles. He asserts the ‘natural’ goodness of the ‘red men’ but discusses how they do not stop ‘drinking, gambling, and beating their wives’ until he has taught them the principles of Jewishness.” (Rubinstein 2010: 52)

T HE H EBREW

AND THE

H OPI T RIBES : ABY W ARBURG

While Solomon Bibo, and doubtlessly many other Jewish pioneers and residents in the Wild West, did not harbour feelings of kinship with the Native Americans with whom they interacted, just as other whites such as “frontiersmen, Indian fighters […], merchants, miners, ranchers, gunfighters, doctors, lawyers” (Klinger 2004), a different stance was taken by art historian Aby Warburg who visited several Southwestern pueblos – most notably that of the Hopi village of Oraibi – in 1895-96. This is not the place to go into detail about the way in which his sojourn influenced his outlook on art and art history. What is interest-

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ing in the present context is his perception of Judaism as retaining “a primitive, pagan presence in the modern world”, which made him “infer a connection between Hebrew and Hopi culture” (Steinberg 1995: 70, 73). Warburg was born into an observant Jewish family. From childhood on, however, he had a distanced, very ambivalent and even rebellious attitude towards Judaism and the rituals associated with it. He tended to neglect dietary laws, married a Protestant woman, and in a letter to his brother on the occasion of their father’s death – where Aby Warburg as the oldest son refused to attend the funeral or say the Kaddish – he wrote that he did not intend to “lead his children to Judaism” (Steinberg 1995: 80). 21 Unlike Bibo and other Jewish immigrants, Warburg was a fleeting visitor, an intellectual from Hamburg who did not come to the West to stay. He would return to Germany where anti-Semitism did not distinguish between observant Jews and non-observant Jews like him. His sympathy was with the Native Americans, who were pressurized by the dominant “white” society to assimilate in terms of culture in general and religion in particular: “The American Indians and the German Jews faced similar predicaments of assimilation and orthodoxy” (Steinberg 1995: 104). Through the Mennonite missionary R.H. Voth, Warburg gained access to a performance of masked dancers impersonating deities (kachinas) at the Hopi village of Oraibi in spring 1896, and permission to take photographs (see Cestelli Guidi and Mann 1998). In addition, Warburg used his brief stay at Oraibi for research into Hopi symbolism, which was to become seminal for his subsequent art historical work. A famous picture taken by Voth shows that Warburg had put on one of the kachina masks during a break in the ceremony (Cestelli Guidi and Mann 1998, Fig 81). We may speculate that he “turned Indian” just for fun; however, this nicely illustrates, or foreshadows, the similarities he inferred between Jews and Native Americans. These masks are sacred ritual paraphernalia and not meant to be worn by uninitiated outsiders, so one is left to wonder whether Voth or Warburg asked the dancers for permission with regard to this masquerade. As to the connection between Native Americans and Jews, Michael P. Steinberg reports about a revealing discovery in one of Warburg’s countless archival boxes. Labelled “Juden” (Jews), it contains, among other things, a World War I set of postcards entitled “Jüdische Kriegspostkarten” (“Jewish War Post Cards”).

21 Warburg’s uneasiness about his ancestry becomes explicit in an entry in his diary written during his stay in the U.S., which reads: “I only note here that I do not like Jews. The type is a mystery to me and is here without background and overtones” (quoted in Cestelli Guidi and Mann 1998: 150).

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Expressing “a clear propagandist message of German-Jewish support for Polish and Russian Jewry against indigenous anti-Semitism” (Steinberg 1995: 82), two of them show groups of Polish Jews. Steinberg notes that the Jews “seem to mistrust or fear the eye of the camera as well as the attendant manifestations of control and authority by the ‘liberating’ German forces” (Steinberg 1995: 85), and that there is an uncanny similarity between these two photographs and pictures taken by Voth of Hopi. Steinberg speculates that this similarity did not escape Warburg, and that the latter sensed “a parallel between the Hopi and the Jews as primitives in an expanding world defined by economic, technological, and cultural modernization” (Steinberg 1995: 86).

AN AMERICAN T AIL Arnold Krupat, a renowned scholar of Native American literature, is one of those Jewish writers who have compared the fate of their own family with that of Native Americans. He recalls how his grandmother, who had immigrated to America from Russia, never talked about “the experience of violence and oppression, which I learned about late and sketchily from my mother” and which “roughly parallel the experience of some Native Americans.” He imagines how his grandmother and mother hid from Cossacks and felt the same fear “Cheyenne and Lakota women had felt hiding with their children from raiding soldiers” (Krupat 1996: 91). This experience of Russian Jews was translated into an animated picture, An American Tail (1986), directed by Don Bluth and produced by Steven Spielberg. Between the 1880s and the 1920s, over 2.4 million Jews left Europe, including one third of the Eastern European Jews. About 90 percent of the latter chose the United States as their destination (Diner 2004: 88). From 1881 until 1884, there were several waves of pogroms in Russia; April 1881 alone witnessed pogroms in sixty Russian cities, and by the end of the year Jews in the southern part of Russia had suffered about three hundred more. Diner (2004: 90) observes that these pogroms “turned the Jews of Russia into a haunted people”. This historical setting is the starting point of An American Tail. The Mousekewitz family – consisting of Papa Mousekewitz, Mama Mousekewitz, little Fievel, his elder sister Tanya, and an unnamed baby – is living in Shostka, a town located in the Pale of Settlement. The year is 1885, the family is celebrating Hanukah, and Papa Mousekewitz tells his family of America where, rumour has it, there are no cats. All of a sudden, Shostka’s Jewish population becomes the target of an attack by Cossacks. While human Cossacks on horseback burn the houses of the human Jewish inhabitants, Cossack cats chase and terror-

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ize the Jewish mice, and the Mousekewitzes are forced to flee. They make their way to Hamburg, Germany, and set out for New York on an emigrant ship, together with humans and mice who represent members of other population groups that left Europe in large numbers at the time, most notably Irish and Italians. While crossing the Ocean, Papa Mousekewitz, an Italian and an Irish mouse share songs of their experiences that caused them to leave for the U.S. All of them have lost loved ones to predatory cats, but in the refrain the mice rejoice: “But there are no cats in America, and the streets are paved with cheese.” 22 One of the recurring motifs of the movie is that of solidarity, for it soon turns out that the supposed land of bounty is far from being the safe haven imagined by the newcomers. There are cats in America, terrorizing the immigrant mice. There are also con men awaiting the naïve new arrivals, ready to cheat them. When Fievel, who has become separated from his family towards the end of the voyage, searches for his loved ones in huge New York City, he comes across Warren T. Rat, a cat disguised as a rat, who sells him as a child labourer to a sweatshop (from which, however, he is soon able to escape). In the further course of the film, the immigrant mice unite and succeed in expelling a huge gang of cats from New York by using a ruse – the “Giant Mouse of Minsk”, a huge mouse dummy spitting fireworks – devised by Fievel, and the boy becomes reunited with his family. However, the sequel of the movie, Fievel Goes West (1991), finds the Mousekewitz family still disillusioned with the New World. While they had at least never gone hungry in Russia, they are now so poor that they do not have cheese for dinner. Hence, they leave New York, again together with other immigrants, and head west. Again they successfully defeat treacherous cats, and both the Mousekewitzes and immigrant mice from other European countries settle down in a Wild West town. The victory over the cats is celebrated with a big party, and Papa Mousekewitz – who is a violin maker – plays a tune on the fiddle. At first it is a slightly melancholic, unmistakably Eastern Jewish melody, but then changes into a merry Western dance tune into which other mouse musicians join in with their instruments. Fievel, on the other hand, exchanges the cowboy hat he has worn during his Wild West adventures for the “typical Eastern Jewish” visor cap his father gave him back in Russia at the very beginning of the first movie as a Hanukah gift. This nicely illustrates how the Mousekewitzes blend in with other immigrants to become Americans without, however, forsaking their Jewish identity. In addition, it is only in the West that the U.S. truly

22 The lyrics of the song are available online at http://www.metrolyrics.com/there-areno-cats-in-america-lyrics-johnny-guarnieri.html.

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turn into the “promised land” of bounty and opportunities. Hasia R. Diner has commented that An American Tail “illustrated some of the basic metaphors of American Jewish immigration history” (Diner 2002: 33). She also points out that there is a difference between New York (the proverbial “Jewish” city) and the West: the New York experience of Jewish immigrants, she argues, “functions as the narrative that emphasizes their resistance to assimilation”, whereas the West “has functioned as the place from which they emphasize their embrace of America and its transformative power” (Diner 2002: 50). Fievel, too, encounters “Indians” both in Fievel Goes West and another sequel entitled The Treasure of Manhattan Island, and there are remarkable differences in the perspective taken on Native Americans in these two animated pictures. In the first movie, Fievel once again becomes separated from his family and goes in search of them. In what looks like the arid scenery of the Southwest, he comes across a tribe of “Native” mice living in tipis. Their brief appearance in the movie plays on the theme of “natives” thinking that Europeans are gods. The Native mice are portrayed as stereotypically superstitious “savages” who believe that Fievel’s friend Tiger – a mild mannered and somewhat naïve cat – is a god, and worship him. When they realize Tiger is not divine, they try to kill him, but are outwitted by Fievel, and together the two friends continue their journey to the boy’s family. A completely different image of Native Americans is found in An American Tail: The Treasure of Manhattan Island (1998), the third movie of the series which touches, among other social issues, on the plight of the indigenous Americans. Fievel and his friends, who for some unexplained reason are back in New York, take sides with “Native” mice, which have been living hidden beneath the surface of New York for centuries to escape war and disease brought by the Europeans, against evil “whites” also personified by rodents. In one scene, Fievel becomes painfully aware of the cruelties committed by Europeans on the indigenous Americans. There is a notable shift from portraying Native Americans as “ignoble savages” in Fievel Goes West to portraying them as “noble savages” in the sequel. 23 In both movies, however, no link is established between the fate suffered by the Jewish immigrants in their old home and that of the Native Americans. The primary identification of the Jewish mice is with the other European colonizers. As is pointed out repeatedly in the present contribu-

23 The reasons for this are not quite clear, but I suggest that this change in perspective may be due to a shift in the political climate in the U.S. during the Clinton administration. For a concise discussion of the concepts of the “noble” and “ignoble savage”, see Lindberg (2013).

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tion, this is most likely also the way they were perceived by Native Americans up into the 20th century.

M UTUAL P ERCEPTIONS As we have seen, ideas of relatedness between Jews and indigenous Americans have lingered in Jewish imagination (and not only there – one of the most prominent advocates of the Lost Tribes theory was the Irish-born trader and historian James Adair, 1709-1783) since the time of Menasseh ben Israel. Mordecai Noah, a diplomat, playwright, and fervent advocate of the Lost Tribes theory, in the 1820s even envisioned an autonomous polity named Ararat on the Niagara River to serve as a refuge both for European Jews and Native Americans (see, e.g., Rubinstein 2010: 30-33). As to the first half of the 20th century Peter Antelyes, in his discussion of performances of what he calls the “Jewish Indian” on vaudeville stages, in movies, and in literature, argues that “identifying with, parodying, and distancing themselves from the imagined figure of the Indian” helped Jewish artists and writers to create an American Jewish identity. He calls our attention to the fact that, in spite of being officially classified as “white” as has been discussed above, their racial and ethnic position in the U.S. was far from being unambiguous and unchallenged, often resembling that of Native Americans rather than that of the “cowboy”, the epitome of the Westerner defined as Anglo-Saxon in a quite explicitly anti-Semitic vein (Antelyes 2009: 18-19). Jewish performative artists portrayed Native Americans as “fellow members of a diaspora in America, as tribal migrants, and […] as descendants of the ‘lost tribes’ themselves” (Antelyes 2009: 19). The self-image of Jews as “creatures of the tribe” (Antelyes 2009: 18) akin to Native Americans echoes Warburg’s perception as briefly outlined above. On the other hand, however, so-called “redface” vaudeville performances of the “Jewish Indian” also stressed differences between the two ethnic groups, as is aptly summarized by Antelyes: “It [redface] encouraged solidarity by expressing identification with another racially excluded group, but it also encouraged exceptionalism by denying that identification and claiming a higher social status for the Jew as the ‘white’ person underneath the mask.” (2009: 22)

In general, such performances had little to do with the actual lives of Native Americans; maybe they can best be characterized as exploring and expressing an American Jewish identity by means of what Antelyes calls the imagined figure

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of the Indian, for is very likely that most of those who designed and performed such Jewish-Native “spoofs”, as well as those who used the image of the Indian in more serious writings, were not acquainted with the lived reality of Native American cultures. Lilian Friedberg points out that the performed seeming similarity and solidarity between Jews and Native Americans “is marred by its unilateral initiative – emanating from the Jewish perspective in the context of a Judeo-Christian framework that demonstrates little regard for or knowledge of the cultural and religious world-views of Native Americans” (2000: 370). Yet, indigenous Americans and immigrant Jews had more in common than just their real or imagined “tribalness”. Particularly during and after the time of Nazi rule in Europe, American Jewish authors became aware of the real experiences shared by both groups as opposed to the imagined Indianness outlined above, and began to draw parallels between America and Europe: confinement to ghettoes and reservations, dispossession, and forced resettlement (cf. Rubinstein 2010: 110-119). In a recent provocative book, Caroll P. Kakel (2011; see also Friedberg 2000: 360) even pinpoints some disquieting parallels, from underlying ideologies to the resulting genocide, between the colonization of the American West driven by the concept of “Manifest Destiny” and the colonization of “Lebensraum” in the European East envisioned by the Nazis. As a matter of fact, some authors state that “the American Holocaust might be seen as the prototype for the extermination of the Jews in Europe” (Friedberg 2000: 361, emphasis hers). However, the confinement to segregated spaces (ghettoes) and violent attempts to make them abandon their religion, embrace the Christian faith, and assimilate to European life ways were phenomena already experienced by Jews for centuries before the Nazis rose to power, and we can assume that immigrants had vivid memories of them. We may also recall that U.S. attitudes and politics towards Jews had undergone a change in the early 20th century. While the 19th century was characterized by a “relative openness” (Diner 2010: 157) of the political parties with regard to Jews – individual and largely unsuccessful antiSemitic stances notwithstanding –, the increasing number of (Eastern) Jewish immigrants who fled pogroms fuelled anti-Semitic rhetoric and politics. 24 In 1924, the National Origins Act was passed by Congress, restricting the numbers of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe (Diner 2004: 202). Unlike in Europe, however, and in contrast to the original inhabitants of North America, Jews in the U.S. were never bereft of their rights of citizenship, political participation, and freedom of religion.

24 These developments are discussed in depth by Diner (2004, chapter 5: “A century of Jewish politics”).

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This increasing anti-Semitism in the U.S., as well as the rise of National Socialism in Germany and the Holocaust committed in Europe, sharpened the awareness of Jewish intellectuals in the U.S. for similarities between Jewish and Native experiences. Rubinstein has noted that “in the 1940s, for Jewish writers on the Left, the fate of the Jews in Europe served increasingly as the lens through which to revisit Native history” (2010: 109). Writers who addressed the injustices suffered by Native Americans included Isaac Raboy who in his often quoted and discussed novel Der Yidisher Cowboy (1937) has his protagonist reflect on the reservation system: “Of course, these weren’t the only injustices Isaac had ever had to contemplate. An immigrant Jew, he was familiar with all kinds of restrictions and injustices.” (quoted in Rubinstein 2010: 109)

In the 1940s, Jewish writers John Sanford (Julian Shapiro) and Howard Fast also wrote novels “that foregrounded Native American and Jewish struggle” (Rubinstein 2010: 110). 25 Another work which addresses the exposure of both Native Americans and European Jews to acts of genocide and racism is Shmuel (“Sheen”) Dayksel’s (b. 1886 in Kishinev) Indianishe dertseylungen (“Indian Tales”, 1959), a combination of autobiographical, ethnographic, and fictional elements. 26 Do Native Americans, in turn, harbour feelings of “tribal kinship” towards Jews, given such shared experiences in the Old and the New World? In some cases, American Jews at least expect them to do so. Let me illustrate this by an example from my fieldwork. In the course of ethnographic research in the early 1990s, I several times attended an all-women’s Native ceremony, the Womyn’s Sun Dance, in the south-western U.S. 27 The participants of the ceremony were a mixed crowd including women of Native American, African American, and “white” ancestry. When I attended the ceremony for the first time, another newcomer was a Jewish woman in her late thirties from the West Coast. One of the Native sun dancers was quite ill-disposed towards people she classified as whites, and went out of her way to treat both the Jewish woman and me in a very rude and disrespectful manner. In doing so, she was aware of the fact that one of us was Jewish while the other was not. The Jewish woman was very upset about

25 Rubinstein gives a detailed and insightful discussion of these writings in her chapter “Red Jews” (2010: 87-116). 26 For a discussion of Dayksel’s book, see Rubinstein (2010: 149-155). 27 On that ceremony, see Lang (2013).

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this; when we talked about it, she said something like, “Well, I can understand why she treats you like this, you’re German. But why me? After all, I am a member of an oppressed group myself!” 28 This example suggests that there may be a difference in the self-perception of American Jews, the way they expect to be viewed by Native Americans, and the way they are actually perceived by the latter. As has already been noted above, Jews in the West (and elsewhere) interacted with the indigenous peoples much the same way, and in much the same functions, as other people classified as white within what has been called “America’s racial divide” (Antelyes 2009: 19). Technically speaking, they were a subgroup of the colonizers representing the U.S. settler state. There was no reason for Native Americans to perceive Jews as an ethnic group that in any way resembled their own. As far as I can tell from my research in the literature, it is my impression that Native Americans, by and large, only became aware of Jews – more precisely, Jews in Europe as opposed to American Jews as part of the “white” population in the U.S. – as a distinct “non-white” ethnic group subject to racist treatment after the Holocaust committed in Europe. In addition, there was now a term, coined and defined by Raphael Lemkin in 1944, to denote what not only Jews (and other ethnic groups throughout the world) but also the indigenous Americans had suffered: genocide. The matter of the genocide committed against the indigenous population is still somewhat taboo in the U.S. Lilian Friedberg has commented that in “the pathological dynamic of genocidal histories, the perpetrator culture invariably turns its gaze to the horrors registered in the archives and accounts of the ‘other guys’. This is why Holocaust studies in the United States focus almost exclusively on the atrocity of Auschwitz, not of Wounded Knee or Sand Creek” 29 (Friedberg 2000: 354). When the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) was planned, it was “read immediately by many as having replaced a national memorial to the genocide of Native peoples” (Rubinstein 2010: 615). Nevertheless, there are meanwhile a number of publications that address the subject of genocide with regard to the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas, such as Stannard’s (1992) work provocatively titled American Holocaust, Churchill’s

28 A similar example is found in Joanne Greenberg’s short story “L’Olam and White Shell Woman” (1966), in which a Jewish student is working as a waitress on the Navajo reservation to earn money during the summer vacation, and tries to establish “tribal ties” with her female Navajo colleagues, albeit unsuccessfully (for a discussion of that short story see Rubinstein 2010: 133-134). 29 Sand Creek (1864) and Wounded Knee (1890) are (in)famous sites where massacres were committed by the U.S. army on Native Americans.

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(1997) A Little Matter of Genocide and Indians Are Us? (1994), or two comprehensive collections of essays by Native authors edited by MariJo Moore (2003, 2006) bearing the words “Holocaust” and “genocide” in their titles. If we return to the question of whether and how contemporary Native Americans relate to Jews, it is remarkable that feelings of kinship emerge but rarely in Native American writing on matters of genocide. It is true that scholarly monographs such as those by Churchill (1997) and Kakel (2011) address similarities between the European and American genocides in detail. However, when preparing this contribution I skimmed through quite a number of collected volumes of poetry and prose by Native American writers, including the two volumes edited by Moore (2003, 2006). While Native experiences of genocidal and racist acts both past and – more importantly – present are frequently addressed, they are only rarely compared to the European Holocaust, with a few notable exceptions such as a poem by Menomini poet Chrystos which ends with the words: “Give no solace to our destroyers Into the cold night I send these burning words Never forget america is our hitler.” (Chrystos 1991: 13; italics in the original)

Another of her poems, “When I Loved You as a Jew”, dedicated to a Jewish lover of hers, opens with the words: “I knew I wouldn’t have to explain genocide or open your heart to my life We were not strangers but warriors of different clans.” (Chrystos 1991: 132)

The experience of having both Native and Jewish ancestry and the double history of genocide associated with this is addressed by the Native/Irish/Jewish author Sara Sutler-Cohen (2006) in her poem, “All My Ancestors have Blisters on their Toes”. Why is it that Native writers hardly ever draw parallels between the European Holocaust and the genocide committed against indigenous North American peoples? The literature does not give many clues about this, but we can construct a reasonable hypothesis. A remark by Kimberly Roppolo (Cherokee/Choctaw/ Creek) is illuminating in this context. She writes:

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“An estimated six million Jews died in the atrocities committed in Nazi Germany, being treated before and after death in ways the world will never forgive […]. But this we recognize as inhuman, not the kind of behaviour we as people can tolerate. We see the sins of Germany and the sins of Bosnia […] for what they are. But unlike the rest of the world, we as Americans cannot see our own. We are not taught in school that Columbus’ men smashed babies’ heads on rocks in front of their mothers.” (Roppolo 2003: 190-191)

In a similar vein, Friedberg (2000: 355-356) draws our attention to the fact that “the genocide against indigenous populations in North America is still today denied or dismissed as the inevitable prelude to the rise of the greatest nation on Earth.” And, most importantly, she goes on to explain: “What distinguishes the American Holocaust from the Nazi Holocaust is what is at stake today” (Friedberg 2000: 365, emphasis hers). By this, she refers to the fact that the colonial experience is by no means over for Native Americans; this is, by the way, expressed over and over again by Native writers as well, and it has emerged as a constant concern during conversations I have had with indigenous Americans over the course of the years. Friedberg is absolutely right in stating that “an unrelenting sentiment of Indian-hating persists in this country” (Friedberg 2000: 366). In economic terms, Native Americans are the poorest ethnic group in the U.S. They suffer from miserable living conditions, tremendous unemployment rates, and health problems; in addition, “suicide, homicide, rape, accidents and additions have a much higher occurrence among Native Americans than among white Americans” (Blätter 2011: 115). Life expectancy is lower and infant mortality higher than among other segments of the population. Friedberg views the collective refusal to acknowledge the genocide committed against the indigenous population of the U.S. as a serious impediment to processes of healing and reconciliation: “Holocaust denial is seen […] as an affront to the victims of the Nazi regime. In America, the situation is the reverse: victims seeking recovery are seen as assaulting America’s ideals.” (Friedberg 2000: 367)

We can assume that Native Americans do not fail to notice the different degrees of importance attached to the European versus the American genocide in the U.S. The USHMM (opened in 1993) in Washington, D.C., may be interpreted by them as an example of this discriminatory treatment, and indeed there have been critics claiming that the USHMM is “an ominous expression of Jewish power in the American public sphere […] as well as a symbol of the U.S. government’s refusal to acknowledge its own acts of genocide” (Rubinstein 2010: 166).

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Given all these circumstances, Native Americans may find it difficult to relate to Jewish people – who, Friedberg (2003: 365) reminds us, also tend to be at the opposite end of the social scale in the U.S. as compared to the indigenous population – in terms of shared genocidal experience. Unlike Jews and in spite of President Obama’s 2009 apology for the wrongs committed on the indigenous peoples, they are still waiting for words to become actions on the part of the government, museums, academia, and the non-indigenous population of the U.S. in general. They are still waiting for tangible efforts towards reconciliation, 30 and thus feel compelled to express and assert their claims and complaints again and again. This may be one of the reasons why contemporary Native Americans focus on their own experience of past and ongoing discrimination and injustice when writing about genocide. A poem by Sherman Alexie (a member of the Spokane tribe), Inside Dachau, which was inspired by a visit to the former concentration camp, alludes to this. First, Alexie imagines himself as a Jew imprisoned there; then his German hosts ask him: “What about all the Dachaus in the United States? What about the death camps in your country?”

To which he replies: “Yes, Mikael and Veronika, you ask simple questions which are ignored, season after season.” (Alexie 1996: 117-118)

He goes on to address the “American Holocaust” in the section of the poem titled “The American Indian Holocaust Museum”:

30 The situation is different in Canada, where there has not only been an apology by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2008 for the treatment of Native students at residential schools, when he stated: “Today, we recognize that this policy of assimilation was wrong, has caused great harm, and has no place in our country” (excerpts of his speech are available at http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prime-minister-stephenharper-s-statement-of-apology-1.734250). There have also been efforts by the government to give, for example, at least monetary compensation to former indigenous (First Nations) students of such schools for the physical, mental, and sexual abuses they suffered there. For a brief summary, see Blätter (2014).

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“What do we indigenous people want from our country? We stand over mass graves. Our collective grief makes us numb. We are waiting for the construction of our museum.” (Alexie 1996: 119-120)

C ONCLUSION While Jews are generally not featured in mainstream accounts of the settlement of the Americas, they may have been among the first to set foot on the New World, and constituted a small but influential and economically successful group of immigrants particularly from the mid-19th century onwards. The first Jews in the Spanish colonies were still subject to persecution by the Inquisition and thus kept a low profile which makes it difficult to trace them in history. With the independence of the United States, however, they were granted the same civic rights, including freedom of religion, as all other Americans of European origin. Classified as “white” within the racial divide in the U.S. but maintaining their distinct identity as Jews, they made use of the chances afforded them just as other immigrants did. They moved West in search of new opportunities, interacted with the original inhabitants of the U.S. in much the same way, mindset, and roles as other “whites”, and were most likely perceived by Native Americans as just one subgroup of the “whites” who came to trade with them, introduce them – peacefully or forcefully – to the supposed blessings of western “civilization”, combat them as members of the Army, etc. Their status became more vulnerable in the early 20th century, as growing numbers of Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe arrived in the U.S. and anti-Semitism increased. It is in this context that some American Jewish artists, writers, and other intellectuals began to turn to images of Native Americans to re-explore, redefine and express their own identity as American Jews. It was only in the wake of World War II and the European Holocaust that Native Americans became aware of (European) Jews as a “non-white” ethnic group exposed to discrimination and even large-scale genocide, both of which had been committed against the indigenous peoples of the New World for 500 years, bringing them to near physical and cultural extinction by the end of the 19th century. While similarities between the American and European genocide are discussed in detail in a number of scholarly publications, it is striking that they are only rarely addressed by Native American writers reflecting on their own peoples’ experiences of genocide. I argue that this is related to the fact that in the U.S., genocide is almost exclusively discussed in terms of the European

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Holocaust, while the genocide suffered by the Native Americans is still largely downplayed, ignored, or even denied. Native Americans have thus witnessed the building of an internationally acclaimed Holocaust Museum dedicated to the victims of large-scale genocide committed on another continent that has attracted nearly 30 million visitors since 1993, 31 while the indigenous population of the U.S. still faces miserable living conditions, verbal and physical racist assaults, and denial of the genocidal colonial past. It is against this backdrop that, when discussing genocide, Native writers feel the need to focus on the wrongs committed against their own peoples in an effort to finally get recognition, memorialisation, and compensation for their ongoing colonial trauma.

R EFERENCES Abrams, Jeanne E. (2006) Jewish women pioneering the frontier trail. New York and London: New York University Press. Alexie, Sherman (1996) The summer of black widows. Brooklyn: Hanging Loose Press: pp. 117-122. Antelyes, Peter (2009) “Haim afen range”: The Jewish Indian and the redface Western. MELUS 34 (3): pp. 15-42. Blätter, Andrea (2014) Intercultural communication on reconciliation: First Nations and Maori. Paper presented at the 35th American Indian Workshop, Leiden, Netherlands, May 21st – 25th, 2014. — (2011) Native American psychopathology and Native American psychotherapy. Ethnoscripts 13 (2): pp. 115-128. Bossong, Georg (2008) Die Sepharden: Geschichte und Kultur der spanischen Juden. Munich: Beck. Bronitsky, Gordon (no date, ca. 1990) Solomon Bibo: Jew and Indian at Acoma Pueblo. Southwest Jewish Archives. Available online at http://swja. arizona.edu/content/solomon-bibo-jew-and-indian-acoma-pueblo. Carnay, Joan (1995) Who’s who in Jewish history after the period of the Old Testament. New edition, revised by Lavinia Cohn-Sherbok. London/New York: Routledge. Cestelli Guidi, Benedetta and Nicholas Mann (eds.) (1998) Photographs at the frontier: Aby Warburg in America, 1895-1896. London: Merell Holberton Publishers in association with the Warburg Institute. Chrystos (1991) Dream on. Vancouver: Press Gang Publishers.

31 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Holocaust_Memorial_Museum.

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Churchill, Ward (1997) A little matter of genocide: Holocaust and denial in the Americas 1492 to the present. San Francisco: City Lights Books. — (1994) Indians are us? Culture and genocide in native North America. Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press. Colón, Fernando (2004) The history of the life and deeds of the admiral Don Christopher Columbus, attributed to his son Fernando Colón. Ilaria Caraci Luzzana (editor), Geoffrey Symcox and Blair Sullivan (translators). Turnhout: Brepols. [Originally published in Italian in 1571]. Comay, Joan (1995) Who’s who in Jewish history after the period of the Old Testament. New edition revised by Lavinia Cohn-Sherbook. London and New York: Routledge. Diner, Hasia R. (2004) The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press. — (2002) American West, New York Jewish. In: Kahn, Ava F. (ed.): Jewish life in the American West. Los Angeles: Autry Museum of Western Heritage in association with Heydey Books, Berkeley, CA: pp. 33-51. Duran, Eduardo (2006) Healing the soul wound: Counseling with American Indians and other native peoples. New York: Teacher’s College Press. Ezquerra Abadia, Ramón (1966) La nacionalidad de Colón: Estado actual de los problemas. In: XXXVI Congreso Internacional de Americanistas, España, 1964, Actas y Memorias, vol. 4, Sevilla: Editorial Católica Española: pp. 406-427. Fierman, Floyd S. (1960) Jewish pioneering in the Southwest: A record of the Freudenthal-Lesinsky-Solomon families. Arizona and the West 2 (1): pp. 5472. Friedberg, Lilian (2000) Dare to compare: Americanizing the Holocaust. American Indian Quarterly 24 (3): pp. 353-380. Garcia-Mason, Velma (1979) Acoma Pueblo. Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 9: Southwest, volume editor: Alfonso Ortiz. Washington. Smithsonian Institution: pp. 450-466. Irizarry, Estelle (2009) Christopher Columbus: The DNA of his writings. San Juan: Ediciones Puerto. — (2006) Three sources of textual evidence of Columbus, crypto Jew. Lecture manuscript, available at http://www.tbspr.org/_kd/Items/actions.cfm?action =Show&item_id=2026&. Jacobs, Trisha R. (2014) Semah Israel, adonai elohenu adonai ehad: The role of language in the Indians-as-Jews theory. Paper presented at the 35th American Indian Workshop, Leiden, Netherlands, May 21st – 25th, 2014.

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Kahn, Ava F. (2002) To journey west: Jewish women and their pioneer stories. In: Kahn, Ava F. (ed.): Jewish life in the American west. Los Angeles: Autry Museum of Western Heritage in association with Heydey Books, Berkeley, CA: pp. 53-82. — (ed.) (2002) Jewish life in the American West. Los Angeles: Autry Museum of Western Heritage in association with Heydey Books, Berkeley, CA. Kakel, Carroll P. III (2011) The American west and the Nazi east: A comparative and interpretive perspective. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Klinger, Jerry (2004) Jews & the American west: Doctors, lawyers, Indian chiefs, dance hall girls, gunfighters. The Jewish Magazine, November 2004. http://jewishmag.com/84mag/usa7/usa7.htm. Lang, Sabine (2013) Re-gendering sacred space: An all-women’s sun dance. Ethnoscripts 15 (1): pp. 124-139. Levinson, Robert E. (1974) American Jews in the West. The Western Historical Quarterly 5 (3): pp. 285-294. Lindberg, Christer (2013) The noble and ignoble savage. Ethnoscripts 15 (1): pp. 16-32. Moore, MariJo (ed.) (2006) Eating fire, tasting blood: Breaking the silence of the American Indian holocaust. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press. — (ed.) (2003) Genocide of the mind: New Native American writing. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press/Nation Books. Nevins, Allan (1992) Fremont: Pathmaker of the west. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press. [First published in 1939]. Nunes Carvalho, Solomon (1859) Incidents of travel and adventure in the far west. New York: Derby and Jackson. Available online at http://www.jewishhistory.com/wildwest/carvalho/. O’Brien, Sharon (1989) American Indian tribal governments. Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press. Pollak, Michael (1973) The ethnic background of Columbus: Inferences from a Genovese-Jewish source, 1553-1557. Revista de Historia de América 80: pp. 147-164. Rauschenbach, Sina (2011) Von der gelehrten zur intellektuellen Debatte: Die Indianer und die englische Diskussion um die Wiederzulassung der Juden im 17. Jahrhundert. In: Bayreuther, Rainer, Meinrad von Engelberg, Sina Rauschenbach and Isabella von Treskow (eds.): Kritik in der Frühen Neuzeit: Intellektuelle avant la lettre. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz: pp. 165-189. Rochlin, Harriet and Fred Rochlin (1984) Pioneer Jews: A new life in the far west. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

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Rollins, Sandra Lea (1969) Solomon Bibo, Jewish Indian chief. Western States Jewish Historical Quarterly 1 (4): pp. 151-163. Available online at http://www.wsjhistory.com/jewish_indian_chief.htm. Roppolo, Kimberly (2003) Symbolic racism, history, and reality: The real problem with Indian mascots. In Moore, MariJo (ed.): Genocide of the mind: New Native American writing. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press/Nation Books: pp. 187-198. Rubinstein, Rachel (2010) Members of the tribe: Native America in the Jewish imagination. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. Stannard, David E. (1992) American holocaust: Columbus and the conquest of the New World. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press. Steinberg, Michael P. (1995) Aby Warburg’s Kreuzlingen lecture: A reading. In Warburg, Aby M.: Images from the region of the Pueblo Indians of North America. Translated with an interpretive essay by Michael P. Steinberg. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press: pp. 59-109. Sutler-Cohen, Sara (2006) All my ancestors have blisters on their toes. In Moore, MariJo (ed.): Eating fire, tasting blood: Breaking the silence of the American Indian holocaust. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press: pp. 358-360. Tinker, George E. (1993) Missionary conquest: The gospel and Native American cultural genocide. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Tobias, Henry J. (1990) A history of the Jews in New Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Toll, William (2002) The Jewish merchant and civic order in the urban west. In Kahn, Ava F. (ed.): Jewish life in the American West. Los Angeles: Autry Museum of Western Heritage in association with Heydey Books, Berkeley, CA: pp. 82-112. Trepp, Leo (1970) Das Judentum: Geschichte und lebendige Gegenwart. Reinbek: Rowohlt. Vignaud, Henry (1913). Columbus a Spaniard and a Jew. The American Historical Review 18 (3): pp. 505-512.

The Modernity of the Mafia Personalized Network Efficiency versus State Institutional Lethargy C HRISTIAN G IORDANO

AN E NCHANTED V IEW

OF THE

M AFIA E NIGMA

Ever since the Mafia was discovered in Sicily in the second half of the 19th century, experts and non-professionals have looked upon it as both a monstrous and fascinating indecipherable phenomenon. 1 This enchantment, quite conspicuous among researchers (particularly among sociologists, jurists, and, in the past, physical anthropologists) and artists alike (writers and movie directors foremost), highlights a deep-rooted ethnocentric paradox, which, from the very beginning, has characterized the debate on this by now global social phenomenon. The first aspect of this paradox may be summarized as follows: among Mafia experts, we can detect the opinion, at times implicit and often unconscious, that the Mafia is an obsolete manifestation, unworthy of modernity, and pertaining to dark ages connoted by social barbarism. According to this view, which, at least potentially, is certainly brought on by 18th century rationalism, Mafia and quasiMafia phenomena are interpreted as a relic of a dying archaic world. In the meantime, we know well that an optimistic evolutionist scenario is a far cry from reality. The fact that the Mafia in Palermo does not kill any more does not mean that it has been defeated or dismantled: it is only an indication that it no longer needs to resort to physical violence. Judges, police authorities and some politicians committed to the anti-Mafia fight aptly point out that in

1

The article was translated by Lura Ann Munsel, a professional English and Italian native speaker.

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Sicily, particularly in Palermo, the Mafia is alive, flourishing and has nothing to fear any more. According to this disquieting remark, made on October 12, 2003 by Luciano Violante, former president of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, we must assume that at present the Mafia in Sicily can once again weave its political intrigues and manage its illegal economic enterprises without fearing the state’s intervention – as instead occurred in the early nineties of the past century (La Repubblica, October 13, 2003). Therefore, it does not need to resort to startling violent actions, since the Mafia kills persone eccellenti 2 only when it feels threatened by the public authority. Luciano Violante’s statement also means that the Mafia in Sicily has successfully managed to overcome the critical phase in which the State had waged war against it. If this forecast, which moreover had already been expressed in 2000 by the judge Ferdinando Imposimato from Palermo, is correct, then we can draw the conclusion that the Mafia is capable of reproducing itself and prospering even in late modernity (Imposimato 2000). At this point, we can introduce the second aspect of the paradox. Regretfully, experts have to admit once more that the Mafia is extremely resistant. In several representations and just as many discourses, the Mafia is likened to those singularly vicious viruses that, through their incessant mutations, are able to permanently endanger a human group’s collective health. More specifically, in Sicily we can observe that over the years the State has fought against the Mafia by using several repressive strategies, yet we must also acknowledge that the Mafia has never been annihilated. The paradox that mystifies experts and concurrently kindles their interest in the Mafia, can thus be expressed as follows: Mafia phenomena are manifestations that are regarded as archaic, yet they are able to reproduce themselves even in any type of modernity. There is a blatant contradiction in this view of the Mafia. In fact, if the Mafia has actually reproduced itself to this day, it cannot be regarded as a typical example of by now obsolete social organizations. Such a paradox, as the original meaning of this notion shows, is based on the mystified astonishment about a seemingly contradictory reality. This deceptive inconsistency is rooted, as Max Weber would state, in the ongoing confusion between the criteria based on value judgments and the scientific interpretation of facts. In other words, it lies in the discrepancy between the prevailing (and undoubtedly legitimate) eagerness to finally vanquish the Mafia and the frustrating sociological fact of its persistence that experts have to invariably face. However, staying perplexed about this paradox certainly does not help us to understand the Mafia nor why it is so resistant. In any case, this paradox could even be mislead-

2

Excellencies, i.e. notables and representatives of the State’s authority

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ing, since it is highly incorrect to think that the Mafia, as a socially relevant phenomenon, is on its way to extinction only because, at first glance, it may be construed as an organization whose structure and culture place it in premodernity’s dark ages. In this article, therefore, we shall try to clear above all the following aspects: •

•

•

The Mafia has specific socio-structural characteristics that further its reproduction and expansion in late modernity (or postmodernity, as the case may be). These specific socio-structural characteristics are typified by highly personalized informal networks that make the Mafia highly flexible, thus more efficient in comparison with the rigidity of a state founded on a formalized apparatus. In Sicily and other areas of the world, the Mafia’s current raison d’être lies in the chronic lack of trust in everything public. As a legacy of the past, distrust is a social production permanently reproduced in the present.

W HAT

THE

M AFIA IS

AND IS NOT

The Folkloristic Approach According to this approach, Mafia and quasi-Mafia associations are reckoned as being practically identical to shady and undercover organizations or occult secret societies. Sicilian Mafia is regarded as an emanation of a legendary secret fraternity, the notable and notorious Beati Paoli (also known as Beati di San Paolo), which, in the 17th and 18th century, excelled in applying its personal justice via threats or systematic recourse to physical violence against the ruling class’s abuses of power and against the Spanish law’s arbitrariness (Mühlmann 1969, Giordano 1992: 406). Moreover, the Mafia is compared if not assimilated to Masonic lodges or Carbonarism, i.e. those secret societies that drew inspiration from Giuseppe Mazzini during the Italian Risorgimento. Some experts would even have the term Mafia derive from this origin, as it would be the acronym of Mazzini autorizza furti, incendi, avvelenamenti (Mazzini authorizes robberies, arsons, poisonings) (Hess 1988: 4). Such an argument of etymological nature, though rather bizarre, maintained some credibility until recently, probably because these acronyms were actually quite popular in the secret verbal codes of the Risorgimento.

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Such a representation of the Mafia shows a combination of exotic and orientalist oddities. Thus, the Mafia is downgraded to a bizarre jumble of • • •

shady and occasionally gory initiation rites to confirm the candidate’s admission in the association, mysterious ceremonies to certify and confirm ties of reciprocity, and specific friendship and kinship social practices to strengthen solidarity among members of the alleged secret societies (Alongi 1887: 140 ff., Cutrera 1900: 140 ff., Hess 1988: 106-110).

Moreover, the folkloristic approach permanently refers to the existence of specific Mafia-style attire and secret phraseology and jargon. However, the folkloristic approach cannot be dismissed as a bizarre collection of arbitrary fantasies of the authors who created it and made it popular. In all these representations of the Mafia, there is certainly a kernel of truth. Nevertheless, the voyeuristic overstatement of the covert or mysterious aspect and the fascinated exaltation of ritual and ceremonial oddities are both disturbing and misleading. The most conspicuous case in which Italian magistrates drew on the folkloristic approach involves the “ritual kiss” between Giulio Andreotti, politician and several times government minister, and Totò Riina, the alleged capo dei capi (chief of all chiefs) of the Sicilian Mafia. The “kiss”, testified by a Mafia penti3 to , would have proven the collusion between Andreotti and the Mafia. However, no further evidence emerged except for this false testimony and Andreotti was acquitted. Ultimately, in my opinion, the magistrates in Palermo made a bungling use of the folkloristic approach in the “kiss” incident, since these rituals are pieces of fiction that sociological research has ascertained no longer exist and probably never did exist (Hess 1988: 108, Paoli 2000). In this case, we can also perceive the enchanted view’s consequences. In fact, ever since Italy’s Unity (1860), i.e. when Mafia was so to speak discovered, the police, the law and the press have always stressed the aberrance of the Mafia phenomenon through the unmistakable overstatement of deviant characteristics and/or the most gruesome specificity. This was carried out so that both the honorable society’s apparently unfathomable behavior and its unyielding cohesion

3

Person who repents, i.e. a member of a criminal (or terrorist) organization who after being arrested collaborates in the investigations with the authorities in exchange for benefits such as milder sentences and witness protection programs. The formal judicial definition is collaboratore di giustizia, collaborator with justice.

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could become more plausible for themselves and the Italian and Sicilian public opinion. Thus, the folkloristic approach was produced even thanks to eloquent and imaginative prosecuting witnesses (Hess 1988: 107), and, over a period of 150 years, was reproduced, reconfirmed, strengthened, and modified, but never totally dismissed. The paradoxical fact is that the main producers and users, among whom there are also very conscientious and highly qualified representatives of the law, are prey to their own construction. Due to exoticization and orientalization, the folkloristic approach of the Mafia in the end has created an artificial negative alterity (Giordano 2001: 44) that has provided it with unique and practically unlimited characteristics. Thus, paraphrasing Rudolf Otto, the Mafia boasts a quasi-numinous aura in which tremendum (fearsome) merges with energicum (vigorous) and consequently with the fascinans (fascination) (Otto 2004). The folkloristic approach spread by Mafia’s enemies has turned into one of its trumps. In fact, the Mafia has been fully able to exploit it, especially to increase its influence, better its image and strengthen its actual authority over a population that is quite skeptical towards all public institutions. The Pyramid Approach This representation is based on the belief that the Sicilian Mafia, and corresponding phenomena in Italy, Europe and around the world, are monolithic, centralized and rigidly structured organizations. Thus, Mafia associations are characterized by strongly hierarchic pyramidal structures. As associations, they involve a vertical chain of various formally defined ranks and roles. At the top is the thus termed cupola (i.e. the Mafia’s government) with the capo dei capi. The intermediate rank consists of a socially differentiated stratum of sottocapi (deputy chiefs), while, according to this pyramidal model, the manovali (unskilled workers), who carry out what is regarded as the less prestigious and dirty work, are at the bottom. Giuseppe Fava, the Sicilian journalist who was killed by the Mafia in 1984, likewise drew an organizational distinction within three levels. The Mafia could be separated into a first level consisting of killers, a second level of thinkers and planners and a third one, the highest, consisting of politicians (Fava 1983: 27 ff.). Now, if we analyze these representations more in detail we will notice that the Mafia, according to the pyramid metaphor, displays structural analogies with the organization of modern States. Thus, through this metaphor, the impression is that the Mafia has been set up in accordance with the modern territorial State’s

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model. Accordingly, the Mafia seems a sort of anti-State, which, in the end, turns out to be the mirror image of the State itself. It is common knowledge that empirical evidence substantiating the above metaphor has been lacking until now. Italian police and legal authorities that have dealt with juridical institutes such as associazione di malfattori (association of malefactors) and associazione per delinquere (criminal association) have never been able to prove the existence of fixed organizational structures within Mafia groups. This is certainly one of the reasons why several Mafia bosses in the past have been able to get off with acquittals on the grounds of lack of evidence. The fight against Mafia in Sicily and Southern Italy suddenly became more efficient at the time of public prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, i.e. when the paradigm of a pyramidal Mafia organization, due mainly to their remarkable competence and insight, was relativized and the far more flexible notion of associazione per delinquere di stampo mafioso (Mafia-like criminal association) was introduced in the juridical apparatus. Practically, the fact that the Mafia has specific structures that are unlike those of other types of organized crime was acknowledged. Therefore, the explanatory strength of the Mafia as an organized pyramid-like entity mirroring the State and in direct opposition to it turned out to be quite questionable, both from the viewpoint of criminalistic practice and of scientific theoretical approaches. However, we must admit that the pyramid metaphor is very convenient because apparently, due to its similarities with the State, it takes on a more familiar, thus less mystifying aspect. Concurrently, this metaphor embodies an ethnocentric prejudice that proved fatal or at least a hindrance for criminalistic efficiency. We are talking about the typical Western modernity belief that a given organization, in order to be efficient as in the case of Mafia, must definitely have a system of rational-bureaucratic institutions analogous or identical to those of a territorial State. Finally, we might wonder whether the Mafia would have survived to this day had it actually been a bureaucratic-like and rigidly centralized organization. In fact, we ought to keep in mind that the Mafia invariably seems to be at least one step ahead of the State that is fighting it back. In order to survive, the Mafia must always be able to foresee the public powers’ next move. Laying no claims to thoroughness or conclusive answers, we have formulated the following five questions that further challenge the pyramid metaphor’s validity: •

Could the Mafia have infiltrated the State’s political-bureaucratic institutions so extensively if its administrative apparatus were really as ponderous and immovable as the State’s?

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•

•

•

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Would the several irrationalities of rational bureaucracy, typical of modernity and already mentioned by Max Weber (Weber 1956: 577 ff.), not have impaired the specific Mafia efficiency? Does the Mafia not need a more streamlined and changeable organizational structure that allows it to develop extremely flexible strategies that anticipate the State’s actions and help conceal its own illegalities? Giovanni Falcone commented on this fundamental question with great insight when he wrote, “My greatest worry is that the Mafia is able to stay one step ahead of us.” (Falcone 2005:121) If the Mafia, as the pyramid metaphor suggests, were really a close-knit bloc, why do bloody conflicts, which can even turn into long-lasting actual Mafia wars, constantly flare up? If the Mafia actually were solely a type of anti-State, mirroring a modern State, would it have been able to turn so quickly into transnational-like global phenomena, as, for example, the case of ecomafia 4 with its supranational business activities seems to be?

The Network Approach This representation of the Mafia, which was developed chiefly by sociologist Henner Hess (Hess 1988: 82ff.), may be regarded as the most convincing attempt to invalidate the previous approaches we have introduced, particularly the pyramid metaphor. According to the network approach, the Mafia is to all appearances an association that is indeed hierarchic, but also loosely structured, scarcely formalized and, above all, non-centralized. Therefore, it appears to be a very complex social entity resembling a net-like system of temporary and flexible coalitions. These Mafia groupings are permanently characterized by being created, broken up and, in case, recreated according to changing social situations and personal circumstances. In his analysis, Hess shows that the classic Sicilian Mafia associations, particularly the cosca (which in Sicilian dialect literally means artichoke leaf: in other words, the tough core surrounding the Mafia’s uomo di rispetto [respected man]) and the partito (the Mafioso’s system of longterm social relations including his relations with public power representatives, i.e. politicians, magistrates, and bureaucrats in general) from a structural point of view are not corporate groups (Boissevain 1974: 203-205). In the Sicilian honorable society, the essential formal elements (statutes, official ranks and roles) are lacking, since Mafia associations consist of one or more networks in which

4

Mafia-controlled waste trafficking, toxic dumping and environmental crimes.

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pragmatic exchange relations are noticeable. To illustrate this structural specificity, we need only recall that particularly in Sicily (but even outside the island nowadays) the expression amici degli amici (friends of friends) is used in everyday parlance as a synonym of the Mafia. Social relations within such an evident plurality of Mafia networks are quite informal and extremely personalized, as the previously mentioned expression reveals. Essentially, there are three types of ties: family or kinship (including fictitious or ritual kinship), instrumental friendships and the dyadic patron/client relationships (Hess 1988: 119-133, Giordano 1992: 374-399). Yet, as Austrian historian Karl Kaser suggests, we ought to draw a fundamental distinction between societies in which mutual support among family members and relatives is prevalent and societies in which relationships based on asymmetrical and vertical protection (e.g. patron/client dyadic relationships) become the mainstay of the entire social structure (Kaser 1995: 167 ff., Kaser 2001: 71 ff.). In the former type of society, therefore, such as in Albania (especially in the northern regions), there is a prevalence of clan groups, lineages, stock and various kinds of extended family. In the latter type, as the case of Sicily shows, family and kinship structures are quite limited and the nuclear family is the only basis for any type of solidarity and trust. In order to broaden this very finite sphere of sociability, other types of personal ties are adopted in these societies, such as instrumental friendships and long-term dyadic relations between patron and client. The different solidarity and trust structures have a strong influence on the specific make up of Mafia networks. Thus, family and kinship ties characterize the first type of society rather than the second type, in which clientelist relations are far more significant. Therefore, in the first case, as the example of Albania shows (which we analyzed through evidence gathered by the Federal Attorney Office of Switzerland), Mafia networks currently seem to be relatively limited, since they mirror the structures and rules of a patriarchal family (Mutschke 2000). As Cristina Matei notes, analogous Mafia structures based on family ties and the patriarchal kinship system are noticeable in the Caucasus area as well (Matei 2001). Conversely, in the second case, i.e. the Sicilian one, there are usually far more pervading Mafia associations, since they are structurally similar to the well-known political sphere’s clientelist organizations. In this case, the networks are based on vertical and asymmetric ties: in other words, patron/client dyads defining dependence and power relations within the Mafia’s fabric. This explains why the authority of the capimafia in these remarkably complex organizations is less formal, yet not less hierarchic than assumed at first. Mafia power, as Diego

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Gambetta has convincingly affirmed, depends upon the leaders’ transactional ability and specifically on the successful exchange of mutual services between bosses and subordinate members in the network (Gambetta 1992: 48-53). Practically, if a person expects to maintain or reach a dominant role within a Mafia network, he must constantly prove to his henchmen that he can honor commitments and provide the necessary services even through threats of physical violence or its actual use. For this reason, contrary to plain patrons, the Mafia bosses deemed capable and worthy of being regarded as such by other network members are intrinsically violent entrepreneurs (Blok 1974). Compared to the pyramid model/representation/view, the network metaphor has obvious analytical advantages. The Mafia is conceptualized as an extremely flexible, variegated and changeable reality and, above all, one that can adapt to new situations. As such, in case of open conflict with the State it can react by carrying out startling terrorist attacks, as well as expand, branch out and diversify transnationally, as indicated also in the Europol 2000 annual report (Europol 2001). In this context, we can point up the following two aspects. The Mafia, as a complex system of networks, does not necessarily have to be an anti-State or a State within the State. Mafia organizations, instead, can infiltrate the State’s structures via the mobilization of network links. Thanks to these infiltration strategies, Mafia associations are able to probe, neutralize and finally exploit specific people and institutions of the State’s apparatus. Ferdinando Imposimato, public prosecutor in Palermo who worked on the anti-Mafia team with Falcone and Borsellino, has aptly stressed that the State and its representatives (politicians and public functionaries), as legal guardians of the monopoly over the use of force, almost inadvertently become accomplices of their own enemies (Imposimato 2000). Between the legal State and the illegal Mafia there is not a relation of mutual opposition, but rather a shifting dialectic match that creates a situation of permanent and reciprocal interaction and interdependence. In this context, we must also add the existence of very peculiar discursive and ideological mutual ties between the State and the Mafia (Heyman and Smart 1999: 11 ff.). If, on the one hand, the State needs a certain amount of Mafia to endorse its role as watchdog and custodian of social order, the members of Mafia networks, on the other hand, try to justify their schemes and designs by stressing the absence and untrustworthiness of the State, which, by (their) definition, is alien and indifferent. Thanks to its net-like and thus very flexible structure, the Mafia can easily sidestep national State boundaries and act very efficiently in global arenas. Consequently, it is able to take over and monopolize new illegal or criminal transnational markets. By now, this phenomenon is noticeable not only in drug traffick-

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ing, but also, for example, in human trafficking (illegal immigration, prostitution etc.), contraband of goods (works of art, weapons, raw materials, radioactive material etc.), besides the transfer and disposal of all kinds of waste (see Europol annual reports). Though in principle the most qualified authors (Blok 1974, Hess 1988, Gambetta 1992, Varese 2001, Mappes-Niediek 2003) do not question the soundness of the network metaphor, we ought to voice some significant reservations that highlight the need for some revising and adjustments. Thanks to Italian sociologist Letizia Paoli, over the last years the network paradigm has been re-examined and improved, at least as far as the Italian case is concerned (Paoli 2000). By analyzing the structural characteristics of cosa nostra in Sicily and the n’drangheta in Calabria, the author of Fratelli di Mafia questions the fact that these Mafia associations are solely an aggregate of informal dyadic ties and coalitions. Her main argument, which is quite convincing, highlights the fact that the Mafia, as a network organization, cannot avoid some amount of formality in relations, ranks and roles, since Mafia networks, as depicted by Hess, are indeed very flexible, yet also very weak in terms of structure. In fact, in the vast context of transnational activities they would run the risk of proving inadequate and of breaking off more easily (Paoli 2000: 5-8) if they lacked any form of formality. Compared to services settled via formal agreements, there is a greater chance that mutual commitments established via informal dyadic agreements cannot or do not want to be honored (Paoli 2000: 7). Furthermore, in order to guarantee its increasingly diversified activities and interests, the increasingly multifunctional transnational Mafia associations must resort to highly qualified professionals. Nowadays the Mafia cannot do without the professional services of accountants, lawyers, finance and computer experts, chemists etc. The non-specific advisor, i.e. the old and almost mythical figure of the consigliori, has nearly disappeared or is currently being assisted by a team of specific pros. Therefore, we can say that the Mafia has bureaucratized itself to some extent. Within this network of essentially informal dyadic relations, operations centers revolving around the capimafia especially have taken shape. These operations centers have the characteristics of a close-knit extra-family subsystem consisting of a cluster of polyadic relations founded on contracts. These consolidated cores of the Mafia organizations, as Letizia Paoli has plausibly shown, are based on status contracts vouched for by ritual actions, of which symbolic brotherhood pacts are proof (Paoli 2000: 77, Weber 1956: 416ff.). These agreements are not set up for temporary or short-term activities; instead, they are marked by their continuance and formal character. Therefore, these social relations have a different quality: more lasting and official compared

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to other ties within a broader Mafia network. Through status contracts, the members of consolidated nuclei become comrades and develop an esprit du corps, which we would have a hard time locating among other network members. Actually, within these relatively small operation centers of the Mafia we can observe a wide range of highly symbolic ritual behaviors that have been overly emphasized and generalized in the folkloristic approach, as shown in the previous chapter. Taking up the example of Andreotti again, we can reasonably presume that he was embedded in one or more Mafia networks without ever formally belonging to one of the above-mentioned consolidated cores. If this were true, then we would have a plausible explanation for the public prosecutor’s nonsuccess at the trial against the former prime minister. For the time being, whether Andreotti’s alleged behavior was unintentional or a remarkably well-contrived ploy will still be a wild guess. The Trade Approach This representation of the Mafia, suggested by Diego Gambetta (1988) for Sicily and by Federico Varese (2001) for post-communist Russia, is an attempt to reconstruct the rational grounds of Mafia organizations’ functioning. Both authors, who through empirical material confirm the Mafia’s decentralized and net-like aspect, set out to prove, thanks to a keen though too universalistic interpretation of the rational choice paradigm, that the social fabric of Mafia criminality shares functional similarities with the industrial enterprises’ characteristics/features. Thus, Mafia associations in the end are firms or at times cartels that produce and manage private protection within the public sphere. To understand Gambetta’s and Varese’s line of reasoning, yet without being able to delve into all the arguments they develop, we will try to illustrate their interpretation of one of the main functions of psychological pressure, besides threats and duress, via the trade metaphor. Gambetta in particular highlights how physical and mental violence, always present in the Mafia’s context, may be regarded as a specific marketing scheme (Gambetta 1992: 43). If a Mafioso wants to be considered a competent patron, i.e. if he wants to appear as a successful producer of protection, then he must permanently prove that in any given situation he can act resolutely and vigorously. Specifically, the capomafia must therefore be capable of using violence. By using violence he can bolster or, better yet, add to his reputation of uomo d’onore, thus drawing new clients in need of private protection. According to Gambetta, the Mafia, as a private protection industry, operates just like an automobile factory. While the latter extols the safety and comfort offered by its au-

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tomobiles, the Mafia promotes itself by displaying its purveyors’ determination (Gambetta 1992: 43). However, the question is why should a society and its members need a private protection industry? At this point, Gambetta and Varese introduce a notion that in my opinion is of major importance to understand the Mafia phenomenon in Sicily and elsewhere. It is the concept of trust, which may be regarded as the footing of interpersonal cooperation and – according to Niklas Luhmann’s terminology – as a mechanism suited to reduce social complexity (Gambetta 1988: IXff., Luhmann 1973: 23ff. and 40). Using the trade metaphor terminology, we can finally say that the Mafia, not being an exclusively Sicilian phenomenon, tenders its products successfully in those societies in which trust, especially public trust, is in very short supply. Supply and demand of Mafia-like private protection occur when a widespread feeling of extensive distrust exists in a given society towards the State’s organs and its representatives, as well as towards civil society’s institutions.

T HE H ISTORICAL -ANTHROPOLOGICAL P ERSPECTIVE : THE M AFIA BETWEEN H ISTORICAL L EGACY AND G LOBALIZATION P ROCESSES With great insight, Giovanni Falcone strongly upheld a disenchanted view of the Mafia and associated phenomena (Falcone 2005: 82ff.). Through our reconstruction of the different representations of the Mafia propounded by the various branches of social sciences, we have tried to answer the question made by the assassinated public prosecutor of whether or not the need for a disenchanted view has been at least partially taken into account. At first sight, we can certainly reckon that, as previously mentioned, in almost every approach beyond misleading overstatements and overhasty or even inaccurate reflections, we can find important and enlightening theoretic references. However, these are always halftruths, which help to understand what we may call the planet Mafia only to a limited extent. Developing a general theory of Mafia phenomena might be illusory. However, all these interpretative attempts lack a plausible explanation as to why • •

the Mafia in Sicily, despite quite a strong anti-Mafia movement in the 1990s, is still such a vital and strong social fact, and quasi-Mafia organizations in others parts of the world, particularly in postsocialist societies, have gained ground so sensationally.

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I believe that Gambetta and Varese, by stressing the importance of trust and respectively distrust in the public sphere, have brought to light a very important track, which to-date has not been fully looked into, not even by these two authors. Maybe the too universalistic paradigm of rational choice is not the most suitable theoretic tool to explain the persistence of certain social facts and eventually turned into a trap for the authors themselves. In fact, Gambetta deems the entrepreneurial logic and rationale inherent to Mafia as a general human constant, while public distrust, in which the Mafia persistence is grounded, remains a reality that in effect is beyond specific social or historical contexts. Prior to these two authors, Falcone as well had stressed the crucial consequence of public distrust (specifically towards State institutions) on the Mafia’s endurance in modernity: “I have faith in the State and believe that this lack of sense of State as an interiorized value gives rise to certain distortions within the Sicilian spirit: the dualism between society and State; falling back on the family, the group, the clan...” (Falcone 2005:71)

A historical-anthropological view should certainly employ concepts such as trust and distrust. Above all, it cannot settle for a supposition as apodictic as the one formulated by Gambetta modeled on the rational choice paradigm. In fact, this course of action is contextual and not, a priori, general. Even the rise of distrust and a decline of trust are social productions and must therefore be regarded as phenomena that are embedded in history. History, however, cannot be reduced to a mechanical or automatic sequence of objective facts. Instead, it must be understood as an interpreted past activated by the actors themselves in their present to be interpreted (Ricoeur 1985: Vol. 3, 314). Therefore, the point is how history, being the past, is perceived, either in a direct or mediated way, and subsequently actualized (Giordano 2005: 53-71). This concerns what has been defined as the presence or efficacy of history (Schaff 1976: 129, Ricoeur 1985: 495). Unlike socio-genetic narratives, the historical-anthropological view does not deal as much with the Mafia’s sociologically relevant roots but rather with the social construction of continuity, by which Mafia activities in the minds of members of some societies take on and maintain a specific meaning. The question of the continuity and persistence, in Sicily and elsewhere, of the social fact called Mafia can neither be adequately answered by a culturalist approach, which usually employs an overly static notion of culture by which the actors are caged in a fixed frame and thus reduced to robots without a choice, nor by a now obsolete biologizing paradigm. According to the historical-

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anthropological view, the endurance of Mafia phenomena, despite their inevitable socio-structural changes, springs from the tight and permanent interaction between the collective spaces of experience, in the sense of interpreted past, and the horizons of expectation to be considered instead as an imagined future (and thus to be interpreted) in the present (Koselleck 1979: 349 ff.). The current public distrust and the Mafia as an adequate principle of social organization are strictly linked with the dreadful experiences that members of a given society have continuously had with the State, both in a recent and distant past. Obviously, these negative spaces of experience, which have a marked influence on the actors and the formation of their horizons of expectation, do not reproduce themselves automatically by tradition, i.e. just because they are handed down from generation to generation. Such spaces of experience must be constantly confirmed in the present. Traditions as well as mentalities are extremely moldable phenomena whose plausibility and adequacy must be permanently verified and confirmed. In accordance with the members’ perception of these experiences, the corresponding systems of representations and behavior models will be strengthened, modified or in case discarded. The reproduction of negative spaces of experience in societies of public distrust, such as the one in the Mezzogiorno or those of Eastern Europe, as already mentioned goes hand in hand with the constant failing of the State and the institutions of civil society. Yet, such a public inability to carry out one’s duties is not only an objective fact that can be observed from the outside but, far more important, it is also shared inside and consequently built as such by the citizens themselves. Thus, for the actors affected by the permanent disaster of public powers and associations of the civil society, the persistence, resurgence and expansion of Mafia action models are possible rational responses. The case of Berlusconi, and specifically his sly and high-handed unwillingness to solve the clash of interests on account of his appointment as prime minister and the concurrent persistence of control over several newspapers and magazines and an entire national broadcasting network, is paradigmatic to prove the negative experiences handed down from the past (with their resultant actualization). The Italian Premier’s sensational and reprehensible behavior can only confirm the citizen’s social representations based on past experiences (and thus those belonging to the cognitive capital grafted onto the collective memory). However, according to this social knowledge, the public sphere is the ideal place in which politicians, managers of civil society associations, public administrators, wheeler-dealers and profiteers, can easily grasp material, social and symbolic resources, securing enormous and utterly personal advantages at the expense of third parties. Through his unwillingness to solve the clash of interests,

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Berlusconi definitely strengthened the distrust in everything public, especially if it pertains to the State. Thus, the notion that in the non-strictly private sector (meaning kinship and family) one must depend upon the help and protection of friends, godfathers, patrons and Mafiosi, has once again turned out to be the most reliable premise to find one’s way about in society in the most suitable manner. Yet, this example also shows that the Mafia – in all those societies where it flourishes – should neither be regarded as a cultural relic nor as an anachronistic anomaly. From a historical-anthropological viewpoint, it is rather a historical legacy whose meaning is constantly confirmed, actualized and legitimated in the present thanks to a cognitive capital and a social knowledge that are both congruent and shared by most members of a given collectivity.

C ONCLUSIONS Finally, we ought to ask ourselves whether the Mafia as a historical legacy has a future in a world undergoing constant globalizing pressures. If we take into account the major theories of globalization, we will notice that overall they stress the importance of the following phenomena: •

•

•

•

the more or less forced transfer of sovereignty and thus of control from the national States to both the global market and localist (or particularistic) organizations (Ong 1999: 214-217, Misztal 2000:55), the decline of public (or systemic) trust among citizens and the consequent legitimacy crisis of democratic States (Misztal 2000: 51, Castells 1997: 343346), the growing expansion of informality in human relations and thus the increase of non-public network structures lacking an official character (Meny 1996: 116, Misztal 2000: 56), and the increasing interconnection between political and economic interests (Misztal 2000: 56-57).

If this scenario is realistic, and it may well be, then it is certainly true, as supposed by a possibly too unilateral sociological view (Ryan 1983: 223 ff.), that the individualization inherent to globalization entails a freedom of choice, a pluralization of worldviews and a liberalization of life-styles. However, it is also true that these aspects of the globalization process can forward the emergence or development of clientelism, of corruption and, consequently, of Mafia and quasi-

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Mafia activities. In fact, the planet Mafia, due to its net-like personalized and informal structures, offers an alternative to the State’s legal and formal institutions. Thanks to its well-tested ability to provide private protection in place of nearly absentee States mistrusted by their citizens, the Mafia is not in the least at risk of extinction. The risk is that it becomes a criminal global player, which will increasingly challenge the police forces of the entire world.

R EFERENCES Alongi, Giuseppe (1887) La maffia nei suoi fattori e nelle sue manifestazioni. Studio sulle classi pericolose della Sicilia. Torino: Bocca. Blok, Anton (1974) The mafia of a Sicilian Village, 1860-1960: A Study of Violent Peasant Entrepreneurs. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Boissevain, Jeremy (1974) Friends of Friends: Networks, Manipulators and Coalitions. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Castells, Manuel (1997) The Power of Identity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Cutrera, Antonino (1900) La mafia ed i mafiosi. Origine e manifestazioni. Studio di Sociologia Criminale. Palermo: Reber Editore. Europol (2001) Annual Report 2000, Luxembourg (Office for Official Publications of the European Communities) (access: http://bookshop.europa.eu/de/ europol-annual-report-2000-1-01-pbQLAB01001/?CatalogCategoryID=w0o KABstpFwAAAEjQ4cY4e5K). Falcone, Giovanni (2005) Cose di Cosa Nostra. Milano: BUR Biblioteca Universale Rizzoli. Fava, Giuseppe (1983) I quattro cavalieri dell’Apocalisse mafiosa. I Sciliani 1: pp. 21-41. Gambetta, Diego (ed.) (1988) Trust: Making and Breaking Cooperative Relations. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. — (1992) La mafia siciliana. Un’industria della protezione privata. Torino: Einaudi. Giordano, Christian (1992) Die Betrogenen der Geschichte. Überlagerungsmentalität und Überlagerungsrationalität in mediterranen Gesellschaften. Frankfurt/M. and New York: Campus Verlag. — (2001) Réseaux mafieux: la gestion de la méfiance publique. In: Le guide 2001 des PME, Supplement de l’AGEFI, Le Quotidien suisse des affaires et de la finance. Lausanne: pp. 44-46.

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— (2005) The Past in the Present. Actualized History in the Social Construction of Reality. In: Kalb, Don and Tak Herman (eds.): Critical Junctions. Anthropology and History beyond the Cultural Turn. Oxford: Berghahn: pp. 53-71. Hess, Henner (1988) Mafia. Zentrale Herrschaft und lokale Gegenmacht. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr Verlag, Paul Siebeck. Heyman, Josiah McC. and Alan Smart (1999) States and Illegal Practices: an Overview. In: Heyman, Josiah McC (ed.): States and Illegal Practices. Oxford and New York: Berg: pp. 1-24. Imposimato, Ferdinando (2000) Un juge en Italie. Pouvoir, Corruption, terrorisme. Les dossiers noirs de la Mafia. Paris: Editions de Fallois. Kaser, Karl (1995) Familie und Verwandtschaft auf dem Balkan. Analyse einer untergehenden Kultur. Wien, Köln and Weimar: Böhlau Verlag. — (2001) Freundschaft und Feindschaft auf dem Balkan. Euro-balkanische Herausforderungen. Klagenfurt: Wieser Verlag. Koselleck, Reinhart (1979) Vergangene Zukunft. Zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten, Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp Verlag. Luhmann, Niklas (1973) Vertrauen. Ein Mechanismus der Reduktion von Komplexität. Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke Verlag. Mappes-Niediek, Norbert (2003) Balkan-Mafia. Staaten in der Hand des Verbrechens. Eine Gefahr für Europa. Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag. Matei, Cristina (2001) Organized Crime and Corruption in the South-East European Countries. Unpublished Paper presented at the 10th Anti-Corruption Conference, Prague, October 8th-11th 2001. Meny, Yves (1996) Politics, Corruption and Democracy. European Journal of Political Research 30: pp. 111-123. Misztal, Barbara (2000) Informality. Social Theory and Contemporary Practice. London and New York: Routledge. Mühlmann, Wilhelm E. (1969) Zur Sozialpsychologie der Mafia. Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 21 (2): pp. 289-303. Mutschke, Ralf (2000) Prepared Testimony of Ralf Mutschke, Assistant Director, Criminal Intelligence Directorate, International Criminal Police Organization, Interpol before The House on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime. The Threat Posed by the Convergence of Organized Crime, Drugs Trafficking and Terrorism. Federal News Service. December 13th. Ong, Aihwa (1999) Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logic of Transnationality. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Otto, Rudolf (2004) Das Heilige. Über das Irrationale in der Idee des Göttlichen und sein Verhältnis zum Rationalen. München: Beck.

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— (1950) The Idea of the Holy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, second edition. Paoli, Letizia (2000) Fratelli di mafia. Cosa Nostra e `Ndrangheta. Bologna: Il Mulino. Ricoeur, Paul (1985) Temps et récit, Vol.3. Paris: Editions du Seuil. Ryan, Alan (1983) Private Selves and Public Parts. In: Benn, Stanley I. and Gerald F. Gaus (eds.): Public and Private Social Life. London: Croom Helm et al.: pp. 223-245. Schaff, Adam (1976) Die Präsenz von Geschichte. SSIP-Bulletin, 43: pp. 122131. Varese, Federico (2001) The Russian Mafia: Private Protection in a New Market Economy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Weber, Max (1956) Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, Vol. 2. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr Verlag, Paul Siebeck.

The Ethnographic Validity of Paternity Denial (alias “Virgin Birth”) H ARTMUT L ANG AND A STRID W ONNEBERGER

There are societies which deny that physical paternity 1 is at all necessary for conception. At least this is what some ethnographers (thought to) have found out. But this statement has also been rejected. Today some anthropologists believe that every human society knows the “facts of life” and even societies which express beliefs of paternity denial concede sometimes that there is no conception without males. For others the statement belongs to the contested part of anthropological knowledge. That, altogether, has been the state of affairs for about one century. The aim of this paper is to investigate the ethnographic validity of the above statement. The research question is thus: What does the available ethnographic evidence support: Do societies with such beliefs exist or not; or is the answer fuzzy or the question undecidable because the available evidence is insufficient or because of other deficiencies? For answering this research question we decided to analyse individual arguments, i.e. we will focus our analysis on the arguments that the different authors have used for answering their research questions which may coincide with ours in varying degrees. During the long time of its contested existence the statement has stimulated the production of such a vast amount of literature that we found it advisable to restrict the goal of this paper to an exploratory investigation. We have advanced our work until we had what appeared to us a sufficiently solid knowledge basis

1

The meanings of paternity and other terminological matters will be dealt with later.

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for providing a preliminary answer to the research question and for getting some ideas about what can or cannot (reasonably) be done to improve on our results. 2

T HE T ROBRIAND C ASE AND THE M OST R ECENT ADDITION TO THE D EBATE BY S ENFT The most recent statements regarding paternity denial were published in 2011 3 by Gunter Senft, an anthropological linguist and expert in Trobriand language. Senft’s data refer to beliefs on the Trobriand Islands. This group of islands, which is located north of the eastern tip of New Guinea, has been made famous by the ethnographic work of Bronislaw Malinowski, but it is also difficult to deny that the ingenious cultural inventions of these islanders and their neighbours have contributed to Malinowski’s fame as anthropologist. Senft’s text focuses on a statement which he calls “Malinowski’s claim”. This claim reads in Senft’s own words, “The Trobriand Islanders are ignorant of the role of the ‘pater’ as ‘genitor’” (2011: 32), and this is his quote from Malinowski’s book: “There is no room for any sort of physical paternity.” 4 Senft writes that he is “convinced” Malinowski’s claim is either a “gross mistake” and the Trobrianders “took him for a ride”, or this claim is something with which Malinowski “played career politics” or “took his peer group for a ride”. He supports his conviction with a number of “reasons”. As sources who have contributed to the reasons he names his wife, Barbara, who stayed with him on the Trobriands in 1983 and had discovered in conversations with Trobriand women their contraception knowledge; and with Weyei and Vapalaguyau, two local male medical experts, Senft could then discuss this topic. Both of them

2

We thank Bettina Beer, Anne Broocks, Dörte Eggers and Theresa Linke for their shrewd and helpful comments on earlier versions of this text as well as (sometimes) passages from the analysed literature, and we must mention André van Dokkum’s articles of 1997 and 2000 since they were important sources of inspiration for our text.

3

Senft has published the text passages we are interested in also in 2009 and 1997 each time in identical form.

4

This quote can be found on page 152 in the third edition of Malinowski’s monograph (1932), and on page 179 in the first edition (1929). In the three publications mentioned in footnote 3 Senft regularly mixes up the page numbers of the third with the first edition. Apart from the addition of a “Special Foreword” and different page numbers, the text of the third edition does not differ from the first one when we checked.

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were “very reluctant” to provide their knowledge and were “relieved when Gunter Senft stopped to inquire for further and more concrete information” 5. Finally there is the married woman who in 1983 had no children and talked to the Senfts about her contraceptive related sterility anxieties (see below ethnographic materials entry no. 3). What follows now is a condensed version of Senft’s claim and his reasons as far as they consist of ethnographic materials. Condensed we call a version that presents the content of a piece of text with maximal fidelity, clarity and brevity. Grammatical and style preferences are ignored and repetitions omitted, and only the vocabulary of the authors is used, though terms for argumentation links such as because, therefore, … and, or, … may be excepted from this rule. 6 1) The Trobrianders use as a means of contraception a mixture of herbs to

which water is added. The herbs grow in the bush. The fluid has two applications. 2) For the vaginal application, women drip, before the coitus, the fluid on a small sponge and insert it in front of the os uteri. The fluid is spermatocidal and as a consequence prevents conception 7. 3) In the second application women drink a solution of the same herbal composition but with more water. Since a too high concentration of the fluid may cause sterility, it had almost endangered the marriage of a Trobriand couple. However when the Senfts returned in 1989 the woman of the couple presented her two children. 4) Two male medical experts verified to Senft the contraception knowledge of the women, but the experts did not want to show to him how and with which

5

Information in an e-mail from Senft to HL (19/05/2014).

6

In addition condensation allows to contract pieces of a text that are far apart; and it allows to rearrange the pieces so that the argumentation order, or any other reasonable order, comes out clearly. If one uses instead the customs and rules of citing and quoting, such results could only be achieved under favourable conditions. For all of these reasons we have chosen to apply the condensation technique.

7

This vaginal contraception of the Trobrianders is rather similar to the birth control sponge found in Western medicine. Also in the Western variant the sponge contains a fluid which acts as a spermicide. It blocks or kills the sperms (spermatozoa) since a sponge-barrier alone would be less effective in shielding the uterus from them. In one respect the Western variant differs radically. The active ingredients of the spermicide substance cannot also be used as oral contraceptive. And we hear substances which have such a dual function might be quite a biochemical miracle.

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herbs they produce this mixture. They had inherited their medical expertise from their ancestors. 5) It is a fact that the Trobriand Islanders have knowledge about natural contraceptives and that this knowledge is traditional. Senft’s text thus contains two core statements. One is Malinowski’s claim; the other is Senft’s own claim which declares Malinowski’s claim a gross error. Thus, operationally speaking, Senft lets the readers expect a set of reproduction beliefs and other evidence which supports his claim as conclusion. This set we will now reconstruct. We start with the knowledge pieces implied by the vaginal contraceptive recipe (entry 2). The initial element is the belief in the coitus as an at least necessary condition of offspring generation. That male semen is involved can be derived from the sponge which functions to stop it from entering the uterus. With the choice of the word “spermatocidal” Senft establishes a link with the biological procreation theory. According to this (today globally rather well-known) theory male sperm (a spermatozoon) and a female egg fuse in the process of fertilization and thereby create the inheritance link from parent to child so that as genitor the father contributes one part to the parental heritage of the child, and the mother the other. We do not include the oral contraceptive recipe in the analysis, because one cannot derive from this recipe any reproduction beliefs which are relevant for our research question, and Senft does not touch this question. Now some of the theory components mentioned above have exclusive Western roots and belong to a knowledge complex accumulated since the 17th century with microscopes and some other specifically Western research tools (cf. Ruestow 1983 on the discovery of the spermatozoa). The Trobrianders in the 1980s were aware of modern biological reproduction theory. Annette Weiner, a Trobriand ethnographer, (1988: 55) writes, “With the exposure that quite a few Trobrianders have had to primary and secondary education, many villagers now are well acquainted with the biological facts of procreation.” Weiner started her fieldwork in 1971 (1976: xvi). So the existence of such paternity beliefs among the Trobrianders in the 1980s does not surprise. Of decisive importance is thus the time reference of the contraception method and the attached reproduction beliefs. Senft calls them traditional, the meaning of which is in the actual concept rather fuzzy. Necessary would be a less ambiguous way of referencing the time period to which the knowledge belongs, such as this: knowledge of the Trobrianders during Malinowski’s field research (from 1915 to 1918) at the latest; but note, even before Malinowski’s arrival had the Trobriand reproduction beliefs come under attack from the Christian mis-

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sionaries’ side and from traders and perhaps administrators (cf. Malinowski 1929: 186 ff.). So, knowledge unaffected by western beliefs would be in in the present context a perfect but empirically demanding criterion. Senft’s “traditional” Trobriand reproduction knowledge of course cannot be an exact copy of the biological procreation theory, and Senft supplies no more ethnographic details than what we have provided in condensed form. But we can be rather sure that Senft thought he had found in the 1980s, connected with the Trobriand contraception recipe, traditional reproduction knowledge which corresponds roughly to the biological theory and which was nevertheless not influenced by western beliefs. We reconstruct this “traditional” knowledge as follows. Coitus is a necessary starting event of reproduction. The spermatozoa have to be replaced by a term and a concept which do not inevitably create a link to procreation biology. A replacement would be male semen meaning a fluid produced by male sex organs which can exist in two states, dead or alive. These states we can derive from the meaning of the word components “spermato-” and “-cidal”. In its live state the semen must be thought to be somehow instrumental for pregnancy. And conception also presupposes that the semen enters the female sex organs beyond the os uteri. About the semen’s functioning the contraception recipe contains no evidence. The biological idea of a substance which links the father with his child is not present. In short: Derived from the contraception recipe pregnancy presupposes coitus, and (male) live semen entering female sex organs beyond os uteri. These data contain enough details to demonstrate (for Senft) the existence of paternity beliefs as opposed to the denial of such beliefs reported by Malinowski. This is indeed a necessary but in the 1980s not a decisive part of the argument. Decisive is the time reference of the contraception method and the attached reproduction beliefs. As we know, the most detailed evidence available is associated with two medical experts who have let it be known that they have inherited their medical expertise from their ancestors. Considerably more convincing would have been evidence which links the possession of this contraception knowledge with the expertise of ancestors who have lived at the time of Malinowski’s field research. That the two experts have all or most of their expertise from ancestors does not help much when an ancestor may be a father of the experts or an ancestor of such a father who has received the contraception recipe from a non-Trobriand source, e.g. a western expert after Malinowski has left the islands forever. The ethnographic evidence provided by Senft thus supports only the following assertion: The Trobrianders had in 1983ff. contraception knowledge which

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implies the existence of a paternity belief which may or may not have been Trobriand knowledge at Malinowski’s time.

T HE T ROBRIAND C ASE AND O LDER E THNOGRAPHIC S OURCES There exists a substantial amount of ethnographic data and also different sources about the reproduction knowledge of the Trobrianders. We will present now a selection of ethnographic data which were collected by Leo Austen who was “Assistant Resident Magistrate of the Trobriand Islands district…” (Austen 1934: 102, n. 1) from 1931 to 1936 (Austen 1945: 16). As sources of his ethnographic material he questioned for seven months “some fifty intelligent natives, drawn from all parts of the Trobriand group of islands” (1934: 105). His knowledge of the Trobriand language improved during this investigation so that he could later on himself translate the statements of the informants. Here is an, again condensed, version of Austen’s ethnographic material concerning a selection of Trobriand reproduction beliefs, a selection guided by the research question. 1) A Trobriand woman must be opened up since a virgin cannot conceive as

Malinowski has said. The proper method to be opened up is the sexual intercourse. Also evidence confirming Malinowski was obtained that a mad woman could open up herself by mechanical means. 2) A female cannot conceive until the menstrual flow has ceased. This is an acknowledgement made by all informants. The cessation of the menses is due to sexual intercourse (1934: 107). 3) The Trobrianders say menstrual blood is checked during sexual intercourse by hammering against the lower part of the uterus or against the menstrual blood (1934: 103). Trobrianders considered that mad woman would stop the menstrual flow by using a banana or a small yam as a phallus (1934: 105). 4) The cause of pregnancy is according to by far the greater number of the informants the baloma (an ancestor spirit), or the reincarnating waiwaia (a spirit child) (1934: 107). The spirit child is brought to a woman by a baloma and the pregnant woman probably dreams that a spirit child is brought. The spirit child is said to be placed on the woman’s head (1934: 108). It flows slowly downwards on the tide of blood. In the womb the blood undergoes a change as soon as the spirit child is placed on the head, and an embryo is brought into existence (1934: 109).

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5) To the native mind, the idea concerning sexual intercourse is that it is purely

6) 7) 8)

9)

a source of pleasure which seems to outweigh all other considerations (1934: 103). The natives pointed out that sexual intercourse did not cause pregnancy (1934: 104). The Trobrianders do not know of the fertilizing agency of the male seed, nor do they believe that male semen enters the uterus (1934: 105). There is not the slightest evidence of any effective contraceptive, no evidence that girls took precaution to rid themselves of semen in order to prevent conception. There are means to keep the menstrual flow each month and means thought to prevent pregnancy by eating charmed leaves or drinking boiled salt water (1934: 106). It is a well-known fact that a child takes after its father in features, because of his close contact with the mother by which the features are impressed upon the child (1934: 113).

We review now our selection of data from Austen and thereby adapt them to our argumentation purposes. Austen’s informants know of two types of reproduction processes, both of which begin with an opening up procedure. There is the “mad woman’s” type. These women become pregnant and give birth to a child without any male contribution or assistance. This type is exceptional. In the usual reproduction process men do participate. This type includes the “hammering” mode intercourse. The mode has the effect to stop menstruation. Men have here the role of necessary agents who provide an enabling condition for the process of child generation, though intercourse and semen do not have a causal effect. In addition, men have also a sculpting function. It produces visual similarity between father and child by his being in “close contact” with the mother. The central feature of the reproduction beliefs is the spirit child which enters the body of the woman and is finally born as a child of that woman. The menstrual cycle must be stopped before this reproduction feature can occur. A majority of the Trobrianders believe in that feature. This reproduction knowledge is considered by them as old local knowledge. Asexual reproduction is possible. That is, sexual intercourse is not necessary for reproduction and semen is not linked with conception in the Trobriand reproduction knowledge. There are contraceptive methods, but their description does not provide details that contain information about paternity. They are thus irrelevant for Senft’s

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claim. And whether the “charmed leaves” are or are not the same as the “herbs” of Senft is as unknown as the functioning of this medication. A comparison of Austen’s and Malinowski’s data will find most of Austen’s data represented also in Malinowski’s publications. The descriptions of Malinowski are considerably “thicker” (in depth, breadth, coherence), though with respect to our research question they are almost all sufficiently similar. But there are exceptions. An insignificant exception is this: Malinowski had not found any trace of contraception (1929: 197), whereas Austen, as we know, found such evidence. The exception is insignificant since Austen provides no information about paternity. But there are two exceptions where we feel the differences between the data need discussion. One divergence concerns the hammering mode of intercourse and its linkage with other data. This intercourse mode does not exist in Malinowski’s works; at least we could find no hints in his publications. This lack might be an unintended omission as they can occur in nearly every empirical-data-collection-to-publication process, though in this case we consider this not so likely since this belief group would surprise Westerners. But there is a stronger argument. To appreciate it we need some more information on Malinowski’s version. There the spirit child is placed on the head of the woman, enters her body and moves down to her womb, where “the blood nourishes it. That is the reason why […] her menstruous flow stops” (Malinowski 1929: 175). Until the moment when the spirit child has arrived in the womb the similarity with Austen’s version is complete, but then the whole system changes with causes and effects replaced or rearranged. What Austen describes can apparently not be created by simply adding a forgotten hammering mode to Malinowski’s description. Therefore the hammering mode and related beliefs must probably have been accepted by the Trobrianders after Malinowski had left the islands for good, and what Austen describes is then a case of an “invented tradition” (see Hobsbawm 1983, Haley and Wilcoxon 1997, Erlandson et al. 1998) – i.e. in the timespan of less than one generation a tradition emerged which was thought to be old. Coitus had thus become in Austen’s time more important (cf. Sprenger 1997: 61). But this development did rather adopt the western (?) idea of coitus functions to the Trobriand system and not vice versa, as the Trobrianders did not incorporate into their reproduction knowledge the idea of a substance transfer via coitus which creates a physical link from father to child. There is a third possibility of explaining the discrepancies: data manipulation which means in the present case using procedures in data collection and evaluation which violate principles of scientific research. A manipulation suspicion can

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be effortless attached to every ethnographic datum and we feel it must therefore be convincingly grounded. As Alvarez Roldan 2002 has shown, an effective grounding of Malinowski’s methods of evaluating his field notes might be possible also in this case. The second divergence between the two sets of data results from an observation of Austen, according to which only a majority believes in the spirits as cause of pregnancy. This contrasts with Malinowski’s writing: “The only reason and real cause of every birth is spirit activity, [and this is a fact] [...] known to everybody and firmly believed by all.” (1929: 172)

Here the question arises who belongs to Austen’s minority which does not believe in spirit agency? It is “a few women” and these few belong to those women “who have no pathological symptoms during pregnancy, and are not visited by the baloma in dreams” (Austin 1934: 107). So where Malinowski says all, Austen says not all – which could be a contradiction. Austen even believed these few women were the vanguard of a trend in the Trobriand society, and more and more Trobrianders would in the future follow them on their path of abandoning the belief in reproduction with spirits. Note: this development path is an extrapolation of Austen and should not be interpreted as an ethnographic datum. Moreover Austen himself provides evidence for an alternative interpretation of his data when he writes, “[…] when the point cropped up as to whether their children possessed a baloma or spirit, they [the minority women] were ready to fall back upon the orthodox idea of a reincarnating waiwaia” (op. cit.: 110). We feel that the intended sense of the phrase “children possess a baloma” is not knowable from Austen’s text. But the text contains enough information to arrive at the following alternative interpretation. If the task of questioning the women is handled with enough subtlety all will acknowledge the agency of a baloma or waiwaia in conception, and this information is sufficient for our argumentation purposes. It provides enough evidence for the assertion that the belief is indeed still held by all women but for some it is not or no longer salient. For the comparative evaluation of all three analyses we begin with repeating our research question: Do societies which deny paternity exist according to the available ethnographic material? Austen’s data confirm and complement Malinowski’s data and moreover demonstrate belief dynamics. Austen’s data are thus partially independent of Malinowski’s. We did not find any case where data of Austen unambiguously contradict data of Malinowski. We can thus conclude that according to both authors the Trobrianders are an instance of a society which denies paternity during their time on the islands. Obviously the term pa-

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ternity has assumed in the Trobriand context a rather specific but clear meaning. The defining component is a substance transfer which creates a physical link from father to child. Another way of defining the component is: a necessary male contribution to the reproduction process. By contrast, Senft in his recent addition to the debate asserts Malinowski has erred, and the Trobrianders’ idea of conception has always (or at least during the time of Malinowski’s field research) included paternity as defined in the last paragraph. Senft’s evidence is derived from a vaginal contraception method which Senft’s wife has discovered in 1983. Ethnographic material supporting Senft’s claim would thus necessarily require something which links the contraception knowledge to Malinowski’s time. Senft does not present such material, but Austen’s material could provide such evidence, if e.g. in Austen’s time the Trobrianders had used a contraception method which resembles Senft’s method. Austen had searched for contraception methods as we have seen, yet what he found does not resemble Senft’s method nor does it imply paternity, while his search possibly was exhaustive considering his team of 50 informants. It is not absolutely impossible that Senft is right. Nevertheless we feel the conclusion is justified that the ethnographic evidence does support Austen’s and Malinowski’s but not Senft’s claim. To end this section, we want to describe a few puzzles we encountered during investigations which may point to some veiled aspects of the research in the field of paternity denial and the participating actors. One puzzle is what knowledge Austin had of Malinowski’s ethnographic publications. His references mention only Malinowski’s Baloma article of 1916 and not his “Sexual Life” monograph. But then we have this quote. Austin mentions Malinowski as author of this quote but not the publication from which it was taken. Here is the quote: “As Malinowski has so clearly shown, the reincarnating waiwaia is said to be found ‘floating on drift logs, or on leaves, boughs, dead seaweed, sea-scum, and other light substances which litter the surface of the sea’.” (Austen 1934: 110)

If one compares the text in the article of 1916 on p. 104 with the text in the monograph on p. 173 one sees the quote is from the monograph. Why that, and why is a verbatim quote necessary for content which consists in a simple enumeration of litter? Is it perhaps irony? Moreover Austen’s article contains quite a number of small text pieces which could have been taken verbatim from the monograph, but they are not marked as

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quotes, no quotation mark no author’s name, nothing. So if Austen had known the monograph, he has tried to hide as well as not to hide that fact. Then there are these duplicates of ethnographic descriptions which differ in puzzling but unexplained ways. Did Austen fear Malinowski’s critique (see below the Rentoul rebuttal)? Another puzzle is that Senft does not mention Austen who is well known in the “Virgin Birth” literature. We feel Senft should have commented on Austen. After all, not only Malinowski must have had motives to err or suppress the truth, but Austen too. Austen describes also a magic formula for helping infertile women to bear a child. Senft is a specialist with regard to these magic formulae and has published in 1997b a number of them. We would therefore expect that Senft should comment on the fertility formula reported by Austen and how this fits or does not fit into the reproduction knowledge alleged by Senft.

L EACH ’ S V IRGIN B IRTH ARTICLE The most audible voice in the faction of anthropologists who think societies with paternity denial do not exist was and still is Edmund Leach’s. He did not invent the name “Virgin birth debate” but he published a text with the title “Virgin birth” in 1967. This title then became the name of the “game”, and is regularly used in this way by the participants of the debate – so too by Monberg (see below) and by Senft. The text begins with the description of its main themes, which we present in condensed form. 1) Firstly, the classic controversy is reviewed about whether certain primitive

people were “ignorant of the facts of physiological paternity” when first encountered by early ethnographers. And it is concluded that they were not. The people were notably Australian aborigines and the Trobrianders. 2) Secondly, note is taken that the anthropologists’ belief in the ignorance of his primitive contemporaries is resilient despite adverse evidence and it is considered why anthropologists should be predisposed to think in this way. 3) Thirdly, it is suggested that if we [the anthropologists] can once lay aside the prejudice about ignorance we are left with some important problems for investigation.

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There are no paternity ignorant societies is thus a central claim in this article, and Leach is obviously completely convinced of this claim. This conviction, though, is only partially compatible with our research question. The first theme with its review of the controversy is a good match. But the second and third themes do not fit, since our research question presupposes at least three (see above) possible results: societal paternity denial does or does not exist, or it’s undecidable, and we are not (yet) ready to consider one of them a prejudice. The review of the controversy consists of five numbered “justifications” for the claim, of which we have dropped justifications 1 and 2b. Number 1 has its focus on a critique by Spiro of a text written by Leach in 1961 about the works of J. G. Frazer. Justification 2b is for Leach linked to a collection of mythological texts about magical conception by Hartland. In both arguments the role of the empirical data is not of the sort which our research question demands. So we will proceed now with the analysis of the remaining three justifications which correspond to three arguments. I

The Trobriand Case Argument

The Trobriand Islands have a disproportionally big weight in the debate about the denial belief, and as we will see Leach was well aware of that. We have decided to quote the whole justification verbatim, since the quote itself consists (mainly) of quotes. “Outside Australia the only society for which ‘ignorance of physiological paternity’ is commonly thought to have been well established is that of the Trobriand Islands. Malinowski’s original statements on this point were very dogmatic. He asserted that ‘knowledge of impregnation, of the man’s share in creating the new life in the mother’s womb, is a fact of which the natives have not even the slightest glimpse’. But later on he became much more guarded. The 1932 version was: ‘The Trobrianders do not suffer from a specific complaint ignorantia paternitatis. What we find among them is a complicated attitude towards the facts of maternity and paternity. Into this attitude there enter certain elements of positive knowledge, certain gaps in embryological information. These cognitive ingredients again are overlaid by beliefs of an animistic nature, and influenced by the moral and legal principles of the community.’ (Malinowski 1932: 21). As much surely could be said of any people in the world?” (Leach 1967: 40)

It seems easy to understand the argumentation of this piece of text. Malinowski was at first “very dogmatic” and had later on become “much more guarded” regarding the existence of paternity denial among the Trobrianders. The evidence

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for these assertions is provided by two quotes. One is taken from an article of 1916, the other from “The special foreword to the third edition” of Malinowski’s Sexual Life book published in 1932. The second quote contains material which shows that Malinowski had doubts regarding the denial belief, which brings his thinking in line with Leach’s claim. The two quotes selected by Leach can indeed be interpreted in this way. But there are reasons for doubt if we look at the details of the argumentation. The first quote will probably by some readers be judged as very dogmatic, but for other readers, particularly those who have no preference for a particular conception belief, “not even the slightest glimpse” of knowledge will be acceptable as vivid in style and valid as ethnographic description. The second quote lists a series of general Trobriand reproduction beliefs and linkages to other groups of beliefs. Leach observes that the list consists of reproduction beliefs which are held by all societies in the world. In other words, some of the Trobriand reproduction beliefs are found to be universals. And this observation is directly linked with the assertion that Malinowski had become much more guarded. We agree: This observation can inspire the idea that Malinowski had changed his mind. But does it also supply supporting evidence for this change of mind? We do not think so. Whether the change really occurred rather remains an open question. And there is yet another open question in this second quote. Why did Malinowski invent the term ignorantia paternitatis? With what intention did Malinowski introduce this term? We can solve these puzzles by reinserting the first sentences of the paragraph which Leach had omitted. Here they are: “The ignorance of paternity seems to be the most popular subject in this book [Malinowski’s Sexual Life book]. And here I feel that most of those who have commented upon my material have missed two points. First of all, the Trobrianders do not suffer from a specific complaint ignorantia paternitatis […] [continue as above].”

These introductory sentences give access to the missing intentions provided they receive enough attention. But then it is rather clear what Malinowski means. He wants to intervene against the overemphasis on the paternity denial in the comments on his book; he wants to show that the paternity denial of the Trobrianders is not a monstrosity, is not a curious kind of deviation to be looked at as if it were a strange type of illness. And he suggests a more appropriate way of looking at this belief. This belief should be seen as part of a multitude of reproduction beliefs which are linked internally and have linkages to other parts of the

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Trobriand belief system such as the “moral and legal principles”. For Malinowski the “inter-relation of facts” was in general “as important as, if not more so, the isolated facts themselves” (1929: 452). It is this system property which the Trobriand reproduction beliefs, as far as we see, share with those of all societies in the world, and which allows us to see the relative importance of the individual beliefs. The restored second quote thus shows: The appropriate perspective is to look at the Trobriand reproduction knowledge and its many beliefs as interconnected and as part of a large and complex belief system. The comments on the Sexual Life book ignored that and have given to a single conception belief a far too prominent place in the system. We also see Malinowski fighting against naïve exoticism, which is the transient reaction to the unusual by minds lacking the necessary “knowledge of the world”, fights still belonging to the anthropologist’s duties. We have searched for evidence to confirm or disconfirm Malinowski’s alleged loss of conviction. The ideal evidence would be a clear statement uttered by Malinowski during the time when he was writing the Special Foreword. And indeed, there exist some pieces of evidence. •

• •

In August 1931 a paper was published, in which Rentoul, an administrator who was stationed on the Trobriand Islands, insists on the existence of a physical paternity belief among the Trobrianders. In October 1931 Malinowski had finished the Special Foreword (1932: xliv) which contains the alleged change of mind. In February 1932 a strongly worded rebuttal of Rentoul’s paper appeared, which shows Malinowski was completely convinced that the paternity denial belief exists on the Trobriand Islands.

These dates imply that during the time between the publication of the Rentoul paper and the publication of the rebuttal Malinowski did not doubt the existence of paternity denial among the Trobrianders, and there can be found no traces of Malinowski becoming more guarded. But if we insist on seeing such traces in the Special Foreword, we can with a little bit of creativity construct several sequences where Malinowski had doubts when he wrote the Special Foreword and (again) no doubts when he wrote the rebuttal. But since there is direct evidence available of Malinowski’s intentions, such constructions are no longer needed; they are, we feel, pure speculations. Leach repeats his interpretation one more time in his text – the words are different, but the meaning is the same. He writes, “by 1932 Malinowski’s theory of

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Trobriand ignorance had been partly abandoned” (Leach 1967: 43). The reader is neither informed who had abandoned nor in which publications he can find evidence which supports this assertion nor do we know of such publications. We are thus left with Leach’s own interpretation as the only possible source of this assertion. In sum: The decisive operation in this justification is to remove the introductory sentences from Malinowski’s Special Foreword. This makes is easier to understand an interpretation which sees in the denial belief of the Trobrianders not a valid ethnographic datum but a puzzling or even doubtful piece of information. By reintroducing the removed sentences of the quote intentions become visible which leave the ethnographic validity of this belief completely unaffected. II

The More Recent Ethnographers’ Argument

Again, we begin the analysis of this justification with a verbatim quote, because the quote itself (partially) also consists of a quote. The Walbiri mentioned are an Australian Aborigines group. 8

“A reason for rejecting the supposition of simple minded ignorance [of the facts of physiological paternity] is the judgment of the more recent ethnographers. Meggitt (1962) for example remarks that the answers which a Walbiri makes to [‘ sic] questions about conception depend upon who is asked and in what circumstances. ‘In ritual contexts, men speak of the action of the guruwari [spirit entities] as the significant factor; in secular contexts they nominate both the guruwari and sexual intercourse. The women, having few ritual attitudes, generally emphasize copulation.’ (Meggitt 1962: 273).” (Leach 1967: 40)

Up to now the societies we looked at had conception beliefs which denied physical paternity or not. For Leach, though, societies with paternity denial do in reality not exist. Instead every society has conception beliefs which include a physical paternity component and some societies have in addition (simultaneously) a spiritual component such as spirit children. If both components are present, depending on the context, the ethnographer will sometimes see only one of the two and sometimes both. In societies of this kind ethnographers may wrongly assume their societies lack the paternity component, which will occur when they have neglected context diversity.

8

The Leach text contains a layer of thoughts which are highly opinionated and also deliberately debasing. We disagree with these thoughts, but we ignore them above because they have no argumentative value with regard to our research question.

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In a world that strictly conforms to Leach’s idea, we can expect then the following research results. When one looks at the more recent ethnographers it is a standard of research to investigate a diversity of contexts and then societies with a spiritual conception component also have a physical paternity component. But when one finds in reports of the less recent (down to the early) ethnographers societies that have no paternity component, we can be sure the ethnographers have neglected context diversity. With this in mind we inspect now the ethnographic material on the Walbiri. Meggitt has more to say about the Walbiri conception beliefs than what we find in the quote. We will therefore first present in a condensed form this additional material (1962: 272f.). (Note that in condensed versions always solely the vocabulary of the original text is used, and this time also the order in which the statements follow each other is preserved). 1) The Walbiri people believe a guruwari spirit entity determines the child’s

sex. 2) All older men hold copulation and the entry of a gurwari into the woman are

both necessary preliminaries to child-birth. 3) In general the action of the guruwari is held to be more important. 4) A few men hold additional opinions: one said the semen mingles with the re-

tained menstrual blood to create a foetus […]. 5) The women were emphatic that coitus is the significant antecedent of parturi-

tion; the entry of the guruwari is a secondary event that identifies the child formed of the menstrual blood. As this condensed excerpt and the quote above show, if one reads the text carefully, Meggitt does not write about the presence or absence of the two conception components in different contexts. He rather writes about the “emphasis” on and “importance” or “significance” of the conception beliefs in diverse contexts. Thus in the older men context it is the spiritual component of the conception process which is deemed more important than the copulation component; and in the women context it is the copulation component on which the emphasis is placed, but spirits are still involved etc. Also in none of the diverse contexts has the physical paternity component completely disappeared. Thus, what Meggitt says about “his” Walbiri (and, as he acknowledges, his more recent ethnographer colleagues Warner and Roheim say so too) is that the context dependence is of relative importance. And when he comes to the less recent ethnographers he stops altogether to talk about contexts. Instead he is occupied with assessing which of the early ethnographers offer the best ethnographic

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evidence which “suggests” the Aborigine group was “ignorant” of the relationship between coitus and the birth of a child. His chosen candidates are the Ilpirra (eastern Yalpari) in the description of Spencer and Gillen (Meggitt 1962: 272). In short Meggitt’s Walbiri study does neither support nor illustrate the more recent ethnographers’ argument in Leach’s sense. We should add here, the same is true of the other more recent ethnographic studies Leach refers to later in his article. III

The Animal Argument

For the demonstration of this argument ethnographic material collected by Walter E. Roth (1903) about the Tully River Aborigines of Australia is used. The argument can be condensed in the following way: 1) The Tully River Blacks were not paternity ignorant because they admitted to Roth that in animals other than man copulation is the cause of pregnancy. This is all what can be found in Leach’s text about this argument, which may be one reason why the argument does not really appear plausible. Another reason becomes visible, if one uses the kernel of the argument and applies it to objects which are less complex than knowledge and knowers as shown in the following example. “When the plates in this cupboard are all white except one which is pink, then also this plate will not be pink. ”

Obviously the world, be it manmade or natural, is replete with classes of objects which contain exceptions. Or in a way more to the point: Biologists know of animals (though not mammals, see Neaves and Baumann 2011) which reproduce by parthenogenesis. It seems thus quite reasonable to ask why the Tully River people could not have found and adopted the idea that humans are an exception and do not need coitus as cause of pregnancy? In Leach's rendition of the animal argument we also observe a conceptual peculiarity. His Tully River Aborigines (seem to?) use a concept that puts humans in the same class as animals, or nearer to Leach’s formulation, they use an animal concept that includes humans. This idea, though, does by no means always come natural to humans. See e.g. the clash of Darwin with the public opinion when he published his “Origin of Species”, a clash that is even today not terminated.

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Finally we will have a look at what Roth himself wrote in his ethnographic report on the Tully river group from 1903, which is Leach’s source. The available reproduction related evidence in this text consists of the following two sentences: “Although sexual connection as a cause of conception is not recognized among the Tully River blacks as far as they themselves are concerned, it is admitted as true for all animals: – indeed this idea confirms them in their belief of superiority over the brute creation. A woman begets children because (a) she has been sitting over the fire on which she has roasted a particular species of black bream (b) she has purposely gone a-hunting and caught a certain kind of bull frog, (c) some man may have told her to be in an interesting condition or (d) she may dream of having had the child put inside her.” (Roth 1903: 22, section 81)

In this quote humans or the Tully River Aborigines are explicitly not placed in the same class as animals, and we can see nothing what at least implies such a placement. That does not mean that these aborigines ignored similarities between humans and (other) animals. To the contrary, they made efforts to invent conception methods which have nothing to do with sex, and to find ways to link the superiority of man with the belief that for humans coitus is not a cause of conception. This ethnographic material from the Tully River Aborigines shows fragments of a belief system which excludes the animal argument, whereas there are of course also belief systems in which the animal argument finds a consistent place as in the biological reproduction theory, for example. The validity of the animal argument is thus dependent on the content of a society’s belief system. Summing up: Leach’s main device in his argumentation is to replace the consistently reasoned argument of the Tully River people with a conceptual construction of his own making. This does not produce a plausible picture of the belief system, but rather veils the inconsistency between his claim and Roth’s ethnographic material. We will now place the three arguments side by side, in order to summarise how they justify Leach’s claim. The justification of the Trobriand case argument is based on an abridged quote. But if one restores the full quote the argument is no longer plausible, and also the empirical details fail to support it.

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The fit between the more recent ethnographers’ argument Leach had intended and the Walbiri study which Leach uses as evidence is so loose that the latter cannot serve as support for the former. As far as the animal argument is concerned, Leach did not reproduce the ethnographic data of his source correctly. What the data demonstrate is not the general validity of the argument but rather the contrary. To sum up: All three arguments are seriously defective and lack ethnographic support. In consequence, these “arguments” cannot serve as justifications for Leach's claim. If Leach had a good knowledge of the available ethnographic literature, we can infer from the failed justifications the following plausible assertion: There is no better ethnographic material with which he could support his claim. Leach obviously believed that the ethnographers whose data disconfirmed his claim have misrepresented the reality. This raised for us the question whether he did accept his own representations of the ethnographic literature as convincing. The only consistent solution to this puzzle we can think of is that he must have believed in the (final) truth of his representations. This result motivated us to search for evidence classes with which the rejectionist stance of Leach and others could be confirmed. We have found two such classes. One confirms the rejectionist stance by empirical means. According to this solution we should search for cases where the ethnographer in a society at first observes paternity denial, but after probing with quite some intensity and ingenuity finds conditions under which informants admit of having also a paternity belief. We note that we do not know of such instances. The other solution works seemingly with (almost) no support from ethnographic evidence. It goes like this: Real paternity denial is as impossible as it is impossible for humans not to know that man must eat and drink in order to survive. There are certainly such universally self-evident “facts of life” (Leach’s words 1967: 40) which humans everywhere know (humans can speak, cheat, invent, imagine, …). This solution is certainly not fictitious. But note this universal self-evidence solution is not always easy to handle, since it can also be used to immunize claims such as that of Leach’s against any refutation attempts. The problem is how to retain the genuine universals and reject only the spurious ones.

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T HE B ELLONESE : A LATE ADDITION TO THE PATERNITY DENIAL CASES The Bellonese are – apart from the Trobrianders – one of the few denial societies outside Australia. They are, we believe, the youngest addition to this group of societies and live on Bellona Island, which belongs to the (formerly British) Solomon Islands and is situated more than 1000 km southeast of the Trobriand Islands. Its ethnographer is the Danish anthropologist Torben Monberg, and instead of being confronted with a clash of knowledge systems in the presence of dominant invaders, Monberg awaited a completely different research situation (see Monberg 1975). When Monberg began his field research in 1958 it was about 20 years after Christianity had been introduced on Bellona. The introduction of Christianity was followed by contacts with British government administrators and foreign missionaries, who arrived after the Second World War (Monberg 1975: 35). The traditional, in this case, pre-Christian beliefs had thus already been gone, and Monberg had to use the methodology of “historical anthropology” for recovering these beliefs. Monberg’s research situation on Bellona Island differs from the situation on the Trobriand Islands also in that there are no invaders with dominant knowledge who exert pressure on the locals to change their knowledge systems, and there is a rather clear line that separates the old knowledge systems from the new ones. Monberg’s sources for the traditional reproduction knowledge were five men, who were with one exception adults when Christianity arrived, and one adult woman, with whom Ulla Praetorius had a “very detailed interview” in 1968 (Monberg 1975: 35). No further particulars of Praetorius and her interview are to be found in the 1975 article. The Bellonese had at the time of writing of the paper “almost totally accepted” (Monberg 1975: 35) the new beliefs. We present now ethnographic material about the reproduction knowledge in Monberg’s paper with relevance to the paternity question in a condensed version. 1) The Bellonese believed that children came from the abode of the gods which

lay somewhere below the Eastern horizon. There the children lived in the house of offspring. 2) Children were brought through the world of darkness by ancestral spirits and implanted in the womb of a woman. How this latter actually physically took place was a matter of no concern to the Bellonese.

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3) A woman became pregnant because the ancestral deities and ancestors of her

4) 5)

6)

7) 8)

husband had sent her offspring, not by or because of the man’s copulation with the woman. First signs of pregnancy were: disruption of menstruation, swelling of breasts and, commonly, nausea linked with a desire for specific types of food. If too much time elapsed before pregnancy occurred the husband might invoke his ancestors or deities by uttering a short prayer asking them to send a child to his wife. When signs of pregnancy occurred the husband would most commonly prepare a minor ritual at the grave of one of his patrilineal ancestors. Part of the ritual was a formula that consisted of an imploration of the ancestors and ancestral deities to send a male child. The informants were very vague whether at the time of the imploration a child was in the womb of the wife. To the question why humans copulated all informants said, because people liked it, it tickled, it was the habit of men and women. It was from the British government officials that the Bellonese had heard about a relationship between copulation and pregnancy.

These data show clearly the existence of a societal paternity denial. The prime feature of the reproduction process is the spirit child. We see virtually no physiological explanations. What is available is descriptive physiology such as the signs of pregnancy. The pregnancy ritual in entry 6 contains a puzzle which Monberg was aware of but the significance of which the Bellonese denied. What Monberg puzzled was this. The signs of pregnancy imply that a child is in the womb of the woman and the ancestors have already sent the child. These signs also signal to the husband to begin with the pregnancy ritual. When during the ritual the formula is recited and the ancestors and ancestral deities are asked to send a male child, this implies that there is not yet a child in the womb of the woman. What we have here is thus a case of “practical” inconsistency, so Monberg wanted to clarify whether at the time of the formula recitation a child was or was not in the womb. But the Bellonese were “very vague” about this point. Moreover they made it clear what this question addressed “was not an important matter at all. It was the formula that mattered” (Monberg 1975: 36). At what time the child entered the womb was thus for the Bellonese not a meaningful question; meaningful was the correct way to get the support from the ancestors. Of course it is possible to assume that the insertion of the child occurred at a later phase in the pregnancy process. Monberg was aware of this option and wrote “that at a certain stage in the past the Bellonese” could have had the belief

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that the “actual pregnancy” occurred after the ritual. This inference contains an interesting theorem regarding the origin and development of beliefs and rituals. Monberg admits that he “remained for a long time suspicious concerning the alleged Bellonese ignorance of biological paternity”. To substantiate the suspicion he invented “veracity” tests of which he included five in his text (Monberg 1975: 38). He left it to the reader to figure out which answers would confirm his suspicion. We will cite now the test questions and present at least a sketch of the answers. •

•

•

•

What did the women do if they did not wish to have children? The Bellonese said that it was almost impossible to have too many children. The only reason for not having children is an experience showing that a birth would endanger the woman’s life. Means to have no children were asking the husband to implore the ancestors to send no more children; physical means of abortion were massaging and hot stones. What did you think was the reason that the child looked like his mother or father? In the text passage which contains the answers to this question one finds the following sentences: If a child looked like its mother, this was because mother and child were of the same blood and there was a consensus among all informants that mother and child were of the same blood. This sentence has the form of an explanation. But the passage begins with the words: Most informants said that resemblance was not recognized at all; and it ends as follows: “all informants” agreed, when asked why a child sometimes looked very much like a person other than his father, that “people did not speculate about this”. So there were no shared explanations of similarities between relatives. This test question produced thus evidence that physiological procreation ideas of a substance being the same in parent and child were known among the Bellonese, but the ideas concern physiological maternity, not paternity, and the ideas were not part of common knowledge. Who was considered to be the father of a child if it was known that the mother had had sexual relations with others than the husband? This answer was given uniformly: If the mother had such sexual relations, it was still the husband who was the father. And the justification was, because he was the husband. How were children of unmarried women created? Monberg introduced the question by first pointing to the fact that husbands pray for their wives to receive children. This observation led to the question of who had prayed for the unmarried women? And the answer was: “Such

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children, especially if they were males, were signs of gratitude towards living descendants such as the unwed mother and her kin, as they were ‘given’ without reciprocal offerings or prayers”. Again ancestral agents dominate the reproduction process. If the husband died while his wife was pregnant or if he had divorced her, to whom would the child normally be considered to belong? The answer was: The child belongs to the group of the dead resp. divorced husband, because it was their ancestors and ancestral deities who had been the addressees of the rituals and payers. Again the answer relies on the relations to the ancestors and ancestral deities, the main agents in the Bellonese reproduction model.

The veracity tests motivated by Monberg’s suspicion have thus yielded these insights: Physiological explanations of reproduction phenomena were not completely unknown to the Bellonese, and basic ideas for the construction of a procreation model which resembles the biological theory were available to them. But what “really” mattered in their thinking about the reproduction was definitely not physiological paternity based on substances, but rather the agency of spiritual beings – of ancestors and ancestral deities and the spirit children. The conclusion is that Monberg’s suspicion was not justified and the Bellonese were indeed an instance of a society which denied paternity. And we could find no reasons for doubting these assertions. Final summing up: The argumentations can be interpreted as debates of the classical proponent – opponent kind. There are ethnographers – the proponents – who believe they have found paternity denial in “their” societies of investigation. And there are anthropologists – opponents – who doubt that. According to our analyses, all attacks of the opponents did not succeed for the same reason: The opponents could not present convincing ethnographic data, i.e. data which demonstrate that in the societies of the proponents paternity was an accepted belief. In the Bellona case Monberg has played the role of the opponent against himself. But he too could not find disconfirming data.

N OTES

ON NAMES AND TERMS

“Virgin birth” and “ignorance” are and were for quite some time regularly used in the debate but have also attracted heavy critique. As mentioned above “Virgin

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birth” has been introduced by Leach in 1967 and since then the expression has been regularly served as a name for signalling a contribution to the debate. In 1971 Montague criticised the choice of words as “confusing” and “simply silly” (1971: 366). She pointed out that ethnographic data central to the debate did not fit. The Trobrianders, for example, do indeed believe that virgins cannot conceive (and therefore not give birth), a fact which belongs to the uncontested ethnographic data. The name is therefore misleading and an invitation to draw false analogies between Trobriand and e.g. Christian beliefs – a cause for confusion. The expression “ignorance of physical fatherhood” and its variants which e.g. Malinowski used have been criticised because the word ignorance has negative connotations. Those who are said to be ignorant can also be thought to be uneducated or, for Leach (1967: 46), “stupid” or “childish”. These are possible but not necessary connotations of the term (see e.g. Kaberry 1968: 311). For us a more severe problem with ignorance stems from its core meaning – lack of knowledge about something, since the Trobrianders in Malinowski’s time were well aware, i.e. they were not ignorant of the physical paternity beliefs of the missionaries and the western traders, but they considered these conception ideas to be wrong. So in the debate ignorance has these two partially contradictory meanings: to know nothing about something or to know something but to deny it(s truth). The problem is, only the core meaning is generally applied, so also the term ignorance will cause confusion. It is also instructive to know that the Trobrianders disagreed with the conception beliefs on other islands of the Massim Archipelago. Here it was a custom, agreed on by both sides, that Trobrianders do not discuss conception beliefs with the Dobuans, neighbours to the southwest, because that would lead to “anger and quarrels” (Fortune 1932: 239; Malinowski knew of this: see Malinowski 1932: 36). And neighbours among the Australian Aborigines also had different conception beliefs. So ignorance in the usual sense of knowing nothing about something could perhaps be a rare exception in the present context. Finally, there is the problem posed by the definition of paternity. In the cases we have looked at, paternity can assume quite different meanings. Our solution was that the definition should be made context dependent. Thus in one context paternity can be defined as male contribution to pregnancy via copulation with a woman. Paternity in this sense is denied by the Bellonese. For the Trobriand society in Austen’s time this definition is not useful, and we gave above an explicit definition which adapts the meaning of the term to this context. A feature common to all denial cases is a substantial link from father to child.

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TO PROCEED FURTHER

There is quite some more literature by proponents and also by opponents of the denial claim, but we feel by proceeding as before we should not expect completely different results. In Australia ethnographers have found a greater number of denial cases, and a handful or some more have been found outside Australia. One could thus launch a survey of the (for some, alleged) paternity denial cases with the aim to find them all. Another, by no means independent, pursuit could be to continue with our case analyses, but in a way which differs from the present ones in two respects. We would select cases for which thick descriptions are available, and we would apply the system perspective systematically (instead of selectively). Malinowski’s rich description of the Trobriand reproduction knowledge would be an excellent case to begin with because he sees and superbly presents the beliefs as systemically linked. Our expectation would be to discover most if not all kinds and ranges of beliefs that human ingenuity has found while trying to solve the reproduction puzzle.

R EFERENCES Alvarez Roldan, Arturo (2002) Writing ethnography. Malinowski’s fieldnotes on Baloma. Social Anthropology 10 (3): pp. 377-393. Austen, Leo (1934) Procreation among the Trobriand islanders. Oceania 5: pp. 102-113. — (1945) Cultural changes in Kiriwina. Oceania 16: pp. 15-60. Erlandson, Jon Mcvey, et al. (1998) The Making of Chumash Tradition: Replies to Haley and Wilcoxon. Current Anthropology 39 (4): pp. 477-510. Fortune, Reo (1932) Sorcerers of Dobu. The Social Anthropology of the Dobu Islanders of the Western Pacific. London: Routledge and Sons. Haley, Brian D. and Larry R. Wilcoxon (1997) Anthropology and the Making of Chumash Tradition. Current Anthropology 38 (5): pp. 761-794. Hobsbawm, Eric (1983) Introduction: Inventing traditions. In: Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (eds.): The invention of tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press: pp. 1-14. Kaberry, Phyllis (1968) Virgin Birth. Man (new series) 3 (2): pp. 311-313. Leach, Edmund (1967) Virgin Birth. Proceedings of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 1966: pp. 39-49.

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Malinowski, Bronislaw (1916) Baloma; the spirits of the dead in the Trobriand Islands. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 46 (Jul. - Dec.): pp. 353-430. — (1929) The sexual life of the savages in North-Western Melanesia. London: Routledge. — (1932a) The sexual life of the savages in North-Western Melanesia. London: Routledge. — (1932b) Pigs, Papuans, and Police Court Perspective. Man 32 (Feb.): pp. 3338. Meggitt, M.J. (1962) Desert People. A study of the Walbiri Aborigines of Central Australia. Sydney: Angus & Robertson. Monberg, Torben (1975) Fathers were not genitors. Man (new series) 10 (1): pp. 34-40. Montague, Susan P. (1971) Trobriand Kinship and the Virgin Birth Controversy. Man (new series) 6 (3): pp. 353-368. Neaves, William B., and Peter Baumann (2011) Unisexual reproduction among vertebrates. Trends in Genetics 27 (3): pp. 81-88. Rentoul, Alex C. (1931) Physiological Paternity and the Trobrianders. Man 31 (Aug.): pp. 152-154. Roth, Walter E. (1903) Superstition, magic, and medicine. North Queensland Ethnography Bulletin No. 5. Brisbane. Ruestow, Edward G. (1983) Images and Ideas: Leeuwenhoek’s Perception of the Spermatozoa. Journal of the History of Biology 16 (2): pp. 185-224. Senft, Gunter (1997a) Bronislaw Kasper Malinowski. In: J. Verschueren, J.-O. Östman, J. Blommaert and C. Bulcaen (eds.): Handbook of Pragmatics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins: pp. 1-20. — (1997b) Magical conversation on the Trobriand Islands. Anthropos 92: pp. 369-391. — (2009) Bronislaw Kasper Malinowski. In: G. Senft, J.-O. Östman and J. Verschueren (eds.): Culture and Language Use [Handbook of Pragmatics Highlights 2]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins: pp. 210-225. — (2011) The Tuma underworld of love: erotic and other narrative songs of the Trobriand islanders and their spirits of the dead. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Sprenger, Guido (1997) Erotik und Kultur in Melanesien: Eine Kritische Analyse von Malinowskis “The Sexual Life of The Savages”. Hamburg: Lit Verlag. van Dokkum, André (1997) Belief systems about virgin birth: Structure and mutual comparability. Current Anthropology 38 (1): pp. 99-104.

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— (2000) On “Virgin Birth” and a paradox of procreation. Current Anthropology 41 (3): pp. 429-30. Weiner, Annette B. (1976) Women of value, men of reknown. New perspectives in Trobriand exchange. Austin: University of Texas Press. — (1988) The Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Hamburg HafenCity Revisited Reading Mental Maps as an Approach to Urban Imaginaries K ATHRIN W ILDNER

E NTERING H AMBURG ’ S P ORT AREA As an urban anthropologist, trained by Waltraud Kokot in Hamburg in the late 1990s, I shared with her an intense fascination for port cities, their vivid everyday cultures and especially for the ongoing urban transformations processes of harbour areas. 1 So, I was delighted when I received an invitation from the artist group tetrapak to contribute to an ethnographic workshop exploring urban port areas at the Artgenda Festival in Hamburg. Parts of the 2002 Artgenda Festival took place around the HafenCity – by then composed of sandy hillocks and former industrial harbour lots – mostly unknown territories beyond the famous historic Speicherstadt. 2 The HafenCity was a tremendous inner-city construction site, where decayed industrial port areas were to be revitalised into an attractive waterfront real estate area. In 2002, the HafenCity was a contested space: while politicians and urban developers praised it as a “good deal” for the city and architects discussed the challenges of building luxury living and office space, urban activists criticised it as an economically driven neoliberal act. On top of this, Hamburg’s international candidature for the Olympic Games 2012, which in-

1

Some of the multiple discussions and research projects around the transformation of port areas initiated by Waltraud Kokot at the Institute of Ethnology of Hamburg University are published in Kokot et al. 2008.

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“Speicherstadt” is a warehouse district in the Hamburg port area, where still some authentically shaped buildings from 19th century are in use.

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cluded plans for enormous sport facilities in the region, provoked even more debates. In this landscape of urban planning programs, architects’ models, surveyors, cranes, cement mixers and warehouse ruins, the art group tetrapak initiated a program of lectures, excursions and workshops. The venue for their diverse activities was the Kaispeicher A – at that stage one of the impressive storage structures of the former port, and now the basement of the spectacular music hall Elbphilharmonie. Tetrapak´s idea was to initiate critical research on the urban site of the HafenCity urban planning program – by then still fairly unknown. With their project “ready2capture”, they applied activist research in asking who initiates, plans and builds the HafenCity – and for whom (tetrapak 2003). I was one of the artists and researchers invited to participate in their project. Now, more than a decade later, I teach at the HafenCity University (HCU), a newly-founded public university for architecture and urban culture that recently moved into one of the modern buildings in the HafenCity. I wonder what happened to the once so disputed space of ten years ago. What about the imaginaries, promises and apprehensions of urban development today? How do people perceive and use this new part of the city? Is the HafenCity a lively urban space? In this sketch at hand I am focusing on perceptions and imaginaries of the HafenCity. It is a first brief approach to further discuss possibilities of a methodological tool to do research on urban imaginaries. The basic material for this brief approach is a selection of mental maps collected in 2002 and 2013.

“C AN Y OU K ISS IN THE H AFEN C ITY ?” – U RBAN I MAGINARIES OF F ORMER P ORT AREAS Similarly to other port cities like London or Dublin (see Kokot et al. 2008), the port of Hamburg has been impacted by global economic transformations since the 1960s. One of the main reasons for the strong structural transformations in the 1980s was the restructuring of the port economy through new container facilities on land outside the inner-city ports (Schubert 2001, Kokot et al. 2008). Former port areas in Hamburg were no longer lucrative for international shipping companies and lost their commercial function. In 1997, the First Mayor of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg reclaimed the inner city waterfront, announcing plans to develop a new mixed residential, business, cultural and leisure area with a distinctive maritime milieu (GHS 1999: 7). The HafenCity planned to convert approximately 155ha of former industrial port and dock areas to office

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buildings for 40,000 employees and residential areas for about 12,000 inhabitants (Menzel 2010). The project had a significant political, economic and spatial impact on the city’s structure, as it incorporated the opening of the former fenced “free trade zone” and extended the city centre by 40%. The project produced vigorous political debate, since the relocation of the old port facilities from the inner city district to modern container terminals downriver was to be financed by the development of up-market real estate buildings. The concept was to attract international investors with this ambitious project, creating a new model for business, cultural and urban economy for a European city of the 21st century (HafenCity Hamburg 2015). The first steps of urban planning development, including an international competition for the new master plan, took place behind closed doors – but the announcement of the winning model in 2000 was followed by a huge press campaign presenting the new ideas to the public. The urban project was presented through a series of discussions, media campaigns and other events and through the opening of an exhibition showroom in an old warehouse onsite. In this “Kesselhaus” interested residents and tourists could experience the city model, together with other animated installations, in order to obtain information about the detailed, but by then still flexible, urban development plan, and the planned stages of realizing the various neighbourhoods up to the 2020s. The first groundbreaking ceremony took place in 2001, at which stage the local government commissioned spectacular artistic and leisure interventions to attract potential investors. However, during its initial years, the site was more characterised by erasure of local working-class history than by the creation of a new urban identity. The project provoked intense critique, as it was perceived as an example of the future fragmented neoliberal city, obedient to the economic ideals of the corporate city, and dedicated to the production of mainly offices and luxury housing for the elite, as well as creating additional social and spatial segregation in the city (tetrapak 2003). In 2009, the first part of the new neighbourhood was completed and its first inhabitants moved in. In 2013, the new subway line into the HafenCity was inaugurated, and in 2014 the HafenCity University moved into the new building on the waterfront. Today, many people live and work in HafenCity, but still there is scepticism regarding as to whether the newly constructed place will ever become a vivid neighbourhood. Asking “Can you kiss in HafenCity?” the architect Ernst Hubeli questions the possibilities of everyday life and utopian moments within the artificial conglomeration of urban structures, seemingly built for urban cli-

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ents rather than residents (Hubeli 2008). 3 With his critical and polemic question Hubeli is referring to an imaginary of the HafenCity as a sterile and unsociable building complex, defined by cleaned public spaces. Urban imaginaries, as described by Armando Silva, are entanglements of subjective perceptions and experiences of urban spaces, discourses and narrations with social organisation of urban everyday life (Silva 1992). Imaginaries are products of urban realities while reproducing these realities at the same time; they might be ambiguous and contested, but nonetheless they affect urban life, they impact on how people perceive and use a certain space (Huffschmid and Wildner 2013: 21).

M ENTAL M APS

AS AN

E THNOGRAPHIC M ETHOD

Though most ethnographic methods work with texts of some kind (e.g. surveys, interviews, descriptions etc.), an analysis of spatial perception and urban imaginaries requires additional methods in order to visualise the space, often in combination with text analysis. Robert Downs and David Stea investigated how the brain cognises, encodes and interprets its environment, describing the process of cognitive mapping as an activity whereby a person forms and organises representation of his/her everyday spatial surroundings (Downs and Stea 1977). These cognitive processes reflect relative locations of objects (and experiences) and as such facilitate a spatial orientation. In the 1950s, Kevin Lynch had already established the notion of urban space as organised by, and composed of elements like paths, edges, districts, nodes and landmarks. In order to ascertain invisible layers of urban space, Lynch interviewed residents of various cities and collected mental maps of their environments (Lynch 1960). These cognitive maps visualise space as it is experienced, through a process of association. Mental maps refer to this form of associative perception. They are individual interpretations and expressions of cognitive processes, visualising space as subjectively experienced. In a similar vein, Armando Silva distinguishes between physical cartography – as employed in technical maps or city plans – and symbolic cartography, in which urban territory is invested with personal memories and cultural symbols (Silva 1992, 2013). These representations of space are organised by points of reference which not necessarily coincide with those elements on a technical map,

3

For a sociological reflection and analysis of motives for moving into the HafenCity as well as challenges facing urban everyday life, see Menzel 2010.

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instead they are metaphorical representations reflecting a social subjectivity of space (Silva 1992: 60). Urban ethnography uses mental maps as a methodology to understand the relationships between the physical environment, its perception, and cognitive orientation. Mental maps are dense and complex, selective and individual, representing fragmentary and distorted images of the built environment (Ziervogel 2011). Some mental maps reflect knowledge or discourses about spaces. Others are symbolic interpretations of fictional landscapes or stereotypical places, though potentially also places that we have seen, but never experienced. Besides individual experiences, the perception of space is affected by social imaginaries and cultural schemata – in the sense that imaginary projections of space are charged with cultural meaning. A map can thus become an interpretative instrument reflecting urban space within which everyday practices are localised with their social, political and cultural contexts and conditions (Wildner and Tamayo 2004: 120). Although they act as images of the environment, cognitive representations of space influence our spatial behaviour, as the cognitive representation constantly adapts itself to new spatial experiences (Ziervogel 2011).

F IRST T AKES 2002/2003 When I first applied the method of mental mapping to the HafenCity, it was a huge construction site. Traces of the former port area were already erased, and the territory was about to be completely restructured and reorganised. The area had already been renamed, even though only a few of the new constructions had been completed. The space appeared as void; a projection screen, to be filled with urban visions and imaginaries. My hypothesis was that the media campaign announcing a new urban city quarter relied on the implementation of images. The virtual representation of the future city might be seen as a strategy to familiarize inhabitants and visitors with the new site – even in the planning phase. An imaginary urban site is thereby created even before the physical environment has been built. As part of the tetrapak art and research project, I asked people to draw mental maps of the site, with the aim of investigating to what extent and how media campaigns and political discourses had influenced the cognitive maps of the HafenCity. How was the place perceived, if not by experiences of everyday practice, then by image-based campaigns? Was there a memory of the former port area? What kind of imaginary spaces existed in relation to the HafenCity?

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I collected approximately sixty maps on a number of occasions over a period of four months by walking around in the area and approaching tourists and workers, people attending leisure events, artists, and participants in a variety of tetrapak workshops in 2002 and 2003. Below are some examples of the collected maps from the first take. 4 Mental map 1

Mental map 2

4

A systematical analysis and interpretation of these maps can be found in Wildner 2003.

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These two maps are examples of the large number of maps, which are clearly dominated by an unfamiliarity with the urban context The orientations of the maps are diverse, sometimes reflecting a north-south orientation, as is typical for technical maps (1), and at other times representing the position of the viewer “standing” at the inner city side shore, facing south (2). The territory of the HafenCity is located roughly in the context of the city of Hamburg, sometimes framed by more or less abstract landmarks (skyline, water, bridges, Speicherstadt). The urban space of the HafenCity is not further defined as there are no references to individual experiences or everyday practices. Mental map 3

As this map is made by a student who does research in one specific part of the HafenCity, the Speicherstadt, the mental map is obviously well shaped by local experiences. In this representation, the spatial relationship of buildings, structures and institutions in the area are located as they are experienced during the phase of transformation, from the former port area and free trade zone, into the new idea of the inner-city neighbourhood, the HafenCity. The precise denomination and localisation of specific facilities (for example customs, the motorboat port, the theatre, the museum) and local actors (police, Afghan and Persian carpet traders) refer to a specific local knowledge, which probably is based on everyday experiences doing research in the area. Some other maps of people working in the area correlate with this kind of precise localisation of certain sites and places which are part of their individual everyday practice.

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Mental map 4

Mental map 5

These two maps represent another type of maps, which are not reflecting everyday practices or individual urban experiences, but they seem to be structured by architectural models or image-based campaigns. The maps show parts of the area as if in a 3D-model, imitating the perspective of architects and urban planners. The densely-built space is characterised by modern architecture, signature buildings and monotonous constructions. Points of orientation are the Kaispeicher A and the river bridges. These maps have to be interpreted as a visualisation of an urban imaginary of the HafenCity as a building dominated site of modern architecture. Similar to the above examples, the following cognitive map represents a type of urban architectural model of the HafenCity. It is not based on experiences but

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on a future vision of the neighbourhood. The map represents an urban imaginary of a kind of exclusive area indicating functional conditions and institutions, such as Living at the Waterfront, Offices and Culture. Through inventions of names such as “Platz der Monotonie” (Square of Monotony) the architectural design is critically interpreted. Mental map 6

Mental map 7

In the same vein of future perspectives, some maps reflect the debate about Hamburg as a possible site for the Olympic Games (in 2012). In the mental maps 7 and 8 the location for the planned stadium – intensely publicised and discussed – is shown, while the area of the HafenCity is indicated by only a few marks of orientation, such as the river, the Kaispeicher A or the cruise terminal. Symbols

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such as sailing boats, single family houses and skyscrapers can be interpreted as signs of their proper function, such as leisure, living or offices respectively. In these maps the representation of the environment is defined through symbolic attributes of future urban planning. Mental map 8

The next mental map does not represent a cognitive map of the environment, or of orientation, but can be read as a critical interpretation of the entirety of the urban planning project. The abstract representation of anonymous and spectacular high-rises refers to an imagined architecture. The written comment, “Dieses elende Tortenstück” (“This miserable slice of pie”) criticises the prevailing urban politics and the commodification of urban space. Mental map 9

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The experiment of 2002/2003, collecting cognitive images of an unconstructed area, followed the hypothesis that virtual representations of the future city can be seen as a strategy to familiarise inhabitants and visitors with the new urban site, to create a solid urban imaginary even before the physical environment has been built. But the material collected showed quite diverse aspects of perception of the HafenCity to come. Most of the maps did not refer to the images created by media campaigns and architectural models. Rather, they reflect personal experiences in the territory or knowledge about debates on the territory about it. The maps can be roughly divided into three groups. The first group – visitors, tourists, Hamburg inhabitants, who are not very familiar with the area – includes people who do not have experiences on an everyday level, but they have an idea about the overall location of the area in the city structure as well they do know some landmarks for orientation (e.g. river, bridges, Kaispeicher A). The second group consists of people who have a strong relationship with the area in its former and present condition for professional reasons (police, urban planners, urban researchers); people who can communicate their detailed knowledge about buildings, institutions and functions. The maps of the third group do not reflect everyday experiences at all, but represent the urban planning project as it is presented in models and plans. Some of the maps do represent knowledge about architecture and urban planning, but often these maps represent critical reflections, implying political positions regarding the ongoing urban planning project. Urban imaginaries of the HafenCity as former port areas or maritime waterfronts were challenged by controlled spaces for wealthy people.

S ECOND T AKE : 2013 Roughly ten years later, I made a new collection of mental maps of the HafenCity. I collected about 15 maps, drawn by university colleagues who had recently moved into the new university building at the HafenCity, by tourists, and by Hamburg citizens engaged in urban activism. I wondered how the mental maps would have changed one decade later. My hypothesis was that since the area had become increasingly established in the meantime, accompanied by ongoing cultural events in the recently constructed urban territory, the maps would be more illustrative of experiences. My questions were: What kind of everyday practices would the mental maps reflect? How would the urban imaginary transform? Was there still a memory of the former port area?

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Mental map 10

This map, drawn by an artist who did a (documentary and artistic) photography project in the year 2005, shows overlaps of personal past memories and up-todate buildings and institutions. The view takes its perspective from the city (north-south) and is framed by the bridges of the River Elbe and the Speicherstadt. New architectural landmarks (Spiegel, HCU [HafenCity University]) are combined with places now disappeared (Bananenschuppen [banana shed], Kaispeicher A). The illustrator himself is inscribed into the map, indicating his activities of site observation (“me with camera 2001-2003”, “good view” and “viewing platform”). Mental map 11, drawn after three visits, is not informed by everyday practices, but by well-defined functional aspects. It reflects mainly the physical structure of the HafenCity. Specific places, such as physical landmarks (Elbphilharmonie, the Cruise Terminal, the Unilever building) as well as social and cultural facilities (the school, the music club Stubnitz, the tourist office) point to a certain specific local knowledge and personal experience of the place. All elements refer to the new urban site; there are no references of the former port area. Taking the form of an urban area plan, mental map 12 assigns a network of urban infrastructures (the urban street system, the subway station), landmarks of orientation (the Elbphilharmonie, the HafenCity University) as well as certain zones of urban functions denoting the presence of specific actors (the office, the playground). The denomination of “Wüste” (desert) and “Nix” (nothing) can be read as descriptions of the current state of still-undefined territories, but also denote non-urban situations.

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Mental map 13

This map locates the HafenCity in the urban context of the city (the train station, the exhibition hall Deichtorhallen). The drawer, an urban scholar, indicates certain institutions (the HafenCity University, the executive office “Präsidium”, the Ecumenical Forum), which point to a deeper everyday knowledge and use of the place, might be as a working place or a place for leisure (e.g. Maritime Museum, Kesselhaus). Again, a huge part is mapped as a construction site, where a question mark indicates a blank space – possibly referring to the absence of a precise urban construction plan, or to a questioning of urban life in the area. The last mental map (14) is from another perspective (east-west), which is explicitly indicated as a distant view from the train as it moves into the HafenCity area. The sketch shows the disconnected coexistence of a denselybuilt modern neighbourhood, and the empty (rural) area of a construction site. In this map, representative elements and landmarks (the Elbphilharmonie, the Unilever building), suggestive of an urban 3D-model, are paired with the perception of a physical terrain of an in-between or yet-to-become space. In the mental maps collected in 2013, the perceptions of the HafenCity seem to have shifted due to new (everyday) experiences of the space (see Ziervogel 2011). The maps are much more detailed and obviously informed through experiences on site. Conditioned through presence, attendances or visits, there is a basic knowledge about the effective physical and structural situation. Beside the physical structures only little urban activity is indicated. There are only very few

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references of uses or memories of the former port area, which might connect to the fact that most people working and living in the area today did not work here in the past. Mental map 14

The recent mental maps reflect, in terms of Kevin Lynch, the cognitive orientation in urban environment. Buildings such as the Elbphilharmonie, even still as construction sites, already work as significant landmarks, which shape orientation. Precise information and location of urban infrastructure and institutions have replaced the symbolic attributes of critical debates in the mental maps of 2002. But still, there are explicitly demarcated blanks or voids referring to the unfinished area. Elements like building cranes indicate information of the present state of the area, but at the same time the drawing shows an ignorance of the prospective development of urban space. These mental maps indicate urban imaginaries of dense and structured area, controlled by significant architecture and institutions. There are references to historic functions, as it is a physically and socially thoroughly transformed urban area.

T O C LOSE

THIS

APPROACH

FOR NOW …

As a method of urban ethnography, the two experiments demonstrate that cognitive mapping can be a useful tool in analysing the perception of urban space. Mental maps can be interpreted as visualisations of urban spaces as lived, experienced, as well as imagined spaces. As an abstraction of spatial situations, they

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reflect urban constellations as an unfolding process: the production of social and discursive spaces on physical grounds. Though cognitive maps appear to be subjective representations of space, repetitive elements and attribution show that the maps show aspects of collective perceptions and cultural imaginations of urbanity. The revitalisation of former port areas and their transformation into luxury offices, residential neighbourhoods and cultural hotspots, through the construction of spectacular architecture, leisure facilities and tourist attractions, seem to work as elements of urban management and investment. The HafenCity at present continues to be an urban space where the physical environment, the architecture and construction sites interact to create certain urban images. The mental maps of the second take demonstrate the ways in which these images are challenged by lived experiences and practices. The re-visit of the HafenCity, working with mental maps about a decade after the first take, showed how imaginaries of urban sites are part of urban processes. I am looking forward to think about a third take in some more years.

R EFERENCES Downs, Roger and David Stea (1977) Maps in Minds. Reflections on Cognitive Mapping. Michigan: Harper and Row. GHS (ed.) (1999) Masterplankonzeption. Broschüre zur Hafen City. Hamburg. HafenCity Hamburg (2015) HafenCity – the genesis of an idea. http://www. hafencity.com/en/overview/hafencity-the-genesis-of-an-idea.html (accessed 30/04/2015). Hubeli, Ernst (2008) Kann man in der HafenCity küssen? In: Schwarz, Ullrich et al. (eds): Architektur in Hamburg: Jahrbuch 2008. Hamburg: Junius Verlag: pp. 154-169. Huffschmid, Anne and Kathrin Wildner (2013) Das Urbane als Forschungsfeld. In: Huffschmid, Anne and Kathrin Wildner (eds.): Stadtforschung aus Lateinamerika. Neue urbane Szenarien: Öffentlichkeit – Territorialität – Imaginarios. Bielefeld: transcript: pp. 9-29. Kokot, Waltraud et al. (eds.) (2008) Port Cities as Areas of Transition. Ethnographic Perspectives. Bielefeld: transcript. Lynch, Kevin (1960) The Image of the City. Cambridge: MIT Press. Menzel, Marcus (2010) Reurbanisierung? Zuzugsmotive und Lokale Bindung der neuen Innenstadtbewohner – das Beispiel der HafenCity Hamburg. Hamburg: HafenCity GmbH.

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Schubert, Dirk (2001) Revitalisierung von (brachgefallenen) Hafen und Uferzonen in Seehäfen – Anlässe, Ziele und Ergebnisse sowie Forschungsansätze und -defizite. In: Schubert, Dirk (ed.): Hafen und Uferzonen im Wandel. Analysen und Planungen zur Revitalisierung der Waterfront in Hafenstädten. Berlin: Leue: pp. 15-36. Silva, Amando (1992) Imaginarios urbanos. Bogotá: Tercer Mundo Editores. — (2013) Imaginarios: Stadt als ästhetische Erfahrung. In: Huffschmid, Anne and Kathrin Wildner (2013) (eds.): Stadtforschung aus Lateinamerika. Neue urbane Szenarien: Öffentlichkeit – Territorialität – Imaginarios. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag: pp. 127-145. Tetrapak (eds.) (2003) ready 2 capture ! hafencity – ein urbaner raum? Berlin: b_books. Wildner, Kathrin (2003) HafenCity mental Maps. Vorgestellte Karten eines zu besetzenden Raums. In: tetrapak (eds): ready 2 capture ! hafencity – ein urbaner raum? Berlin: b_books, pp. 102-108. Wildner, Kathrin and Sergio Tamayo (2004) Möglichkeiten der Kartierung in Kultur- und Sozialwissenschaften. Forschungsausschnitte aus Mexiko Stadt. In: Möntmann, Nina and Yilmaz Dziewior (eds.): Mapping a City – Hamburgkartierung. Hamburg: Cantz: pp 104-117 Ziervogel, Daniela (2011) Mental-Map-Methoden in der Quartiersforschung. Wahrnehmung, kognitive Repräsentation und Verhalten im Raum. In: Frey, Oliver und Florian Koch (eds.): Positionen zur Urbanistik I. Stadtkultur und neue Methoden der Stadtforschung. Wien: Lit Verlag: pp. 187-206.

Towards an Ethnography of Rivers H ENK D RIESSEN

I NTRODUCTION Anthropology is probably the most personal as well as the most empirical discipline among the social sciences. 1 This characteristic is intimately tied to the centrality of fieldwork, not only as a research strategy but also as a way of thinking and sometimes even a way of life. The anthropologist’s “field” is not only a physical, social and cultural space but also increasingly being conceived as a virtual site and a network of connected places where the research is being conducted. Given the open, fluid and changing nature of the ethnographic field, the river is an apt metaphor for the present-day notion of fieldwork in anthropology and related disciplines. And rivers make indeed a fascinating research topic. Most research questions in cultural anthropology emerge from personal experience in and outside the field. This is certainly true for the theme of rivers which, in spite of the huge and very diverse literature in several disciplines, is for ethnographers a relatively new and unorthodox topic. Personally, I have a profound and lasting tie with at least two rivers, i.e. the Meuse and Waal in the Netherlands. The Guadalquivir, Genil and Salado rivers in Andalusia, the River Jordan from which the Hashimite Kingdom takes its name, and Morocco’s Moulouya also have a special meaning for me as being part of my wider ethnographic fieldwork sites. Waltraud Kokot and I share at least four rivers where we walked and talked and exchanged professional and personal experiences. Like so many people, we felt attracted to rivers as sites of relaxation, social and intellectual exchange. At

1

This essay owes much to Jim Scott who generously shared with me his outline and references of his course on “Rivers: Nature and Politics” at Yale University. Special thanks are also due to the editors of this volume for their useful comments.

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that time we probably did not yet think of doing fieldwork on people’s relationships with them. The first river we shared was the Rhine in Cologne. I vividly remember walking the famous Hohenzollern Bridge and the riverbank to the Chocolate Museum. The second is the river Meuse at Maastricht where we walked the old Roman bridge that connects the two main neighbourhoods of the city centre. The third is the Elbe in Hamburg, where we shared moments of pleasure contemplating the river and walking its banks. The fourth is the river Waal at Nijmegen, Europe’s most crowded waterway, connecting the port of Rotterdam with the Ruhrgebiet. We stood together overlooking the flat country on the opposite side of the river from a bluff that was part of one of the summer residences of Charlemagne. Here also stood Roman legionnaires more than two millennia ago, when the Romans founded Nijmegen, looking into the realm of the “Barbarian” tribes. The river Waal was indeed an important limes in the Roman empire. Why should anthropologists be interested in rivers apart from the fact that they are striking elements in the landscape of the wider field for ethnographic research? There are at least four good reasons. First, rivers are often in many regards vital resources in the life of local communities, regions, nation states and empires. Second, people maintain, often enduring, personal and communal relationships with rivers. They are, for instance, important elements in the social and cultural organization of space. Third, they are foci and sites of various kinds of socio-cultural activities. And, finally, they are a rich source of imagination and symbolism that play an important role in world views. In sum, to borrow a famous phrase of anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss regarding food, rivers are good to think with about society and culture. This chapter will briefly explore in a holistic way what we propose to call the social and cultural life of rivers. 2 In doing so, we will use a comparative perspective to point out topics for further anthropological research. This paper then is a brief and preliminary overview as well as research agenda. It will first go into some general remarks on rivers followed by an intermezzo of a personal nature that introduces the liminality of rivers. Then there is a brief section on their gendered nature, followed by a larger section on the transport function of rivers and their role in artistic imaginations. Finally, two sections will briefly deal with the threatening nature of rivers and their role as sites for rites of passage.

2

This phrase has been borrowed with a twist from Appadurai (1986). Also see Miller (2008) and with regard to water Wagner (2013).

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F ROM S EA TO R IVER The idea for this paper came out of a Mediterranean Sea project that was basically a plea for developing a dynamic maritime view on a region that is a transitional zone between the three old continents. These continents are both connected and separated by the Mediterranean Sea (see Driessen 2005, 2008 and 2013). We took a “wet” view on the lands bordering the sea, exploring the impact of the sea upon the societies on its shores as well as what the sea has meant for the people dwelling in the amphibian towns and villages in the often very narrow and ecologically vulnerable coastal strips. More in particular, we gave a detailed description of how the sea connects and separates, nourishes and devours, how the sea and its shores have become the scene of mass tourism and irregular migration, and how it has constituted a rich source and focus of imagination and symbolism in religion, the belles lettres, painting and photography. These different angles on modes of interaction between the wet and dry together constituted an experiment in (near) holism. After finishing the sea project it occurred to me that the different yet interrelated “faces” of the sea – connecting and dividing, devouring and nourishing – could also be used in the anthropological study of rivers and river systems.

L IFE

OF / ON

R IVERS

Following the paradigmatic model of a holistic approach in Marcel Mauss’s Essai sur le don (1925), considered to be his “key work” and “his masterpiece” (Fournier 2006: 241), I suggest that the relationships of human beings with rivers are structured by the interplay of economic, political, moral, religious, spiritual, aesthetic, material and legal features. This interplay makes up the core of the social life of rivers and needs to be unravelled and again reassembled in each ethnographic case study. Why, then, are people around the globe attracted in many different ways to rivers? Rivers are multi-purpose and have been of vital importance (and at times a danger and threat) throughout the history of human societies and continue to do so. They serve as sources of food, water for human consumption, as sources of natural resources such as gold and metal, for washing bodies and clothes, swimming, irrigation of crops, the alluvial accretion of fertile soil devoted to the cultivation of rice, grain and corn, as sites for rites of passage, as arteries for transport, communication, trade and cultural exchange, and as open sewers. Their force has been used as a source of power for water mills and more recently

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for electricity. And they serve as natural borders and barriers between the territories of political entities at all levels of social integration ranging from clans and tribes to empires, nation-states, towns and villages. Given this multi- functional ity, local, state and imperial powers have always had a vital interest in control ling rivers as resources. It is no wonder that the major early civilizations emerged and developed on river banks thanks to the widespread irrigation of its fertile soils. They were the scene of the pre-historic agrarian revolution based on the intensive cultivation of grain, rice and corn. Think of the Fertile Crescent of Mesopotamia (“the land between two rivers”), the Nile Valley, the Indus Valley or East China. The Aztec empire with its capital on an island in the middle of a lake is a well-known example of more recent times. Many important cities have been built and rebuilt on estuaries and lagoons. Just to mention a few: London, New York, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Lagos and Chittagong. Shanghai, the largest city in the People’s Republic of China, sits in the Yangtze River Delta. Recently, a new paleo-hydrological and hydraulic modelling approach tested a fascinating hypothesis that under wetter climates, c. 100.000 years ago, three major river systems, among them the vanished river Irharhar in what has been for millennia Tuareg territory, ran north across the Sahara to the Mediterranean. These ancient rivers, in particular the western one, constituted “humid corridors” for the migration of homo erectus from Central and Eastern Africa to North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean. Support for the assumption of an extraordinary significance of the Irharhar river corridor is provided by a plethora of Middle Stone Age archaeological sites along the trajectory of this river that disappeared underground (Coulthard et.al. 2013). Pre-historic people not only used these river valleys for migrating but also founded settlements along the rivers, a more or less universal pattern well into our times. Control over waterways has always been a source of economic and political power. Given the increasing scarcity, commoditisation and privatisation of freshwater for human consumption, irrigation of farmland and production of electricity, conflicts have recently multiplied among states bordering rivers down and upstream. Examples include the Tigris between Turkey and Iraq, the Nile between Egypt and Ethiopia where the Blue Nile comes into existence and the building of dams by the Ethiopian government triggers anxiety about water shortage downstream in Egypt. Since ancient times Egyptians have seen the Nile as a special gift to them from the gods, simply claiming the Nile as their river. Another politically very complex river is the Yarmouk, the largest of the three tributaries that enter the River Jordan between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. It constitutes a natural frontier between Israel and Jordan, and be-

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tween Jordan and Syria, and has been a bone of contention among the three states since they gained independence. More than sixty percent of Israel’s water depends on sources in the West Bank (Fox 1991: 479). In other words, fresh water is the main reason why Israel continues to control West Bank territories with settlements, checkpoints, roads and roadblocks. The Jordan also is the river frequently mentioned in the Old Testament where John the Baptist conducted his ministry and baptized Jesus Christ and his followers. Later on, we will come back to this almost universal role of rivers as sites for rites of passage. The most basic reason for being a vital force in the lives of communities and societies, apart from functional, material and geo-political ones, may be that rivers have a life of their own with a cycle that is similar to the human cycle. Rivers are born in the mountains, grow bigger and wider and die as they flow into the sea. But they never really die; their life is in fact cyclical in the sense that their water evaporates, creates clouds from which rain falls that refeeds the rivers. This almost eternal cycle is increasingly being threatened by the impact of human activity and exploitation. A shocking example is the Yellow River, the Huang He, in the north of China, one of the most heavily polluted rivers in the world. Its source lies on the Tibetan Plateau, the water tower of Asia, fed by glaciers. The Huang He provides approximately 130 million people with drinking water and ninety percent of its water is used in agriculture along its banks (van Dijk 2010). The cyclical nature of rivers inspired ancient philosophers to use rivers for deep thinking. One famous example is the Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus (c. 540-c. 480) who believed that the world was always in flux (panta rhei, “everything flows”), the core of his philosophy. Heraclitus is probably bestknown for the following aphorism: “No man ever steps in the same river twice” (because neither the river nor the man will ever be the same) (Kahn 1979: 1-23). In many societies, past and present, rivers have been and are still used as a metaphor for change. The notion of time as a stream is equally widespread.

I NTERMEZZO : R IVERS

AS

L IMINAL S PACE

The River Meuse played an important role during my childhood. It was a river that regularly flooded the lower part of the centre of my native town Venlo including the street and basement of the building where I grew up. I remember wading through the water to the house across the street where my best friend was living and we used a bathtub for a boat to play in our flooded Parade Street. Dur-

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ing the winter of 1963, the coldest of last century, we could walk on the frozen River Maas from Venlo to the village of Blerick on the opposite bank. In summer, we used the river for swimming and the aim was to cling to barges and let us pull for a while. I also angled along the river and smoked my first cigarettes there. We spied young couples making love in bushes along the river. One of my early courtship experiences took place along the Meuse outside the town of Roermond where I did part of my secondary school education. To summarize such initiatory experiences and activities: rivers and riverbanks are a kind of liminal space between nature and culture, wilderness and society where extra-ordinary activities may take place and may be tolerated to a certain degree. In the sacred topography of many religions around the globe, shrines are frequently located on river banks stressing their liminality. Just outside Venlo there is a chapel devoted to the Virgin Mary that is still very popular among townspeople of all social classes and ages. In many religions, rivers are in fact favourite dwelling places of goddesses and (female) spirits, or monsters. A nice example of the latter category is the famous Tarasque, a huge amphibious beast along the Rhône River (Gilmore 2003: 162). This enchantment of rivers needs further systematic comparative attention.

N AMING

AND

G ENDER

The classification of space inside and outside community and society is in fact one of the first issues that have to be tackled in anthropological approaches. The personification, naming and gendering of rivers are good starting points. In my native town and dialect, the River Meuse is called Moder (Mother) Maas (or Majjem). I keep a picture of my biological mother as a young woman standing on a jetty in this river. Jetties and river banks were apparently popular and special sites for taking pictures in the Interbellum. Why would this be so? Recently, when I began to read on rivers in a comparative way, it struck me that several streams are conceived as persons and female and for that matter perceived as Mother. Well-known examples are Ganga Ma (Mother Ganges) and Volga Matoesjka (Dear Mother Volga). There are of course exceptions. People dwelling along the Mississippi call their river “Old Man River” and those living along the Rhine in Germany call it “Vater Rhein”. More research has to be done into gendering and naming practices of rivers: why predominantly female and why mother? Maybe there is a simple answer to this question: mothers and rivers are both sources of new life and in several cases a river is the mother of national identity, both focus and vehicle of identification with the national state. But then,

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how to explain cases in which rivers are non-gendered ancestors or are considered to be male? In many different societies ranging from hunters and gatherers to the great agrarian civilizations, striking features in the landscape such as rivers and mountains are frequently invested with spiritual energy and seen as “mythical” ancestors. For instance, Waikato Maori people stress the spiritual, cultural and religious importance of their unique relationship with the Waikato River. This is testified by the following statements: “We lived on the river, lived off the river” and “the river was our life force” (van Meijl 2013: 10). However, the quality of the water has been degraded as a result of hydro-electric power stations up stream. Maori now feel the need to respect the river’s mana and to restore its well-being. In fact, they consider their river as an ancestor, interestingly as a 3 gender neutral ancestor.

W ATERWAY , S OURCE OF F OOD ARTISTIC I NSPIRATION

AND

F OCUS

OF

“My” second river, the Waal River, serves to illustrate other features of the social life of rivers. As a student I was living four semesters with some other students in an old hotel at the river Waal where the ferry connecting the two banks landed at the village of Lent opposite Nijmegen town before the bridge was built. A tawny aged fisherman who lived among his numerous nets in several rooms of this largely abandoned hotel told us that in the old pre-pollution times he would catch hundreds, sometimes even two thousand pounds of eel weekly, enough to make a decent living. For many generations Dutch rivers have served and still serve as a source of fish for both professional and amateur fishermen. Whereas over the past decades amateur fishing continues, professional fishing has increasingly become a marginal economic activity. There was a large balcony in front of our room with a river view where we watched the badges, oil, coal ships and towboats pass by. After a year we knew most of the boats’ names (often female names) by heart on this heavy traffic river stretch between the port of Rotterdam, the nearby industrial Ruhrgebiet and Basel. Inland shipping has always been a major trade and pillar of the transport sector in the Low Countries, both with regard to pre-motorized and modern times (Verrips 1991). Rivers have been and still are important corridors of exchange as well as cultural barriers, for instance dialect boundaries. One of the

3

I would like to thank my colleague Toon van Meijl for discussing this issue with me.

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main cultural, social, political, religious and mental divisions in the Netherlands is the divide “beneden” (to the south) and “boven” (north) of the big rivers (i.e. Rhine and Meuse). This resembles “die Mauer im Kopf” of people who lived in divided Berlin and continue thinking and acting in terms of the past partition. Dutch masters of the Golden Age were deeply inspired by river landscapes. A case in point is Jan van Goyen who painted “View on the Valkhofburcht” (1641) that shows the citadel of Nijmegen, the Waal and the traffic of sailing and rowing boats. One of the best Dutch photographers in black and white, Cas Oorthuijs (1908-1975), was a master in landscape photography. In the late 1940s and early 1950s he shot landscapes in which rivers figure prominently. His photographs breathe an air of nostalgia and times gone by. Some of his best pictures 4 capture the relative emptiness of rivers and riversides. These pictures are almost perfect twins to one the best-known poems of the Netherlands, Hendrik Marsman’s “Remembrance of Holland”: “Thinking of Holland, I see broad rivers slowly moving through endless lowlands, rows of unthinkably thin poplars as high plumes on the horizon; and farm houses sunken in space, scattered throughout the land, groups of trees, villages, truncated towers, churches and elms in one grand frame. The sky hanging low and the sun slowly muffled in grey, multicoloured fog, and in all provinces the voice of the water with its eternal catastrophes is feared and heard.” (My translation, Marsman 1954)

Hendrik Marsman (1899-1940) first published this realistic poem in 1936. He wrote it during a stay at the Mediterranean Sea. In 2000 the people of the Netherlands chose it as the “Dutch Poem of the Century”. It is an icon of Dutchness, of Dutch identity preceding the multi-cultural society of the 1980s and 1990s. It does not come as a surprise that the romanticised rural image of the Netherlands rarely included elements referring to ethnic and cultural minorities. A very recent exception is the river Ijssel in the most recent novel by the prominent Dutch-Iranian writer Kader Abdolah (2014). In this book Syrian and Egyptian immigrants who live along the Ijssel share their worries, preoccupations and secrets with this old river. In doing so, they manage to get their feelings off their chest. The Rhine has played a crucial role in the formation of German identity given its role in myths, folk tales, music and national identity. But as one of the most important European commercial waterways since Roman times, it has simultaneously become a symbol of European identity, a lieu de mémoire. It still

4

See his four volumes on Dutch landscapes.

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channels a major part of the flow of trade among Switzerland, France, Germany and the Netherlands. It is also an exemplar of a “multipurpose” river used for transportation, for industry and agriculture, drinking and sanitation needs, for recreation and the production of electricity (Cioc 2002). It is also an overburdened river flowing through densely populated and highly industrialized regions. And it is one of the most strongly engineered rivers of the world. The “taming of the wild Rhine” with dikes, damming and canalling has been a more or less continuing project since the beginning of the nineteenth century (Blackbourn 2007). The environmental history of the Rhine is a history of control as well as biodiversity lost and a river sacrificed to industrial and commercial expansion. More recently, it is becoming a river partly revived by environmental policies of the countries along its banks. Many rivers have been praised by artists for their special qualities, among them their beauty, capriciousness and power. Mark Twain and William Faulkner wrote literary monuments on and for the Mississippi River that played an important role in American history. Towards the end of the nineteenth century Joseph Conrad navigated the Congo River as the captain of a steamboat and witnessed the devastating impact of colonialism on native life on the river banks to the extent that he quit his job, returned to Europe and never went back to the Congo. The main protagonist of his novel Heart of Darkness is precisely the Congo. The river serves as a metaphor for getting lost in deep psychological darkness as well as a guide to normality. The old Manzanares River, which has recently been restored and revived as a life line and space of recreation of the city of Madrid, has played an important political role in the history of Spain’s capital. This geographically somewhat unimportant, but historically and sociologically important river frequently figures in the paintings and drawing of Francisco Goya. At the beginning of the nineteenth century this Spanish master bought a mansion at the river Manzanares just outside the town. In his work the banks of this river are the stage of picnics and dancing. Exactly such joyful activities are again taking place on its banks which recently have been transformed into urban beaches, parks and recreational sites.

T HREATENING R IVERS River delta cities and towns on river banks have throughout their urban history been forced to deal with serious floods. At the beginning of 1994 the Waal River in the Nijmegen area seriously flooded and caused the massive evacuation of people, domestic and farm animals. I remember drinking coffee on the first floor

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of a café on the quay of the Waal while the café’s lower floor was flooded by the dark water of the river. This flood forced local and state authorities to launch the construction of higher dams along the river both inside and outside town and other large-scale infrastructural works on the other side of the river, such as the creation of a huge overflow area for which several houses had to be demolished, roads relocated, and crossovers constructed. These works are still in progress. In late August 2005 Hurricane Katrina caused a rising tide in the Mississippi Delta. The levee system in New Orleans catastrophically failed and the “Old Man River” flooded approximately eighty percent of the city where most of the approximately 2.000 lives were lost (Hartman/Squires 2006). The American Television series “Treme” deals with the aftermath of the impact of the greatest Mississippi flood since 1927 in a predominantly black neighbourhood. ”Treme” gives a realistic depiction of how people who returned after the flood struggled to resume their daily lives and recreate a community on the remains of pre-flood public life. It also shows the ambiguous relationships with the “Old Man River” of the inhabitants who returned after the flood. The fluid landscape of Bengal is almost annually swept by floods, tidal waves and hurricanes during the monsoon season. In a very recent study, two scholars give a fascinating account of the struggle for livelihood on the chars, the part-land, part-water, low-lying sand masses that exist on the river banks of South Asia (Lahiri-Dutt and Samanta 2013). In this hybrid landscape physical processes and social relations work together in the production and persistence of a vulnerable way of life for thousands of people. Here and in other cases, the nourishing quality of rivers and their banks turn out to prevail over the periodic 5 danger of flooding.

R IVERS

AND

R ITES

Given the fluid and cyclical nature of rivers, it is not surprising that rivers around the world are not only considered sacred but are also places for the performance of rites of passage. In the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, the Awa and Sambia use nose bleeding among other ordeals for the initiation of boys into manhood and girls into womanhood. The site for such bleeding rites, in which sticks are pushed into the nostrils of the nose in order to extract blood, is a not very deep river in which the young people to be initiated as well as the ritual specialists are

5

There is a growing anthropological and geographical literature on catastrophes involving rivers and global warming.

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standing (Herdt 1982). Above, I already alluded to the paradigmatic case of baptism in the river Jordan. Hindus believe in the sacredness of rivers, the most important of which is, of course, the Ganges which plays a central role in cosmogony, pilgrimage and mortuary rites. The north Indian city of Banares is one of the places to die, dispose of the physical remains of the deceased and perform the rites. The city attracts pilgrims from all over the Hindu world. Certain families of pilgrimagepriests claim the title of *DQJƗ-putra, son of the Ganges. Jonathan Parry (1994) has provided us, in the best tradition of British fieldwork-based social anthropology, with an ethnographically rich and detailed book on how Hindus deal with death as a regeneration of life. The famous ghats of Banares are segments of river frontage, mostly a series of stone terraces and stairs running down into the sacred water of the Ganges. The city’s most important bathing ghat is Manikarnika, the focus of a wide variety of ritual activities. Ashes of the cremated corpses can be taken out into the river by boat from anywhere along the ghats. Certain categories of corpses are not cremated, but sunk into the river, for instance very young children and ascetics (Parry 1994: 13, 24, 184-185). Sacred rivers also play a focal role in other Hindu ritual events. The largest and most sacred of all pilgrimages is Kumbh Mela. The core event of this massive festival is ritual bathing at the banks of the river in whatever town the festival is being held, for instance in Allahabad, the confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati (Maclean 2008). In the region of Braj, Utter Pradesh northern India, the land of Krishna, the Yamuna River is seen as a female deity, the river of divine love that has the ability to ward off the sufferings of death (Haberman 2006). But what happens to the river’s divinity when its waters are visibly loaded with sewage from Delhi and other towns? In the Braj region the river is also the object of environmental activism against pollution. But why are the fishermen whose livelihoods depend on the water quality of the Yamuna not part of environmental movements to protect the river? These and other questions connected to human-induced environmental problems are becoming more and more acute regarding many rivers around the globe as well as the focus of increased scholarly attention, NGO activity and political concern.

C ONCLUSION Water is deeply ambivalent, both a source of life and life threatening. Rivers are certainly not an exception to this general observation. In this brief contribution I

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have explored the value of an ethnographic approach to rivers. Following a holistic perspective inspired by the seminal work of Marcel Mauss on the gift, we have pointed out at least four basic reasons why rivers are good to think with for ethnographers and other scholars. They are often in many different ways vital forces in the life of local communities, regions, nation states and empires. People who live along the rivers maintain enduring, personal and communal relationships with rivers, for instance, as important entities in the social and cultural organization of space. They are also important sites and foci of various kinds of social and cultural activities. And, they are a rich source of imagination and symbolism both in the secular and religious domains. These four interconnected reasons as well as the many different topics emerging from them all deserve a place on the anthropological research agenda. In view of the tragedy of the “commons” to which river systems belong and in view of the effects of global warming, systematic anthropological attention to the social and cultural life of rivers has become urgent. The “commons” problem indicates the limited ability of national governments and bureaucratic and political committees of the European Union to effectively tackle this many-headed problem. The strength of an ethnography of rivers rests both in fieldwork (research on the ground, river banks included) and anthropology’s strong history of grounded theory building, holistic and comparative perspectives that connect nicely with interdisciplinary approaches.

R EFERENCES Abdolah, Kader (2014) Papegaai vloog over de Ijssel. Amsterdam: Prometheus. Appadurai, Arjun (ed.) (1986) The social life of things. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Blackbourn, David (2007) The conquest of nature: Water, landscape and the making of modern Germany. New York: Norton. Cioc, Mark (2002) The Rhine. An eco-biography. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Coulthard, Tom et.al. (2013) Were rivers flowing across the Sahara during the last interglacial? Implications for human migration through Africa. PLOS ONE 8 (9): e74834, doi: 10.1371. Dijk, Bert van (2010) Langs de Gele Rivier. Watercrisis in China. Amsterdam: Business Contact. Driessen, Henk (2005) Mediterranean port cities: Cosmopolitanism reconsidered. History and Anthropology 16 (1): pp. 129-141.

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— (2008) Tussen oude continenten. De vele gezichten van de Middellandse Zee. Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek. — (2013) Beyond “Mediterraneanism”. A view from cultural anthropology. New Geographies (Harvard University Press), 5: pp. 145-152. Fournier, Marcel (2006) Marcel Mauss. A biography. Princeton, N.J. Princeton University Press. Fox, Robin (1991) The inner sea. The Mediterranean and its people. London: Sinclair-Stevenson. Gilmore, David. D. (2003) Monsters. Evil beings, mythical beasts, and all manner of imaginary terrors. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Haberman, David (2006) River of love in an age of pollution: The Yamuna river of Northern India. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hartman, Chester and Gregory Squires (eds.) (2006) There is no such thing as a natural disaster. Race, class, and hurricane Katrina. New York: Routledge. Herdt, Gilbert H. (1982) (ed.) Rituals of manhood. Male initiation in Papua New Guinea. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kahn, Charles (1979) The art and thought of Heraclitus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lahiri-Dutt, Kuntala, Gopa Samanta (2013) Dancing with the river. People and life on the chars of South Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press. Maclean, Kama (2008) Pilgrimage and power. New York: Oxford University Press. Marsman, Hendrik (1954) Verzamelde gedichten. Amsterdam: Querido. Mauss, Marcel (1925) Essai sur le don: Forme et raison de l’échange dans les sociétiés archaïques, Année Sociologique 1. Meijl, Toon van (2013) The Waikato River: Properties of a living Maori ancestor. Unpublished paper. Miller, Daniel (2008) The comfort of things. Oxford: Polity Press. Parry, Jonathan (1994) Death in Banares. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Speerstra, Hylke and Cas Oorthuijs (2008) Schoonheid van ons land (vol. 2 water). Amsterdam: Contact. Verrips, Jojada (1991) Als het tij verloopt. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis. Wagner, John R. (2013) (ed.) The social life of water. Oxford: Berghahn.

Hands, Skills, Materiality Towards an Anthropology of Crafts C LEMENS G REINER AND M ICHAEL P RÖPPER

I NTRODUCTION “In the beginning there was Heaven and the Earth, all the rest was done by us”. This was the core message of a nationwide advertisement campaign promoting German crafts 1 (“Das Handwerk”) from 2009-2011. Advertisements on TV and large billboards depicted a life without crafts as a return to the Stone Age. 2 The brief history of crafts, readers were informed in big letters, went like this: “Invented wheel, built pyramids, explored Mars, repaired the drain”. These messages showed and constructed public self-confidence in a branch of the economy and in a group of professions. This group is rather diverse, and, though it may seem to be dominated by the so-called “utilitarian crafts” or trades, like plumbing, masonry or carpentry (Klamer 2012) it actually reaches far beyond the traded professional production of shoes, chairs and haircuts. Crafts, selfdescribing as “the economic power of next door”, demonstrated their imaginative, economic and societal importance. The advertisement constructed an identity, a feeling of unity, for a disparate group of professions, and referred to a

1

A note on terminology: Our usage of the term craft(s) is very broad and refers to all kinds of skilled manual work. We explicitly include the “utilitarian” professions and skills here, which are rather addressed as “trade” in English. Salient aspects of this terminological conflation are discussed below in section “What is craft(s)? Towards terminological clarity”.

2

German crafts are organized under a central association, the “Zentralverband des deutschen Handwerks”. Germany registers about 150 different trades.

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religious metaphor of creation to inflate their significance in the forming and forging of our environment. This provocative self-advertisement of a professional group raises relevant questions about the identity, the limits and the dimensions of a research field – crafts – which over time became marginalized in a knowledge economy that “sanctified intellectual intelligence and looked down on manual skills” (Klamer 2012: 1). Contemporary crafts are in fact far from marginalization; they are rather a global praxis, an “empire” (Greenhalgh 1997: 21). Crafts constitute an economic sector of enormous diversity in which myriad goods of local cultural impact are made by hand (Klamer 2012). All over the world people use imagination and skills to produce things with their hands, and there are different levels of organization in this consortium. The World Crafts Council (World Crafts Council AISBL, no date), a non-governmental non-profit organization founded in 1964, aims to “strengthen the status of crafts as a vital part of cultural and economic life, to promote fellowship among the craftspersons of the world, to offer them encouragement, help, advice and foster economic development through income generating activities”. This organization claims to unite national entities, NGOs and individuals from the crafts sector across the globe. However, since many crafts/wo/men in the developing world are not formally organized, they are not yet represented by this body, which also does not provide any figures on people working in the global craft sector (Klamer 2012). Yet international trade fairs in the style of travelling culture shows (Cheongju International Craft Biennale 2015, Europamarkt Aachen 2015) indicate that this segment of the global economy as a whole also seems to “globalize”. Due to the massive diversity of trades and the differing degrees of specialization and formality, the formal organization and the provision of statistical data on the crafts sector is a matter variously involving national governments, continental networks (World Crafts Council Europe 2014), and single trades. The levels of organization and institutional frameworks are equally diverse: There is, for example, a National British Crafts Magazine (Crafts Council 2014); an International Union of Confectioners, Pastrycooks and Ice Cream Makers (UIPCG 2013); and a Coffin Makers Association in Accra, Ghana (GBC Ghana 2014). Despite its diversity and global significance, the field of crafts has always led a shadowy existence in social and cultural anthropology. To our knowledge there is no conceptual overview sketching the contours of an anthropological investigation into crafts and into the dimensions of the manual production of things. This is all the more amazing, given that Epstein (1967) labelled the practice of social anthropology as a craft, and Coy (1989b) pointed to the similarities

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between participant observation – anthropology’s central method – and apprenticeship training in crafts. After all, ethnographic fieldwork and apprenticeship processes in crafts are classical examples of rites de passage (Lave 2011). It therefore seems appropriate to reflect upon the cultural dimensions of crafts from an anthropological perspective and sketch out possible fields of engagement. With this review, we intend to start this task by clarifying the subject and highlighting some potential areas of interest. Since crafts are simultaneously both global and local, it seems natural for anthropologists to assess and document the culturality of crafts/wo/manship across the globe in all their identities, productivities and diversities – and in fact there already exists an array of studies, which we will present in more detail below. However, these fragments are like pieces of a yet incomplete mosaic map of the world, and at present an anthropology of crafts that casts a holistic look at the living cultures of crafts/wo/manship is still lacking. There is no systematic, integrative overview. Facets of crafts/wo/manship are addressed in some renowned sub-disciplines of cultural and social anthropology; particularly in material culture and educational anthropology, but also in anthropologies of the body and of labor. Yet, the subject of crafts/wo/manship is amazingly absent in many others. Still today, the study of crafts plays no role in standard economic anthropology (Clammer 1978, Hann and Hart 2011, Lang 2010, Narotzky 1997, Plattner 1989, Rössler 1999, Wilk 1996), in the anthropology of art (Gell 1998, Marcus and Myers 1995, Morphy and Perkins 2006), or the – already marginalized – anthropology of technology (Pfaffenberger 1988, Schiffer 2001a, 2001b, Suchman 2001), to name just a few. Crafts artifacts, however, do and did play a role in the classic material culture studies of ethnological/anthropological museums/collections (Feest 2003), where tools and ergology have long been the center of attention. It seems that what is missing, as a first step, is an attempt to conceptualize and locate the subject. Where and what are the borders, differences and overlaps and what are the connections between these and other related fields? We will attempt to sketch an idea of this in the first sections of the paper. Certainly the cultural aspects of produced materiality are a core area of anthropology (Appadurai 1986, van Binsbergen and Geschiere 2005). However, we should not situate an anthropology of crafts in the productive domain alone. There is much more to it than merely answering the question of delimitation between certain subfields all of which deal with some sort of inventive production of objects involving the hands. It is not only about the craft objects, as carriers of utility, beauty and meaning, but also about the makers and their relationship with a material, temporal and spatially changing environment. There are a number of

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bodily, cognitive, social and creative processes that take place in the processes of craft production, which may be distinctive for this type of making: Richard Sennett (2009) idealizes crafts as a remedy against the exploitation logic of destructive capitalist production. Tim Ingold (2000) has been a longstanding advocate of overcoming simple dichotomies of art and technology, for instance, and of working towards an anthropology of skill, and Peter Dormer (1997b) has called for an approach to crafts as a practical philosophy. To reflect such calls and to outline the contours of a future research field is thus another subject that we will tackle in the latter part of this article. To do so we must start by defining the subject and creating terminological clarity. We will do so here with a focus on English, French and German terminological subtleties only. In the next step, we will locate our subject in the field of anthropology and focus on boundaries and overlaps between crafts and the domains of technology, art, industry, and material culture. What are the connections between head and hand, thinking and grasping/comprehending, knowing and making? What type of knowledge is involved and shaped? What are the connections between concepts of humanity, materiality (Miller 2005) and quality? This will be followed by a review of a selection of ethnographic case studies in which we will focus on the empirically rather well-documented subject of apprenticeship and learning. In the final part of the article we will pull these threads together and outline the possible dimensions of a holistic anthropology of crafts.

W HAT IS C RAFT ( S )? T OWARDS T ERMINOLOGICAL C LARITY What do we mean when we speak of crafts? Are there differences between crafts/wo/men, artisans and Handwerkern? What is the difference between crafts and the sector that is known as arts & crafts, or Kunsthandwerk? What are the roots of the words we use today? When we are talking about skilled manual work across English, German and French language boundaries, we face a large array of different understandings, of terminological and etymological difficulties that not only point to the cultural differences and complexity of the subject but also highlight the difficulties involved in defining its boundaries. As Greenhalgh has noted, “Craft has changed its meaning fundamentally at least three times in the last two centuries, and it means fundamentally different things from nation to nation even in the Western world” (Victoria and Albert Museum 2013). McFadden remarks, “Craft, art, and design are words heavily laden with cultural baggage” (ibid.). In contemporary usage, craft has broad meanings including

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trade, skill, artisanry, ability, dexterity, and guild. The Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary describes a craft as an “occupation, esp. one in which skill in the use of the hands is needed” (OALD 1987: 200). The internet platform Wikipedia offers the following definition: “A craft is a pastime or a profession that requires some particular kind of skilled work. In a historical sense, particularly as pertinent to the Middle Ages and earlier, the term is usually applied to people occupied in small-scale production of goods. The traditional terms craftsman and craftswoman are nowadays often replaced by artisan and rarely by craftsperson (craftspeople).” (Wikipedia 2013a)

While the German system uses the term Handwerk to subsume singular trades doing their work with the hands, in France the corresponding noun used is artisanat stemming from the Latin ars. The general English term used for professionally practised skilled manual work is trade, but art is also used, often as a synonym of the term craft – which, as a field, is also referred to as “arts & crafts” and relates to the German term Kraft. There is a closeness in relation to the meaning of these terms (Shiner 2001) which will be mirrored in our discussion of phenomena like art, technology, industry, and craft in the next paragraph. But to stick with the linguistic problems first: While the Latin ars is the root of the modern terms art, artisanry etc., ars originally had a broader meaning including science, skill, virtuosity, craftsmanship, and trade, as well as artifice (Pons 2013). The same is true of the term Kraft, which has broad meanings such as power, physical strength, but might also include art, and artifice (Kluge 1999: 481, Online Etymology Dictionary 2013a). The Greek term techne, the root of technology, is often translated as crafts/wo/manship, craft, skill, ability or art (Wikipedia 2013b). The Oxford Dictionary defines technology as “an application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes” (Oxford Dictionaries 2014). It must be noted that in the original sense neither ars nor techne made the modern distinction between fine art and technology; rather it has been argued that “the ancient Greeks and Romans had no category of fine art” and that art in the sense of fine art is an invention of modernity (Shiner 2001: 20). Addressing the arts/craft divide, Risatti (2007) convincingly argues that the category of fine arts has undergone an intellectualization that the field of crafts has not. The result, which will have to be further debated, is a distinction between art and craft that marginalizes craft objects as all those human-created artifacts “that are not art” (Risatti 2007: 13). However, still focusing on the various terms for skilled manual work in contemporary language, we also have to see that there is, largely in Western societies, a further sector denoted as “arts

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and crafts” that somehow distinguishes from the domain of “fine art” as well as from trades such as carpentry, masonry, or plumbing, which have a definite utilitarian application in the modern world. While there are no more “modern”, more efficient, or automated substitutes for most trades, arts & crafts producers usually choose to produce items by hand even though there may be (and often are) industrially produced substitutes. Often they may do so as a pastime and because of aesthetic considerations, but sometimes also as highly skilled professionals who produce upscale quality (take, for example, a cutler or an instrument maker, e.g. a luthier). The term “arts & crafts” was forged in England as a reaction to the dehu manizing industrialization of the early nineteenth century, which caused the demise of many a trade. It turned into a movement that was destined to revive decorative arts and handicrafts by focusing on a joyful production of beautiful, handsome objects for everyday use (Cumming and Kaplan 1991, Greenhalgh 1997, SAC 2013). This movement has influenced similar movements and associations of designers and artisans today. However, as Greenhalgh demonstrates, in the contemporary uses of arts & crafts the decorative element is emphasized, and the production does not have to be entirely manual. Contemporary arts & crafts sectors usually involve their own media products (Craft&Design 2013) and a service industry providing materials for professionals and amateurs to create things often using pre-industrial technologies, e.g. as a hobby (Greenhalgh 1997, Magiciens de la terre 2014). Such a notion fosters the image of the crafts/ wo/man as “eco-friendly small businessman” (sic) making objects largely for decorative reasons and only secondarily for utilization, often as gifts (Hickey 1997). Interestingly, this sector is called Kunsthandwerk in German – simply conflating the domain of art (Kunst) with that of Handwerk, and thus appears similar in form to the English “arts & crafts”. The meanings of the German term Handwerk and English terms craft and trade differ, however, since the latter have somewhat different associations. Generally, a trade, like those practised by plumbers, electricians or car mechanics, is rarely perceived as art, because it is rooted deeply in utilitarian principles, whereas examples of a particular “craft” (in the sense of arts & crafts) may be elevated to the status of art through public recognition. A closer elaboration of the dynamics behind such shifts in status and perception is beyond the scope of this contribution. Suffice it to say here that the line between trade and craft is rather blurred, and largely dependent on (cultural) context. Ghanaian fantasy coffins provide a good example. While these coffins are locally considered as functional craft, and their producers are not regarded as artists (Griffiths 2000), some examples appear in Western museums as highly valuable

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works of art (Magiciens de la terre 2014). How people who perform a trade or a craft consider their own activities in the wide realm between pure fine art and utilitarian crafts/wo/manship is itself an empirical question. A second core meaning of craft is closely connected to trade. Etymologically, trade meant “path, track, course of action” and developed into a sense of “one’s habitual business” developed from the notion of “way, course, manner of life” (Online Etymology Dictionary 2013b). In this sense (distinct from its use referring to the exchange of goods) trade corresponds to an extent to the German expression “das Handwerk”, the superordinate term for profession (the German Gewerbe), but more so to the term for single trade (Gewerk), denoting the single specialized types of habitual business involving special training, e.g. carpentry, plumbing, or blacksmithing. The London-based Victoria and Albert Museum of Art and Design asked prominent figures in the craft world what the term “craft” meant to them. Some of the key points their answers raised can function as elements of a prototypic working definition applicable to anthropology, which will be further sharpened in the coming sections. In a nutshell, we take craft here as a cover term for intellectual and physical activities (practices, propositions and positions [Green halgh 2003]) in a consortium of genres where one or more individual makers (involving manual labor, skill, imagination, creativity, and theoretical and tacit knowledge) explore multiple materials and possibilities to produce/ maintain/optimize objects/artifacts. For our purposes, this also includes those utilitarian manual skills referred to in English as trades.

L OCATING AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF C RAFTS : I NDUSTRY , T ECHNOLOGY , M ATERIAL C ULTURE , ARTS AND B EYOND According to common-sense notions, the field of crafts seems to be somewhat distinguishable from those of industry, technology, and art, but a closer look at the boundaries between these fields reveals them to be amorphous and somewhat permeable. To illustrate this, we suggest placing crafts on a map (figure 1), situating it on a meso-level between industry, technology, art, and material culture. In what follows, we briefly sketch the fuzzy cultural and historical boundaries between crafts and these other fields, some of which have already been touched upon in our attempts to shed light on terminological issues. We start with the relationship between crafts and industry, then go on to examine its links with technology, art, and finally material culture before briefly touching upon further important domains of crafts at the end of this section.

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Figure 1: A location of crafts among related subjects

Industrial mass production has replaced crafts in many markets. As Parry has outlined, this has created a new understanding of the concepts of time and labour. While labor in the preindustrial world followed more or less the rhythm of nature, this was replaced in the industrial world by abstract measurements of time, a new labor ethics and a relocation and migration of predominantly male labor to the factory hall – with impacts on households’ subsistence, consumption patterns and structure, and labor division (Parry 2005). The anthropology of industry has broadly dealt with such effects in the Western- and the non-Western world (Holzberg and Giovannini 1981, Mollona, De Neve and Parry 2009), as well as such issues as the consequences of (de-)industrialization (famous examples are the studies on the Zambian Copperbelt, see e.g. Gluckman 1961 for the industrialization process and Ferguson 1999 for the de-industrialization period); workers’ resistance (Ong 1987), and shop-floor organization (Burawoy 1979), to name just a few prominent examples. Adam Smith (2001 [1776]) described the progressive division of labor that characterized the early developments of industrial organization in his famous example of the production of pins, in which labor was divided into 18 individual sequences, to speed up production dramatically. Karl Marx analyzed such processes as “Zergliederung der handwerksmäßigen Tätigkeit” (dissection of crafts-like operations) (2002 [1872]: 350), and as one of the variables contributing to the alienation of the worker from the product of his work. Hence, crafts are not about industrial or manufactured mass production of the same object or parts of it, but rather an individual or small-series production of items. Since the 1980s, however, some industries, particularly the automobile industry, have started replacing the Fordist production system with lean management methods. In this process, mass production is increasingly replaced by just-in-time and other highly customized

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production systems, and repetitive labor processes are becoming increasingly automated. Workers in these industries determine operations and sequences in the production process more individually. A distinction between craft and industry, therefore, is increasingly difficult to sustain, all the more so as craftspeople today often use industrially-produced semi-finished materials, further processing these products into crafts objects. Highly dynamic regional clusters of flexible specialized medium- to small-scale craft-industries have since the 1980s transformed whole areas (Storper 1997). A paradigmatic example is the so-called Third Italy, i.e. particularly Tuscany, Umbria, Emilia-Romagna, and Venetia, where vertically integrated clusters of small enterprises specialized in design, engineering, craft, and manufacturing have successfully competed in the world market for shoes, clothes, furniture, and design articles (Bathelt 1998, Rabellotti 1998). Such developments suggest that the dichotomy between crafts and industry might largely result from rather nostalgic perceptions and idealizations. Nevertheless, such idealizations continue to proliferate in the popular media as well as in academia: “Craft has never been more important than now, as an antidote to mass production and as a practice in which the very time it takes to produce an object becomes part of its value in a world that often moves too fast” (Victoria and Albert Museum 2013), claims Caroline Roux, editor of the British Crafts magazine. Richard Sennett’s above cited The Craftsman (2009) is a case in point for what could be called the academic idealization of crafts. Another aspect we want to emphasize is the relationship between craft and technology. In his plea for an anthropology of technology Pfaffenberger argues that modern technology has often been perceived as dehumanized, disembodied and autonomous, or else as a powerful agent determining the patterns of social life, and that the anthropology of technology has often ignored the social relationships in which technology is rooted (1988). In considering the relationship between craft and technology, therefore, it is mandatory to focus on its embeddedness in social life, and to integrate the individual producers’ perspectives (Keller 2001). As Dormer argues, technology “is rooted in craft but is different from craft as ‘craft is something one can do for oneself’” (Dormer 1997a: 102). He notes that modern technology, through machinery, systems of production and information, has taken away some of the immediacy and autonomy of the individual craft production, and that technology caused a “redistribution of skills and power” (ibid). Using technology – meaning the assistance of engineers, programmers, and in part also designers – in this view thus transforms and disempowers the crafts process; though certainly many craftspeople and increasing-

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ly laypeople worldwide rely to some degree on new technologies. 3 Nevertheless, it remains debatable as to where the unique contribution of “aesthetic and emotional charge” (ibid.) that separates crafts, and, as we have outlined in figure 1, to an even greater degree arts, from pure technological problem-solving begins or ends. Conversely, one could of course debate at what point the mimicking abilities of the computer might begin to be called craft. There is a rather long tradition of an anthropology of art (Morphy and Perkins 2006). The main distinction between (fine) art and crafts would perhaps go in the direction implied by Frayling’s provocative summation: “The American Customs & Excise definition of ‘a work of art’ is that the owner must be able to prove it is completely useless. Craft work is something else, though it can produce objects for contemplation as well as objects for use” (Victoria and Albert Museum 2013). Understanding “useless” as having no practical everyday utility, but rather aesthetic, inspirational and thus even spiritual or emotional properties – or as Morphy and Perkins (2006) put it, as being intended for representational and presentational purposes – one could attempt to roughly distinguish the art piece from a crafts product. However, especially when applying an anthropological perspective, the drawing of such boundaries will remain fuzzy, as this separation may reflect a Eurocentric bias (see as well Greenhalgh 2003). Morphy and Perkins have outlined that anthropologists should critically question dominant Western conceptions of art (e.g. the emphasis on the autonomy of aesthetic experience, the connoisseurship of elites, the utilization and capitalization of objects as symbolic capital, or the emphasis on cultural renewal using terms like innovation, avant-garde, or rebellion). In a similar, albeit somewhat weaker form, this is true for an anthropology of crafts. Cross-cultural analysis requires that such a study must not stay with the focus on cultural conceptions of art/crafts for object production in traditional small-scale societies, but must also integrate emerging practices in other “modernized” and “globalized” systems and their materials (compare Morphy & Perkins 2006: 132). Adamson has critically discussed crafts from the perspective of art theory (Adamson 2007). He sees key aspects of the (Western) craft world as remaining stuck in notions of the studio (also the workshop) as the romanticized atmospheric workplace of a traded action that is primarily preoccupied with the creation of objects. In opposition, he argues, art has departed from these notions,

3

For example, people increasingly use so-called FabLabs (fabrication laboratories) which provide public access to technologies like 3D-printers, CNC machines, and laser-cutters and allow the production of an almost unlimited array of artifacts from all sorts of materials.

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which have an air of “crabby conservatism” (ibid.: 168), by circling around the terms site, practice, and works. That means art includes all sorts of non-material items, practices and ideas, such as performances or video, and dissolves the idea of the studio/workshop as the sole site of production, opening instead towards all sorts of public sites. Finally, we briefly turn to another, though similarly fuzzy, distinction: The relationship between anthropological work on material culture and the domain of an anthropology of crafts. For a long time anthropology had a strong focus on artifacts and objects and hence on the material products of human cultures such as tools, traps, weapons, clothing; in short, the “material work of man” (Feest 2003). In recent decades, the involvement of objects in social relations has been emphasized (Appadurai 1986, Miller 2005, van Binsbergen and Geschiere 2005). Things have been interpreted as having agencies of their own which are influential for the relations of actors and objects in complex networks (Latour 2005). They have been investigated as carriers of individuality and identity, and as having biographies that distance them from the context of production and involve them in a field of active social relations, e.g. around power and social stratification (Bourdieu 1984). Beck’s ethnographic studies of the skillful technological modification and creative redesigning of Bedford trucks in Sudan provides a telling example of the attention that may be paid to things, their materiality, and their social appropriation (for example in Beck 2009). Furthermore, the role of things in market exchange, as convertible to money – often regarded as commodification – has been investigated as part of a renewed interest in material culture (Comaroff and Comaroff 2005, van Binsbergen and Geschiere 2005). A clear emphasis on materials and the items that are produced in crafts as part of complex social and spatial webs of exchange are an integral part of an anthropological thinking on crafts. To sum up, an anthropology of crafts has rather fuzzy boundaries with the domains of industry, technology, arts, and material culture. All of these relations point to permeable linkages characterized by high degrees of mutual dependency. Instead of insisting on a distinct character that identifies or defines crafts, we therefore suggest an emphasis on the dynamic character of this domain and on its multiple overlaps with other areas of interest. The question of what crafts actually are, then, becomes an empirical and circumstantial one, rather than an attempt to identify a clearly definable category. The relationships between craft and the domains of art, technology, material culture, and industry which we have outlined so far, by no means provide a comprehensive outline of a holistic approach to an anthropology of crafts. We now turn to the fields of

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embodiment, phenomenology, and the anthropology of work and education, which we illustrate with the help of exemplary case studies in the next section.

S KILL T RANSFER , L EARNING , E XEMPLARY C ASE S TUDIES

AND

E MBODIMENT :

Before we conclude with an outlook on the possible dimensions of an anthropology of crafts, we review some ethnographic case studies that highlight dimensions of crafts that we have not explored in the above section; namely the fields of learning, apprenticeship and skill transfers, all of which are closely related to the domains of phenomenology and embodiment-studies, as well as to studies on the anthropology of work and the anthropology of education. In Europe during the Middle Ages, the division of labor within crafts was formalized in trades and guilds. Often concentrated in towns and cities, trades evolved their own systems of identity, rules of access, proper forms of dress and conduct, ways of exchanging goods, and, especially, their own educational systems to form the required skills (Epstein 1998). In pre-industrial Europe, the guilds clearly regulated the progression from apprenticeship towards mastership, and in most trades connected it with a phase of ritual journeying, during which the journeyman would learn new skills in faraway places. This journey, which was an inherent part of the crafts-system that emerged in the Middle Ages and was in place until the beginning of industrialization, regained popularity during the 1980s, and particularly in the construction trade, young men and women volunteer to go on such a ritual journey (Greiner 2002). While organized trades providing highly sophisticated training dominates in some countries today (Klamer 2012), some sort of informal apprenticeship, often based on learning by observing and imitating as well as receiving theoretical advice from a senior is probably a characteristic of becoming a crafts/wo/man all over the world (Minar and Crown 2001, Nübler et al. 2009). The process of learning a craft offers many entry points for anthropological engagement. The time-consuming methods of cognitive as well as tacit skill transfer from master to apprentice not only involve teaching and learning, but also, and to an even greater extent, processes of socialization and social control (Graves 1989). Like researchers in industrial anthropology (Burawoy 1979, Roy 1979 [1960]), anthropologists working on crafts have often spent long hours toiling in workshops and on construction sites to understand labor relations in general (Prentice 2008) and the dynamics of apprenticeship in particular (see contributions in Coy 1989a). Their work reveals a mixed bag of perspectives

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regarding the above-mentioned dimensions of the apprenticeship process. Jean Lave (2011) did an apprenticeship among the Vai and Gola tailors in Liberia, where she observed that traditional apprenticeship training primarily enhanced the general problem-solving skills of the apprentices. Anna Portisch, who lived and worked for one year among Kazakh carpet producers in Mongolia, notes, “By learning the craft myself, I was gradually able to engage other women in more meaningful conversations and exchanges by virtue of sharing a set of abilities and activities with them” (Portisch 2010: 65). She emphasizes similar aspects of the training process to those pointed out by Lave, particularly the linkage between practice and reflection. In contrast to these observations, Nicolas Argenti (2002), who did research among Oku woodcarvers in Cameroon, notes that the master-apprentice relationship serves to codify patronclient relations rather than to enhance the transfer of technological skills. Nonapprenticed carvers, Argenti holds, are as skilled as their apprenticed peers. It is the context of power relations, rather than their repertoire of skills and designs, that distinguishes the two groups. Ritual ordeal, degradation and mortification are inherent components of the status rite of passage, which is at the heart of many apprenticeship arrangements, as Haas (1989) notes with respect to such disparate learning environments as American high-steel ironworkers and medical students. Edward Simpson, who did fieldwork among shipbuilders in Gujarat, western India, was “struck by the parallels between anthropological fieldwork and apprenticeship“ (Simpson 2006: 51). Apprentices in the Gujarati shipyards spend years in ship construction before they eventually become sailors on these very ships they build, at which stage a new cycle of learning begins for them. Simpson’s ethnographic observations point to the disciplinary nature of apprenticeship, which not only forms minds and bodies, but also shapes “dispositions towards tradition, religion, and politics” (ibid.: 153). In describing apprenticeship as a collective social activity that reproduces and at the same time reflects the contradictions of society, Simpson attempts to understand how apprentices perceive the process of learning. To do so, he refers to the work of Trevor Marchand (2001), who has apprenticed with Yemeni bricklayers and minaret builders, and compared craft apprenticeship with the structured paths of religious learning. Marchand, who worked with Malian mud masons (Marchand 2009) and carpentry trainees in London, observes that the sites of apprenticeship and technical learning always serve as arenas for “competing masculinities and femininities, and a forum for assertions of ethnicity and race, as well as social class” (Marchand 2010: 9). Embodied knowledge is therefore more than merely practice and skilled performance, he holds, calling for an “analytic framework that

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accounts for the complex relations of interdependence between minds, bodies, and environment” (ibid.: 18). Sure enough, such calls point to the vast anthropological literature at the intersection between phenomenology, practice theory, and embodiment (Bourdieu 1977, Csordas 1994, Mauss 1989 [1934]). Crafts/wo/manship and the processes of crafts apprenticeship certainly provide a rich field in which to further explore these important dimensions of humanity and to follow Tim Ingold’s widely acknowledged call for an anthropology that transcends art and technology and focuses on the subject of skills at large (Ingold 2000, 2001, 2010). We are, however, happy to leave the exploration of this fascinating task for another review, as we feel that an anthropology of skills is too broad a subject for our purposes here. In the concluding section, we remain within the cultures and communities of craftspeople and focus on the possible dimensions of an anthropology of crafts.

C ONCLUSION : T OWARDS AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL R ESEARCH AGENDA ON C RAFTS In this paper we have argued that craft is an umbrella term for intellectual and physical activities in a consortium of genres where one or more individual makers (involving manual labor, skill, imagination, creativity, and theoretical and tacit knowledge) explore multiple materials and possibilities to make/maintain/optimize objects/artifacts. We have outlined the intermediate yet distinct gestalt/position of crafts activities, and theorized that it can be situated in a field not only between artistic and material culture, but also between industrial and technological ways of creating and producing objects. By positioning crafts in a central position in this field, we have exposed a missing node in this network of permeable linkages characterized by high degrees of mutual dependency. We have argued that a focus on this emerging yet marginalized subfield is justified and necessary, as crafts are in fact a global praxis, an economic sector of enormous diversity in which myriad goods of local cultural impact are made by skillful people using imagination and skills to produce things with their hands. In summarizing, we should like to emphasize that the fields we have touched upon in this review are only preliminary, and by no means represent an exhaustive approach to an anthropology of crafts. There are many other important dimensions to be uncovered. The field of mobility, for example, has always played a role for journeying European crafts/wo/men, and it is still seen as

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potentially beneficial for craftspeople to travel the world. Then there are questions of universals versus differences, regarding e.g. gender roles, identities, and symbolic and ritualistic aspects of crafts. Also to be considered are the roles played by crafts/wo/men in a world threatened by ecological crisis, and the role of crafts in providing a place of stability and quality. Sennett (2009) offers a complex reflection on this point, depicting crafts as an ideal way of life for a more sustainable society. Though his ideas might be grounded on the idealizing or romanticizing of skillful and joyful production in a timeless workshop/ studio/kitchen (Adamson 2007) where the crafts/wo/man stubbornly resists the pressures of the modern market, it nevertheless raises significant ecological and philosophical questions for an anthropological enquiry. Having dealt with aspects of social learning, work, and education above, we will, in conclusion, now briefly touch upon the often-cited analogy between crafts and fieldwork. Crafts is a research field where the innovative and creative influence of individual actors on surrounding networks and settings – and thus the role of improvisation as a driver of cultural innovation – can be carefully studied (Ingold and Hallam 2007). From this perspective, crafts workshops function as places of innovation, invention, and creativity. The semi-public crafts-lab, put to use by a skillful maker, is certainly a field where the anthropologist is offered a very good opportunity for participant observation, for participation in (leading to understanding of) the complex processes of acquisition of tacit embodied knowledge, and for investigating the co-functioning of hand and head in inventing and producing skills and qualities. The maker and his/her workshop are at the same time also a nexus of utilitarian crafts, of production in a globalized economy, where aspects of work and labor play a significant role. From our perspective then, craft, as a global practice, is a highly significant field for anthropological theorizing. It is a sector that is challenged by technology, the “artsy” avant-garde, and the mere utilitarianism of industrialized labor, and it is also romanticized as a haven of quality, sustainability and timeless joy in secluded, smelly workshops. In sum, the world of crafts is a dense laboratory of salient social arenas (technological, social, consumptive, genderbased, educational, ritual, youth, etc.) and is thus highly suitable for anthropological research.

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R EFERENCES Adamson, Glenn (2007) Thinking through craft. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Appadurai, Arjun (ed.) (1986) The social life of things: Commodities in cultural perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Argenti, Nicolas (2002) People of the Chisel: Apprenticeship, youth, and elites in Oku (Cameroon). American Ethnologist 29: pp. 497-533. Bathelt, Harald (1998) Regionales Wachstum in vernetzten Strukturen: Konzeptioneller Überblick und kritische Bewertung des Phänomens “Drittes Italien“. Die Erde 129: pp. 247-271. Beck, Kurt (2009) The art of truck modding on the Nile (Sudan): An attempt to trace creativity. In: Gewald, Jan Bart, Sabine Luning and Klaas van Walraven (eds.): The speed of change: Motor vehicles and people in Africa, 1890-2000. Leiden: Brill: pp. 151-173. Bourdieu, Pierre (1977) Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. — (1984) Die feinen Unterschiede: Kritik der gesellschaftlichen Urteilskraft. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. Burawoy, Michael (1979) Manufacturing consent. Changes in the labor process under monopoly capitalism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Cheongju International Craft Biennale (2015). http://okcj.org/wp/ (accessed 12 March 2015). Clammer, John (ed.) (1978) The New Economic Anthropology. London: Basingstoke. Comaroff, Jean and John L. Comaroff (2005) Colonizing currencies: Beasts, banknotes, and the colour of money in South Africa. In: van Binsbergen, Wim and Peter Geschiere (eds.): Commodification. Things, agency, and identities (the social life of things revisited). Münster: LIT: pp. 145-174. Coy, Michael W. (ed.) (1989a) Apprenticeship: From theory to method and back again. New York: State University of New York (SUNY). — (1989b) Being what we pretend to be: The usefulness of apprenticeship as a field method. In: Coy, Michael W. (ed.): Apprenticeship. From Theory to Method and Back Again. New York: State University of New York (SUNY): pp. 115-135. Craft & Design (2015). http://www.craftanddesign.net/ (accessed 12 March 2015). Crafts Council (2015). http://www.craftscouncil.org.uk/crafts-magazine/ (accessed 12 March 2015).

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About the Authors

Bedorf, Franziska, is a sociocultural anthropologist, currently working as a post-doctoral researcher at the REAL (Resilience in East African Landscapes) innovative training network based at Uppsala University. Her research interests include migration, identity formation (ethnicity/nationalism/transnationalism), the anthropology of borders, urban ethnography, postcolonialism and organizational anthropology, with a regional focus on North and Central America, Southern Africa (Namibia) and Scandinavia. From 2010 to 2013 she was a research assistant at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Hamburg where she conducted research within the DFG-funded project “Ageing in transnational space. Processes of (re)migration between Mexico and the USA”. During that time she met Waltraut Kokot who was a full professor at the Ddepartepartment then. While doing her PhD on issues of migration, belonging and the life course among Mexican migrants living in Chicago, Franziska Bedorf was greatly inspired by Waltraud Kokot’s work on transnationalism, migration and urban spaces. Benovska-Sabkova, Milena, is professor of ethnology at the New Bulgarian University and at the South-West University in Blagoevgrad. Her major areas of research include anthropology of religion and the anthropology of socialism and postsocialism; anthropology of religion; minorities in Bulgaria; kinship, friendship and clientelism; mainly focused on Bulgaria, Southeast Europe and Russia. She is the author of the book “The Political Transition and Everyday Culture” (2001), founding co-editor of the journal “Ethnologia Balkanica” (1997-2002) and published more than 200 articles in academic editions abroad and home. She is also a research partner of Prof. Waltraud Kokot in her studies in Bulgaria. Driessen, Henk, is a cultural anthropologist and Professor emeritus of Mediterranean Studies and Islam at Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands. He

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has carried out fieldwork and archival research in the Mediterranean area, in particular in Spain and Morocco, and written on masculinity, religion, ritual, power, identity, borders, port cities, migration, humor, the body and pain. His publications include “On the Spanish-Moroccan Frontier” (Oxford, 1992), an edited volume with Ton Otto “Perplexities of Identification” (Aarhus, 2000), two books on the Mediterranean Sea (Amsterdam 2002, 2008), and numerous articles in scholarly journals. One of the most recent articles is on the “Hard Work of Small Talk in Ethnographic Fieldwork” (Journal of Anthropological Research, 2013) and a book in Dutch on the trauma of the Spanish Civil War (Amsterdam, 2013). His personal and professional relationship with Waltraud Kokot, which dates back to the 1980s, is based on their common interest in the ethnography of the Mediterranean area and regular meetings and workshops in Cologne, Nijmegen and Hamburg. Dorsch, Hauke, is director of the African Music Archives in Mainz, Germany, and teaches at the Department of Anthropology and African Studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. He held research positions and taught at Universities in Hamburg, Berlin, Bayreuth and Southampton, UK, on diaspora, trans-nationalism and migration, post-colonialism, the anthropology of globalisation, African and World Music, fieldwork methods, anthropology of Africa, etc. He also taught Anthropology and Ethnomusicology outside of academia, i.e. to teachers and students at secondary level. Furthermore he organises concerts of African musicians and other cultural events. His research experiences include fieldwork in Gambia, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, South Africa, Mozambique, Cuba, the United States, France, Britain and Germany. He studied and obtained his M.A. and doctorate degree in Anthropology at the University of Hamburg focusing on the African diaspora, migration, popular culture, performance and music. In his academic interests, Hauke Dorsch has been very much influenced by the work and teaching of Waltraud Kokot. Gandelsman-Trier, Mijal, is lecturer at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Hamburg, Germany. Her key areas of research are diaspora and migration, urban anthropology and the anthropology of space and place with a regional focus on Latin America. Waltraud Kokot’s lectures and seminars were always inspiring and encouraging for Mijal Gandelsman-Trier during her studies. Her major academic and research areas were considerably influenced by Waltraud Kokot and their common interests resulted in a longstanding cooperation particularly within two research projects at the Department: “Port Cities as Areas of Transition” and “Diaspora as a Resource – transnational

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networks as cultural capital”. Both projects generated numerous outcomes in the form of publications, workshops, conferences and seminars. Beyond their academic bonds, this long lasting and trusting collaboration also became the basis for a continuing personal friendship. Giordano, Christian, is Full Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, Doctor Honoris Causa at the University of Timisoara and permanent Guest Professor at the Universities of Bucharest, Murcia, Bydgoszcz and the University Sains Malaysia at Penang. Moreover, he teaches as regular Guest Lecturer at the Humboldt University in Berlin, at the Russian State University of Humanities in Moscow and at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur. His research fields in political and urban anthropology are Southeast Europe, Mediterranean societies and Southeast Asia. Amongst the several collaborations with Waltraud Kokot is a shared interest for the study of diasporas, which is expressed in the joint edited volume “Diaspora as a Resource: Comparative Studies in Strategies, Networks and Urban Space” (edited in collaboration with Mijal Gandelsman-Trier), published in 2013. Greiner, Clemens, is the academic coordinator of the Global South Studies Center (GSSC), a Center of Excellence at the University of Cologne (UoC). Before he joined the UoC as a post-doctoral researcher, he was trained in Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Hamburg. Waltraud Kokot was his main teacher during these formative years and he is greatly indebted for her continuous academic guidance and support. In his current research, he focuses on political ecology, socio-spatial relations, translocality, and the transformation of pastoralism. His regional specialisation is on Eastern and Southern Africa, where he has conducted extensive fieldwork. Lang, Hartmut, is a retired Professor of Cultural/Social Anthropology at the University of Hamburg Germany. At present, his work comprises, among other fields, kinship and family, economic anthropology, methods in anthropology including cross cultural research, and principles of argumentation. His friendship with Waltraut Kokot goes back to the days when both studied and worked at the Department of Cultural/Social Anthropology at the University of Cologne. Their research interests have overlapped to varying degrees and they jointly published together in some fields, for example in cognitive anthropology. His greatest joy, though, were exchanges with her sharp, swift and critical mind.

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Lang, Sabine, holds a doctoral degree in cultural anthropology (Hamburg, 1990) and is an independent scholar specialized in Native American Studies. She has conducted fieldwork among the Diné (Navajo) in New Mexico, the ShoshoneBannock in Idaho, as well as among urban Native Americans, and has published widely on systems of multiple genders in indigenous North American cultures. While Sabine Lang and Waltraud Kokot never worked together in academia, they became friends a couple of years ago by a lucky coincidence, after Sabine Lang had given a guest lecture on gender and sexuality issues in one of Kokot’s classes. Hence, Sabine Lang gladly accepted the invitation to contribute to the present volume, combining her expertise in Native American Studies with one of Waltraud Kokot’s research interests, Jewish diasporas. Nedin, Iliya, PhD, is associate professor at the Southwestern University “Nepfit Rilski”, Blagoevgrad, and Head of the Department of Ethnology and Balkan Studies. His main interests are ethnicity, theory and history of anthropology, religion, kinship and family. Pauli, Julia, is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Hamburg, Germany. Her main research interests are gender and kinship studies, anthropological demography, transnational migration, consumption and class formation processes. She has done extensive fieldwork in Mexico (since 1995) and Namibia (since 2003). She is author of “The Planned Child: Demographic, Economic and Social Transformations in a Mexican Community” (in German, 2000) and is currently completing a book manuscript on middle classes and life cycle rituals in Namibia. Waltraud Kokot has been a mentor, role model and colleague for Julia. Waltraud’s work on migration, transnationalism, urban and cognitive anthropology continues to be a central source of inspiration and influence on Julia’s research. Pröpper, Michael, is a senior staff member and post-doctoral researcher at the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology of the University of Hamburg. He is the scientific coordinator of the international research project “The Future Okavango” (TFO). He studied Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Hamburg and was significantly supported and inspired by Waltraud Kokot during these years. In his current research, he focuses on questions of environmental anthropology, sustainability and art. His regional specialisation is on Southern Africa, where he has conducted extensive fieldwork.

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Sökefeld, Martin, is professor and head of the Dept. of Social and Cultural Anthropology of Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich. After his PhD on ethnicity in the high mountains of Gilgit-Baltistan, Northern Pakistan, he turned to diaspora studies. From 1999 to 2005 he was assistant professor at the Dept. of Social and Cultural Anthropology of Hamburg University which at that time was headed by Waltraud Kokot. During his time in Hamburg he studied the Alevi diaspora in Germany and wrote his thesis for Habilitation. Martin Sökefeld is highly indebted to Waltraud Kokot for her continuous support and inspiration. Subsequently he became assistant professor at the University of Bern, Switzerland, were he started to study the transnational politics of the Kashmiri diaspora in the UK. Since he got his position in Munich he is focusing on Northern Pakistan again, especially on the politics of “natural” disasters. Voutira, Eftihia, has obtained a BA in Philosophy (Honours) from the University of Chicago, an MA and a PhD from Harvard University and an MPhil and a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge. Since 2008, she is Professor in the Anthropology of Forced Migration at the Department of Balkan, Slavonic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece. She has done fieldwork and published extensively on the Greek diaspora in the former Soviet Union, on refugee issues and the political economy of humanitarian assistance in Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans. In 1995, while working as a Research Associate at the Refugee Studies Programme University of Oxford, she met with Waltraud and they have been in contact ever since. They collaborated in different research projects exploring common interests and institutional links, most notably on European Port Cities which included research on Salonika as one of the case-studies. Later, they also collaborated in the comparative research on Diasporas headed by the University of Hamburg under Waltraud’s able supervision. Wildner, Kathrin, is an urban anthropologist and did ethnographic fieldwork in New York City, Mexico City, Istanbul, Bogotá and other urban agglomerations. At the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at Hamburg University Waltraud Kokot encouraged and supervised her doctoral thesis Thesis “Zócalo – Ethnographie eines Platzes in Mexiko Stadt”. Meanwhile an experienced urban researcher, Kathrin Wildner teaches, publishes and participates in transdisciplinary projects and international exhibitions. She is a founding member of metroZones – Center for Urban Affairs and was the coordinator of arts and sciences within the interdisciplinary research and art project “The Global Players Congress: Faith in the City” (2010-2014). Between 2013 and 2015 she was Visiting

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Professor at the Master Program “Spatial Strategies” (Raumstrategien) at the Art Academy Weißensee, Berlin. Since 2012 she is professor for Cultural Theory and Practice at the HafenCity University in Hamburg. Wonneberger, Astrid, is researcher and lecturer for family science at the University of Applied Sciences (HAW) Hamburg and private lecturer (PD) for cultural and social anthropology at the University of Hamburg. Her personal and professional friendship to Waltraud Kokot dates back to her time as graduate student. Waltraud Kokot not only became her doctoral supervisor, but also influenced her significantly in developing her major academic interests, which include the anthropology of kinship and family, urban anthropology, studies of ethnicity, migration and diaspora. They have also cooperated in numerous teaching and research projects, such as Denkwerk Ethnologie, European Port Cities as Areas of Transition and Ethnographie eines Straßenzuges auf St Pauli at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Hamburg.

Waltraud Kokot: Publications 1981 – 2013

Kokot, Waltraud, Christian Giordano and Mijal Gandelsman-Trier (eds.) (2013) Diaspora as a Resource: Comparative Studies in Strategies, Networks and Urban Space. Zürich et al.: Lit. Kokot, Waltraud, Mijal Gandelsman-Trier and Christian Giordano (2013) Introduction: Diaspora as Resource: Cultures, Networks and Urban Space. In: Kokot, Waltraud, Christian Giordano and Mijal Gandelsman-Trier (eds.): Diaspora as a Resource: Comparative Studies in Strategies, Networks and Urban Space. Zürich et al.: Lit: pp. 9-24. Kokot, Waltraud (ed.) (2012) Living and Working in Sofia: Ethnographies of Agency, Social Relations and Livelihood Strategies in the Capital of Bulgaria. Wien et al.: Lit. — (2012) Introduction: Ethnographic Research in Sofia. In: Kokot, Waltraud (ed.): Living and Working in Sofia. Ethnographies of Agency, Social Relations and Livelihood Strategies in the Capital of Bulgaria. Lines Vol. 7. Hamburg: Lit: pp. 9-34. Kokot, Waltraud and Astrid Wonneberger (eds.) (2010) Ethnologie Bulgariens – Bulgarische Ethnologie? Ethnoscripts 12 (1). Kokot, Waltraud (2010) Editorial. Ethnologie in Bulgarien: Forschungsfeld und Fachentwicklung. Ethnoscripts 12 (1): pp. 3-14. Greiner, Clemens and Waltraud Kokot (eds.) (2009) Networks, Resources and Economic Action. Ethnographic Case Studies in Honor of Hartmut Lang. Kulturanalysen, Vol. 9, Berlin: Reimer. Kokot, Waltraud and Clemens Greiner (2009): Introduction: Networks, Resources and Economic Action. In: Greiner, Clemens and Waltraud Kokot (eds.): Networks, Resources and Economic Action. Ethnographic Case Studies in Honor of Hartmut Lang. Kulturanalysen, Vol. 9, Berlin: Reimer: pp. 916.

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Kokot, Waltraud (2009) Diaspora as a Resource? Managing Social Capital in the Armenian Community of Sofia, Bulgaria. In: Greiner, Clemens and Waltraud Kokot (eds.): Networks, Resources and Economic Action. Ethnographic Case Studies in Honor of Hartmut Lang. Kulturanalysen, Vol. 9, Berlin: Reimer, pp. 127-150. — (2009) Book Review: Sökefeld, Martin (ed.) Aleviten in Deutschland: Identitätsprozesse einer Religionsgemeinschaft in der Diaspora. Bielefeld, transcript 2008. Ethnoscripts 11 (2): pp. 243-245. — (2008) “Studying up” als Methodenproblem: Überlegungen zur ethnologischen Elitenforschung. Ethnoscripts 10 (2): pp. 104-113. Kokot, Waltraud, Mijal Gandelsman-Trier, Kathrin Wildner and Astrid Wonneberger (eds.) (2008) Port Cities as Areas of Transition: Ethnographic Perspectives. Bielefeld: transcript. Kokot, Waltraud (2008) Port Cities as Areas of Transition – Comparative Ethnographic Research. In: Kokot, Waltraud, Mijal Gandelsman-Trier, Kathrin Wildner and Astrid Wonneberger (eds.): Port Cities as Areas of Transition: Ethnographic Perspectives. Bielefeld: transcript: pp. 7-23. — (ed.) (2007) Beyond the White Tower – Transformations in Thessaloniki: Ethnographic Case Studies on Local Aspects of Urban Change. Berlin et al.: Lit. — (2007) Introduction: Transformations in Thessaloniki. In: Kokot, Waltraud (ed.): Beyond the White Tower – Transformations in Thessaloniki: Ethnographic Case Studies on Local Aspects of Urban Change. Berlin et al.: Lit: pp. 8-22. Kokot, Waltraud and Martin Gruber (2007) Betroffene von Räumungsklagen und Verbleib von Zwangsgeräumten: eine ethnologische Untersuchung zu Lebenssituationen und Verbleibsalternativen. Münster: Lit. Kokot, Waltraud (2007) Betroffene von Räumungsklagen und Verbleib von Zwangsgeräumten: eine ethnologische Untersuchung zu Lebenssituation und Verbleibsalternativen. Ethnoscripts 9 (1): pp. 182-184. — (2007) Culture and Space: Anthropological Approaches. Ethnoscripts 9 (1): pp. 10-23. Kokot, Waltraud and Astrid Wonneberger (2006) Editorial: Urbane Subsistenz. Ethnoscripts 8 (1): pp. 2-6. Kokot, Waltraud (2006) Transformationsprozesse und urbane Subsistenz in europäischen Hafenstädten: zum Abschluss des EU-Projekts “European Port Cities”. Ethnoscripts 8 (2): pp. 212-220. Kokot, Waltraud and Hauke Dorsch (2006) Diasporen in der außereuropäischen Welt – begriffliche Einordnung und inhaltliche Bestimmung. FernUniversität

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Hagen Fachbereich Kultur- und Sozialwissenschaften: Westliche Wirtschaftsinteressen und globale Migration, Kurseinheit 1. Hagen. Kokot, Waltraud (2005) Prostitution im interkulturellen Vergleich? Ethnologische Relativierung eines “universalen Phänomens”. In: Dücker, Elisabeth von und Museum der Arbeit Hamburg (eds.): Sexarbeit: Prostitution – Lebenswelten und Mythen. Bremen: Edition Temmen: pp. 276-277. Kokot, Waltraud (2004) “European Port Cities – Disadvantaged Urban Areas in Transition”: A Collaborative Project under the EU Transnational Exchange Programme (“Fight against Poverty and Social Exclusion”); (VP/2002/010); Final Report – Phase I. Institut für Ethnologie, Universität Hamburg. Sökefeld, Martin and Waltraud Kokot (2004) Feldforschung: Anmerkungen und Erfahrungen zum Praktikum am Hamburger Institut für Ethnologie. Ethnoscripts 6 (2): pp. 89-102. Kokot, Waltraud and Hartmut Lang (2004) Zur Konzeption des Lehrveranstaltungszyklus “Methoden der Ethnographie” im Lehrprogramm des Instituts für Ethnologie an der Universität Hamburg. Ethnoscripts 6 (2): pp. 103-108. Kokot, Waltraud (2004) Erstsemester am Hamburger Institut für Ethnologie – die unbekannten Wesen? Ethnoscripts 6 (2): pp. 130-133. — (ed.) (2004) Kultur der Obdachlosigkeit in der Hamburger Innenstadt: eine ethnologische Felduntersuchung. Lines: Beiträge zur Stadtforschung aus dem Institut für Ethnologie der Universität Hamburg Vol. 1, Hamburg: Hamburger Verein für Ethnologie. Kokot, Waltraud, Helmut Rösing, Simone Reich and Simon Sell (eds.) (2004) “Die härteste Bühne der Welt...”: Straßenmusik in Hamburg. Ethnologische und musikwissenschaftliche Annäherungen. Lines: Beiträge zur Stadtforschung aus dem Institut für Ethnologie der Universität Hamburg Vol. 2. Hamburg: Hamburger Verein für Ethnologie. — (2004) Vorwort. In: Kokot, Waltraud, Helmut Rösing, Simone Reich and Simon Sell (eds.): “Die härteste Bühne der Welt...”: Straßenmusik in Hamburg. Ethnologische und musikwissenschaftliche Annäherungen. Lines: Beiträge zur Stadtforschung aus dem Institut für Ethnologie der Universität Hamburg Vol. 2. Hamburg: Hamburger Verein für Ethnologie: pp. 6-9. Kokot, Waltraud (2004) Straßenmusik in Hamburg: Annäherung an eine Kultur der Straße. In: Kokot, Waltraud, Helmut Rösing, Simone Reich and Simon Sell (eds.) “Die härteste Bühne der Welt...”: Straßenmusik in Hamburg. Ethnologische und musikwissenschaftliche Annäherungen. Lines: Beiträge zur Stadtforschung aus dem Institut für Ethnologie der Universität Hamburg Vol. 2. Hamburg: Hamburger Verein für Ethnologie: pp. 28-40.

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Kokot, Waltraud and Hauke Dorsch (eds.) (2004) Diaspora: Transnationale Beziehungen und Identitäten. Periplus. Jahrbuch für außereuropäische Geschichte, Vol. 14. Münster et al.: Lit. Kokot, Waltraud (2004) Themen der Forschung in einem transnationalen Feld. In: Kokot, Waltraud and Hauke Dorsch (eds.): Diaspora: Transnationale Beziehungen und Identitäten. Periplus. Jahrbuch für außereuropäische Geschichte, Vol. 14. Münster et al.: Lit: pp. 1-10. Kokot, Waltraud, Khachig Tölölyan and Carolin Alfonso (eds.) (2004) Diaspora, Identity and Religion: New Directions in Theory and Research. London et al.: Routledge. — (2004) Introduction. In: Kokot, Waltraud, Khachig Tölölyan and Carolin Alfonso (eds.): Diaspora, Identity and Religion: New Directions in Theory and Research. London et al.: Routledge: pp. 1-8. Kokot, Waltraud (ed.) (2002) Feldforschungen in Hamburg. Ethnoscripts 4/1. — (2002) Feldforschungen in Hamburg: zum Thema dieser Ausgabe (Editorial). Ethnoscripts 4 (1): pp. 1-2. — (2002) Diaspora und transnationale Verflechtungen. In: Hauser-Schäublin, Brigitta and Ulrich Braukämper (eds.): Ethnologie der Globalisierung: Perspektiven kultureller Verflechtungen. Berlin: Reimer, pp. 95-110. — (2002) Diaspora. Ethnologische Forschungsansätze. In: Moosmüller, Alois (ed.): Interkulturelle Kommunikation in der Diaspora: die kulturelle Gestaltung von Lebens- und Arbeitswelten in der Fremde. Münchner Beiträge zur interkulturellen Kommunikation Vol. 13. Münster et al.: Waxmann: pp. 2939. — (2002) Ethnographie eines Straßenzuges auf St. Pauli: ein ethnologisches Forschungsprojekt. Ethnoscripts 4 (1): pp. 97-100. — (ed.) (2002) Pionierinnen der Ethnologie. Trier: Verlag Kleine Schritte. — (2002) Von Dora d’Istria zu Margaret Hasluck: Reisende Frauen als frühe Ethnographinnen. In: Kokot, Waltraud (ed.): Pionierinnen der Ethnologie. Trier: Verlag Kleine Schritte: pp. 5-13. Kokot, Waltraud, Felix Axster and Martin Gruber (2002) Kultur der Obdachlosigkeit in der Hamburger Innenstadt: eine ethnologische Felduntersuchung. Series: Wissen schafft Verantwortung. Hamburg: Institut für Ethnologie der Universität Hamburg. Kokot, Waltraud (ed.) (2001) Männer. Ethnoscripts 3 (2). — (2001) Jungfräuliche “Männer”: Geschlechterrollenwechsel in Albanien. Ethnoscripts 3 (2): pp. 2-12.

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— (2001) Von Helden, Sonaten und männlichen Jungfrauen: kulturwissenschaftliche Beiträge zum Thema “Männer” (Editorial). Ethnoscripts 3 (2): p. 1. — (2001) Laufende Forschungsprojekte zu Stadt und Urbanität im Umfeld des Instituts für Ethnologie. Ethnoscripts 3 (1): pp. 108-109. — (ed.) (2000) Forensische Ethnologie. Ethnoscripts 2 (2). — (2000) “Forensische Ethnologie”: zum Themenschwerpunkt dieser Ausgabe (Editorial). Ethnoscripts 2 (2): pp. 1-9. — (2000) Zur Praxis ethnologischer Gerichtsgutachten: Bericht über eine Umfrage der “Arbeitsgruppe Rechtsethnologie”. Ethnoscripts 2 (2): pp. 86-87. Kokot, Waltraud, Thomas Hengartner and Kathrin Wildner (2000) Kulturwissenschaftliche Stadtforschung: eine Bestandsaufnahme. Berlin: Reimer. Hengartner, Thomas, Waltraud Kokot and Kathrin Wildner (2000) Das Forschungsfeld Stadt in Ethnologie und Volkskunde. In: Kokot, Waltraud, Thomas Hengartner and Kathrin Wildner (eds.): Kulturwissenschaftliche Stadtforschung. Berlin: Reimer: pp. 3-18. Kokot, Waltraud (2000) Diaspora, Lokalität und Stadt. Zur ethnologischen Forschung in räumlich nicht begrenzten Gruppen. In: Kokot, Waltraud, Thomas Hengartner and Kathrin Wildner (eds.): Kulturwissenschaftliche Stadtforschung. Berlin: Reimer: pp. 191-203. — (2000) Meine Stadt ist die Stadt der Anderen: Urbanität und Diaspora. In: Arbeitsstelle Kirche und Stadt (ed.): Stadtideen zwischen Utopie und Destruktion. Transzendenz in der Großstadt. Hamburg: Dokumentation zum Symposion 15.-18. Juni 2000. — (1999) Das Institutsgespräch: Interview mit Helga Weilepp. Ethnoscripts 1 (1): pp. 86-91. — (ed.) (1999) (No Title). Ethnoscripts 1 (1). — (1999) Editorial: zur ersten Ausgabe. Ethnoscripts 1 (1): pp. 1-2. — (1999) Der Arbeitsschwerpunkt “kulturelle Identität in der Diaspora”: laufende Forschungen und Vorschau. Ethnoscripts 1 (1): pp. 61-63. Kokot, Waltraud and Dorle Dracklé (eds.) (1999) Wozu Ethnologie? Festschrift für Hans Fischer. Berlin: Reimer. Dracklé, Dorle and Waltraud Kokot (1999) Vorwort der Herausgeberinnen. In: Kokot, Waltraud and Dorle Dracklé (eds.): Wozu Ethnologie? Festschrift für Hans Fischer. Berlin: Reimer: pp. 1-6. Kokot, Waltraud (1999) Eine “Allerweltswissenschaft” lehren. In: Kokot, Waltraud and Dorle Dracklé (eds.): Wozu Ethnologie? Festschrift für Hans Fischer. Berlin: Reimer: pp. 241-258.

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Hengartner, Thomas and Waltraud Kokot (1998) Kulturwissenschaftliche Sichtweisen auf die Stadt. Ansichten aus Volkskunde und Ethnologie. Uni-HHForschung 32: Wissenschaftsberichte aus der Universität Hamburg: pp. 1723. Kokot, Waltraud and Dorle Dracklé (eds.) (1996) Ethnologie Europas: Grenzen, Konflikte, Identitäten. Berlin: Reimer. — (1996) Neue Feldforschungen in Europa. In: Kokot, Waltraud and Dorle Dracklé (eds.): Ethnologie Europas: Grenzen, Konflikte, Identitäten. Berlin: Reimer: pp. 3-21. Kokot, Waltraud (1996) Kleinasienflüchtlinge in Thessaloniki: Zur Verarbeitung von Fluchterlebnissen in biographischen Erzählungen. In: Kokot, Waltraud and Dorle Dracklé (eds.): Ethnologie Europas. Grenzen, Konflikte, Identitäten. Berlin: Reimer: pp. 259-271. — (1995) Kognition und soziale Identität in einem Flüchtlingsviertel: Kato Toumba, Thessaloniki. Köln: Habilitationsschrift (unpbl.). Schweizer, Thomas, Margarete Schweizer and Waltraud Kokot (eds.) (1993) Handbuch der Ethnologie. Festschrift für Ulla Johansen. Berlin: Reimer. Kokot, Waltraud (1993) Kognition als Gegenstand der Ethnologie. In: Schweizer, Thomas, Margarete Schweizer and Waltraud Kokot (eds.): Handbuch der Ethnologie. Berlin: Reimer: pp. 331-344. Kokot, Waltraud and Bettina Bommer (eds.) (1991) Ethnologische Stadtforschung: eine Einführung. Berlin: Reimer. Kokot, Waltraud (1991) Ethnologische Forschung in Städten. Gegenstände und Probleme. In: Kokot, Waltraud and Bettina C. Bommer (eds.): Ethnologische Stadtforschung. Berlin: Reimer: pp. 1-12. Lang, Hartmut, Waltraud Kokot and Monika Pack (1991) Zum Transkriptionsaufwand in der Analyse von oralen Texten. Eine technische Notiz. Anthropos 86: pp. 220-223. Kokot, Waltraud (ed.) (1990) Stadtmosaik: Beiträge zur ethnologischen Stadtforschung aus einer Feldexkursion nach Thessaloniki. Kölner ethnologische Arbeitspapiere. Bonn: Holos. — (1990) Einleitung: Eine Feldexkursion nach Thessaloniki. In: Kokot, Waltraud (ed.): Stadtmosaik. Beiträge zur ethnologischen Stadtforschung aus einer Feldexkursion nach Thessaloniki. Kölner ethnologische Arbeitspapiere. Bonn: Holos Verlag: pp. 1-10. — (1987) Ethnologische Feldforschung in der Großstadt: Probleme der Abgrenzung. In: Kuntz, Andreas and Beatrix Pfleiderer (eds.): Fremdheit und Migration. Berlin: Reimer: pp. 145-158.

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Lang, Hartmut, Waltraud Kokot and Eike Hinz (1983) No Challenge. Eine Antwort auf Renners “Reply and Challenge”. Anthropos 78: p. 890. — (1982) Current Trends in Cognitive Anthropology. Anthropos 77: pp. 329350. Kokot, Waltraud (1982) Perceived Control and the Origins of Misfortune: a Case Study in Cognitive Anthropology. Berlin: Reimer. — (1981) Zur kognitiven Anthropologie. Anthropos 77: pp. 564-567.