When History Accelerates: Essays on Rapid Social Change, Complexity and Creativity 9781474287210, 9781474287234, 9781474287227

Table of contents :
Cover
Half-title
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgements
Contributors
1 Fast Forward: The Great Transformation Globalized
SYNCHRONIC SYSTEMS AND TEMPORALITY
SOCIAL CHANGE AND REVOLUTION
ETHNOGRAPHIC KNOWLEDGE AND RESPONSIBILITY
PAUL STIRLING: A PERSONAL SYNTHESIS
NOTES
REFERENCES
2 The Evolution of Society: A Darwinian Approach
THE HUMAN ANIMAL
DARWINISM AND EVOLUTIONISM
SOCIOLOGICAL DARWINISM
NOTES
REFERENCES
3 Rates of Change: Weasel Words and the Indispensable in Anthropological Analysis
INTRODUCTION
SYSTEMS, SUBSYSTEMS AND THE UNDERSTANDING OF SOCIAL CHANGE
IDENTIFYING KINDS OF CULTURAL AND SOCIAL CHANGE
PERCEIVING AND MEASURING RATES OF CHANGE
SYSTEMIC CONSEQUENCES OF DIFFERENT RATES OF CHANGE
DISJUNCTIONS AND CONTRADICTIONS
RATES OF CHANGE AT DIFFERENT LEVELS OF ORGANIZATION
CONCLUSION
NOTE
REFERENCES
4 Modelling Complexity and Change: Social Knowledge and Social Process
INTRODUCTION
ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH
WEAK AND STRONG REPRESENTATIONS
ARRANGING A MARRIAGE IN URBAN PAKISTAN
ETHNOGRAPHIC SETTING
MULTIPLE DOMAINS AND CONTEXT
CHANGE BETWEEN 1982 AND 1992
SPECIFICATIONS, EXTERNAL KNOWLEDGE AND KNOWLEDGE DISTRIBUTION
NOTES
REFERENCES
5 Social Creativity
WHAT DOES IT PRODUCE?
WHAT ARE THE KINDS OF SOCIAL CREATIVITY?
WHAT ARE THE RAW MATERIALS?
WHAT ARE THE RESULTS OF SOCIAL CREATIVITY LIKE?
REFERENCES
6 Rustic Chivalry: Variations in Honour Ideologies in Italy and the Limits of Historical Explanation
INTRODUCTION
HONOUR CRIMES
THE LANGUAGE OF HONOUR
THE USES OF HISTORY
CONCLUSION
NOTES
REFERENCES
7 Meanings, Myths and Mystifications: The Social Construction of Life Stories in Russia
INTRODUCTION
METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS
THE POLITICS OF FORGETFULNESS
EDUCATION, WORK AND FAMILY VALUES
IGOR AND FAMILY TRADITION
RELIGION
CONCLUSION: BETWEEN CULTURES, A LIVING HISTORY
NOTES
REFERENCES
8 'And Who Now Plans Its Future?': Land in South Africa after Apartheid
A STARTING POINT
APARTHEID, LAND AND POPULATION
WHITE AGRICULTURE AT THE END OF APARTHEID
THE BANTUSTANS
AGRARIAN REFORM: A POLITICAL VACUUM?
THE POLICY DEBATE
DIFFERENT QUESTIONS, A DIFFERENT POLITICS
CONCLUSION
NOTES
REFERENCES
9 Change, Cognition and Control: The Reconstruction of Nomadism in Iran
PREAMBLE
BACKGROUND: THE NOMADS OF IRAN
THE RECONSTRUCTION OF NOMAD ECONOMY AND SOCIETY UNDER THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC
WHO ARE - AND WERE - THE 'NOMADS'? DEFINITION AND REDEFINITION
TRIBES AND NOMADS
NOMADS' SELF-DEFINITIONS
REDEFINING 'SETTLEMENT'
CONCLUSION
NOTES
REFERENCES
10 Creating Law: Trade, Production and Accelerating Change in Late Ottoman Izmir
INTRODUCTION
ISLAMIC LAW, SECULAR LAW AND TRADE
INTERNATIONAL TRADE SHAPES THE LOCAL CONTEXT
AN AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION
LOCAL AND NATIONAL ELITES, AND LEGAL CHANGE
NOTES
REFERENCES
11 The New Circle of Equity
A PENDULUM-SWING THEORY OF KEMALISM
THE TURKISH WAY TO MODERNITY
NOTES
REFERENCES
12 Social Change and Culture: Responses to Modernization in an Alevi Village in Anatolia
INTRODUCTION
A SUNNI VILLAGE MODEL
AN ALEVI VILLAGE MODEL
TARIKAT AND §ERIAT
SOME EXAMPLES
CONCLUSIONS
NOTES
REFERENCES
13 Negotiating Ethnographic Reality: Team Fieldwork in Turkey Emine Onaran Incirlioglu
INTRODUCTION
POWER AND LANGUAGE, GENDER AND LIFE CYCLE
KNOWLEDGE OF VILLAGE HISTORY
INSIDER AND OUTSIDER: 'ONE OF US' VERSUS THE GAVUR
CONCLUSION
NOTES
REFERENCES
14 Social Standards and Social Thought
DISTINCTIVE INSIGHTS?
INSCRIPTION AND SPECIFICATION
A CASE STUDY FROM MEWAR
SETTING STANDARDS
NOTES
REFERENCES
15 The Application of Anthropology in Britain, 1983-1993
INTRODUCTION
A CONCISE ORGANIZATIONAL HISTORY
'NOW THE REAL CONFERENCE HAS BEGUN'
CONCLUSIONS: THE APPLIED ANTHROPOLOGIST AS JANUS
NOTES
REFERENCES
Index

Citation preview

When History Accelerates

History and Politics in the 20th Century: Bloomsbury Academic Collections

The three titles in this set, chosen from our imprints The Athlone Press and Pinter, go beyond the history and politics of the 20th century and consider the value of looking at politics and history using data from other disciplines to inform an understanding of large-scale global transformations. Drawing on anthropology, archaeology, economics and philosophy – to name a few – these titles help to highlight that the study of history and politics should never be considered in a vacuum but in relation to other subjects. The collection is available both in e-book and print versions. Titles in History and Politics in the 20th Century are available in the following subsets: International Relations in the 20th Century Europe in the 20th Century Conflict in the 20th Century Postcolonialism in the 20th Century Multidisciplinary Approaches Other titles available in Multidisciplinary Approaches include:

The Waves of Time: Long-Term Change and International Relations, K. R. Dark Politics and Human Nature, edited by Ian Forbes and Steve Smith

When History Accelerates

Essays on Rapid Social Change, Complexity and Creativity

Edited by C. M. Hann

History and Politics in the 20th Century: Multidisciplinary Approaches BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC COLLECTIONS

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

1385 Broadway New York NY 10018 USA

www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in 1994 by The Athlone Press This edition published by Bloomsbury Academic 2016 © C. M. Hann 2016 C. M. Hannhas asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editor of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders of material reproduced in this volume. If any copyright holder has not been properly acknowledged, please contact the publisher who will be happy to rectify the omission in future editions. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978-1-4742-8721-0 ePDF: 978-1-4742-8722-7 Set: 978-1-3500-0017-9 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress Series: Bloomsbury Academic Collections, ISSN 2051-0012

Printed and bound in Great Britain

WHEN HISTORY ACCELERATES

National Growth

National Political and Administrative Changes 1923-50 imposed reform; one-party government 1950-70 multi-party democracy development of bureaucracy.

population: 1927—13m: 1950—21m; 1970—36m GNPpercap: 1930—100; 1950—100; 1970—175 1

2

V Main Channels

village schools „

pendular migration (including European migration) 19

Specific Factors

knowledge, beliefs and skills

General Changes

i

rm

permanent migration j g

Women Family Kinship

demand for labour

national demand for carpets

women's knowledge: visits to town

p-^

carpets: women in putting-out industry . -,

19 CZZ

occupational specialisation

decline in father's authority 24

falling death rate; population explosion 1 ^

rise in consumption and expectations 15

fall in village resources per head

speculative investment in urban building plots

generation gap

u

rise in cash incomes; use of money

health services

agricultural policy

rising wages

17

y y investment in agriculture

20

>->

21

domestic cycle; separation of sons 2 5

When History Accelerates Essays on Rapid Social Change, Complexity and Creativity Edited by C M Hann

THE ATHLONE PRESS London and Atlantic Highlands, NJ

First published 1994 by THE ATHLONE PRESS 1 Park Drive, London NW11 7SG and 165 First Avenue, Atlantic Highlands, NJ 07716 ©CMHann, 1994 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0 485 11464X Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Cataloging in Publication Data applied for All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Typeset by Bibloset, Chester Printed and bound in Great Britain by Bookcraft (Bath) Limited

For Paul Stirling

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements Contributors 1 Fast Forward: The Great Transformation Globalized CM. Hann 2 The Evolution of Society: A Darwinian Approach Krishan Kumar 3 Rates of Change: Weasel Words and the Indispensable in Anthropological Analysis Roy Ellen 4 Modelling Complexity and Change: Social Knowledge and Social Process Michael D. Fischer 5 Social Creativity /. Davis 6 Rustic Chivalry: Variations in Honour Ideologies in Italy and the Limits of Historical Explanation Nevill Colclough 7 Meanings, Myths and Mystifications: The Social Construction of Life Stories in Russia Ray Pahl and Paul Thompson 8 'And Who Now Plans Its Future?': Land in South Africa after Apartheid Henry Bernstein 9 Change, Cognition and Control: The Reconstruction of Nomadism in Iran Richard Tapper 10 Creating Law: Trade, Production and Accelerating Change in Late Ottoman Izmir June Starr

ix xi 1 23

54

75 95

111

130

161

188

212

viii

When History Accelerates

11 The New Circle of Equity Ernest Gellner 12 Social Change and Culture: Responses to Modernization in an Alevi Village in Anatolia David Shankland 13 Negotiating Ethnographic Reality: Team Fieldwork in Turkey Emine Onaran Incirlio&lu 14 Social Standards and Social Thought Alan Rew 15 The Application of Anthropology in Britain, 1983-1993 R.D. Grillo Index

229

238 255 276 300 317

Preface and Acknowledgements

The essays in this volume explore how people make and make sense of their social lives, in contexts that range from villages to multi-ethnic states, and which include some of the most exciting political transformations of the contemporary world. The contributors address the processes of rapid social change that are now affecting human communities everywhere. In doing so they raise enduring issues of conceptual understanding, methodological technique and ethical responsibility in the social sciences. They also engage history over varying time-frames, and recognize that the narratives of academic researchers are likely to diverge substantially from local expressions of knowledge of the past. Both types of history must be investigated for complete and satisfying social analysis. The study of change and of how people create their own histories is complex. For some purposes a specialist vocabulary is necessary. But sometimes the proliferation of new terms or the reinvention of older ones generates an academic discourse that mystifies more than it illuminates. How much have we really learned about the world through the popularization of 'reflexivity' in recent years? The concept of agency offers another example, more central to the main themes of this book: that it is susceptible to rigorous use is well demonstrated by Henry Bernstein in Chapter 8, but in the hands of less able analysts it leads all too often to general vacuity. The authors of these essays do not rely on fashionable jargon. Their accounts of history and evolution do not seek to revive nineteenth-century models of linearity and progress, and they certainly do not defend twentieth-century experiments in social engineering. They represent a diversity of approaches and opinions, and do not establish any facile consensus. A familiar tension can be detected, between those authors who emphasize the social creativity of individuals and those who prefer to identify structures and systems in social life. But this is itself a creative tension, and the general tone of the volume is consistent with the traditional goals of a humanist social science.

x

When History Accelerates

The contributors provide detailed and informative accounts of different types of social change. Well-specified, causal explanations of changes, and of who makes them happen, are complemented by sympathetic understandings of how change is actually experienced in different social and cultural settings. Both explanation and understanding require meticulous empirical documentation for which fieldwork remains the central prerequisite, at least in the discipline of social anthropology. Modern anthropologists also encounter problems of evaluation. They have to consider, often in confusing and unstable political contexts, whether or not some of their knowledge can be used for the benefit of others. Sometimes there are tensions between pure and applied orientations, in anthropology and in the social sciences generally, and the challenges are a great deal more formidable than they were once thought to be. However, the overall design of this volume is modernist rather than post-modernist, optimistic rather than nihilist, constructive rather than cynical or destructive. At a time of widespread disenchantment in academic communities this positive orientation may seem surprising, even fresh and uplifting. The diagram reproduced on the frontispiece presents one anthropologist's attempt to think through some of the more important causal relationships between key factors in processes of rapid social change in modern Turkey. In the article in which the diagram was first presented and in other works, Paul Stirling, without overlooking elements of continuity and stability, recognizes that *... social relationships, knowledge, information and skills, values and important general characteristics of the society . . . are changing radically at an accelerating speed . . .' ('Cause, knowledge and change: Turkish village revisited', in J. Davis (ed.), Choice and Change: Essays in Honour of Lucy Mair, London: Athlone, 1974, pp. 203, 229). Both diagram and article are cited by several of the contributors to this volume, and I discuss Stirling's work further myself in Chapter 1. I wish to thank the publishers and all the contributors for their co-operation and their speed. I am particularly grateful to Jan Horn and Michael Fischer for their help in preparing the manuscript, and to the latter for re-presenting the frontispiece diagram.

Contributors

Henry Bernstein is Reader in Development Studies, Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester. Nevill Colclough is Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology, University of Kent at Canterbury. / . Davis is Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Oxford. Roy Ellen is Professor of Anthropology and Human Ecology, University of Kent at Canterbury. Michael D. Fischer is Director, Centre for Social Anthropology and Computing, University of Kent at Canterbury. Ernest Gellner is Director, Institute for Research on Nationalism, Central European University, Prague. R.D. Grillo is Professor of Social Anthropology, School of African and Asian Studies, University of Sussex. CM. Hann is Professor of Social Anthropology and Dean of Social Sciences, University of Kent at Canterbury. Emine Onaran Incirlioglu is Temporary Lecturer in Sociology and Social Anthropology, University of Kent at Canterbury. Krishan Kumar is Professor of Social and Political Thought, University of Kent at Canterbury. Ray Pahl is Research Professor of Sociology, University of Kent at Canterbury. Alan Rew is Professor of Development Policy and Planning, and Director, Centre for Development Studies, University of Wales, Swansea. David Shankland is Assistant Director, British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara. June Starr is Associate Professor of Law, Indiana University Law School. Richard Tapper is Reader in Middle Eastern Anthropology, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Paul Thompson is Research Professor of Social History, University of Essex.

CHAPTER 1

Fast Forward: The Great Transformation Globalized C. M. Hann Demographers estimate that at least half of all the human beings ever born are alive now, in this century. What a moment for the human soul! (Bellow, 1965: 265) This book is about rapid and complex social changes and how these can be understood by social scientists. In this introduction I do not attempt to review all the arguments and case materials presented in the following chapters. I simply point to some of the central unifying themes and sketch in a few elements of context, temporal and spatial, disciplinary and personal. The metaphor of acceleration has been challenged by some contributors, and rightly so. But I am loath to accept that it is just a quirk of mine, or a conceit shared only by a delirious dwindling band of academic folk. It is not grounded in fin-de-siecle nostalgic imaginings, nor in post-modernist 'space-time compressions', nor in alarmist futurology. It refers rather to the very concrete, rapid and dramatic changes that have affected the lives of ever-greater numbers of people in the course of the twentieth century, whether or not these have been experienced subjectively as an acceleration. Polanyi's (1944) 'great transformation' and the work he inspired are nowadays frequently taken to be overstated: the 'origins of our time' must be sought long before the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there is no sharp divide between 'the West and the rest', and modern, 'market-driven' industrial economies are no less deeply embedded in their cultural contexts than all previous forms of economy. Recognizing social creativity to be a continuous stream that does not admit of sharp breaks, historians and anthropologists have increasingly extended the perspective of the longue duree to the past of both Western and non-Western peoples. Nevertheless it is in the

2

When History Accelerates

second half of our own century that the consequences of Polanyi's transformation have been most directly disseminated and experienced by people all over the world. These changes can be approached in any number of ways, all of them controversial. The imminence of demographic catastrophe has been preached since Malthus. Environmentalist concerns have also become an important preoccupation: it must now be recognized that in many parts of the world there are major conflicts between the goals of conservation ecology and the economic and survival needs of poor people (Adams, 1990). Economists face awkward problems in defining concepts such as 'basic needs' and 'living standards' (Hawthorn, 1988). Many have called into question the very concepts of progress and development (e.g. Hobart, 1993). Attempts to improve understanding of such topics have certainly accelerated the pace of scholarly publishing and caused new styles of intellectual enquiry to proliferate. Over the last century or so in the North Atlantic region the project of 'social science' has emerged from and, in some areas at least, superseded earlier traditions in philosophy and political economy. The contributors to this volume have diverse disciplinary backgrounds, but all have close links to the social science heritage of the twentieth century. Social anthropology is the subject best represented here. This subject, which developed as the study of 'other', i.e. non-Western societies, is a distinctive product of generations of unequal encounters, many of them in a colonial context, many of them distinctly unedifying, though perhaps no more so than other cases of colonialism throughout history. As these contexts have changed, the methodological and epistemological assumptions of earlier generations have perhaps been subject to more searching scrutiny in anthropology than anywhere else in the social sciences. Many anthropologists have concluded that no clear distinction between observation and interpretation can be sustained; the social sciences are considered to have failed, and researchers now seek to locate themselves elsewhere (e.g. Ingold, 1994). These, then, are some of the general issues that form the backcloth to the chapters that follow. SYNCHRONIC SYSTEMS AND TEMPORALITY

One of the recurring charges against the 'scientific' approach in anthropology has been that a social science that is preoccupied with the establishment of a sharp model of 'social structure' will be unable to achieve other kinds of understanding, and above all unable to incorporate temporal factors, or in other words, to integrate 'real history'

Fast Forward: The Great Transformation Globalized

3

into the structural analysis. Before looking more closely at issues of 'social change' it is therefore useful to consider the wider context of changing relationships between anthropology and history. The topic is a large one and my comments here touch upon only fragments of the literature - illustrations mainly chosen from British social anthropology, the history of which over the last century has been to a large extent the story of changing approaches to the past.1 Human communities perceive and represent time in a great variety of ways. But it may be only comparatively recently that certain people in one region of the world began to propagate theories that tied the experience of time to concepts of change, linear development and progress. The links between revolutions in technology and commerce and scientific revolutions of the kind achieved by Newton and Darwin are complex. It is important to remember that generalizations about 'Western' understandings of history and evolution are by no means valid for all or even any of the people who live in the regions that witnessed the first industrial revolutions and the new forms of intellectual creativity (cf. Adam, 1990; Hastrup, 1992). We should also remember that the ideas of scientists are liable to systematic social distortion from their very inception. As Krishan Kumar notes in his chapter in this volume, such was indeed the fate of Darwin's theory of evolution in the hands of the so-called 'Social Darwinists'. In arguing for the usefulness of Darwinian theory in the social sciences, Kumar is careful to distinguish 'sociological Darwinism' from vulgar forms of social evolutionism based on a unidirectional history. He does not abandon entirely the notion of progress, but suggests that it is more likely to derive from accidental conjunctures in conditions of social diversity than from the homogenizing efforts of social engineers. Vulgar versions of evolutionism that owe more to Spencer than to Darwin have formed the background to the emergence of modern anthropology. Some forms of anthropological evolutionism have themselves evolved and survived remarkably well, particularly in America, where links with archaeology and ecology have remained stronger than in Europe. A rather rigid form of unilineal evolutionist theory derived from L. H. Morgan via Engels was until very recently, with certain ingenious adaptations, the basis of the ethnographic sciences in the former Soviet Union. In other parts of Europe the story is varied. In Britain there was a strong reaction against Victorian evolutionism in the social anthropology of Malinowski. In a series of monographs in the 1920s and 1930s Malinowski developed a 'functionalist' approach that

4

When History Accelerates

emphasized the synchronic study of the inter-relations of the different domains of social life. Among people like the Trobriand Islanders, he saw no prospect of attaining reliable historical knowledge. In place of speculation about the past he therefore argued that the job of the investigator was to attain the fullest possible understanding of all that could be observed and absorbed during lengthy periods of fieldwork among the natives in the present. For example, stories or myths would be significant for the functional part they played as a 'charter' for the maintenance of present-day social or political relations. He modified his position in the last of the Trobriand monographs (1936), where he regretted his failure to make clearer some of the specific historical circumstances of his field research. But this self-criticism was confined to an appendix, and although he also in later years encouraged his students to enquire after historical data where reliable records were available, it is fair to conclude that Malinowski did not encourage serious engagement between anthropology and history. The stimulus he gave to the study of social change, particularly in Africa, seems to have been dictated by funding circumstances rather than any principled concern that anthropologists should pay closer attention to even short-term processes of change. As David Shankland notes in this volume, this Malinowskian heritage has caused frustration to ethnographers ever since. In comparison with Malinowski, his contemporary Radcliffe-Brown is generally viewed as a less ablefieldworkerbut a superior theoretician. However, his pursuit of a 'natural science' model for anthropology (e.g. 1952) left little scope for a rapprochement with history: an over-riding concern with 'social structure' seemed to exclude the temporal dimension altogether. Evans-Pritchard, abandoning the 'structuralist' models of his own early work, polemicized against such a vision of anthropology in his Marett Lecture of 1950 (1962). The second half of the century has since witnessed a continuous reaction against anthropological tendencies to study societies 'out of time' (Thomas, 1989). One of the earliest contributions was that of Leach (1954), who berated the use of 'equilibrium models' by the young Evans-Pritchard (1940). Leach sought to account for political systems of Highland Burma so as to fit with more than a century of historical data. Whether he did so satisfactorily has been disputed by later writers, but the work remains an inspiration to many (see Friedman, 1987; Comaroff and Comaroff, 1992). Further work in the later 1950s and 1960s sought to reintroduce at least short-term

Fast Forward: The Great Transformation Globalized

5

and micro-scale processual elements into anthropological analyses, though an appreciation of the creativity of individuals was largely confined to the domain of politics at this time (Barth, 1959; Swartz, Turner and Tuden, 1966). At one of the earliest conferences of the Association of Social Anthropologists (ASA) a number of scholars sought to expand the familiar scales and time frames; the editor of the resulting volume argued that a great deal of historical work had been undertaken by anthropologists, and any impressions of a rift had been greatly exaggerated (Lewis, 1968). Lewis may have been right to remind his readers that history was seldom completely absent even in the writings of the most committed synchronicists and structural-functionalists. Yet the extent to which anthropology and history are brought together in the volume that he edited remains limited, and the same can be said of the great majority of monographic studies of these decades. The incorporation of history often meant little more than a separate section tacked on at the beginning of the book, in much the same way as chapters on * social change' were tacked on at the end. The central product was still a structured or systemic account that was essentially self-contained and detemporalized: the work might be significantly improved by such buffers, but it could hardly be maintained that their contents were well integrated. But then how does one produce such an integrated account, a theoretically satisfying model that does genuinely incorporate historical events and processual change, both internally and externally induced? The challenge is by no means an easy one, as Roy Ellen and Michael D. Fischer demonstrate in their contributions to this volume. Ellen argues for the continued usefulness of a systemic approach, but calls for greater care in the identification and measurement of differential rates of change and in the analysis of causal relations within complex systems. Fischer shows how computers can assist in providing 'strong representations' of social knowledge, and illustrates with a model of a system for understanding the arrangement of marriages in a community in Pakistan; in this case the model has also proved useful in enabling the anthropologist to identify changes in local practice as this new community consolidated itself over a ten-year period. In contrast to such systemic analyses, Evans-Pritchard's later work followed the opposite course; but if his mature position was that reflected in a meticulous historical record of the Azande (1971), it has to be admitted that it is the immature works of his more 'structuralist'

6

When History Accelerates

period that continue to excite more attention among scholars and students. In any case it would seem from his last monograph that Evans-Pritchard's own concept of history is very much the Western one, in which facts (as verified through written sources) are linked by a linear narrative in chains of cause and effect. An explicitly dichotomized Western view of history has been taken (and never to my knowledge repudiated) by Claude Levi-Strauss (1966). His distinction between 'hot' and 'cold' societies postulates a sharp divide between societies of a European type that are moving forwards in classical evolutionary fashion and those that are basically not moving anywhere at all. A similar view is held by many in the Marxist tradition. However the phase of neo-Marxist work that was most prominent in anthropology in the 1970s went some way towards undermining such great divide theories by insisting that anthropologists appreciate contexts of a single world trading system and its associated exploitative power relations. The towering anthropological achievement of this phase is the work of Eric Wolf (1982), which is very critical of Europeans for their ignorance of the past of the peoples they have conquered and dominated for centuries. But Wolf's own corrective to such Eurocentrism is to devote more space to those non-Western peoples for whom evidence is available in a global history that remains focused on the expansion of the West and guided by the principles of Western scholarship. He has little to say about endogenous or exogenous processes of change that preceded the impact of the West. Marshall Sahlins on the other hand, in his own contemporaneous opening towards history (1985), gave priority to the structures of a local culture. Yet many critics have argued that these structures alone can hardly be sufficient to account for processual change, and Sahlins has even been accused of falling back into an untenable evolutionism (Thomas, 1989). The most searching epistemological challenge has been that mounted by Johannes Fabian (1983), who argues that Western anthropologists have consistently denied the 'coevalness' of their subjects, 'the Other'. This critique has far-reaching relativist and subjectivist implications (but see also Fabian, 1991). It is now generally accepted that anthropological histories should not reduce the past of other peoples to the design and causal narratives of Western histories. At the very least, anthropologists must pay more attention to the multiple ways in which the past is understood and presented by the people they study. John Davis, for example, has recently explored some of the general characteristics of

Fast Forward: The Great Transformation Globalized

7

'histories without Europe' (1992). He continues in the same direction in his contribution to this volume, in which he is somewhat sceptical of systems theory. Davis prefers instead to emphasize the creativity and 'sociable imagination' of all human communities, which may or may not allow them to achieve some measure of coherence in their lives, and analysts to identify some kinds of system. Davis again hails the work of the Spanish anthropologist Carmelo Lison Tolosana (1966) as pioneering the demonstration of how different generations in the same society can have quite different understandings of past events (cf. Ernest Gellner, this volume). Similarly, John and Jean Comaroff (1992) have shown that histories in this subjective sense can also vary according to gender, social status and a host of other factors undergoing constant modification and negotiation through cultural interaction. To a greater degree than the Comaroffs, Nicholas Thomas (1989) wishes to retain something of the 'objectivist' scholar's conception of a hard 'real history': what actually happened in the past. He has shown the benefits of drawing on an eclectic range of sources (archaeological, linguistic, missionary and travellers' accounts) in order to situate colonial encounters in the Pacific in a more extended time frame than can be achieved through synchronic ethnographic analysis. In an impressive synthesis that is intended to have more general validity, Thomas shows how past bias towards systemic accounts that exclude history can be overcome. A good example of what can be gained through such genuine integration of ethnographic and historical approaches is provided in this volume by Nevill Colclough. Starting with some ethnographic data concerning 'crimes of honour' that are difficult to square with standard, stereotypical theories of honour and shame, Colclough shows how more attention to local and regional historical circumstances, language and archival sources can enable an anthropologist to formulate and test more satisfactory explanations. In aiming to document how 'honour codes' have changed through time, such historical anthropology will seek to open up the large middle ground between the excessively general or minutely particular accounts offered by previous writers on this topic. The present wide measure of agreement on the desirability of 'historicizing anthropology' tends to mean quite different things to different people. Perhaps the busiest field of late has been the history of the development of anthropology itself, but this is clearly a quite different activity from that advocated by Thomas and Colclough. Another theme that has attracted interest in recent years is the study of

8

When History Accelerates

how history is produced by elite groups, notably as a central component of ideologies of ethnicity and nationalism. Some of the issues here were addressed at the 1987 ASA Conference, and a comparison of the ensuing volume (Tonkin, McDonald and Chapman, 1989) with its predecessor (Lewis, 1968) shows that at least some anthropologists have become more sophisticated about the incorporation of history over the intervening decades. Certain fields, then, have been productive. The stream of relativist, subjectivist explorations of knowledge about the past shows signs of becoming a flood, as anthropologists expand their studies of 'ethnohistory' and join forces with social historians and others to explore 'social memory' (Connerton, 1989). At the same time, by drawing on textual sources and other forms of non-ethnographic data we can achieve a better integration of anthropology and history in the long-term, 'evolutionary' time frame and on the global scale. However, it is more localized integration over the shorter time frames that remains the more urgent concern of most social scientists, and this has often remained elusive. For example, the Comaroffs (1992) have derided past habits of appending a discussion of 'social change' to a basically static, structural account; but it might be said of their own rich work, predicated on the strengths of ethnography, that it offers greater insight into the longue duree than into the concrete changes that have transformed the lives of the Tshidi people in recent decades. There is a danger that, between synchronic structural models (the better of which always incorporated at least some elements of processual change, such as those associated with the life cycle) on the one hand, and diachronic models of long-run change on the other, vital 'intermediate' ground is neglected. To alter the designation of this ground from 'social change' to 'the dialectics of the short run' does not in itself guarantee an improvement upon accounts such as those of Firth (1959) and Mair (1969); indeed, more recent accounts may be less powerful than those earlier contributions if their short-run ethnographic base is poorly developed. SOCIAL CHANGE AND REVOLUTION

In the systemic approach that he advocates in this volume, Roy Ellen notes the impossibility of 'total' social change, but ends tantalizingly by raising the possibility of 'system collapse'. A number of other contributors present empirical evidence concerning societies that have direct experience of dramatic change during this century. In each of these cases it is not just that former powerholders have been replaced

Fast Forward: The Great Transformation Globalized

9

by new ones, but that the structures of political and economic life have themselves been radically altered. This has certainly happened in Russia, Iran and Turkey, and, at the time of writing, comparable far-reaching changes are about to be consummated in South Africa. In the well-known terms of one anthropologist whose homeland was South Africa, we are dealing here with revolutions rather than the cyclical, repetitive changes induced by mere 'rebellions' (Gluckman, 1963). But how deeply do such revolutions in fact transform people's social worlds? Is it likely that any substantial impact on the culture and the meaning systems through which people order their lives is much delayed? Is it possible that dramatic changes at the level of national politics will be associated with cultural continuities, or even with lower rates of socio-cultural change, as new powerholders seek to entrench themselves and re-establish stability? How can different forms of social research help us to discriminate, both in degree and in kind, between various types of revolution and their consequences, over varying time frames? Several contributors provide some suggestive answers to these questions. Without question the most dramatic world political change in the second half of this century has been the collapse of communist power in the Soviet Union. In spite of burgeoning research, the impact of these changes, and indeed of communism itself, on the lives of ordinary Russian people is poorly understood. The chapter by Ray Pahl and Paul Thompson shows the value of an ethnographic approach, and, in particular, how the methods of oral history can cast fresh and revealing light on such ordinary lives. The authors suggest that some of the basic assumptions of oral historians in Western countries need modification in the Russian context, where people are not so much choice-making individuals as the fearful victims of generations of oppressive power structures; but to my mind the interview data presented by Pahl and Thompson show that, even under the conditions of so-called totalitarian society, Russian people were still very much the creative authors of their own lives. This research was beset with difficulties, not only in the management of local translators and collaborators in Russia, but also in dealing with those in control of research funds in Britain. The authors take a jaundiced view of the ability of a bureaucratized area-studies establishment to grasp the full social consequences of revolutionary change in Russia. My own experience suggests that this is also true of other parts of Eastern Europe. At the core of the problem is the erroneous assumption that disciplines which always operate on macro levels and

10

When History Accelerates

rely on quantitative methods are thereby necessarily more 'scientific' than subjects which depend more on qualitative, ethnographic methods. Pahl and Thompson emphasize that the history that really matters is that inside people's heads, as opposed to official histories and the data that can be readily elicited through macro-sociological styles of enquiry. The argument is especially compelling in the context of the state's imposition of Marxist-Leninist doctrines of history as progress, with the Communist Party as its omniscient agent. But if ethnographic techniques and the subjective dimension should never be overlooked in social research, they can, of course, usefully be complemented by other styles of enquiry. For example, knowledge of when certain events occurred and of their factual consequences can help us to appreciate better the games that memory can play later on (Incirlioglu, this volume). Sometimes great insight can be obtained from forms of historical enquiry that pay relatively little attention to subjective consciousness, but emphasize how a number of objectively specified variables can be linked in a causal explanation of particular outcomes. Henry Bernstein's contribution to this volume focuses on the land question in twentieth-century South African history, and the systematic links between rural poverty and the edifice of apartheid. Most commentaries have overlooked this dimension, in spite of its obvious significance for millions of people. According to Bernstein, on the eve of the first non-racial elections in 1994 there remains a policy vacuum as far as the agrarian sector is concerned. This should be filled by serious attempts to involve rural people themselves in shaping the future to which they aspire; if this does not happen, entrenched interests aided and abetted by agencies such as the World Bank will ensure that few benefits from South Africa's democratic revolution filter through to the most underprivileged groups. Between the subjectivities opened up by oral historians and the objectivities uncovered by political economists, most anthropologists will strike some kind of balance in the centre ground. Richard Tapper shows in Chapter 9 that nomads have been subjected to varying forms of attack by different powerholders in Teheran in the course of the century. Currently the Iranian state is seeking to develop its nomads, even labelling them Treasures of the Revolution'. Policies that were dogmatic in the past have become pragmatic, but even if forcible sedentarization has been dropped it is clear that traditional styles of nomadism have been fundamentally altered, while even the more modern styles face an uncertain future. At the same time, precisely what

Fast Forward: The Great Transformation Globalized

11

is meant by nomad has been contentious, and the state has redefined the term in such a way as to allow connotations of pastoral economy and a kinship base, but not the political connotations of 'tribe'. Nomad self-definitions must reflect both changing economic conditions and the long history of political control, including the control of 'cognition'. Several chapters deal with twentieth-century transformations of Anatolian Turkish society, which exemplifies many of the social changes that concern us in this book. The Ottoman Empire was a little too close to Europe to qualify as one of those timeless 'arrested civilizations' beloved of Western orientalists (see Kumar, this volume), and yet many of the most powerful orientalist stereotypes originate here. The role that historical anthropological research can play in dispelling such notions is well illustrated in the chapter by June Starr, which shows that changes in legal codes in the nineteenth century were a direct response to changing social and economic realities, highlighted in the region around Izmir where the impact of European traders was greatest. Starr shows that the advance of a 'world system' was mediated by local and regional interests, and provides a valuable reminder that, far from oriental stagnation, the lives not only of elites but of ordinary Anatolian peasant farmers underwent radical changes as a result of commercialization. She therefore argues that a social acceleration of sorts began, at least in this region, more than a century before the emergence of the modern Turkish 'nation-state' in the early 1920s. Starr's argument notwithstanding, it was obvious to Atatiirk and the new secular Republican elites that the failure to industrialize in the Ottoman period had left an overwhelmingly agrarian country in conditions of dire poverty. Their response was a programme of social engineering that was radical in scope even by the general standards of the twentieth century, and rather more successful than many other such programmes (particularly, as Ernest Gellner points out in his chapter, socialist programmes). Whereas the Ottoman state elites adjusted their legal system to bring it into line with changing socio-economic realities, their Republican successors introduced a new legal system as part of their programme of change 'from above', designed to shape the patterns of social and economic development. From 1950 onwards, under a more democratic political system, these efforts to reconstruct the entire society along 'modernist' Western lines began to transform the lives of the mass of its members, the villagers of Anatolia. From an anthropological perspective, this was the true beginning of their great transformation, a generation or so after Atatiirk's enunciation of the

12

When History Accelerates

goals (Stirling, 1982; cf. Starr 1978, 1992). But many scholars have voiced doubts about the extent of social and cultural transformation in Anatolia. Gellner identifies among the first generation of secular Republicans the adaptation of an Islamic principle of legitimation. Far from any linear progression, he even detects a new pattern of repetitive cycles in Turkish politics in the second half of the century. But he also points out that continuities with the older religious culture are becoming corrupted, to be replaced by more pragmatic syntheses as the political revolution sinks further into history. It is certainly clear that the processes of modernization have been experienced unevenly, as illustrated in this volume by David Shankland. His recent fieldwork among Alevi villagers shows again the importance of the local context in analysing the variable impact of apparently uniform, 'top down', state-directed social change. Whereas Sunni villagers seem to cope reasonably well with new economic opportunities and new forms of political intervention in their lives, Alevi religious culture and social organization are less well adapted for this purpose. In their villages rapid change has more often led to disintegration, and to quite new forms of leadership and political alliance. ETHNOGRAPHIC KNOWLEDGE AND RESPONSIBILITY

The final chapter on Turkey, by Emine Onaran incirlioglu, is concerned less with the character of rural transformation than with the processes of ethnographic data collection. Working in collaboration with Paul Stirling on a project that focused explicitly on social change, Incirlioglu discusses the 'bargaining' that regularly took place between the researchers over the interpretation of the data they collected. Her gender, native speaker's linguistic competence and greater 'cultural sensitivity' gave her certain advantages in this bargaining process. But Stirling had some resources at his disposal that she could not hope to match, notably a knowledge of the villages and their families that stretched back some four decades and included detailed knowledge of their national and international migration patterns. The data in his files gave her insights into the construction of myth and history that she could not possibly have obtained through a synchronic study. These data, including a wide range of demographic and economic materials, will provide many future scholars with an unrivalled source of objective information concerning the recent history not just of the Anatolian countryside but the whole of Turkish society. Yet incirlioglu shows how subjective factors intruded constantly, even during the collection

Fast Forward: The Great Transformation Globalized

13

of 'hard' statistical data. The creativity of these villagers shines through, in ways that sometimes make the research experience a frustrating one for the investigators. This project, then, ranks with a small number of other longitudinal projects (such as Firth, 1959) as an outstanding example of how ethnographic research can contribute to the understanding of rapid social change. Yet Incirlioglu has deep-seated doubts about the work, about the quality of the data and also about the uses to which they are put, which in this case do not seem significant to the villagers themselves, or to connect with their interests in any way. In giving voice to these doubts she is echoing the recent comments and criticisms of many other scholars in a whole range of subjects. Increasingly, suspicion of commonsense empiricism is carried to the point where the researcher is no longer able to state any 'hard' facts about any world, past or present, and certainly not to present them within the framework of a comparative social scientific epistemology.2 Most anthropologists would probably agree that much has been gained from recent preoccupations with the 'constructed' character of all ethnographic knowledge, with the rhetoric of texts, with what Alan Rew terms the 'chasms of meaning' (p. 280) that separate social development advisers from the people on whose behalf they may intervene, and with the ethical hazards that accompany all social research, even that which is apparently devoid of practical consequences. But there is scope to disagree over the implications of the current epistemological angst. One reaction is to attempt to refine ethnographic methods to allay some of the doubts that have been expressed; as noted, Michael D. Fischer shows in his chapter how computers may provide a valuable new tool for anthropologists, not only in the analysis of their materials but also during the actual collection of data. Moreover incirlioglu herself presents convincing evidence that particular combinations of expertise through teamwork in ethnography can produce more reliable results than individuals working alone. In contrast to such 'gradualist' efforts to improve and refine ethnographic techniques, the more radical sceptics will continue to doubt the value of such research by emphasizing its subjective and 'fictional' character. Such critique clearly risks sabotaging practical applications of this knowledge. It may be the case that no such practical applications were envisaged for the project on which Incirlioglu reports, though it is not hard to detect elements of her work that might have considerable policy relevance (for instance in the field of health care, where she

14

When History Accelerates

notes the inadequacy of non-anthropological research methodologies). In other cases reported in this volume the practical significance of the research is strikingly obvious: for instance, Shankland's analysis of Alevi social organization carries immediate implications for those seeking to channel the benefits of new economic opportunities to such villages, as does Richard Tapper's discussion for those seeking to settle nomads in Iran, or Henry Bernstein's analysis of the predicament of rural South African blacks during decades of apartheid for those now seeking to transform that system. Epistemological doubts may deter anthropologists from assuming responsibilities in the so-called 'real world' of policymaking and decision-taking. Bernstein points explicitly to the danger that social science consultants will join the technocrats and become co-opted by organizations such as the World Bank. He therefore emphasizes instead the need for a new political dynamic that will involve the masses directly in the shapiug of their future. Few anthropologists would dissent, but recognition of this principle could lead them to examine the constructive contributions they can make in this process of mobilization, rather than to abdicate responsibility, or to confine themselves to blanket critique and moralizing from behind the walls of Academe; if they follow the latter course, there will always be plenty of other self-styled experts only too willing to proffer their own solutions. Alan Rew's case-study in this volume of a rural resettlement scheme in India shows how vital the contribution of the outside adviser can be in the implementation of rapid social change. The full consequences of the planned intervention are always likely to remain far beyond the control of the adviser: as John Davis points out in this volume, the 'irrepressible creativity' of villagers has sometimes altered the course of development projects drastically. Rew shows that some villagers are likely to benefit much more than others; and some may not benefit at all. But studies such as this confirm that the likelihood of more satisfactory outcomes is increased if international social standards can be agreed, and if anthropological advice is available; the value of that advice is likely to be directly related to the adviser's fieldwork experience in the local context, and it is probably highest if a historical dimension can be integrated, covering both local and global, subjective and objective dimensions of history. Similar arguments can be made concerning applied anthropology 'at home'. In some Western countries anthropologists have become very actively involved in fields such as racial and ethnic relations and social services. Yet the status of such practical work has been questioned by

Fast Forward: The Great Transformation Globalized

15

those who consider that the intellectual purity of the subject can be better sustained if the profession confines itself to the universities. Modestly omitting all mention of his own active role in promoting the contrary view, in the final chapter of this book Ralph Grillo reviews the achievements of applied anthropology in Britain over the last decade. Many more anthropologists are now engaged in 'policy and practice', even though the subject still has less public recognition in Britain than in many other European countries. There is every reason to hope that such engagement with the problems of rapidly changing societies will be conducive to the intellectual development of the subject, rather than lead to distortion and contamination. This is already happening in fields such as the application of new reproductive technologies (Edwards et aU 1993). PAUL STIRLING: A PERSONAL SYNTHESIS

Most of the themes of this book are prominent in the work of Paul Stirling, foundation Professor of Sociology and Social Anthropology at the University of Kent, a man who is admired and loved as a uniquely creative person by the contributors. Planning for the volume began when the editor arrived in Canterbury in 1992.3 He found himself allocated a room next door to Stirling, who had in theory retired some ten years earlier, though it soon became clear that he was still playing a very full role in the life of the department. Some chapters are the work of longstanding Kent colleagues. Some have been written by those who have known Paul through wider professional bodies, and in particular through his work in pioneering applied anthropology in Britain as the founder of the Group for Anthropology in Policy and Practice (GAPP) in the early 1980s. Others, including myself, have been linked to Paul over many years primarily through common research interests in Turkey.4 Many more people would undoubtedly have wished to contribute to this volume, and I can but apologize to all who feel excluded. In particular, I took the difficult decision not to approach Paul's former students, either in Turkey or elsewhere, as their number is considerable and selection would have been impossibly invidious. (The exceptions are Nevill Colclough and John Davis, who later became close colleagues in Canterbury; and Ernest Gellner, who was advised by Paul Stirling at the London School of Economics during his doctoral research in Morocco.) Paul Stirling embarked upon his fieldwork in Anatolia at a crucial mid-century juncture: crucial for the lives of Anatolian villagers, as noted above, but crucial too in the theory and practice of anthropology.

16

When History Accelerates

He went to thefieldin Turkey at a time when most of his contemporaries were still working in colonial societies, and just after his supervisor Evans-Pritchard had delivered his Marett Lecture proclaiming social anthropology to be 'a kind of historiography' (1962: 26). The influence of Evans-Pritchard can perhaps be detected in Stirling's own writings, not least in their clarity of expression. It is also true that Stirling offers readers of Turkish Village a masterful outline of the Ottoman and early Republican historical background to his study. But this contextualization is not allowed to intrude far into the main ethnographic business of this text, which in effect sets up a model of the familiar structuralfunctionalist kind with implications of permanence. The history of the local communities and the memories of the inhabitants are not seriously explored (for example, until I read the chapter by Incirlioglu I knew nothing of the significance of past Armenian presence in this area - this is not discussed in Stirling's monograph, though it clearly is important to local people). On the other hand, though hardly a slavish imitator of Radcliffe-Brownian models, both in Turkish Village and in other publications there is abundant evidence that Stirling is reluctant to discard the mantle of social science. His principal concern has been to sharpen the tools of this science, and in particular to call for greater rigour in the language we use to indicate causality (1974,1993; cf. Ellen, this volume). If there is some truth in suggestions that Stirling's initial village study paid relatively little attention to history and implied a detemporalized, static model (Davis, 1977; Marcus, 1992), his later work provides dynamic accounts of a society in motion. He has focused on rapid social change as it has affected those same villagers and their descendants over the last four decades. Stirling has renewed his fieldwork at regular intervals over this period, and worked ever more closely in collaboration with Turkish students and colleagues. He has compiled a remarkable set of household survey materials and made all his data available to other scholars using the most up-to-date computer technologies. He has also disseminated knowledge through the medium of film, using cameras not only in the village of Sakaltutan itself but also in the cities to which its inhabitants have emigrated, in Germany as well as in Turkey.5 His own work is the best demonstration that social scientists can strive to offer systematic accounts of people caught up in the most dramatic processes of transformation. Virtually all writers on modern Turkey are agreed that the scope and speed of changes expanded dramatically only after the elections of 1950. That is why it is so useful to have that synchronic and

Fast Forward: The Great Transformation Globalized

17

structured mid-century model, established through the initial fieldwork and the resulting dissertation and monograph (1951, 1965). These works provide the invaluable benchmark for the detailed longitudinal account of all the processes of change thereafter, that carried the villagers into trajectories that hardly any of them had begun to explore before 1950.6 Paul Stirling has not himself been prominent in discussions of anthropological epistemology. He tells me that some of his more philosophical reflections upon his original research project were excised from his D.Phil, thesis at the insistence of Evans-Pritchard himself: the master was proclaiming an affinity between anthropology and philosophy, but evidently did not expect his pupils to take this too seriously. A later unpublished manuscript (Stirling, n.d.) from his period at the London School of Economics (1952-65) deals with symbolic knowledge and anticipates some of what Sperber (1975) and others had to say on the same topic much later. But whether publishing or not, throughout his career Paul Stirling has never ceased to pose awkward questions, to criticize obscurity, to doubt the truths accepted by others and to condemn dogma whenever it masquerades as academic knowledge. It seems to me that through all this ceaseless searching criticism he has remained faithful to the classical epistemological foundations of social science. Long after his nominal retirement I heard him lecture to a largely sceptical audience at the Cambridge University Anthropological Society on the subject of cumulative knowledge in anthropology: this seemed to represent for him a bottom line of deep conviction. This commitment to social science may make Stirling an antediluvian modernist by the standards of today. But it by no means implies crude positivism, still less a philistine distaste for intellectual argument. It does lead Stirling to emphasize the virtues of rational argument and explanations based on clear specification of cause and effect, and also to set high standards in the reporting of empirical detail in anthropological and sociological research. These standards are applied just as carefully to cognition and the ideas inside people's heads as to their differential ownership of land or divorce statistics. Empiricism has also in Stirling's case prompted him to insist on the links between academic work and the practical concerns of planners and policymakers. His role in the promotion of applied anthropology in Britain is recorded in this volume by both Alan Rew and Ralph Grillo. In part Stirling's motivation was perhaps the same as it had been for Malinowski half a century earlier: to help graduate students of anthropology find employment when they completed their degrees.

18

When History Accelerates

But he was also motivated by a deeper ethical desire that social science knowledge be put to constructive use: we might say, to enlarge the scope for human creativity, everywhere. Paul Stirling has been unsympathetic to the major political blueprints of his contemporaries, be these left-wing Marxist or rightwing Thatcherite. He has objected to their consequences both inside and outside universities, in Turkey as well as in Britain. However, he does not seem to share the prevailing pessimism of late twentieth-century intellectual life, whether this takes the form of post-modernist fragmentation in philosophy or the categorical dismissal of 'progress' in development studies. The fact is that for the Turkish people with whom he has worked for the best part of five decades associated many - perhaps most - of the changes brought by their accelerating history have been welcome changes; and the overall qualitative assessment is also positive. Far from being unwelcome interventions, the changes have been experienced by most people (not all) as an empowerment. With a little ethnographic or imaginative effort, even the gloomier cynics of Academe might appreciate why this is so. Indeed, a better understanding of the social changes that have transformed the lives of millions of people like the villagers of Sakaltutan all over the world might cause many Western intellectuals to rethink their positions. As for Paul Stirling, he is far from sanguine about the tensions of contemporary Turkish society; he knows the pressures of life in the crowded cities as well as he knows the perils of remote villages, and he has made rigorous analyses of the difficulties that arise when modernizing elites introduce alien institutions and goals to a recalcitrant society: But I do not want to reverse it all. I would not want my best friend's gelin, who was saved by caesarian in the Kayseri University hospital, to have died with her child, as she would have in 1950. Nor do I want people to be walking in the snow without shoes, shivering because their supply of cattle dung cakes has run out before the end of the winter, nor seeing their children weedy from malnutrition. The extollers and the denouncers of modernisation, or capitalism, are both highly selective. How can anyone make an overall moral judgement on all these processes of change? They have happened: the results are here. As an anthropologist, I am part of a collective effort to understand them. I find the complexity incredibly difficult to analyse. As

Fast Forward: The Great Transformation Globalized

19

a moral person, I have my own firm views and I hold that understanding social processes is relevant both to judgements, and to framing successful policies at all levels. But I also hold that understanding - achieving 'truth', that is, less misleading models of social processes - is a separate and morally neutral task. (Stirling, 1993: 14-15). NOTES

1 Further contemporary exploration of this field can be found in the journal History and Anthropology. 2 See for example Hobart, 1993. The contributors to this volume show in very interesting ways how reliable knowledge that may be of some use in 'development' contexts can be elicited through ethnographic research; but they tend to see their focus on local, indigenous knowledge as incompatible with Western social science. 3 This small English city has another link to the major themes of the volume: it was here and at other Colleges in Kent that Karl Polanyi developed his original arguments about 'the great transformation' in lectures organized by the Workers' Educational Association in 1939-40. 4 Since the early 1960s Stirling has also carried out longitudinal research on the social, economic and political consequences of land reform in the Metapontino (Basilicata) in southern Italy (Stirling, 1968, 1980). In collaboration with Professor M. Minicuci of the University of Messina and Dr N. Colclough of the University of Kent he is currently engaged in a restudy of this area (Nuffield SOC/100/357, Land reform and labour migration. Households and their social contexts in North Puglia, 1960-1993). 5 This film, in three parts under the general title A Time of Change, was produced in 1981 by the Open University for its Third World Studies programme. 6 It can of course be argued that Stirling might have done more to explore the dynamics of long-run changes before 1950. For example, some interesting hypotheses about long-run cyclical changes in rural Anatolia have been put forward by Keyder (1983). But it should be pointed out that the sources for most parts of rural Anatolia in past centuries are very limited; they are less easily accessible to anthropological researchers, either foreigners or native Turks, than source materials for many of the former European colonies, and a well-integrated historical anthropology will be correspondingly more difficult to achieve for Anatolia. This is not to say that such goals should not be pursued; however, short cuts, for example attempting to open up a long-run account by relying on Western travel literature (Marcus, 1992), are unlikely to prove productive.

20

When History

Accelerates

REFERENCES

Adam, B. (1990) Time and Social Theory, Cambridge: Polity. Adams, W. (1990) Green Development: Environment and Sustainability in the Third World, London: Routledge. Barth, F. (1959) Political Leadership among the Swat Pathans, London: Athlone. Bellow, S. (1965) Herzog, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Comaroff, J. and J. Comaroff (1992) Ethnography and the Historical Imagination, Boulder CO: Westview. Connerton, P. (1989) How Societies Remember, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davis, J. (1977) People of the Mediterranean: An Essay in Comparative Social Anthropology, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Davis, J. (1992) 'History and the people without Europe', in K. Hastrup (ed.) Other Histories, London: Routledge, pp. 14-28. Edwards, J. et aL (1993) Technologies of Procreation: Kinship in the Age of Assisted Conception, Manchester University Press. Evans-Pritchard, E. (1940) The Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Evans-Pritchard, E. (1962) Essays in Social Anthropology, London: Faber & Faber. Evans-Pritchard, E. (1971) The Azande: History and Political Institutions, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Fabian, J. (1983) Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes its Object, New York: Columbia University Press. Fabian, J. (1991) Time and the Work of Anthropology: Critical Essays 1971-1991, Chur: Harwood. Firth, R. (1959) Social Change in Tikopia: A Re-study of a Polynesian Community After a Generation, London: Allen & Unwin. Friedman, J. (1985) 'Generalized exchange, theocracy and the opium trade', Critique of Anthropology, 7, 1, 15-31. Gluckman, M. (1963) Order and Rebellion in Tribal Society, London: Cohen & West. Hastrup, K. (ed.) (1992) Other Histories, London: Routledge. Hawthorn G. (ed.) (1988) The Standard of Living, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hobart, M. (ed.) (1993) An Anthropological Critique of Development: The Growth of Ignorance, London: Routledge. Ingold, T. (1994) 'General Introduction', in T. Ingold (ed.) Companion Encylopaedia of Anthropology: Humanity, Culture and Social Life, London: Routledge, pp. xiii-xxii. Keyder, Q. (1983) 'The cycle of sharecropping and the consolidation of small peasant ownership in Turkey', Journal of Peasant Studies, 10, 2-3, 130-45.

Fast Forward: The Great Transformation Globalized

21

Leach, E. (1954) Political Systems of Highland Burma, London: G.Bell. Levi-Strauss, C. (1966) The Savage Mind, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Lewis, I.M. (ed.) (1968) History and Social Anthropology (ASA Monographs Series, 7), London: Tavistock. Lison Tolosana, C. (1966) Belmonte de los Cahalleros: A Sociological Study of a Spanish Town, Oxford: Clarendon. Mair, L. (1969) Anthropology and Social Change, London: Athlone. Malinowski, B. (1936) Coral Gardens and their Magic, London: Allen & Unwin. Marcus, J. (1992) A World of Difference: Islam and Gender Hierarchy in Turkey, London: Zed. Polanyi, K. (1944) The Great Transformation, New York: Farrar & Rinehart. Radcliffe-Brown, A. (1952) Structure and Function in Primitive Society, London: Cohen & West. Sahlins, M. (1985) Islands of History, University of Chicago Press. Sperber, D. (1975) Rethinking Symbolism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Starr, J. (1978) Dispute and Settlement in Rural Turkey: An Ethnography of Law, Leiden: E. J. Brill. Starr, J. (1992) Law as Metaphor: From Islamic Courts to the Palace of Justice, Albany: State University of New York Press. Stirling, P. (1951) 'The social structure of Turkish peasant communities', (Doctoral thesis), University of Oxford. Stirling, P. (1965) Turkish Village, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Stirling, P. (1968) 'Impartiality and personal morality (Italy)', in J. G. Peristiany (ed.) Contributions to Mediterranean Sociology: Mediterranean Rural Communities and Social Change, Paris-The Hague: Mouton, pp. 49-64. Stirling, P. (1974) 'Cause, knowledge and change: Turkish village revisited', in J. Davis (ed.) Choice and Change: Essays in Honour of Lucy Mair, London: Athlone, pp. 191-229. Stirling, P. (1980) 'Venticinque anni di riforma e di sviluppo: Metapontino 1975', Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia, 21, 2, 163-207. Stirling, P. (1982) 'Social change and social control in Republican Turkey', in Turkiye I§ Bankasi: Papers and Discussions: International Symposium on Ataturk 1981, Ankara: Turkiye I§ Bankasi, Cultural Publications, pp. 565-600. Stirling, P. (1993) 'Introduction: Growth and Changes; speed, scale, complexity', in P. Stirling (ed.) Culture and Economy: Changes in Turkish Villages, Huntingdon: Eothen, pp. 1-16. Stirling, P. (forthcoming) 'Labour migration in Turkey: forty years of changes', in Essays presented to Bozkurt Guveng, Ankara: Kultiir Bakanligi. Stirling, P., n.d., 'Some remarks on ritual and symbols' (MS in the possession ofCMH),p. 20. Swartz, M., V. Turner and A. Tuden (eds) (1966) Political Anthropology,

22

When History

Accelerates

Chicago: Aldine. Thomas, N. (1989) Out of Time: History and Evolution in Anthropological Discourse, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tonkin, E., M. McDonald and M. Chapman (eds) (1989) History and Ethnicity (ASA Monographs Series, 27), London: Routledge. Wolf, E. (1982) Europe and the People Without History, Berkeley, University of California Press.

CHAPTER 2

The Evolution of Society: A Darwinian Approach Krishan Kumar Again and yet again, man is an animal. He has evolved as other animals: he is a vertebrate, a mammal, a member of the order Primates. How, then, can the same principles of analysis that we apply to the study of the animal kingdom at large not be applied to him? (Tiger and Fox, 1974: 24) / am an enthusiastic Darwinian, but I think Darwinism is too big a theory to be confined to the narrow context of the gene. (Dawkins, 1978: 205) THE HUMAN ANIMAL

We are not merely animals; we are human animals. It may indeed be salutary to be reminded on occasion of the first part of Aristotle's definition of man, as zoon politikon, 'an animal intended to live in a polis'. But to get carried away by it, in the manner of the socio-biologists, is to risk losing all the insights that biology has to offer the social theorist. We are animals, indeed. And so the sciences of animal life, biology and ethology especially, must be important in helping us to understand ourselves. But we are animals of a specific kind - 'political animals', as Aristotle said. The social and political sciences must therefore also be our guide in studying the human condition - and perhaps the condition of other species too (cf. Byrne and Whiten, 1988). Which of the two - life science or social science - predominates will be to some extent a matter of the particular case at hand. But it might be better to look for a synthesis of the two. It is unsatisfactory to treat 'biological man' and 'social man' as two separate entities (cf. Ingold, 1990). Rather we should be considering how best to think of a species of animal whose natural habitat is society. So the aim should be a biological approach in which the social nature of man is acknowledged

24

When History Accelerates

as his principal characteristic. This might seem to be a complicated way of favouring sociology over biology. That is not my intention. Quite the opposite. The larger must contain the smaller. The human species is one among many species, and must be seen in the perspective of living things generally. Biology must, in other words, ultimately be the master science. But what kind of biology? What sort of principles does biology proclaim, and how might that help in human enquiry? The principles of biology for the past century or so have been those of Darwinism. I propose to accept these as the basis of this discussion, though I am aware that much contemporary biology operates without reference to Darwinism.1 The aim then is to show the relevance of Darwinism for the study of human society. If the term had not been notoriously hijacked by a nineteenth-century school of dubious respectability and questionable authenticity, I should have been happy to call this * social Darwinism'. Objections of a similar kind apply to the latter-day social Darwinists who call themselves 'socio-biologists'. So what I propose might be called, rather inelegantly, 'sociological Darwinism'. But before I consider this there is the question of its relation to the better-known and undeniably respectable approach of social evolutionism. DARWINISM AND EVOLUTIONISM

With the exception of certain anthropologists, mainly in America, it is rare to find a Darwinian approach in the social sciences today. One possible reason of course is that Darwinist approaches have been tried and found wanting. But another reason is history. In the second half of the nineteenth century Darwinism in the social sciences came to be confused with social evolutionism. This was all right so long as social evolutionism was in its heyday. When social evolutionism was rejected, as it largely was at the beginning of this century, Darwinism fell foul of the same climate. The identification of Darwinism and social evolutionism proved fatal to Darwinism's future in the social sciences. Darwin's Origin of Species came out in 1859, his Descent of Man in 1871. Between these two dates, practically every essential building-block of the social evolutionary school was put in place. Bachofen's Das Mutterrecht was published in 1861, as was Sir Henry Maine's Ancient Law, Also in that year came the first part of Max Miiller's Lectures on the Science of Language followed in 1868 by his Rede Lecture On the Stratification of Language. Herbert Spencer's

The Evolution of Society: A Darwinian Approach

25

First Principles appeared in 1862. The year 1865 saw the publication of E.B. Tylor's Researches into the Early History of Mankind, J.F. McLennan's Primitive Marriage and Sir John Lubbock's Prehistoric Times. In 1871 came Tylor's Primitive Culture', in 1877 Lewis Henry Morgan's Ancient Society. Small wonder that Darwin should have been thought, if not responsible for the rise of the evolutionary school, its principal benefactor. This association was helped by another development. Darwin himself in the Origin summarized his contribution as 'the theory of descent with modification through natural selection'. This suggested that the 'theory of descent' - that is, the theory of evolution from ancestral forms was somehow inseparable from that of natural selection, which was concerned with the mechanism by which evolution had occurred. That the two were in fact highly separable was demonstrated, as Ernst Mayr says, 'when almost every knowledgeable biologist adopted the theory of common descent soon after 1859 but rejected natural selection' (Mayr, 1993: 90). Darwin was thought to have shown conclusively that evolution had occurred; how it had occurred, his principal contribution, remained a matter of dispute for decades afterwards. Hence, because it seemed the more important and urgent matter, Darwinism came to be identified with evolution, not natural selection. As early as 1868 the German biologist Ernst Haeckel had protested that 'the theory of development (i.e. evolution) ... is now generally (though not altogether rightly) regarded as exclusively Mr. Darwin's theory ... We must distinguish clearly (though this is not usually done) between ... the theory of descent (Lamarck) and Darwin's theory of natural selection' (in Darlington, 1959: 35). The protest was largely in vain. Darwin's prestige was such, and the impact of the Origin so overwhelming, that evolutionists of every description rushed to enlist Darwin on their side. For the social evolutionists, unlike the biologists, even this endorsement was largely unnecessary, though none the less welcome. The very dates of publication of their works, coming so hard on the heels of Darwin's, make it plain that they can hardly have been directly or even indirectly influenced by Darwin. John Burrow has shown that 'Maine, McLennan, Spencer, Pitt-Rivers and possibly even Tylor - the founders of the new evolutionary sociology - had all, before 1859, written on or become interested in the subjects which were later to make them famous' (Burrow, 1966: 21). Even in their later writings they make very little mention of Darwin, though they are generous enough in

26

When History Accelerates

acknowledging other illustrious predecessors. For both McLennan and Tylor, the 'comparative method' of the Scottish Enlightenment thinkers was an important inspiration, foreshadowing especially Tylor's concept of 'survivals'. The French school of Positivism, of Saint-Simon and Comte, was also influential on them all, especially as interpreted by its English follower, John Stuart Mill. This reinforced the idea of stages of evolution, strong already in eighteenth-century thought. An even more powerful reinforcement of this idea was provided by prehistoric archaeology, with its sequence of the ages of Stone, Bronze and Iron - a sequence suggested as early as 1816 by the Danes Thomsen and Worsaae. Archaeology in turn grew out of geology, the vogue science of the first half of the nineteenth century. The uniformitarianism of Hutton and Lyell had a profound impact on all the sciences, social as well as natural. Though neither Hutton nor Lyell supported the evolutionary hypothesis, they supplied the necessary elements - the vastness of geological time, the use of fossil evidence to classify stratigraphical structure, and the operation of simple natural causes - to give the theory of evolution a strong basis in contemporary science (see Daniel, 1962; Gillispie, 1959). Recalling his early intellectual life Herbert Spencer wrote: 'I became interested in geology, and bought Lyell's Principles, etc. The result of reading this was that, rejecting his adverse arguments, I adopted the hypothesis of development, which ever after influenced my thoughts. I was then twenty' (Spencer, 1908: 536). This makes it 1840. Spencer's testimony is especially important, because he was the only one of the major social evolutionists to attempt a comprehensive synthesis of biological and social theory. Moreover, long before Darwin, he was a declared believer in biological evolution - 'the development hypothesis' - and could even claim to have made some important theoretical contributions to the theory. It was he who invented and popularized the term 'the survival of the fittest' - which, somewhat unfortunately, Darwin himself later adopted. With the publication of the Origin, Spencer admitted the importance of natural selection (and regretted not seeing it himself, though he came quite close). But he never thought it sufficient to account for evolution. He had independently worked out his own position on evolution, stimulated largely by Lyell and Lamarck, and he remained a Lamarckian to the end of his life. This led him to see the story of nature as one of growth and progress towards perfection. Directionality in biological evolution was in turn extended to social evolution, seen as

The Evolution of Society: A Darwinian Approach

27

a part of nature and subject to its laws. The general principles of that evolution were stated as early as 1850, in Social Statics. Here are to be found nearly all the characteristic Spencerian themes: 'Progress ... is not an accident, but a necessity'; 'all evil results from the non-adaptation of constitution to conditions'; 'in virtue of an essential principle of life, this non-adaptation of an organism to its conditions is ever being rectified'; 'as surely as the tree becomes bulky when it stands alone, and slender if one of a group ... as surely as a blacksmith's arm grows large, and the skin of a labourer's hand thick ... so surely must the human faculties be moulded into complete fitness for the social state' (Spencer, 1851: 59-60, 65). As John Peel says, 'all the essential elements of social evolution are present here - progress, necessity, adaptation, continual modification until perfection is reached' (Peel, 1971: 101). There remained only the need to specify more clearly the mechanism of evolution and the general form under which it took shape. In 'The Development Hypothesis' (1852), and more fully in an essay of 1857, 'Progress: Its Law and Causes', Spencer attached himself firmly to the Lamarckian party. The sole cause of evolution that he recognizes is adaptation 'consequent on inheritance of the modifications of structure resulting from use and disuse'. As for the form of evolution, Spencer drew on the analogy of the development of the individual organism to argue that organic progress in general, and 'super-organic' or social progress in particular, involved 'a change from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous' - that is, a progressive increase in differentiation and specificity (Spencer, 1891: 9-10, 53). It is obvious how far all this is from Darwinism - as Spencer himself, for natural reasons, was often at pains to point out.2 And what was true of Spencer's relation to Darwin was truer still of that of most of the other social evolutionists. The fact is that evolutionary sociology and anthropology did not have to wait for Darwin. In truth it scarcely had to wait even for evolutionary biology, despite the enormous reinforcement this provided. Evolutionary biology was itself stimulated by the strongly evolutionist tendencies that were evident in all the sciences at the beginning of the nineteenth century. T.H. Huxley rightly spoke of evolution as 'the oldest of all philosophies'; and Kenneth Bock has said that 'social evolutionists were following, in the second half of the nineteenth century, a pattern of inquiry as old as recorded thought itself (T.H. Huxley, 1900, vol. I: 167; Bock, 1955: 126). There were good reasons why evolutionism proved appealing, once

28

When History Accelerates

more, in the climate of the 1850s and 1860s - some of these, Burrow has argued, to do with the crisis of Utilitarianism (Burrow, 1966). But the elements were undoubtedly already to hand, and they had little to do with Darwin. Many of them, such as the idea of 'the Great Chain of Being', were of venerable age. More latterly there were the 'conjectural' or 'natural' histories of the eighteenth century. Most of these came to be bound up in what nineteenth-century historians and anthropologists understood as 'the comparative method', a form of enquiry which they freely admitted derived from such eighteenth-century thinkers as Adam Ferguson, Adam Smith, and John Millar. In characterizing this method of dealing with social change, Kenneth Bock gives an admirable summary of the leading concepts of the evolutionist school. Change is a natural characteristic of society and culture. In form change is slow, gradual and continuous. It proceeds through stages whose content and successive order are essentially the same among all peoples. Societies and culture change as wholes because of the functional interrelation of their parts; exceptions to this rule result in the presence of 'survivals' in higher civilizations. The range of social or cultural differences observable in any given present is the result of various 'interferences' with the natural process of growth. The cause of change is to be found in the nature of the thing changing, usually identified as human nature or the human mind. Change, therefore, is an unfolding of what is potential in the thing changing, and a determination of origins is thus vital (Bock, 1966: 277; see also Nisbet, 1970; Collini, Winch and Burrow, 1983). Darwinism, as we shall see, leads to a very different conception of change from this, even though Darwin's work certainly made it easier for social evolutionism to gain a hearing. After 1860, he was the theorist of evolution; all evolutionists were happy to bask in the Darwinian sun. This was good for evolutionism but bad for Darwinism - bad at least as far as its uses in the social sciences were concerned. For when the attack on evolutionism came, Darwin was implicated in the subsequent rout. The onslaught on social evolutionism by historians, diffusionists and functionalist anthropologists at the turn of the century may not have been directed at Darwinism, but Darwinism was inevitably caught up in the general eclipse of evolutionism.3 It was a case of guilt by association. For Darwinism is not evolutionism.

The Evolution of Society: A Darwinian Approach

29

EVOLUTION ACCORDING TO DARWIN

It was not until the sixth edition of The Origin of Species, in 1872, that Darwin even used the word evolution - he preferred 'common descent* - and evolution is a word that occurs rarely in his published writing. It is almost as if he is anxious to avoid the associations of directionality and progress that had come to be so closely linked with evolution. Certainly his theory of evolution has no need, and no place, for these ideas. A comparison with Spencer on this point is instructive. Spencer's view of evolving society, and indeed of the evolving universe, is constructed expressly on the model of individual organic growth. The account of this he took from von Baer's description of embryonic development as a process of growth from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous. His thoughts, as P.B. Medawar says, 'constantly recurred to the evolution of tree from seed and of infant from "germinal vesicle'" (Medawar, 1967: 45). This becomes the basis of Spencer's understanding of evolution, or what he earlier, and more accurately, called 'development'. Surely if a single cell may, when subjected to certain influences, become a man in the space of 20 years, there is nothing absurd in the hypothesis that under certain other influences, a cell may, in the course of millions of years, give origin to the human race (Spencer, 1891:6). Darwinian evolution, as compared to Spencerian development, has nothing to say about such a predetermined, orderly process of growth. As Medawar puts the distinction: The adult is 'implicit' in the egg in the sense that one day it will be possible, after determining certain parameters, to read off the constitutional properties of the adult animal from the detailed knowledge of the chemical structure of the egg it arose from. Nothing of the sort applies to... evolution, however; it is not a process of unfolding, and there is no useful sense in which the structure of a mammal can be said to be implicit in the structure of a protozoon (Medawar, 1967: 45; see also Hirst, 1976: 25). It is this second kind of question that concerned Darwin: how the various species, fossilized and living, had come into being. He propounded the relatively familiar idea that all species were modified descendants of some ancestral form; but it would have seemed to him absurd to suggest that all later forms had grown inevitably out of the

30

When History Accelerates

earliest form or forms. Indeed evolution in his sense had occurred precisely because the normally invariable individual growth patterns had sometimes been interrupted, at times drastically. Variations arose in particular organisms. How, Darwin never really knew, and the problem haunted him to the end of his life (to the point of causing him seriously, and unnecessarily, to modify the theory of natural selection). Modern genetics was later to show that variations arose by chance, randomly, unrelated to the needs of the mutating organism. A tiny proportion of those variations - most of which were neutral or harmful conferred some advantage on their bearers in their accommodation to their respective environments. Those individuals consequently left more surviving offspring than the unvaried ones: they were 'selected' for their greater adaptedness, in competition with their fellows. More or less gradually their (modified) characteristics spread and became dominant in their populations. At some point a population became so changed that it could no longer interbreed with other populations of the same species. At that point it constituted a new species.4 Such was Darwin's account of the origin of species through natural selection. It left no room for purpose nor, on a sober view, progress. There was nothing in it of 'stages' or 'phases' of development. Its implications have indeed left biologists marvelling at the sheer improbability of it all - at the fact, first, that life should have evolved at all from inorganic matter, and then at the tremendous variety of the forms of life that have managed to come into existence, owing their survival, as often as not, to some freak, never-to-be repeated coincidence of circumstances at the time of their origin. H. Sandon suggests that the evolutionary process, far from being purposive, or requiring any such postulate as an elan vital, is rather more like 'the drunkard's walk a series of random steps, each one of which makes the chances of reaching any particular goal more remote' (Sandon, 1966: 845). We must, in other words, agree with Popper that what Darwin propounded was not (unlike Spencer) a 'law of evolution' but 'a particular (or, more precisely, singular) historical statement about the ancestry of a number of terrestrial plants and animals', together with an explanation of how that unique historical sequence had come about (Popper, 1961: 107; cf. Hirst, 1976: 26). But this is to begin, not, as some would have it, to end the investigation of the possible uses of Darwinism in the social sciences. What Popper warns us against is the attempt to derive general laws from the evolutionary process. In particular he aims his fire at what

The Evolution of Society: A Darwinian Approach

31

he calls 'historicism', general laws of social evolution or history. That is certainly a warning to be heeded, and it puts paid to many of the claims of the social evolutionists, at least of the Spencerian variety. But it does not by itself close the door on the possibility that evolutionary theory, reformulated in Darwinian terms, might not have much to offer social theory. We confront nature, as Marx reminds us, as one of her forces (Marx, 1963: 127). Put differently, the biologist George Gaylord Simpson has said that '"what is man?" is a special case of "what is life?"' (Simpson, 1967: 9). Biological evolution is a special case of cosmic evolution, and human history a special example of biological evolution. It is an extension of natural history. We have not opted out of nature, nor can we. The important thing is to understand the principles of nature, to see how they will help us understand ourselves, including the specific qualities that make us the kind of species we are. The social evolutionists were not the only ones to confuse the issue of what these principles are. A more notorious, and noisy, group were the 'Social Darwinists' of the second half of the nineteenth century (together with some of their twentieth-century 'socio-biological' successors). Unlike the social evolutionists these did make great play with concepts such as 'the struggle for existence', 'natural selection', and 'the survival of the fittest'. Not all of these concepts, strictly speaking, came from Darwin, but they certainly belonged to the repertoire of Darwinism. What the Social Darwinists did with Darwinism was distort it into racist, militarist and eugenicist social theories. Elemental struggle and survival were made the hallmarks of social life. If nature was 'red in tooth and claw' then society, which belonged to nature's domain, must be so too. It could not escape nature's laws. 'One of the effects of civilization', complained Francis Galton, 'is to diminish the rigour of the application of the law of natural selection. It preserves weakly lives ...' (Galton, 1865: 161). Ernst Haeckel too felt confronted by a natural law. The theory of selection teaches us that in human life, exactly as in animal and plant life, at each place and time only a small privileged minority can continue to exist andflourish;the great mass must starve and more or less prematurely perish in misery ... We may deeply mourn this tragic fact, but we cannot deny or alter it (in Medawar, 1960: 128).5 The fallacies of the Social Darwinist school were many, and they have been abundantly exposed. Their judgements were indeed based on biological concepts but they were, as Medawar says, 'bad judgements

32

When History Accelerates

based upon a bad biology' (Medawar, 1960: 99). There were two principal fallacies. The first was what we might call 'biologism', the supposition that mental and moral characters were derived mainly from hereditary, genetic factors. This led to the false conclusion that socially desirable traits could be retained and improved by a policy of selective breeding, just as cows were selectively bred for the quality of their milk. The bulk of the evidence in fact suggests that an individual's character and personality are only marginally determined by innate, constitutional dispositions, and mostly by cultural and environmental factors (see, e.g. Harris, 1975; Rose etaL, 1984). The second fallacy was of greater consequence from the point of view of general theory. Natural selection, from being (to Darwin) a 'principle', was elevated to the status of a 'law'. Natural selection, so the argument ran, had governed all evolution to date, up to and including the evolution of man. If there were to be any further evolutionary progress and it was unreasonable to suppose that evolution had come to a stop then this would also be brought about by the agency of natural selection. For humans to attempt to interfere with the working of natural selection was as dangerous, and ultimately as ridiculous and self-defeating, as for them to attempt to ignore the law of gravitation. For some, such as Galton, this was a matter to be celebrated, as it provided a stern check on human foolishness and sentimentality. For others, such as Haeckel, it was a 'tragic fact' to be 'deeply mourned'. But both kinds of thinker shared the conviction that natural selection was a universal law of nature, and that human life was unavoidably subject to it. Even at the time, before modern biology had firmly disposed of this way of thinking, it should have been appreciated that this was an incomplete and dangerously simplified account of evolution. Darwin himself supplies most of the evidence in the Origin. The view that the products of evolution were due solely to the working of natural selection could have been disputed on the basis of his repeated assertion that 'unless profitable variations... occur, natural selection can do nothing' (C. Darwin, 1902: 75; see also e.g. 160). The crucial role played by variations in the evolution of the different species, the problem of their origin and spread, the possibility that they might be a necessity for any further evolutionary progress: these were aspects of evolution rarely considered when biological theory was applied to human social evolution. Equally it should have been difficult to see in natural selection a 'progressive' agency. Darwin worried about this, as he did about the

The Evolution of Society: A Darwinian Approach

33

source of variations, throughout his life, and he left statements, in his private letters and published works, that give ammunition to both sides of the argument. But on the whole his position is clear. * Heaven forfend me', he wrote to J.D. Hooker, 'from Lamarck nonsense of a "tendency to progression"' (F. Darwin, 1903: 41). In 1872 he wrote to the American zoologist Alpheus Hyatt: 'After long reflection I cannot avoid the conviction that no innate tendency to progressive development exists' (Darwin and Seward, 1903, vol.1: 344).6 In any case, whatever Darwin's hesitation on this matter, the Origin itself tells squarely against a progressivist view of evolution. The Origin makes clear that if man's future were to be determined by the operations of natural selection, then man would most likely be walking the path to extinction. The text of the Origin is littered with references to this consequence of natural selection. 'Extinction and natural selection ... go hand in hand'. 'Natural selection acts by life and death'. 'The extinction of old forms is the almost inevitable consequence of the production of new forms'. For how long indeed could man occupy his position on 'the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth'? (C. Darwin, 1902: 118, 155, 175, 308). Darwin had as great an appreciation of the beauty and grandeur of nature as anyone. But he was too sensible of its ways to adopt an attitude of obeisance towards it. Such an attitude was both absurd and dangerous. We belong to nature, and are her creation. But that does not mean that we must blindly imitate her. It is 'a profound truth', says Peter Medawar, 'that nature does not know best; that ... evolution, if we look at it liverishly instead of with fatuous good humour, is a story of waste, makeshift, compromise and blunder' (Medawar, 1960: 100). Darwin's doughtiest disciple, T.H. Huxley, went even further in his strictures on nature's way. Nature, he warned in his Romanes lecture of 1893, is 'always tending to reclaim that which her child, man, has borrowed from her and has arranged in combinations which are not those favoured by the general cosmic process' (Huxley and Huxley, 1947: 40). The 'cosmic process' of evolution is, to Huxley, blind, brutal and bloody. The 'struggle for existence' and 'the survival of the fittest' (which is not the same as survival of the best) are ethically repulsive. For men to imitate them is folly. Evolution has delivered an ethical animal, man, which is capable of understanding its principles and counterposing against them his own ethical ideals. He can take a stand against 'the gladiatorial theory of existence'. This in no way takes man out of

34

When History Accelerates 7

nature. Human culture, human art, is a product of evolution. But that culture enables us to become conscious of nature's laws, and to formulate values such that we can seek to make those laws work for us instead of against us. We cannot deny the law of gravitation, but that does not stop us building aeroplanes. The first thing is to know exactly what we are up against. Modern evolutionary theory, fortified above all by modern genetics, has reformulated Darwin's theory to draw out some implications which Darwin himself either did not see or, for various reasons, was unwilling to state. What has been found in most cases has strengthened rather than weakened Darwin's general theory. The work on population genetics, on the character of mutations (variations), and on the forms and mechanisms of selection and adaptation, has all underlined the random, unpredictable nature of evolution. It has also confirmed its basic purposelessness, its lack of ethical content, and the wrongheadedness of thinking that we should blindly follow its pattern hitherto. As with human history, so with its parent, evolution: we study it to be rid of it. But we ignore either at our peril. Competition and selection, the basic mechanisms of evolution, are, to put it simply, a death-trap. Their effects are to prepare a species for eventual extinction. In the popular perception, the focus of competition is that between species (inter-specific competition). But professionals have long turned their attention to the more important competition within species (intra-specific competition). Darwin had, once more, alerted them to this. He noted that 'competition will generally be most severe between those forms which are most nearly related to each other in habits, constitution, and structure' - between, in other words, individuals and varieties of the same species. Therefore, whenever any advantageous variations arise, 'the forms which stand in closest competition with those undergoing modification and improvement will naturally suffer most... Consequently, each new variety or species, during the process of its formation will generally press hardest on its nearest kindred, and tend to exterminate them' (C. Darwin, 1902: 100,110). The 'survival of the fittest' necessarily leads, not to progress and perfection, but to petrifaction and death for the species. There is a continuous process of elimination of those individuals least efficiently adapted to the current environment of the species. Every pattern of behaviour that does not directly contribute towards survival subtracts from the energy devoted to survival. The 'deviants' of the species

The Evolution of Society: A Darwinian Approach

35

are therefore progressively more fatally handicapped, to their eventual displacement by their more perfectly adapted fellow members. Species hence tend towards a more and more uniform and efficient adaptation to one and the same set of environmental factors. So long as the environment remains unchanged, this of course pays high dividends. But the environment is always changing. It does so in part because of the very mode of adaptation adopted by the species, through its exploitation of its environment. Moreover, the changes in the environment are generally random, unpredictable and uncontrollable. For long-term and continued survival a species requires both adaptedness and adaptability. Adaptability is, however, precisely what it increasingly lacks through the process of eliminating its deviants. The deviants are those members of the species with eccentric structures and behavioural patterns, some or any of which might prove advantageous in the changed environment. The immediate advantage however lies in adaptedness, and the immediate advantage, as Darwin always insisted, is what counts in competition by elimination. So the species tends towards a potentially lethal rigidity. Julian Huxley has commented: There can be little doubt that the apparent orthogenesis which pushes groups ever further along their line of evolution until, as with size in some mesozoic reptiles and armour in others, they are balanced precariously upon the edge of extinction, is due ... to the hypertely (i.e. too close adaptation) induced by intraspeciflc competition (J. Huxley, 1963: 484-5). 8 The * cosmic process' of evolution thus reveals itself as 'a series of blind alleys' - some short, some long, but all in the long run terminating blindly (J. Huxley, 1963: 571; see also Simpson, 1974: 38). Is there any reason to suppose that man is an exception to this general process? It is true that, with the advent of man, culture has replaced physical structure as the principal form of adaptation to the environment. This has also meant that the mechanism of transmission of adaptive behaviour from one generation to another is cultural rather than genetic. As Simmel says, 'social man, in contrast to all sub-human animals, is not only a successor but also an heir' (Simmel, 1964: 13). But why should this, by itself, mean that human society is not, like all other societies of living organisms, subject to the same processes of selection and adaptation? In what sense can it be said that humans have 'opted out' of the 'cosmic process' of evolution? Yet this has been a persistent claim, even by

36

When History Accelerates

those who are staunch Darwinians and not guilty of the errors of the evolutionists. SOCIOLOGICAL DARWINISM

Peter Medawar says: 'We must not distinguish a strictly biological evolution from a social, cultural, or technological evolution: both are biological evolutions: the distinction between them is that the one is genetical and the other is not' (Medawar, 1960: 97; see also Dawkins, 1978: 208). On the face of it there seems no reason for not proceeding to study social evolution, as an aspect of biological evolution, on Darwinian lines. Medawar however denies just this. He restricts 'Darwinian' evolution purely to genetical, 'elective', evolution: that is, only to the sort where the environment does not induce particular changes in organisms, but selects from the available resources already contained in the organism, through the process of mutations and recombinations of genes. 'Elective' evolution characterizes all evolution up to the time of man. With man, says Medawar, a fundamental change takes place. A new system of heredity - tradition - arises, which is both nongenetical and 'instructive'. 'Our newer style of evolution is Lamarckian in nature. The environment cannot imprint genetical information upon us, but it can and does imprint non-genetical information which we can and do pass on. Acquired characters are indeed inherited' (Medawar, 1960: 98). This difference in the nature of the hereditary mechanism is held to inaugurate a new type of evolution, one that puts us, rather than nature, in control. Why, precisely? It turns out that Medawar, like a number of other liberal-minded biologists, is still wrestling with ancient ghosts. He is concerned that we do not relapse into the old errors of the Social Darwinists and social evolutionists. His conception, he argues, means that we can jettison all reasoning based upon the idea that changes in society happen in the style and under the pressures of ordinary genetic evolution; ... that competition between one man and another is a necessary part of the texture of society; that societies are organisms which grow and must inevitably die; that division of labour within a society is akin to what we can see in colonies of insects; that the laws of genetics have an overriding authority; that social evolution has a direction forcibly imposed upon it by agencies beyond man's control ... (Medawar, 1960: 99; see also Gellner, 1964: 15-6; Runciman, 1989b: 37-8).

The Evolution of Society: A Darwinian Approach

37

This is an admirable summary of the old notions. But to argue for a Darwinian approach in sociology is not to argue for their reintroduction. It is rather to contend that the invention of culture and tradition does not ipso facto constitute a solution to the problems posed by the processes of adaptation and selection, still less obviate those processes themselves; that, historically, we humans have allowed ourselves to be dominated by these processes, and have therefore perpetuated the patterns of earlier non-human evolution; and that in the present we seem to show no greater awareness of this fact, and its lethal consequences. There is a curious parallelism between the attitudes of biologists and social scientists on these matters. Social scientists, somewhat hazy about biology, are apt to see in nature what suits their social philosophies. Biologists are fierce with this but for their part see society through an equally indistinct haze. A particularly common assumption among biologists is that, through the cultural transmission of behaviour, humans have acquired a fully fledged, once-for-all solution to the problems of biological evolution. It is sometimes admitted that natural selection still operated in the early stages of human evolution, when man was still engaged in a struggle with 'nature'. But, it is argued, the growth of culture leads to the successful conquest of nature, after which man is launched on a career of free development. Tradition evenly but surely accumulates the wisdom and experience of successive generations. As in a self-adjusting cybernetic system, the 'cultural load' is readily altered to meet fresh challenges to stability and growth. Culture and civilization become the keys that unlock the door of progress. So, unsparing in their contempt for those who purport to see in nature any progressive tendency, many biologists fall into a facile progressivism so far as society goes. T.H. Huxley, for instance, waxes euphoric about the effects of man's use of his intelligence and culture in 'interfering' in nature, and thereby curbing its cruelty and caprice. As civilization has advanced, so has the extent of this interference increased; until the organized and highly developed sciences and arts of the present day have endowed man with a command over the course of non-human nature greater than once attributed to the magicians (Huxley and Huxley, 1947: 83, see also Wallace, 1889: 447; Simpson, 1967: 287-90; 1974: 49). This is no doubtflatteringto human vanity. But it is a poor substitute for sober reflection on the actual course of human history. Historians

38

When History Accelerates

and sociologists at least should know better. They know that social traditions can become as hard and as rigid as the armour plate of any extinct mesozoic reptile. The invention of culture is not by itself any barrier to that. Whatever freedom and flexibility culture might potentially confer, in its actual operation it is perfectly capable of imitating nature. Having cast off the mantle of instinct, man donned the carapace of culture. Culture becomes, as Pascal said, our 'second nature' (1966: 145). This has the advantage that we can change our ways without changing our skin, or any other part of our physical make-up. But it no more guarantees success than knowledge of the trade cycle prevents an economy from plunging into recession. The biologist A.J. Lotka called culture our 'exosomatic organs'. Like the 'endosomatic organs' of other species, it has been the principal means by which we have adapted ourselves to an enormous variety of environments in the natural world (including the environment created by other species). But culture is not only a means of adaptation: it also creates a new or additional environment to which we must adapt. Its structures - political and economic institutions, language and meaning-bearing systems create a field whose requirements for adaptation are as insistent, and whose selection pressures are as strong, as any encountered by species in the wild. Culture is man's ecological niche (Montagu, 1968; Cloak, 1975).9 'Deviants' in human society may not be - though they often are physically eliminated. But their contribution to the 'cultural gene pool' that is society's legacy to the next generation is minimized. Certain ways of acting and thinking succeed (have high 'survival value') in the current cultural environment. Their carriers prosper; they become the objects of imitation for all who also wish to prosper. The result is a selective process whereby particular patterns of culture become imprinted on the whole society, controlling thought and behaviour as surely and as powerfully as the instinctual and bodily endowment of other species control their members. Language, precept, ritual and not infrequently the extra sanction of force are the agents that police the boundaries of any particular mode of adaptation. There is, further, not only culture but cultures (Carrithers, 1992). Societies are not like species, in that not only are their members capable of physically interbreeding with the members of all other societies, but also different cultural patterns can be synthesized, through diffusion. In this respect they are much more like populations. But, in any case, it is populations, not species, that evolve (Williams, 1992; Ridley, 1993).

The Evolution of Society: A Darwinian Approach

39

Individuals are unique - genetically and culturally - but they coexist in a rough assemblage of like-bodied/like-minded individuals who for the time being share the same habitat. Those rough assemblages are populations or societies. They have a common gene pool or 'meme pool' (to use Dawkins's term for units of cultural transmission).10 In as much as a society requires of, and creates in, its individual members certain characteristic patterns of behaviour, coming into contact and conflict with the behaviour patterns of other societies, it may be considered the unit of human evolution. A society reproduces the basic property of a unit of organic evolution in being a single or dominant (cultural) mode of adaptation to a particular environment, among a number of (historically) possible modes of adaptation.11 Societies, like species, require for their continued survival both adaptedness and adaptability. Adaptedness can generally take care of itself, but adaptability is a delicate plant that needs careful nurturing. By suppressing or eliminating the currently unadapted, a society removes from its store varieties of thought and behaviour that might prove advantageous in a future environment, about which all we know with certainty is that it will be different from the present one. As with intraspecific competition in other species, this process promotes an increasingly efficient and more uniform adaptation to whatever aspects of the environment the society has already adapted. It ignores the fact that the contemporary equals the merely temporary, that the environment must and will change, and that 'the fossil record is there to show that the paths of adaptive glory lead but to the grave of extinction' (de Beer, 1962: 43). Even if for no other reason, environmental change will result from the very mode of adaptation currently in being. A society that, for instance, rests its economic system on the exploitation of certain material resources in its environment, and concentrates its energies to this end, will in so doing exhaust those resources and so alter its environment. At the same time it will have failed to retain alternative economic methods that earlier appeared antiquated or unprofitable.12 Sewall Wright showed that a species divided up into many small, semi-isolated populations was able to acquire a considerable stock of genetic variety through the many adaptations to local conditions. Such adaptations, giving rise to small but sometimes significant modifications of the general specific characters, would spread through the species by immigration and interbreeding. This would supply so many additional possible responses to changes in the environment, and so enhance the possibility of survival in a changed environment. There is here', as

40

When History Accelerates

Wright observed, 'the basis for an extensive trial and error mechanism within the species by which the species as a whole may advance' (Wright, 1963: 382; see also Wright, 1960; Hardin, 1960: 272-4; Haldane, 1963). The 'Sewall Wright effect' suggests the general conditions for a revised assessment of evolutionary progress. Progress depends on the maintenance of as much diversity and variety as is compatible with the requirements of contemporary adaptedness. This bland statement conceals the immense difficulties of achieving a true degree of diversity. Certainly in human evolution it has been relatively rare. The norm is rigidity: the rigidity of culture imitating physical structure, whether in the small tribe or the far-flung bureaucratic empire. Only rarely does one find the optimum conditions as Sewall Wright conceives them: a group of small communities, free to vary their behaviour independently of each other, yet able to exchange people and ideas, so maximizing the store of diversity. Such seems to have been the sociological basis of the various 'renaissances' of the West: whether in fifth-century Athens, twelfth-century Europe,fifteenth-centuryItaly, or eighteenth-century Germany. This is, clearly, at most a necessary, not a sufficient, condition of these phenomena; but the immense achievements of the small city-states in these periods is some testimony to what might be possible when the stringent demands of adaptedness are, however temporarily, mitigated.13 All this is very schematic, not to say dogmatic. And there is not the space here to illustrate the argument at any length. But, since this essay has concentrated largely on nineteenth-century thinkers, it might be fitting to conclude with a brief look at a nineteenth-century work that does employ an approach that is reasonably faithful to Darwinism. There were, in the second half of the nineteenth century, not simply Social Darwinists and social evolutionists but also a third, less well defined, group that we might call 'sociological Darwinists'. A number of works appeared that seemed to have a clear understanding of Darwinism and did not confuse it with Spencerism nor - though less unambiguously - Social Darwinism. These included William Clifford's Lectures and Essays (1879), Leslie Stephen's Science of Ethics (1882), David Ritchie's Darwinism and Politics (1889), and some sparkling essays by William James, such as 'Great men and their environment' (1880) and John Dewey ('Evolution and ethics', 1898, and others). They also included, as perhaps the most ambitious effort, Walter Bagehot's

The Evolution of Society: A Darwinian Approach

41

Physics and Politics (1872). It is Bagehot's book that I want briefly to examine. What Bagehot calls 'the preliminary age' of mankind was, he says, anarchic: it lacked law and government. Order and discipline were then (as now) the prime requirements of survival. Natural selection operated to preserve and favour those societies that did adopt law and government, since this gave them a clear advantage over other societies. This brought into being polities, the first condition of any civilization. All the emphasis at this early stage is on order and unity; these are what the conditions of the time most call for. The object ... is to create what may be called a cake of custom. All the actions of life are to be submitted to a single rule for a single object.... That this regime forbids free thought is not an evil ... it is necessary for making the mould of civilization, and hardening the soft fibre of early man (Bagehot, 1900: 27). The achievement of coherence and discipline is the first great step of civilization. It is attributed directly to natural selection. Bagehot is clear that 'what was put forward for mere animal history may, with a change of form, but an identical essence, be applied to human history' (1900: 43-4). This is shown with a vengeance when Bagehot comes to discuss the achievement of the second, more difficult, step of civilization. Here, as with other species, it becomes evident that success in adapting to the immediate needs of the environment is purchased at a heavy price in terms of future development. What is most evident is not the difficulty of getting a fixed law, but getting out of a fixed law; not of cementing ... a cake of custom, but of breaking the cake of custom; not of making the first preservative habit, but of breaking through it, and reaching something better (1900: 53). What was suitable for the 'preliminary age' becomes a burden and a hindrance thereafter. The problem is shown at its starkest in the case of what Bagehot calls 'the whole family of arrested civilizations' India, Japan, China, and nearly all the other oriental civilizations. There is, in society as in nature, a natural tendency to change; but in these civilizations that tendency has been stifled by the imposition of uniformity in all the major areas of life. Only those nations can progress which preserve and use the fundamental peculiarity which was given by nature to man's organism

42

When History Accelerates as to all other organisms. By a law of which we know no reason, but which is among the first by which Providence guides and governs the world, there is a tendency in descendants to be like their progenitors, and yet a tendency also in descendants to differ from their progenitors. The work of nature in making generations is a patchwork - part resemblance, part contrast. In certain respects each born generation is not like the last born; and in certain other respects it is like the last. But the peculiarity of arrested civilization is to kill out varieties at birth almost; that is, in early childhood, and before they can develop. The fixed custom which public opinion alone tolerates is imposed on all minds, whether it suits them or not (1900: 53-4).

Bagehot here indicates a direct parallel between the operation of natural selection in nature and in human society. In both cases, variety is eliminated in the interests of adaptation to an original environment. Successful adaptation in the early stages is achieved at the price of 'killing out of the whole society the propensities to variation which are the principle of progress'. The prerequisite for progress in any nation is that 'it should have passed out of the first stage of civilization into the second state - out of the state where permanence is most wanted into that where variability is most wanted' (1900: 61; see also pp. 218-9). This, Bagehot is at pains to point out, is the exception rather than the rule in human history. 'The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards. Progress could not have been the rarity it is if the early food had not been the late poison' (1900: 74; see also p.150). Part of the problem is that societies must, in order to survive, preserve the virtues of the first stage, the 'savage virtues', even as they move into the second, civilized stage. 'History is strewn with the wrecks of nations which have gained a little progressiveness at the cost of a great deal of hard manliness, and have thus prepared themselves for destruction as soon as the movements of the world gave a chance for it' (1900: 61). The fate of Athens, 'the great "free failure" of the ancient world', is contrasted with that of 'the drilling aristocracies' of Sparta and Rome (1900: 29-30). To survive and progress, a society requires both 'legality' and 'variability', both order and freedom, adaptedness as well as adaptability. How then does a nation break out of 'the stationary state'? Progress, says Bagehot, 'is only possible in those happy cases where the force of legality has gone far enough to bind the nation together, but not far

The Evolution of Society: A Darwinian Approach

43

enough to kill out all varieties and destroy nature's perpetual tendency to change' (1900: 64; see also p.162). Rome is one example. Like Sir Henry Maine in Ancient Law (1861), Bagehot discerns in Roman law 'a little seed of adaptiveness... hidden in the thick crust of her legality'. This variability accounts, to a good extent, for Rome's progress from city to empire (after which, says Bagehot, Rome got stuck in the stationary state). Political institutions may also cherish change and variability. Bagehot sees such a principle at work in the popular assemblies of the Teutonic tribes, the forerunners of modern parliaments. In neither the Roman nor the Germanic cases, Bagehot points out, was order, specifically military discipline, sacrificed to freedom. The wisdom and experience of the Senate or elders, representing tradition, balanced the impulse for change coming from the assemblies of free citizens (1900: 62-7). In some times and places, political developments have been even more favourable. * Government by discussion' has emerged in these places, breaking the tyranny of custom and allowing new ideas and practices to flourish. Bagehot notes the high incidence of 'Aryan' nations among these fortunate few. 'Athens, Rome, the Italian republics of the Middle Ages, the communes and states-general of feudal Europe, have all had a special and peculiar quickening influence, which they owed to their freedom, and which states without that freedom have never communicated' (1900: 166). But he is careful to avoid any argument based on race. There are too many exceptions to Aryan superiority Carthage, for instance - to make the racial case. Like Darwin, Bagehot is impressed by the role of chance in giving rise to favourable variations. Once the right combination of characters occurs in a nation, it is easy to see how natural selection would establish and strengthen it as the national type; 'but we cannot in the least explain why the incipient type of curious characters broke out, if I may say so, in one place rather than in another' (1900: 183-4). Progress in history, as in nature, is fortuitous - and, in any particular case, as Bagehot is well aware, fleeting. Enough has been said to indicate the basic pattern of Bagehot's approach. What is particularly impressive - given especially its neglect in other thinkers of the time - is Bagehot's grasp of the importance of variations in Darwinian evolution, and his application of this principle to the evolution of societies. It is variability acting under the pressure of natural selection that is the key to evolution. Armed with this insight, Bagehot is able to reflect not just on the general development of societies but also on a host of other sociologically interesting phenomena. In

44

When History Accelerates

explaining the establishment of literary styles and fashions, for instance, he gives a masterly account of what Hippolyte Taine called 'the law of imitation' - but in Bagehot's case, unlike Taine's, it isfirmlygrounded, here in the effects of competitive selection in society (Bagehot, 1900: 89-90). Similarly the effect of small-group adaptation - the 'Sewall Wright effect' - is brought into play to explain the prosperity and creativity of the Jews. This, Bagehot thinks, should be attributed to the very thing the Jews themselves lament, the diaspora. 'You prosper because you are ... scattered; by acclimatization in various regions your nation has acquired singular elements of variety; it contains within itself the principle of variability, which other nations must seek by intermarriage' (1900: 70). I do not wish to say that Bagehot's work is exemplary in all respects. For one thing, the account of primitive society, and of oriental society, is in serious need of qualification (cf. Said, 1979). Also elements of Social Darwinism - an excessive respect for force, for instance - creep in which are intrusive, and unnecessary. Nevertheless Bagehot remains important for showing what can be done with Darwinism14 in a social science context in which what passes for Darwinism has usually been some variety of Social Darwinism or social evolutionism. This is as true today as it was in the last century. There are some scattered examples of a more properly Darwinian approach - for example Popper (1979) and Runciman (1989b) - but it is fair to say that these remain marginal to their disciplines, and to the social sciences as a whole.15 It is unrealistic to expect the development of a school of 'sociological Darwinism' comparable to social evolutionism or socio-biology (today's Social Darwinism). Both of these others have been carried on the waves of political ideology, and this is unlikely to happen in the case of sociological Darwinism. In any event it would probably be wrong to advocate anything so schematic or all-encompassing as a Darwinian school. Darwinism is interesting and helpful for the general orientation it gives, rather than for providing mechanical answers to all the questions of social enquiry. It offers a particular perspective that, properly understood, has a way of illuminating a range of issues and problems. It throws a fresh light on old questions of social order and social change, of the forms of power and the causes of their dissolution. Much the same has often been said of Marxism, even by its opponents. The historian Munir Postan once said that the best students of society were not Marxists or non-Marxists but ex-Marxists. One would not want to put it quite like that for Darwinists - there have been too

The Evolution of Society: A Darwinian Approach

45

few of them in the social sciences - but it can stand both as a fair warning against dogmatism and as an avowal of the real strengths of an approach. NOTES

1 In recent years controversy over Darwinism has arisen, yet again, among scholars in the biological sciences. I am not competent to adjudicate in any professional way between the competing claims. All I can say is that having read (some of) the accounts of the objections to Darwinism, I do not see that there is - as yet, anyway - any need for us to abandon the fundamental principles of Darwinism. That also seems to be the general consensus among biologists. For crisp, clear and, to me, wholly convincing defences of Darwinism, written in plain man's language, see Dawkins (1978, 1988) and Mayr (1993). And see also note 4, below. 2 See e.g. Spencer (1908: 547, 565). John Peel says that 'the commonest misrepresentation of Spencer is that he applied Darwinism to the study of society'; and he adds, 'it seems that the social sciences have derived very little from Darwinism proper' (Peel, 1971, 131; and generally, 141-53). For the differences between Spencer's and Darwin's views of evolution, see also Burrow (1966: 183), Hirst (1976: 21-32), Ingold (1986: 1-28), and Sanderson (1992: 28-9). The fullest discussion is in Freeman (1974), who writes: '... the theories of Darwin and Spencer were unrelated in their origins, markedly disparate in their logical structures, and differed decisively in the degree to which they depended on the supposed mechanism of Lamarckian inheritance and recognised "progress" as "inevitable"' (1974: 213). Marvin Harris is clearly wrong to treat Darwin and Spencer as part of a common 'evolutionary synthesis', however indebted they might both be to 'the spirit of their age'; see Harris (1968: 108-25). It is still remarkably common, in the social science literature, to find the old confusion between Darwinism and evolutionism, even if Darwin is no longer seen as the actual originator of the evolutionary method in sociology and anthropology; see e.g. Pollard (1971: 140-1). Hence the revival of social evolutionism, as in the 1960s and 1970s, is often seen as a revival of Darwinism or evolutionary biology in the social sciences. But Sanderson is right to say that 'for its entire history, social evolutionism developed largely independent of evolutionary biology' (Sanderson, 1992: 205). That he, along with other social evolutionists such as Hirst (1976: 16) appears to think that this is a good thing, is however worrying. I am more in agreement with Runciman when he deplores what he sees as 'a continuing reluctance among academics as well as laity to face up to the implications of the Darwinian revolution in ideas for the study of our own behaviour' (1993: 17). Like him I feel that any kind of social evolutionism that dispenses with Darwinism is likely to be unconvincing. 3 For the attack on social evolutionism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, see Jarvie (1964), Peel (1971: 224-48), Sanderson

46

4

5

6

7

When History

Accelerates

(1992:36-49). This attack was later reinforced by the criticisms of philosophers such as Karl Popper and Isaiah Berlin of the logic of evolutionism (or what Popper called 'historicism'). For a summary of such objections, see Gellner (1964: 1-32). These attacks did not prevent evolutionism from enjoying a fairly thriving underground existence, from which it emerged in the 1950s and 1960s in the writings of several prominent sociologists and anthropologists, such as Talcott Parsons, Shmuel Eisenstadt, Leslie White, Julian Steward, Elman Service and Marshall Sahlins. On these and later 'neo-evolutionists', see Peel (1971: 253-65), Smith (1973), Collins (1988), Sanderson (1992: 74-168), and Sztompka (1993: 113-41). There are good up-to-date expositions of Darwinian theory in Futuyama (1986), Maynard Smith (1993) and Ridley (1993). For current nonDarwinian explanations of evolution, see Wesson (1993). Earlier syntheses of Darwinism by famous practitioners, couched in non-technical language, are Huxley (1963) and Simpson (1967). For the history of evolutionary theory before and after Darwin, see Bowler (1984). Haeckel also gave a lecture on Darwin's Origins in which he identified natural selection with 'the natural law of progress' which 'neither the weapons of tyrants nor the curses of priests could suppress' (in Irvine, 1955: 116). On the nineteenth-century Social Darwinists, see, for England, Himmelfarb (1986b) and Jones (1980); for America, Hofstadter (1945), Russett (1976), and Bannister (1979); for continental Europe, Thompson (1962) and Pick (1989). Darwin himself commented wryly in a letter to Lyell on the application of his doctrines to society: 'I have received, in a Manchester newspaper, rather a good quip, showing that I have proved "might is right", and therefore that Napoleon is right, and every cheating tradesman is also right' (in Hardin, 1960: 305). For a recent statement of the standard Social Darwinist position, cf. Richard Rubenstein: 'Darwin provides a cosmic justification for the felicity of the few and the misery of the many' (Rubenstein, 1982: 183). For the contemporary 'socio-biologists', see Wilson (1975), Quadagno (1979), Bock (1980), and Kitcher (1985). Darwin's vacillations on the question of progress are most evident in the Descent of Man (1871). See, for representative passages, C. Darwin (1901: 72, 204-6, 216, 224, 945-7). For discussions of Darwin's view of progress, see Himmelfarb (1968a: 342-52), Freeman (1974: 218-19), Simpson (1974: 34-9), Hirst (1976: 24-6), Ingold (1986: 12-18), Richards (1992), Mayr (1993: 48-67). On the contrary, Huxley, like Marx, can imagine a condition in which nature has been more or less completely humanized: 'One can conceive of a condition in which man completely replaces the state of nature by the state of art, in which selection would be eliminated along with the struggle for existence, in which every plant and animal should be adapted to human wants, and would perish if human protection

The Evolution of Society: A Darwinian Approach

47

and supervision were withdrawn' (Huxley and Huxley, 1947: 43-4). Nevertheless it is clear to him that 'of course ... social life, and the ethical process in virtue of which it advances towards perfection, are part and parcel of the general process of evolution.' (Huxley and Huxley, 1947: 101). 8 For this general account of evolution, see also the references in notes 1 and 4. Huxley's earlier conclusions seem to require little modification - see, for instance, the accounts of evolution and progress in Simpson (1974), Nitecki (1988), and Dawkins (1993). This is a Huxley different, it should be said, from the Huxley who so enthusiastically hailed the progressivist evolutionary theories of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. 9 'That the cultural environment ... has helped control the evolution of the human genetic repertory is now thoroughly accepted in anthropology through the writings of T. Dobzhansky and others. That the cultural repertories ... of different human groups have evolved through natural selection has been acknowledged sporadically, but discussion has invariably been in terms of cultural adaption to the natural environment. I find it curious that the idea that the cultural environment helps control the evolution of a cultural repertory, and that this process might be the principal one in the general evolution of culture, has not been accepted - if, indeed, it has ever been put forth' (Cloak, 1975: 169). 10 A 'meme' is 'a unit of cultural transmission', selected and transmitted like a gene: Dawkins (1978: 203-15). Cloak similarly speaks of 'corpuscles of culture' (1975: 168); see also Ruyle (1973: 203). For the interaction of genes and memes, see Durham (1991). 11 It is not pushing the correspondence too far to say that, just as the internal and external environments of the individual organism are separated by the epidermis, so the 'epidermis' of a society is the boundaries imposed by the structure of law, national and international, and by the competitive and conflictual pressures of civil and international war. Societies are not 'real' in the sense of having tangible limits and physical structures, but laws written and enforced will answer functionally for the more permanent structures, unwritten customs for the less rigid. This does not mean that societies are 'natural' entities, or that their boundaries are always clearly defined. But as Runciman has said, 'this need be no more of an impediment to the formulation of a theory of the evolution of societies than have been the corresponding difficulties with which biologists have had to contend in formulating a theory of the evolution of species' (Runciman, 1989a: 25; see also 1989b: 7-8). 12 An explanation of Britain's economic decline in the late nineteenth century focuses precisely on this mechanism: 'Specialisation, for whatever cause, tends to become increasingly irreversible, for there takes place a concomitant growth of special mercantile relationships, highly skilled labour forces and the evolution of particular types of managerial talent that makes any return to an earlier, more flexible, position more

48

When History

Accelerates

expensive and difficult. Thus, all too many British entrepreneurs ceased even to consider the possibilities of diversification, of branching out into entirely new lines of production where more profitable opportunities may have existed .... The firm's resources, both material and entrepreneurial, had, in fact, become characterised by a high degree of 'specificity'. In many cases this inevitably involved a limitation of the firm's horizon of expectations and this constituted a barrier to further growth (Payne, 1974: 44). For a theory of the firm on more-or-less Darwinian lines, see Nelson and Winter (1982). 13 The phenomenon of 'renaissances', and the 'speeding up' of evolution that they bring about, recall the 'fabulous' changes that Paul Stirling talks about in his discussions of Turkey's development since 1923. See e.g. Stirling, 1993. The 'acceleration of history' can clearly take numerous forms, from consciously planned revolutions of the Bolshevik or Kemalist kind, to the perhaps even more spectacular type that can occur in the thoroughly unplanned, and perhaps unplannable, conditions specified by Sewall Wright. 14 Whether or not Darwinism is consciously employed, and whether or not Bagehot is explicitly acknowledged. The general form of Bagehot's discussion of 'arrested civilizations', for instance, is to be found in two other influential treatments of the same phenomenon: Toynbee (1962) and Wittfogel (1957). One can think of several other ways in which Bagehot's approach might be illuminating, despite Burrow's strictures (Collini, Winch and Burrow, 1983: 167). 15 For discussions of some contemporary Darwinian approaches in the social sciences, see Ingold (1986) and Sanderson (1992: 169-208). Especially notable - in the sense that they roughly parallel the approach taken here - are Ruyle (1973), Cloak (1975) and Langton (1979). For an attempt at a rapprochement between Marxist and Darwinian approaches, see Bertram (1990). The most ambitious effort to date is undoubtedly that of Runciman (1989a, 1989b, 1993). In bald summary: 'Social evolution comes about because practices (like genes) give roles (like organisms) advantages in competition for power (like competition for reproductive capacity) through being thereby attributes of systacts (like groups) and societies (like species)' (Runciman, 1989b: 46; see also 1989a: 23-49). There is no space here to comment in detail on his intriguing approach, which certainly has the merit of being more thoroughly Darwinian than almost any other of the contributions of 'neo-evolutionism'. On one important point I find him unclear. He says that he is concerned with 'analogies and nothing more', and that 'none of them is an argument for the reducibility of sociological to biological theory' (1989b: 46-7). At the same time he makes statements like: 'The mode of reasoning is the same whether the patterns of social behaviour whose evolution we are seeking to explain are those of vervet

The Evolution of Society: A Darwinian Approach

49

monkey groups living at the foot of Mt Kilimanjaro or university-educated middle-class humans living in British towns' (1993: 18). And elsewhere he says that 'the form (but not the substance) of explanation is no different in sociological from biological evolutionary theory' (1989a: 12). All this makes me wonder what he means by 'reducibility'; he clearly - as I do - takes his concepts from biological theory. Biology is in that sense the master science. REFERENCES

Bagehot, W. (1900) [1872] Physics and Politics. Or Thoughts on the Application of the Principles of 'Natural Selection' and 'Inheritance1 to Political Society, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Bannister, R.C. (1979) Social Darwinism: Science and Myth in Anglo-American Social Thought, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, Bertram, C. (1990) 'International competition in historical materialism', New Left Review, 183, 116-28. Bock, K. (1955) 'Darwin and social theory', Philosophy of Science, 22, 2, 123-34. Bock, K. (1966) 'The comparative method of anthropology', Comparative Studies in Society and History, 8, 3, 269-80. Bock, K. (1980) Human Nature and History: A Response to Sociobiology, New York: Columbia University Press. Bowler, P.J. (1984) Evolution: The History of an Idea, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Burrow, J.W. (1966) Evolution and society: A Study in Victorian Social Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Byrne, R. and A. Whiten (1988) Machiavellian Intelligence: Social Expertise and the Evolution of the Intellect in Monkeys, Apes and Humans, Oxford: Clarendon. Canithers, M. (1992) Why Humans Have Cultures: Explaining Anthropology and Social Diversity, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Clifford, W.K. (1901) [1879] Lectures and Essays, ed. Leslie Stephen and Sir Frederick Maitland, 3rd edn, 2 vols, London: Macmillan. Cloak, F.T. jr. (1975) 'Is a cultural ethology possible?', Human Ecology, 3, 3, 161-82. Collini, S„ D. Winch and J. Burrow (1983) That Noble Science of Politics: A Study in Nineteenth-Century Intellectual History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Collins, R. (1988) Theoretical Sociology, San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Daniel, G. (1962) The Idea of Prehistory, London: CA. Watts. Darlington, CD. (1959) Darwin's Place in History, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Darwin, C (1902) [1859] On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Or The Preservation of Favoured Races In The Struggle for Life, London: Grant Richards.

50

When History

Accelerates

Darwin, C. (1901) [1871] The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, London: John Murray. Darwin, F. (ed.) (1903) More Letters of Charles Darwin, New York: Appleton. Darwin, F. and A.C. Seward (eds) (1903) More Letters of Charles Darwin, 2 vols, London: John Murray. Dawkins, R. (1978) The Selfish Gene, London: Paladin Books. Dawkins, R. (1988) The Blind Watchmaker, London: Penguin Books. Dawkins, R. (1993) The evolutionary future of man', The Economist, 11-17 September, 103-10. De Beer, G. (1962) 'Selection', in Reflections of a Darwinian, London: Thomas Nelson, pp. 31-57. Dewey, J. (1898) 'Evolution and ethics', The Monist, 8, 321-41. Durham, W. (1991) Coevolution: Genes, Culture and Human Diversity, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Freeman, D. (1974) 'The evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer', Current Anthropology, 15, 3, 211-21. Futuyama, D. (1986) Evolutionary Biology, 2nd edn, Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates. Galton, F. (1865) 'Hereditary talent and character', Macmillan's Magazine, 22, 157-69. Gellner, E. (1964) Thought and Change, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Gillispie, C.C. (1959) Genesis and Geology: A Study in the Relationship of Scientific Thought, Natural Theology, and Social Opinion in Great Britain, 1790-1850, New York: Harper Torchbooks. Haldane, J.B.S. (1963) 'Human evolution: past and future', in G.L. Jepsen, E. Mayr and G.G. Simpson (eds) Genetics, Palaeontology, and Evolution, New York: Atheneum, pp. 405-18. Hardin, G. (1960) Nature and Man's Fate, London: Jonathan Cape. Harris, M. (1968) The Rise of Anthropological Theory, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Harris, M. (1975) Culture, People, Nature, 2nd edn, New York: Crowell. Himmelfarb, G. (1968a) Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution, New York: W.W. Norton. Himmelfarb, G. (1968b) 'Varieties of Social Darwinism', in Victorian Minds, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, pp. 314-32. Hirst, P.Q. (1976) Social Evolution and Sociological Categories, London: Allen & Unwin. Hofstadter, R. (1945) Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860- 1915, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Huxley, J. (1963) Evolution: The Modern Synthesis, 2nd edn, London: George Allen & Unwin. Huxley, T.H. (1900) Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley, ed. L. Huxley, 2 vols, London: Macmillan. Huxley, T.H. and J. Huxley (1947) Evolution and Ethics 1893-1943 [includes

The Evolution of Society: A Darwinian Approach

51

T.H. Huxley's 1893 Romanes Lecture, 'Evolution and Ethics'], London: Pilot. Ingold, T. (1986) Evolution and Social Life, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ingold, T. (1990) 'An anthropologist looks at biology', Man, 25, 2, 208-29. Irvine, W. (1955) Apes, Angels and Victorians: A Joint Biography of Darwin and Huxley, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. James, W. (ed.) (1923) [1880] 'Great men and their environment', in The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, New York: Longman's, Green, pp. 216-54. Jarvie, I.C. (1964) The Revolution in Anthropology, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Jones, G. (1980) Social Darwinism and English Thought, Sussex: Harvester. Kitcher, P. (1985) Vaulting Ambition: Sociobiology and the Quest for Human Nature, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Langton, J. (1979) 'Darwinism and the behavioural theory of socio-cultural evolution: an analysis', American Journal of Sociology, 85, 288-309. Maynard Smith, J. (1993) The Theory of Evolution, 3rd edn, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mayr, E. (1993) One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought, London: Penguin Books. Marx, K. (1963) 'Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844', in T.B. Bottomore (ed.) Karl Marx: Early Writings, London: C.A. Watts, pp. 69-219. Medawar, P.B. (1960) The Future of Man, London: Methuen. Medawar, P.B. (1967) 'Herbert Spencer and the law of general evolution', in The Art of the Soluble, London: Methuen, pp. 39-58. Montagu, M.F.A. (ed.) (1968) Culture: Man's Adaptive Dimension, New York: Oxford University Press. Nelson, R.R. and S.G. Winter (1982) An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Nisbet, R.A. (1970) Social Change and History: Aspects of the Western Theory of Development, New York: Oxford University Press. Nitecki, M.H. (ed.) (1988) Evolutionary Progress, Chicago: Chicago University Press. Pascal, B. (1966) Pensees, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Payne, P.L. (1974) British Entrepreneurship in the Nineteenth Century, London: Macmillan. Peel, J.D.Y. (1971) Herbert Spencer: The Evolution of a Sociologist, London: Heinmann. Pick, D. (1989) Faces of Degeneration: A European Disorder, c. 1848-1918, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pollard, S. (1971) The Idea of Progress, Harmonds worth: Penguin. Popper, K. (1961) The Poverty of Historicism, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

52

When History

Accelerates

Popper, K. (1979) 'Evolution and the tree of knowledge', in Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach rev. edn, Oxford: Clarendon, pp. 256-84. Quadagno, J.S. (1979) 'Paradigms of evolutionary theory: the sociobiological model of natural selection', American Sociological Review, 44, 100-9. Richards, R.J. (1992) The Meaning of Evolution: The Morphological Construction and Ideological Reconstruction of Darwin's Theory, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ridley, M. (1993) Evolution, Oxford: Blackwell Scientific. Ritchie, D. (ed.) (1895) [1889] Darwinism and Politics, 3rd edn, London: Swan Sonnenschein. Rose, S., R.C. Lewontin and J.L. Kamin (1984) Not in Our Genes: Biology, Ideology and Human Nature, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Rubinstein, R.L. (1982) 'The elect and the preterite', in R.L. Rubinstein (ed.) Modernization, the Humanist Response to its Promise and Problem, Washington DC: Paragon, pp. 176-95. Runciman, W.G. (1989a) Confessions of a Reluctant Theorist, Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Runciman, W.G. (1989b) A Treatise on Social Theory, vol. 2: Substantive Social Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Runciman, W.G. (1993) Competition for What?, The Fourth ESRC Annual Lecture, Swindon: Economic and Social Research Council. Russett, C.E. (1976) Darwin in America: The Intellectual Response 1865-1912, San Francisco: W.H. Freeman. Ruyle, E.E. (1973) 'Genetic and cultural pools: some suggestions for a unified theory of biocultural evolution', Human Ecology, 1, 3, 201-15. Said, E.W. (1979) Orientalism, New York: Vintage. Sanderson, S.K. (1992) Social Evolutionism: A Critical History, Oxford: Blackwell. Sandon, H. (1966) 'Life and terrestrial evolution', New Scientist, 29, 489, 845-7. Simmel, G. (1964) [1917] 'The field of sociology', in K.A. Wolff (ed.) The Sociology ofGeorg Simmel, New York: Free Press, pp. 3-25. Simpson, G.G. (1967) The Meaning of Evolution rev. edn, New Haven: Yale University Press. Simpson, G.G. (1974) 'The concept of progress in organic evolution', Social Research, 41,28-51. Smith, A.D. (1973) The Concept of Social Change: A Critique of the Functionalist Theory of Social Change, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Spencer, H. (1851) Social Statics, London: John Chapman. Spencer, H. (1891) Essays: Scientific, Political and Speculative, vol.1 of 3, London and Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate. Spencer, H. (1908) 'The filiation of ideas', in D. Duncan, The Life and Letters of Herbert Spencer, London: Methuen, pp. 533-76. Stephen, L. (1907) [1882] The Science of Ethics, London: John Murray.

The Evolution of Society: A Darwinian Approach

53

Stirling, P. (1993) * Growth and changes: speed, scale and complexity', in P. Stirling (ed.) Culture and Economy: Changes in Turkish Villages, Huntingdon: Eothen, pp. 1-16. Sztompka, P. (1993) The Sociology of Social Change, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Thompson, D. (1962) 'Social and political thought', in F.H. Hinsley (ed.) The New Cambridge Modern History, vol. 11, Material Progress and World-Wide Problems, 1870-1898, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 101-20. Tiger, L. and R. Fox (1974) The Imperial Animal, Frogmore, St Albans: Paladin. Toynbee, A. (1962) A Study of History, vols. 1-6, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wallace, A.R. (1889) Darwinism, 2nd edn, London: Macmillan. Wesson, R. (1993) Beyond Natural Selection, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Williams, G.C. (1992) Natural Selection: Domains, Levels and Challenges, New York: Oxford University Press. Wilson, E.O. (1975) Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wittfogel, K. (1957) Oriental Despotism, New Haven: Yale University Press. Wright, S. (1960) * Physiological genetics, ecology of populations, and natural selection', in Sol Tax (ed.) Evolution After Darwin, 2 vols, Chicago: Chicago University Press, vol. 1 pp. 429-75. Wright, S. (1963) * Adaptation and selection', in G.L. Jepsen, E. Mayr, and G.G. Simpson (eds.) Genetics, Palaeontology, and Evolution, New York: Atheneum, pp. 365-89.

CHAPTER 3

Rates of Change: Weasel Words and the Indispensable in Anthropological Analysis Roy Ellen There is a profound discontinuity between words in sociological books and what people actually do ... How can I communicate my perceptions of what has changed and what has not? (Stirling, 1974: 191) INTRODUCTION

Ordinary people (and academics when they are acting as such) 'know' intuitively that some things in their social world change faster than others. Yet anthropologists, sociologists, and even historians, that is those who are professionally concerned with the study of social change, have on the other hand, relatively little to say about this commonplace, being more concerned with seeking general laws of societal transformation. Of course, they too are aware that social life is in a constant state of flux and that, moreover, * total' social change is impossible, as it would undermine the very conditions of reproduction. It is, therefore, logically and empirically necessary for some things to change faster than others. It is not enough to recognize that change takes place. What is required is some recognition that the differential character of that change is a prerequisite for an understanding of the constitution of society. The disjunction between the observation that differential change is self-evident and the comparative rarity of its actual investigation in part reflects the practical difficulty of tackling this issue. It is also a consequence of prevailing theoretical orientations. Classical social theory, as we know it from the writings of Marx, Weber and Durkheim and their interpreters, is of relatively little help here, as its main concern

Rates of Change: Weasel Words and the Indispensable

55

is with societies as structured totalities, as boundary-maintaining units that resist change. By contrast, American cultural approaches of Boasian persuasion might seem to offer a better prospect, by down-playing the systemic and total character of society while emphasizing culture as an inventory of potentially diffusible and quasi-autonomous units. Such a model more easily accommodates the possibility that rates of change vary between different domains. But whatever the theoretical predisposition, a shared conception of ethnographic practice has until recently provided an inadequate research and conceptual infrastructure, both in terms of reliance on field inputs of between 12 and 15 months, and in terms of a monographical mode of analysis that requires accounts of a particular ethnographic present. Despite much that has been written on the subject over the last few decades, anthropologists still take as their primary reference point not the diachronic sequence or process but the synchronicized short-term ethnographic experience. Some argue that there really is little practical alternative. However, with greater emphasis on long-term research (Foster et a/., 1979), the fieldworker is increasingly confronted not only with evidence of change, and in particular differential rates of change, but with the methodologically awkward truth that change is not aberrant and periodic, but a continuous and constitutive condition of all social systems. In this chapter I wish to make a few provisional observations about differential rates of change for those phenomena we describe as social or cultural, and to show how consideration of rates of change ultimately leads us back to the once much discussed - and now too often ignored - issues of cause and effect, which Paul Stirling (e.g. 1974: 197) has taught us are to be treated with rigorous scepticism. These observations are guided by the insights afforded by systems approaches, which have influenced my own work in environmental anthropology over the past twenty-five years. To the best of my knowledge, Paul Stirling has never formally embraced anything that he would describe as such, but his writings show evidence of a sceptical and sophisticated understanding of causation, as well as evidence of exposure to the general ideas of systems thinking. After some introductory remarks on the systemic properties of social change, I consider here the difficulties of identifying types of cultural and social change, and of perceiving and measuring rates of change in different kinds of ethnographic data. The final part of the chapter examines a few systemic consequences of different rates of change, viewed in terms of disjunctions between different parts of the system, and between different levels of organisation. What I have

56

When History Accelerates

to say is unapologetically theoretical, general and incomplete. It may, however, draw attention to issues that deserve further scrutiny, and is offered in a spirit of conceptual ground-clearing of which Paul Stirling would, I hope, approve. SYSTEMS, SUBSYSTEMS AND THE UNDERSTANDING OF SOCIAL CHANGE

Despite the impediment of a corpus of received social theory in which 'system' has been hijacked to the doctrinal interests of ahistoricism, many would now take the view that historical change can best be understood systemically.1 Perturbations are caused in existing systems of social interaction, relationships and ideas that are either exogenous to those systems defined locally, or a consequence of previous changes and interactions within the pre-existing system. Indeed, social systems only exist through their continuous structuration in the course of time (Giddens, 1979: 217): that is, through the dialectical interplay between the forces imminent at any one moment and their durational trajectories. As Giddens puts it, the 'possibility of change is recognised in every circumstance of social reproduction' (1979: 210). Moreover, all human systems are sufficiently complex to permit varying rates of change within them. Depending on which aspect or part of a system we examine, its components are altering more slowly or faster than some other aspect or part of a system. The more complex the system the more activity, and the more activity the more potential for differential change. As Whyte (1977: 76) and others (e.g. Ellen, 1982: 272-3) have pointed out, the main processes associated with increasing scale are: a reduction in energetic efficiency due to new demands for organization and communication, and greater differentiation (including division of labour), integration and potential for generating conflict. This is accompanied by social institutionalization and the necessary codification of information and social responsibilities to ensure effective mechanisms of control. The problem is how to divide up a given system and to specify those parts that our measurements and experience tell us are changing at different rates. To claim that social change is best understood systemically, and that rates of change vary between different parts of a system, is not to deny the problems of applying systems models to human affairs. As a result of work over four decades in general systems theory, the theory of organizations, cybernetics, world systems, systems analysis, centre-periphery models and ecology, and the variably successful attempts to apply these insights to ethnographic, regional and historical data, we have learned

Rates of Change: Weasel Words and the Indispensable

57

something. It is now well recognized, for example, that systems with tightly controlled boundaries no more exist in the social world than they do in the biological or chemical world (Ellen, 1984), that all social systems are, therefore, to a greater or lesser degree 'open'. That this should be so, however, should not undermine the observation that there is strong evidence for 'systemness'. In other words, systems are not entities in the usual sense, but abstracted networks of pathways (see Bateson, 1973: 319, 447). It is only necessary to remind ourselves that the properties predicted by systems theory, when applied to the relatively open systems that anthropologists study empirically, must always be understood as probabilistic and the processes of change essentially stochastic (ibid.: 255). In other words, our claims must always be statistically grounded. None of the statements in the preceding paragraph should, however, be taken to indicate that what we mean by social system is epistemologically unproblematic. Indeed, one of the classic difficulties of applying systems thinking to human behaviour, and one which has a direct bearing on matters I wish to develop here, is the duality of systems involving humans. By this I mean that they are simultaneously 'objective' material sets of interacting parts, and systems of images, representations, meanings and information, which are to varying extents shared by groups of human beings. In a simple physical system - such as in engineering models - cause and effect are mechanistic, but in any system containing sentient humans cause and effect are mediated by consciousness and culture, which cannot be reduced to a physical dynamic. Thus, most potential causes are perceived as problems, and minds have to decide how to cope with them. Actors have plans, expectations, purposes, and perceive effects according to learned culture and the physiology of sensation and cognition. These things may be translated into causes and effects in the material, or to follow Ingold (1986a) the ecological, system, where natural selection (amongst other mechanisms) operates. Indeed, systems may be extracted that cut across the conventional boundaries of mind and body, such that - for example - the mental and physical actions involved in felling a tree may be described as having systemic features (Bateson, 1973: 319). But while the physical system is transformed via the minds of biological individuals, through whose communion a shared intersubjective consciousness emerges, they are ultimately dependent upon the ecological system for genetic reproduction. Thus, the basic human unit in the physical or ecological system is the individual, transformed at the social level into

58

When History Accelerates

the person, while particular activities in the ecological system often have an approximate correlate in the social. For example, predation, cooperation and territoriality are to the ecological as hunting, sharing and tenure are to the social (Ingold, 1986a: 5). Rather differently, we might juxtapose the existence of symbolic models of centre and periphery, of the kind that it has been suggested organize some of the key collective representations of pre-colonial Moluccan polities, and models of physical systems focused on materially significant central places (Ellen, 1984, 1987, 1992, 1993b). These are in no sense congruent, but they do appear to interact and reinforce one another. But in all this, the individual actor, shared social consciousness and the material system generate rationalities that may contradict. Once the applicability of systems thinking is recognized, it logically follows that there might exist systems within systems. The properties of systems can mostly be summarized as consequences or transformations of two polar kinds of feedback, or cause-and-effect loops. These are negative or regenerative loops, which by changing certain variables tend overall to maintain existing conditions; and positive loops, which increasingly amplify deviance, often in a potentially exponential way. If we accept this basic model, then a system of sufficient complexity may contain both positive and negative feedback to different degrees, though the existence of the system of which they are parts will depend upon overarching negative feedback loops that provide common boundedness. Smaller negative feedback loops within the more inclusive system may coexist, characterize and sometimes define different subsystems, while positive feedback may operate within subsystems, providing the emergent conditions for their transformation. Subsystems may differ also in terms of their rate of amplification-deviance, in terms of positive feedback, or in terms of the rate of cyclical change built into negative feedback processes. Depending on the size and complexity of a system, the number of nesting subsystems that it is methodologically possible to identify will vary, and in the most complex of human systems we might imagine these to resemble computer graphics generated on the basis of mathematical fractals. Positing the theoretical existence of subsystems is, however, different from identifying them empirically. In the past, part of the problem here has been the temptation for writers to use 'system' and 'subsystem' in an ontological and typological way, to refer to kinds of activity or relationships which they wish a priori to differentiate functionally, rather than discovering subsystemic tendencies or properties

Rates of Change: Weasel Words and the Indispensable

59

inductively, and then labelling them. The most familiar example of this kind of usage in anthropological analysis is in the conventional headings for the institutions or analytic domains of social life: kinship, religion, economics, politics, and so on; or usages such as 'demographic system', 'stratification system', 'religious system', or 'technological system'. This is very different from identifying systems based on actual empirical patterns of interaction between physical bodies, or even patterns of perceived social relationships (such as might be said to exist for spheres of economic exchange (Barth, 1967) or domestic groups (Wilk, 1990)). Many acknowledge the arbitrariness involved in recognizing second order abstractions as subsystems, but find their descriptive convenience too great a temptation to resist (e.g. Clarke, 1968: 101-3). But even if we do not acknowledge the language of subsystems we often imply the existence of systems by speaking of processes of change identified by institutional or ontological labels, such as 'demographic change' or 'kinship change'. True, it is possible to locate empirical subsystems based on institutions, but such identification only makes sense where those institutions have a measurable degree of organisational separateness, as in the complex organisation of the state. Thus, in an Italian context the organizational autonomy of the Catholic Church may come close to matching the subsystem 'religion', or in Turkey the institutions of government may match in an approximate way the domain of politics. However, on the whole, such uses are analogies with systems theory, rather than being genuine systems. Another problem with the notion of subsystems is that we tend to treat them as equally bounded, give them roughly equal weight in our models, and assume them to be discrete in space-time. This is often apparent in diagramming conventions that employ nesting circles and connecting arrows. But subsystems only occasionally have anything approaching geographical or temporal discreteness, and individual persons may be simultaneously active in a number of subsystems that the analyst would prefer to keep distinct; even worse, they may move in and out of them over time. IDENTIFYING KINDS OF CULTURAL AND SOCIAL CHANGE

In discussing kinds of change it is important to distinguish: (a) the phenomenal unit of measurement, (b) the systemic and temporal properties of systems, and (c) the substantive content that characterizes particular subsystems or functional categories. Usually, it is only the last of these that is considered in accounts of social change, and together

60

When History Accelerates

with the conflation of subsystemic and functional categories discussed above, this bias has led to confusion in our descriptions. How we decide to classify different kinds of change will, obviously, have a fundamental impact on the kinds of explanations we have at our disposal. By phenomenal unit of measurement I refer to the basic orientation that has to be decided in advance when conceptualizing change. In anthropology, this generally means choosing a model of culture based on a molecular analogy or a model of society based on networks of relations, or some combination of the two. Although it is possible to speak of both social and cultural change as socio-cultural, the hybrid term has been objected to on the grounds that it confuses two quite distinct and contrasting ideas (Ingold, 1986b; cf. Stirling, 1993: 4). We know we are talking about the same phenomenon, aspects of the same continuous reality, but our conceptualizations of culture and society make a difference to how we identify and measure change. Social change is essentially relational: about (a) changing patterns of physical interaction and their consequences in the ecological system, or (b) about changes in rules, roles, relationships, values and attitudes (all things that are intrinsically difficult to measure), or (c) some combination of these two levels of analysis. By contrast, cultural change has historically been about behavioural 'molecules' and their material manifestations, about concretized items or aggregates of such items which, although parts of larger wholes, are somehow, and with some practical justification, treated as being more amenable to measurement. Thus, the cultural interaction theory of change emphasizes processes of acculturation, culture contact, diffusion and appearances. In such a model different parts and sections of complex societies are held to be separate subsystems that interact to stimulate change. Such an approach is evident in Evon Vogt's listing of changes in different cultural domains of Chiapas life (Vogt, 1979: 292-3). Change according to its systemic and temporal properties has been classified in different ways by different authors, and not all the types distinguished are directly commensurable. All of them, however, tend to contrast changes that incline towards system maintenance and those that tend towards cumulative shifts in system structure. A comparable distinction is made between recurrent and non-recurrent (or linear) processes. In the language of functionalism, this is similar to the distinction between changes that are necessary to perpetuate the system (as are oscillations in voting patterns to electoral democracy, or price fluctuations to market capitalism), and those that are 'genuine' changes

Rates of Change: Weasel Words and the Indispensable

61

in the system itself. 'Function', of course, refers to what an element does in a system (not why it does so, or what it should do); it is a recurrent event, a cause-effect relationship that over time, because of its repetitive character, can be said to be a property of a system. Be that as it may, 'function' is also a notorious weasel word which Giddens, like Paul Stirling before him, would much prefer to ban from the vocabulary of social analysis, on the grounds that 'social systems have no reasons whatsoever'. 'The decisive error in functionalism', continues Giddens (1979: 211), 'is to regard the identification of the ... consequences of action as an explanation of the existence ... of that action.' Within the category of recurrent processes, functional or not, some have distinguished short-term processes, which characterize the daily round of activities (such as are involved in the socialization of children) from long-term processes (Levi-Strauss, 1963 [1953]: 277-323; Vogt, 1960: 21), such as the developmental cycle of domestic groups or the cyclical succession of swidden plots. Sorokin (1962a) distinguishes 'cyclical' from various other recurrent patterns of process. Whatever way they are classified, these kinds of process determine the degree of 'stability' of a system. By this I do not mean literal inertness (Gellner, 1988: 187), only that certain activities are repeated to the same effect, even though separated by time, and even though there may be a biological turnover in the performing personnel. Moreover, 'stability' refers to the property of a system, not to the condition of a 'society'. Indeed, there is little point in looking for an overall theory of stability and change in social systems, since the conditions of social reproduction vary so widely between different types of society (Giddens, 1979: 215), and - we might add - between different parts of the systemic complexes labelled by a particular societal designation: 'Italian society', 'Turkish society', 'Nuaulu society', or whatever. Non-recurrent processes have been similarly dissected (see e.g. Moore, 1960), and are subject to much the same critique. Some of those who classify kinds of linear process clearly specify that these are the properties of material system transformations. Other writers link social consciousness and physical action (e.g. Helm, 1979: 150). Among some historians and anthropologists, Fernand Braudel's tripartite scheme of linear changes has found favour. This requires a recognition that simultaneous processes proceed on quite different levels at quite different speeds: short-term fluctuations related to individual events (histoire evenementielle), mid-level changes of periods of several centuries in economic and cultural life (conjunctures), and long-term changes (la

62

When History Accelerates

longue duree) in the underlying agrarian, maritime and demographic structures. The danger, however, with all of these distinctions is that they can become excessively detailed, mechanistic, typological and scholastic, diverting attention from the flexibility and complexity of how real-world systems actually change. When discussing change according to different subsystems or functional categories, or what Etzioni (1964: 181) has called 'spheres of change', most macro distinctions are those between abstractions such as Julian Steward's cultural core and culture-historical factors [Ellen, 1982: 52-5), and variations on the Marxist and cultural materialist base and superstructure theme. In certain versions of Marxist methodology we are not supposed to prejudge the substantive content of the base (e.g. Godelier, 1975) other than to specify that this will consist of determinant relations of production. However, in most cases there is a broad correspondence with 'the economy'; and in such models it is usually implicit, and sometimes quite explicit, that core or base changes more slowly than superstructure, and that the aggregate flow of causes is from base to superstructure, rather than the other way round. More detailed classifications of change according to imputed content bring us back to the standard anthropological institutions of social life. As I have said in the preceding section, these may sometimes describe with sufficient accuracy existential subsystems, though often they are just abstractions from a system based on ontological characteristics. Thus, demographic change can never refer to what goes on in a single subsystem, as demographic indicators are always an aspect of something else. The same might be said for technology in small-scale systems with a low degree of specialization and a high degree of cultural embeddedness, though not so confidently of large complex systems. Language, on the other hand, while not having systemic properties in the material sense (only consequences), does display them at the level of collective consciousness, for otherwise it could not serve its social purposes. The classifications used by many to describe change are, however, far less systematical and theorized than those I have so far referred to. They are often the product of impressions, intuitions, the folk categories of the observer and observed alike. This, in itself, is not unacceptable, since the changes to which people respond are generally those that they perceive, and rates of change those that they 'feel'. Thus, at a general level of discussion Stirling broadly follows Lucy Mair in distinguishing: (a) changes in social relationships, (b) changes

Rates of Change: Weasel Words and the Indispensable

63

in knowledge and belief, (c) changes in value and (d) changes in general characteristics of society (1974: 194-5). However, in his ethnographic analysis he finds it convenient to divide up his data into less inclusive categories and then group these into: national changes, main channels (that is agents of change), specific factors, women, family and kinship and general changes. His use of flow diagrams implies that these groupings can be treated as commensurable systemic components, though in practice the boxes are as disparate as 'roads', 'radio' and 'knowledge and belief. Stirling (ibid.: 202) states the predicament with characteristic candour: 'I can weight neither factors nor causal links; the factors are not mutually exclusive, nor are the boundaries around them always clear. These "factors" indeed are not even things of the same general order of existence'. PERCEIVING AND MEASURING RATES OF CHANGE

To classify kinds of change is therefore not to solve the problem of identifying the 'things' that change, but such an identification of units is a necessary prelude to measurement. Palaeontologists can measure the rate of change by comparing the number and magnitude of morphological changes in fossils. For example, we can see that for most of their evolutionary history molluscs have remained remarkably similar, whereas during the same period vertebrates have changed very rapidly. Geologists can measure rates of erosion or deposition of sediments in a way that has provided plausible relative measures of dating; botanists can undertake analogous measurements using tree-ring analysis. Physicists can measure change in terms of the decay of radio-active elements and other elementary particles. The closest approximation to measurement of this kind which behavioural anthropology, in its broadest sense, can achieve is perhaps the way in which archaeologists and historians of material culture quantify changes in, say, tool shape (Clarke, 1968: 199-222). Thus, multivariate analysis enables the making of plausible statements to the effect that certain forms have changed more rapidly than others, or that a certain form changed slowly for two million years and changed rapidly in the 10,000 years thereafter. The central methodological assumption of archaeology has always been the possibility of inferring social and cultural information from physical evidence, and its central weakness the difficulties of so doing. However, that such inference is to varying degrees probable can be established, and the relative technical ease of measuring material changes and the sufficient probability that they

64

When History Accelerates

mirror non-material changes one of the best proxies for measuring other cultural and social changes. Indirect and inobtrusive measures of this kind are called in some social science methods literature 'physical traces'. Thus, numbers of books sold or newspaper circulation figures per head of the population are a rough guide to literacy rates; the number of times a particular book is borrowed from a library and the condition of its binding evidence of what is read, and with what frequency. In principle, measurable changes in the environment brought about by humans (such as deforestation, hunting or pollution) offer the same possibilities, though the time scales involved are inevitably longer. Economic indicators are also partly of this form when we attempt to measure the number and different types of things produced, exchanged and consumed. However, economics is also about the value accorded to such things, as reflected, say, in the rate of inflation. Another set of indicators amenable to quantitative measurement and expression is indubitably non-material, but may also serve to provide useful proxies of other kinds of social and cultural change. Such indicators include the demographic rates of birth, death, fertility, generational turnover and migration. Next to demographic features, the most commonly quantified of non-material changes are linguistic. Thus, the existence of lexicostatistics reflects the degree of confidence that linguists have felt in analysing speech sounds as a guide to the rate of language change; and some (e.g. Blust 1976) have based their attempts to reconstruct proto-societies on the observation that language changes much more slowly than other aspects of culture. These measures assume that certain features of language change at a more-or-less constant rate (Swadesh 1959), but unfortunately this is not true of all features. While language cannot change so fast that it ceases to be an effective medium of communication, it can change very rapidly: as witnessed in the self-conscious development of argots as badges of identity amongst fashion-conscious youth. Finally, there are direct indicators of social and cultural change, which are both non-material and non-linguistic; for example, the frequency with which a particular ritual is held, rate of marital separation (Barnes, 1967) or witchcraft accusation (Marwick, 1967). SYSTEMIC CONSEQUENCES OF DIFFERENT RATES OF CHANGE

Even if we can settle upon acceptable measures of rates of social and cultural change, there remain a number of crucial problems

Rates of Change: Weasel Words and the Indispensable

65

of interpretation. I can mention only the most immediately pertinent here. One addresses the intersection of the physical system and social consciousness. Stability and change are much affected by our perceptions of components of a particular system, by the values we attach to aspects of our material and social worlds. Thus, what at a systems level of analysis, or to an observer preoccupied with infrastructural and materially massive change, may appear to be trivial, may for the actors themselves be a major preoccupation and the means by which they mark the passage of time and historic change which for them is significant. Our subjective personal indicators of change are inevitably changes that affect us, even if these are systemically atypical; we mirror changes in our personal lives through family history, and cultural ephemera such as popular music and sport, rather than changes in the means of production. A second problem is distinguishing purpose from effect. For many actors, change itself may be culturally desirable, but on the whole this is either a modernist idea with its origins in nineteenth-century notions of progress (as reflected also in the positive value attached to infinite economic growth), or something linked to those who seek material and social advancement within a system they assume to be more-or-less unchanging. However, most actor-instigated social change occurs through people attempting not to alter, but to maintain, a particular status quo (see e.g. Bateson, 1973: 448; Mair, 1969: 134). A third problem is the necessity to distinguish content from form. The earliest acknowledgement of this distinction is perhaps found in the evolutionist doctrine of survivals, where recognizably basic cultural forms (material or non-material) were observed to persist though their associated meanings or * functions' altered. We can see this when we examine cultural artefacts as diverse as skeuomorphic material objects, the survival or reinvention of medieval rituals in the context of modern nation-states and language change. Indeed, words often remain the same while their meaning in a system of representations changes. Thus, although the Morganite project to reconstruct archaic social forms from contemporary kinship terminology has almost crumbled (but see Blust, 1976), there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the only plausible explanation for the disjunction between the logic of terminological equations and marriage patterns in certain parts of eastern Indonesia is that the practices have changed more rapidly than the terms (Hicks, 1990: 46-87).

66

When History Accelerates

Finally, it is necessary to distinguish systemically minor from fundamental change. All social changes are potentially important; but a small number of changes in certain sectors of the social system may have greater consequences than a great many changes in other sectors. As we have seen, some theories assume that identifiable subsystems or functional categories will always be more important than others, and will, i n the last instance', or in 'the long run', determine the overall pattern of change. Most theories of social change, not only Marxist theories, are on balance materialist, in the sense that 'economic factors' are given more weight in explanations than non-economic ones. However, the commonsense observation that small changes in remote parts of the system may through their knock-on effects have large-scale consequences at the centre, is now widely accepted, and given respectability by chaos theory. Bearing in mind these problems, we can now discuss the systemic consequences of differential rates of change in two ways: between identifiable subsystems or aspects of a single system, and between different levels of organization or structural inclusiveness. DISJUNCTIONS AND CONTRADICTIONS

An example of disjunction between areas of human activity that might be described as subsystemic occurs when changes in one area have disproportionate or unexpected consequences in another, or when trajectories changing at different rates come into conflict: in other words, when there is a lack of synchronization between types and rates of change. A good illustration of this is found in the account by Sharp (1952) of the introduction of metal axes among the Yir Yiront. What proved to be decisive here was not simply the increased technical efficiency that steel conferred over stone, but the way the innovation completely undermined gender and age-based relationships, and hence the overall power structure. Technical change proceeded rapidly in a way which was not matched by changes in social status, which in turn gave rise to contradictions in cultural logic and conflict between groups within society. Scudder and Colson (1979: 247) report that amongst Gwembe removed to new settlements to make way for the Kariba Dam in the late 1950s, people clung to familiar individuals and institutions, changing no more than was necessary during the initial years of relocation to accommodate new habitat and its existing population. Radical change from within or without was resisted. Once the basic infrastructure was in place, it was

Rates of Change: Weasel Words and the Indispensable

67

possible to intensify traditional ceremonies, such as funerals, personal and lineage shrines. These, of course, are no more than selected ethnographic instances of a much more widely reported sociological observation: that technical change proceeds more rapidly than other aspects of culture, giving rise to 'lag', 'strain', dissonance, contradiction (as between different relations of production), resistance and physical conflict. It is widely assumed that technology and production, on the whole, change more quickly than political relations and ideologies, which carry with them cultural baggage from the past which is not easily disposed of (Ogburn, 1964: 311). However, although this may be demonstrable for certain kinds of technology and certain kinds of production, it is not universally true (Sorokin, 1962b: ch. 44). Thus, the built environment most obviously lags behind changes in domestic organization for most populations who occupy permanent dwellings. The rate of technical change compared with the rate of change elsewhere in the system depends on the cultural features and social relations concerned, and their wider ethnographic and ecological context. Rapid change in one part of a system may sometimes reinforce, rather than contradict, other features of a system, though this may not be the long-term outcome of such an effect. Even though there may be rapid change when measured in terms of - say - the rate of economic accumulation, if this becomes a means by which certain traditional values and practices can be maintained, then the maintenance of those values and practices may signal stability in the minds of those for whom they loom significant. A well-known instance of this is provided in Richard Salisbury's (1962) account of pearl lip shell inflation in the New Guinea Highlands, but many other cases of the intensification of traditional practices in one sphere as a result of positive feedback elsewhere can be documented (e.g. Parkin, 1972). A rich source of such examples is the literature on bridewealth and dowry. Rather differently, in the 1980s the Nuaulu of central Seram thought that by returning to old territories in the mountains, made possible by a government resettlement scheme, they were re-establishing and securing a traditional lifestyle. There was, indeed, a material continuity, but the conditions of that continuity were very different from what they had previously known (Ellen, 1993a). These are instances of the widely reported phenomenon whereby, if new resources can be diverted to well-understood pre-existing ends, then they will be. Actors often seek to stabilize or indeed amplify valued features of a traditional

68

When History Accelerates

lifestyle in a way which - paradoxically - may ultimately lead to its undermining. RATES OF CHANGE AT DIFFERENT LEVELS OF ORGANIZATION

It has become the norm to treat social and cultural change in terms of changing institutions, or in terms of changing subsystems or parts of some totality that we call 'society'. This was the approach underpinning the discussion in the previous section. However, within the conventions of systems thinking, change can also be seen as occurring at various degrees of abstraction from the individual. These are what Etzioni (1964: 337) concretizes as 'levels of change', levels that may be conceptualized as so many nesting systems, each with 'emergent properties'. In this final section I consider change in this way, starting from the level of individual interaction, and working outwards through mid-range interaction in the context of institutional systems, to the level of inclusive political or economic formations. In principle, we could also add change in encompassing ecological systems. All change in systems constituted of humans must necessarily begin with changes in the practice of individuals, and it is at this level of analysis that the social and the ecological, the physical and non-physical, are functionally, methodologically and substantively most isomorphic. This is partly because activities that are necessary to advance immediate survival and reproductive fitness operate at this level. It is, therefore, not surprising that behaviour focused on mating, reproduction and parenting should appear to change at much slower rates than behaviour at more inclusive systemic levels. When Nuaulu identify with Christian Ambonese culture following conversion from animism, or when Brunei Dusun embrace Islam and become Malays, their basic network of relatives and core reproductive and survival behaviour persists. Even in those circumstances where entire cultural kits appear to be disappearing in the face of 'deculturation' and ethnocide, people must continue to feed and breed, and do so as far as possible on the basis of habitual and tried-and-tested practices and the rules which enforce them. Such behaviours are backed-up by patterns of child rearing that are themselves relatively resistant to radical change. This is not to say that rapid and dramatic change does not occur at the level of individual interaction, and amongst those who are closely genetically related. For although there is a close connection between the ecological and the social, driven by short-term goals like sex, incest avoidance, maternal bonding and food-getting, to which we are

Rates of Change: Weasel Words and the Indispensable

69

all pre-disposed, everything is expressed through culture and social consciousness, which may change very fast on occasions. Because these relations are vital to immediate survival, and are perceived as such, they are less likely to change, unless a problem occurs higher up the system, or if greater security and advantage are seen to accrue from change. Thus, where domestic groups are relatively autonomous, in being able to satisfy most of their own survival needs, there is less expectation of radical change, than is the case with domestic groups whose social and economic reproduction are dependent on other parts of a more inclusive system, as with complex 'organic' divisions of labour. Although, for the most part, old habits tend to provide the less risky strategy, if survival necessitates changing core behaviours, then even this may happen. In the final instance, individuals act opportunistically to satisfy their reproductive interests. As we move away from individual interaction in domestic contexts, so the arguments for isomorphism between the biological and cultural decrease. True, social kinship may serve genetic interests by facilitating the potential for reciprocal altruism beyond close biological connections (Bloch, 1973; Layton, 1989: 443), but the specific form and content of descent and marriage arrangements, as social anthropologists are generally quick to point out, may change very rapidly indeed. Wider, more inclusive, systems than those I have so far discussed ('societies', states, modes of production, institutions, multi-national companies, etc.) reproduce themselves in ways that are quite different from those adopted by individual organisms. They are not simply an extension of similar forms which have some evolutionary genetic basis, and display properties that cannot be read from the underlying rules and regularities of less-inclusive systems. In terms of systems theory, what distinguishes them is a division of labour expressed through the presence of separate specialized subsystems and the dedication of one or more of these subsystems to specialized social control functions. So, are large-scale systems inclined to change faster or more slowly than those that they encompass? On the one hand, the complexity of social systems beyond the level of those required for immediate biological reproduction does seem to provide a buffer against the potentially disruptive effects of changes in one part of the system. On the other, reliance on interdependence can jeopardize their existence when connections between parts become weak, leading to instability and rapid change. Thus, while states and empires provide an effective context for internal redistribution, they are

70

When History Accelerates

vulnerable if there is little to distribute, or if there is little diversity in what is produced; or if they contain inner contradictions, inadequate social control mechanisms, or are unable to protect themselves from the destabilizing effects of connected systems or more encompassing ones. Indeed, an increased potential rate of change in large systems is structurally more predictable, not only because they are remote from individual biological needs, but because such systems facilitate and accelerate the diffusion of innovations and information (Whyte, 1977: 76; Ellen, 1979). In such systems, contradictions between various parts are inevitable, and it is the isolation of those parts responsible for control that may sometimes lead to rapid transformation or collapse. The logic here may be expressed through the elegant mathematics of catastrophe or chaos, or perfectly adequately using less subtle models, but what is clear is not only the historical frequency of 'collapse' compared with what we know of less-inclusive systems, but the variety of different reasons for it. These might be examined by considering the rapid decline and extinction of large-scale systems as diverse as pre-European Hawaii, classic Maya civilization and the Soviet Union, but to do so would open another Pandora's box when the present one is not even closed. CONCLUSION

I have attempted in this chapter to explore some of the conceptual and practical difficulties of talking about rates of social and cultural change, especially when we observe that different things in a system are changing at different rates. I argue that a self-consciously systemic approach enables us to deal more powerfully with our experience that rates of change may be simultaneously informal folk images and properties of, or processes in, objectivized systems. Most social scientists concerned with the empirical evidence for change have tended to refer to the speed of change impressionistically and vaguely, or to latch upon one high-profile and measurable indicator, or to apply it to diverse and not strictly commensurable ontological categories or second order constructs. It is not easy to relate these to actual systemic changes. Moreover, 'when the changes are rapid, the devising of adequate "models" is prodigiously difficult' (Stirling, 1993: 3). I argue here that we need to re-examine these conventional analytic constructs and to identify the systemic processes which underlie them. I also suggest that change can be identified as taking place at different rates depending on the systemic distance from an individual ego, such that we can hypothesize change taking place more slowly at

Rates of Change: Weasel Words and the Indispensable

71

the level of domestic reproductive behaviour compared, say, with the level of regional systems or state-linked systems. In such an operation it is impossible to avoid 'function', 'cause', 'effect', 'purpose' and 'social system'; which - however much we may seek to euphemize, supersede or dispose of them - are ultimately concepts indispensable to any kind of anthropological analysis that seeks to explain how things are related. Paul Stirling (e.g. 1993: 5) has been consistent and unequivocal in espousing this view. NOTE

1 It is curious that the theory most appropriate to a consideration of not only change, but, as I shall argue, different rates of change, should be one that has been castigated as the most developed version of functionalism, a theory often presented as inimical to the understanding of change. The problem arises in large part from Parsons, and interpretations of Parsons (Buckley, 1967: 27-30). But as Gellner has elegantly argued speaking of Malinowski (Gellner, 1988: 187-8), in a world of rapid social change stability is the problematic condition that needs to be highlighted and explained. For examples of those who have advocated systems approaches, see Bateson, 1973 (anthropology, psychology); Buckley 1967 (sociology); Clarke, 1968 (archaeology); Frank and Gills, 1993; Viazzo, 1989 (history); Langton, 1973 (geography); Cavallo, 1979 (social science in general). REFERENCES

Barnes, J.A. (1967) 'The frequency of divorce', in A.L. Epstein (ed.) The Craft of Social Anthropology, London: Social Science Paperbacks and Tavistock, pp. 17-100. Barth, F. (1967) 'Economic spheres in Darfur', in R. Firth (ed.) Themes in Economic Anthropology (ASA Monographs in Social Anthropology, 6), London: Tavistock, pp. 149-73. Bateson, G. (1973) Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution and Epistemology', St Albans: Paladin. Bloch, M. (1973) 'The long term and the short term: the economic and political significance of kinship', in J.R. Goody (ed.) The Character of Kinship, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Blust, R. (1976) 'Austronesian culture history: some linguistic inferences and their relations to the archaeological record', World Archaeology, 8, 1, 19-^3. Buckley, W. (1967) Sociology and Modern Systems Theory, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. Cavallo, R.E. (1979) The Role of Systems Methodology in Social Science Research, Boston, The Hague and London: Martinus Nijhoff. Clarke, D. (1968) Analytical Archaeology, London: Methuen. Ellen, R.F. (1979) 'Sago subsistence and the trade in spices. A provisional

72

When History

Accelerates

model of ecological succession and imbalance in Moluccan history', in P. Burnham and R.F. Ellen (eds.) Social and Ecological Systems (ASA Monographs in social anthropology, 18), London: Academic, pp. 43-4. Ellen, R.F. (1982) Environment, Subsistence and System. The Ecology of Small-Scale Social Formations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ellen, R.F. (1984) Trade, environment and the reproduction of local systems in the Moluccas', in E.F. Moran (ed.) The Ecosystem Concept in Anthropology (AAAS Selected Symposium 92), Boulder CO: American Association for the Advancement of Science, p. 163-204. Ellen, R.F. (1987) 'Environmental perturbation, inter-island trade and the re-location of production along the Banda arc; or, why central places remain central', in T. Suzuki and R. Ohtsuka (eds.) Human Ecology of Health and Survival in Asia and the South Pacific, Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, pp. 35-61. Ellen, R.F. (1992) 'On the contemporary uses of colonial history and the legitimation of tradition in archipelagic southeast Seram', Studia Ethnologica Bernensia, 4, 1-28. Ellen, R.F. (1993a) 'Rhetoric, practice and incentive in the face of the changing times: a case study of Nuaulu attitudes to conservation and deforestation', in K. Milton (ed.) Environmentalism: The View from Anthropology, London: Routledge, pp. 126-43. Ellen, R.F. (1993b) 'Faded images of old Tidore in contemporary southeast Seram: a view from the periphery', Cakalele, Maluku Research Journal, 4, 23-39. Etzioni, A. (ed.) (1964) Social Change: Sources, Patterns and Consequences, New York: Basic Books. Foster, G.M., T. Scudder, E. Colson and R.V. Kemper (eds.) (1979) Long-Term Field Research in Social Anthropology, New York: Academic. Frank, A.G. and B. Gills (1993) The world system: 500 or 5000 years?, London: Routledge. Giddens, A. (1979) Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure and Contradiction in Social Analysis, London: Macmillan. Gellner, E. (1988) '"Zeno of Cracow" or "Revolution at Nemi" or "The Polish revenge" a drama in three acts', in R. Ellen, E. Gellner, G. Kubica and J. Mucha (eds) Malinowski Between Two Worlds: The Polish Roots of an Anthropological Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 164-94. Godelier, M. 1975. 'Modes of production, kinship, and demographic structures', in M. Bloch (ed.) Marxist Analysis and Social Anthropology, London: Malaby, pp. 3-29. Helm, J. (1979) 'Long-term research among the Dogrib and other Dene', in G.M. Foster et al. (eds.) Long-Term Field Research in Social Anthropology, New York: Academic, pp. 145-63. Hicks, D. (1990) Kinship and Religion in Eastern Indonesia (Gothenburg Studies in Social Anthropology, 12), Gothenburg: Acta Universitatis

Rates of Change: Weasel Words and the Indispensable

73

Gothoburgensis. Ingold, T. (1986) The Appropriation of Nature: Essays on Human Ecology and Social Relations, Manchester University Press. Ingold, T. (1986) Evolution and Social Life, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Langton, J. (1973) * Potentialities and problems of adopting a systems approach to the study of change in human geography', Progress in Geography: International Review of Current Research, 4, 125-79. Layton, R.H. (1989) 'Are sociobiology and social anthropology compatible? The significance of sociocultural resources in human evolution', in V. Standen and R.A. Foley (eds.) Comparative Socioecology: The Behavioural Ecology of Humans and Other Mammals, Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications, pp. 433-55. Levi-Strauss, C. (1963) 'Social structure', in Structural Anthropology, New York: Basic Books, pp. 277-32. First published in A.L. Kroeber (ed.) (1953) Anthropology Today, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 524-53. Mair, L. (1969) Anthropology and Social Change, London: Athlone. Marwick, M. (1967) 'The study of witchcraft', in A.L. Epstein (ed.) The Craft of Social Anthropology, London: Tavistock, pp. 231-^4. Moore, W.E. (1960) 'A reconsideration of theories of social change', American Sociological Review, 225, 810-18. Ogburn, W.F. (1964) 'The hypothesis of cultural lag', in A. Etzioni (ed.) Social Change: Sources, Patterns and Consequences, New York: Basic Books, pp. 459-62. Parkin, DJ. (1972) Palms, Wine and Witnesses: Public Spirit and Private Gain in an African Farming Community, London: Intertext. Salisbury, R.F. (1962) From Stone to Steel. Economic Consequences of a Technological Change in New Guinea, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. Scudder, T. and E. Colson (1979) 'Long-term research in Gwembe Valley, Zambia' in G.M.Foster et al. (eds.) Long-Term Field Research in Social Anthropology, New York: Academic, pp. 227-54. Sharp, L. (1952) 'Steel axes for stone age Australians', in E.H.S. Spicer (ed.) Human Problems in Technological Change: A Casebook, New York: Russell Sage Foundation, pp. 69-90. Sorokin, P.A. (1962a) Social and Cultural Dynamics, Totowa, NJ: Bedminster Press. Sorokin, P.A. (1962b) Society, Culture and Personality: Their Structure and Dynamics: A System of General Sociology, New York: Cooper Square. Stirling, P. (1974) 'Cause, knowledge and change: Turkish village revisited', in J. Davis (ed.) Choice and Change: Essays in honour of Lucy Mair (Monographs on Social Anthropology, 50), London: Athlone, pp. 191-230. Stirling P. (1993) 'Introduction: growth and changes: speed, scale, complexity', in P. Stirling (ed.) Culture and Economy: Changes in Turkish Villages, Huntingdon: Eothen, pp. 1-16.

74

When History

Accelerates

Swadesh, M. (1959) 'Linguistics as an instrument of prehistory', Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, 15, 20-35. Viazzo, P.P. (1989) Upland Communities: Environment, Population, and Social Structure in the Alps Since the Sixteenth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vogt, E. (1960) 'On the concepts of structure and process in cultural anthropology', American Anthropologist, 62, 18-33. Vogt, E. (1979) 'The Harvard Chiapas project: 1957-1975', in G.M. Foster et al. (eds.) Long-Term Research in Social Anthropology, New York: Academic, pp. 279-301. Whyte, A. (1977) 'Systems as perceived: a discussion of "Maladaptation in social systems'", in J.F. Friedman and M. Rowlands (eds.) The Evolution of Social Systems, London: Duckworth, pp. 73-8. Wilk, R.R. (1990) 'Household ecology: decision making and resource flows', in E. Moran (ed.) The Ecosystem Approach in Anthropology: From Concept to Practice, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, pp. 323-56.

CHAPTER 4

Modelling Complexity and Change: Social Knowledge and Social Process Michael D. Fischer INTRODUCTION

Paul Stirling (1974) reflects on the problem of representing knowledge and causation (together with other concepts) in the analysis of social change. He notes that 'knowledge normally implies truth ... (but) knowledge is normally either inaccurate or simplified or false' (1974: 195). He concludes that 'new knowledge' is no different in this respect. One of his concerns is to make explicit statements regarding social change, despite the difficulty of doing so given the complexity of human societies, particularly in a context of rapid change. The result of this is his famous (or infamous) 'wiring diagram' of factors influencing change in two Turkish villages over a twenty-year period (see frontispiece). This diagram is not intended to be a mechanical model of social change but a 'map' that makes explicit ideas about change which 'occurred to me while I was in the field, and afterwards while going over my notes' (ibid.: 202). It is his attempt to identify those elements which in his judgement appear to be in causal relationships with each other, although he cannot identify precisely how this is so or in what terms the influence takes place (cf. Ellen, this volume). Whatever the weaknesses of his 'model', his lengthy discussion of the model elements at least makes explicit the assumptions derived from his experience in the field and subsequent analysis of his field materials. This is already preferable to the vocabulary of 'empty concepts' often employed in social analysis (ibid.: 192-3). Stirling illustrates two important points. First, even if you cannot mechanically describe a complex social situation, you should be as explicit as possible about what you do know - you can produce a specification of your knowledge. Second, it is difficult to relate this information in a holistic manner using conventional means of representation, such as a two-dimensional diagram and thirty pages of text.

76

When History Accelerates

One of the problems with Stirling's approach to representing a large-scale holistic model of social change follows from the modes of representation he used, which were (and are) influential in social analysis. With exceptions, neither systems theory nor structuralism were adapted well for social analysis. Systems theory is largely conceptualized in anthropology as a means of presenting relationships as a fixed network of influences, often with more attention to the means of representation than content. Although the elements of the system can take on new states based on the behaviour of other elements, there is no mechanism for changing the elements and their links to other elements. Similarly structuralism, which has had a very successful run in the physical sciences, is used as a means of establishing patterns: the holy grail of content-free analysis. Both adaptations miss the point. The reason these tools have been successful elsewhere is because they permit a more explicit focus on content. The remarkable thing about differential equations in physics is not that these 'exist' in the data, but that we can use them as conceptual tools to establish regularities between different kinds of content in the data. In the physical sciences where these methods are used successfully they are used to describe the local behaviour of a relatively simple situation. If these are applied to a complex situation, especially over time, their power to describe decreases rapidly. In trying to describe a large complex set of behaviour, such as a social structure, using a fixed large-scale global model is a hopeless enterprise. Even if a 'snap-shot' of such a structure could be so modelled, it would be unable to cope with future instances of this social structure. Social change ensures that this structure will not persist very long. Such a model is not very suitable for the kinds of data that anthropologists collect, for the most part small-scale accounts of individuals and their interactions. However, I share Stirling's concern for at least being explicit about the terms and substance of our analyses, and the need to make formal statements of association or causation. I also believe that concepts of system and structure are essential for social analysis, but only if we concede that a system is not itself an object which globally defines local (e.g. small-scale) interactions, but the product of local interactions, and that structures are important because of their content, and not their form. ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH

Ethnographic research involves the collection of rich and complex information. The quality, quantity and content of information changes

Modelling Complexity and Change

11

during the course offieldworkas the ethnographer attempts to transcend a state of ignorance and arrive at a state of understanding. Confusion turns to complexity. Anthropologists have developed a range of formal and semi-formal tools to describe and record this information. Almost all anthropologists employ fieldnotes. Most anthropologists use technical classificatory terms with fairly precise meanings, or at least defined degrees of imprecision, embedded in a representation constructed in a natural language (Davis, 1984). Many anthropologists employ verbatim transcripts or summaries of interviews and conversations, photographs, lists, inventories and other such devices (Ellen, 1984). Approaches to modelling and analysis in social anthropology are characteristically knowledge-oriented (Crick, 1982). However, we are faced with very complex representations due to variation within human groups in the distribution of knowledge, and between human groups in the substance of knowledge. For practical reasons, most methods of analysis in social anthropology attempt to balance the conflicting goals of reduction of complexity and maintenance of a holistic approach. Reduction of complexity often prevails in actual work, with complexity perhaps to be reintroduced in the theory. There are very good reasons for this approach to empirical research. It is not possible in field-based research to observe or experience more than the tiniest amount of the behaviour taking place in even the smallest community, nor to record more than a small fragment of the indigenous knowledge associated with any of this behaviour. This state of affairs is unlikely to change in the near future. But most anthropologists cannot, with the 'traditional' tools and techniques available, fully represent and use the information they do record or that which they retain from their experience. Instead they depend in part on 'intuitive' patterns in their field data (Davis, 1984). Complexity is an issue in social anthropology because anthropological data are complex and varied, and lead to a number of different situations because of the interactive manner in which they are collected. Models in social anthropology become rather complex, in part because anthropologists as a group are poorly trained in conventional methods that contribute to simplification, but mainly because of the nature of the ethnographic context, which often makes many of these conventional methods of simplification inappropriate. Far from meeting the challenge, one of the few coherent movements to arise over the past twenty years in anthropology insists that we are unable to deal with our data in principle. It has been recognized for most of this century that the problem of describing other cultures was a formidable one, but

78

When History Accelerates

the 'New Ethnography' of the 1960s emphasized this difficulty. Based on adaptations of conceptual, structural and mathematical tools for the codification and modelling of data, the 'New Ethnography' initiated a shift from external scientific accounts of cultures to internal scientific accounts; a shift in perspective from the observer to the observed. Of course this was simply the culmination of a process that had been under way for some time. Originating with the participant observer principle in the 1920s, it became conspicuous with the approaches of Levi-Strauss and Bourdieu in France, Goodenough and Conklin in the USA, and the rather more modest approaches of British social anthropology, among which those of Leach and Gellner are typical. However, many researchers became ever more convinced of the apparent futility of attempting to derive 'absolute' relative accounts of the daily life of other cultures. If we can increase our capacity to represent, structure and access information, some degree of complexity can be retained in practice as well as in principle. In at least some cases computer-based methods provide opportunities to represent the rich information associated with field-based research in a single body of data, the tools to represent interactionist and processural models of this data, and indeed simultaneously to retain the range of variation within the data in a single representation. Besides simply improving our methods of representing information, computer-based methods may provide a means of evaluating complex theories against our data. Elsewhere I have discussed the prospects for applying computers to the representation and modelling of complex ethnographic field data by anthropologists (Fischer, 1994). Complexity can take two forms; data that are complex in scale, but which consist mainly of similar (but not identical) units writ large, and data that are complex by virtue of a wide range of different factors that must be represented. In anthropology these often converge, with large amounts of data on people, who all have their own idiosyncratic aspects, as well those aspects that are apparently shared. Ourfirstpriority as anthropologists, whether we use computers or not, is to represent this information in a manner suitable for ethnographic analysis. This can be difficult given our ethos to not commit ourselves to a particular analysis in advance. Computers have a lot to offer in this respect, since anything that can be represented on any conventional media can be represented on computer, which then is amenable to high-speed search and retrieval on a range of criteria. However, the

Modelling Complexity and Change

79

greatest promise of computers, which cannot yet fully be realized, is to make possible ethnographic representations that contextualize derived knowledge (from analysis) with the original field data; field data that are as open to examination as the derivative works we produce.1 One approach to using computers to advance method is to use them to assist in constructing and using formal descriptions of ethnographic data. By this I mean our descriptions, what we as ethnographers know, not an attempt to project these models on indigenous consultants. Although we are perhaps not yet advanced enough to represent all we know in a formal manner, there is much that we can represent. The advantage of formal representation comes only when we try to manage complex information, since it is only with a formal representation that we can specify a method to relate this information. Through formal representation we can maintain a level of complexity in our data that is not otherwise possible. The level of complexity which the anthropologist desires to maintain compounds the problems of a formal description. Formal description in anthropology can be made practical with the development of specific computer-based tools and guidance. If our goal is to improve ethnographic description by adding formal description to our other established tools, the use of this new tool must begin in the field. This introduces a problem, since the constraints of fieldwork limit the amount of analysis that can be performed at the expense of data collection. At the same time we must ensure that we are not collecting information aimlessly. The use of computer-based methods while in the field can diminish this problem. In devising a computer-based method for the formal representation of ethnographic data as it is collected, the method in practice must meet several criteria. During the collection phase the problem under study is neither well formed or well understood. Methodological considerations demand that any formal or semi-formal representation and associated computer-based tools have at least the following capabilities: 1 It must contain a mechanism for identifying and evaluating variation and non-exclusive alternatives. 2 It must be extensible; it must be easy to add new facts and propositions and to modify old facts and propositions. 3 It must not 'fail', even in the face of conditions that are fatal to a deductive analysis of the represented information. 4 It must assist in the identification and representation of contradictions

80

When History Accelerates and conflicts within the model. Although many conflicts are a consequence of error by the ethnographer, many are not errors, and must be maintained in the knowledge-base. Conflicts and contradictions are what give form to a system, and there always appear to be competing models in a culture, even within a single individual of that culture.

In essence, we require a model that incorporates a large number of 'facts', 'rules' and other models of information, where each of these can be acquired and modified independently of each other - distributed, local models (local in the sense that their immediate domain is fairly specific and localized, and only implicitly dependent on other models). What is needed is a formal system within which both declarative description ('knowledge of) and procedural description ('knowledge for') (Geertz, 1975) can be represented, which can be reasoned in, and which can represent complex temporal behaviour by multiple agents. WEAK AND STRONG REPRESENTATIONS

The particular historical development of computing resources has led to the development of facilities oriented either to quantitative representations, organized lists, or simple representations of texts. These are not adequate for the human sciences (Sugita, 1987:14). Anthropological data are usually collected piecemeal, and at best only semi-systematically. Although the anthropologist usually has a specific purpose underlying portions of the data collection, by the nature of the anthropological data collection process many other materials are gathered as well, many of which will prove more valuable in the long run than the specific purpose materials. These complications in the data collection process are an artefact of the goals of anthropological research; not only to investigate specific processes and attributes, but to provide an overall realistic, usable description of the group under study that can be used for broader analysis within that same group or comparison with other groups. An obvious strategy for computing applications for formal representation in anthropology is to adapt an existing method of representation directly to a computer. This is effective when the dynamic properties of a computer medium can be exploited to ease or speed up the existing method. One such method in anthropology is the representation of genealogies. In the usual form, genealogical diagrams have proved to be useful in illustrating and elucidating points of social organiz-

Modelling Complexity and Change

81

ation, terminology, and wider relations of kinship in the society. However, in this form they are hideously difficult to construct for any sizeable population (over 100 or so) (Davis, 1984: 298), and once constructed are difficult to recast for purposes of demonstrating alternative views of the same set of information. However, if our representation of genealogical material is such that we can selectively examine either specific relationships or specific relationship types that correspond to our own specifications, then we can investigate genealogical aspects of populations numbering thousands. Moreover, if we can incorporate ourfindingsback into the representation, we have a 4 stronger' representation; a representation that also contains not only the original data, but that incorporates our own knowledge about that data. It is inevitable that when we work with data we will begin with 'weak' representations, collections of data that have no interpretation without knowledge external to the data. When we analyse this data we create successively 'stronger' representations as we impose more interpretive context. For example, as we classify data we are limiting the range of possible interpretations. When the analysis reaches a stage where a paper or monograph can be produced, the processes of selection impose yet more constraints. To apply computers to the process of representing social data, we must evaluate how the computer-based methods will interact with this process of developing stronger and stronger representations. We can create very strong representations indeed, stronger than any we can create with pencil and paper because the representation itself can independently generate behaviours, these strong representations can be directly imposed on the weakest forms of representation available, without losing this weak level. That is, the strong representation can be built in layers over the original data, where the original data are still available for inspection at any point in the analysis. ARRANGING A MARRIAGE IN URBAN PAKISTAN

In many ways a given context can be seen as an unpredictable sequence of events and states. Although the context is generated around a set of principles, it is the transformation of a number of random events into the specific context; demographic events, weather events, accidents. Human planning and problem-solving shape this sequence into something rather more stable: in Bateson's terms something that is more persistent than the random events surrounding it (Bateson, 1988: 45). There has been considerable interest in the physical sciences about

82

When History Accelerates

an idea called chaos - very much a notion of the order in disorder. This is natural, as the physical sciences, despite their mythology, share many of the same problems we have: for example, not being able to predict a large number of circumstances into the future, despite good knowledge of the present. One of the central notions of chaos is the attractor, or more specifically strange attractor, a name for a principle whose specific outcome cannot be known, but where the patterns of the possible are known. There are prospects for extending this notion from the quantitative arena where it is commonly used, to the qualitative logical sphere: a logical strange attractor, which I shall refer to as a specification, a concept similar to Sperber's 'semi-prepositional knowledge' (1985). This leads to a quite different notion of logical truth than is usually associated with logic. In this chapter I shall illustrate the point using the example of the arrangement of marriages in a community in Pakistan. This is a complex and risky enterprise with no obvious 'correct' or unique solution, and is not an abstract exercise - it is an important problem which all men and women face in one or more capacities in the course of their lives. My research has attempted to establish the resources available to solve this problem, and how they are combined and adapted to solve the problem at the level of an instance: from principle to instance. I want to examine on the one hand the ideal formulation of arranging a marriage, and on the other the problems associated with doing so: to examine the behaviour of a social system in relation to the norms elicited with respect to that system. The reasoning behind my exercise is not to reconcile the two views as both valid, but to consider what impact the tautology of the ideal has on problem-solving. Arranging a marriage is a very special kind of problem, which is taken very seriously indeed, and for which a great deal of time and effort must be expended. There is no deterministic solution, and it is difficult to consider even an optimum solution. The problem is in part one of knowledge: knowledge about the specific idiosyncratic case, and knowledge about the general case, and knowledge about what others will know. The essential problem is an old one - how do we deal with 'rules' that are not rules at all, in the sense that they are not applied in specific cases, at least in their original form. There is an enormous number of ways through which people can solve a specific complex problem, such as the arrangement of a marriage, and all can be seen to be 'correct' even when they fail to correspond closely to the norm. Of course these events of arranging are themselves embedded in a vortex of other events, some directly

Modelling Complexity and Change

83

related to the activity, others not related but having relevance: effects which are real, but unexpected. Although I can give general accounts of how specific arrangements are undertaken, I could not, and suggest that I can never 'predict' how a specific case will develop for more than a short time. Although the indigenous experts will fare better, they have a short horizon of prediction. Although the goals may be known in advance - arranging a suitable marriage - the process of achieving this goal is dependent on the unfolding of events, both those precipitated by the actors, and those which occur incidentally. This raises some of the essential problems of understanding human problem solving - how can specifiable goals be attained in an essentially unspecifiable environment, how do we formalise the unspecifiable? The situation is not as bleak as it may appear. What we cannot do is make deterministic specifications of a system, even if the system was determined. If the social responses were fixed in each situation, the situations are unspecifiable. Moreover, social rules are not immutable laws. Not only do they change over time, but it is never impossible to violate them. Often the consequences of violation are small or nil, and indeed violation is often necessary. It is more likely that many such rules are impossible to fulfil rather than impossible to violate. Finally, there is usually more than one possible response within the acceptable practice associated with any given situation. In this context we can only speak of causal rules in the weakest of senses - as an enabling context, although we may find small sequences of a more obligatory nature. Social rules are more likely to be relations between states of information and further subgoals than links between states of information. For example, 'if the girl is of good character and beautiful and has an adequate education, then consider more assessment of the girl and her family'. The latter is a subgoal that will alter the state of information, rather than a necessary consequence of the former. There are many such girls about. The stated ideal is marriage to a close relative. This, it is argued, is a secure marriage. The knowledge about the prospective spouse is relatively complete, and the family as a whole has an interest. Additionally, the marriage partners know each other, know what to expect and what is expected. In Greentown this type of marriage is common: about 25 per cent of all marriages are between close relations. Obviously, though, the majority are not. What reasons do people give for this variance? I do not intend to suggest that this is yet another of the cases where

84

When History Accelerates

the ideal situation is not adhered to. I am concerned rather with the role of the ideal with respect to its function in the solving of problems. If few people adhere to a norm, what is its function? One suggestion is that it serves as a backdrop, a means of measuring or evaluating the situation so that deviance from a pattern can be identified, and a new problem-solving course set. It also serves as a basis of understanding and interpretation on the part of interested parties (which in the case of arranged marriage is almost everyone). It serves as a source of ideas for solving classes of problems, and can be manipulated as part of the solution itself: that is, by matching some aspects of the ideal, the manipulation of interpretation is possible. ETHNOGRAPHIC SETTING

The research, consisting of two years in 1982-3 and five additional periods of about three months in 1988-92, was carried out in Greentown, a peri-urban community of Lahore.2 Greentown is a relatively new community, growing from a few hundred people in 1974 to 20,000 by 1983, and an estimated 40,000 by 1988. About half of the population originate from katchi abadi ('squatters' settlements') within Lahore. They were relocated to Greentown by the Government to clear land for building. The Government offered each of the residents a house and in some cases a government job, which is highly prized for its security. The lives of these people were transformed; suddenly they had acquired attributes associated with much higher status than their backgrounds would suggest - secure title to land, government jobs, improved secure incomes, piped water, sewage, and electricity. However, these changes were not sufficient to entail a rise in status. Increasing status requires repositioning oneself in many other areas: education, the conduct of women and children, various levels of political influence, one's real or constructed history, and the extension of these to the groups to which one belongs. There are two fairly simple operational 'tests' or measurements for status: whom one is 'friends' with, and whom one can marry. The most noted aspect of social organization in South Asia is the Hindu caste system, which is generally interpreted as a hierarchical arrangement between groups. In Muslim South Asia, and Pakistan in particular, there are caste-like categories, called zat, which appear to have a ranking relationship between them, though nothing like the rigid hierarchy sometimes reported for Hindu caste (jati). Intra-group hierarchy appears to be the underlying structuring principle (Fischer, 1987; 1991). Rough

Modelling Complexity and Change

85

inter-group rankings can be derived from intra-group rankings, but intra-group rankings cannot be derived from the inter-group rankings. Besides zat, there are other types of groups ranging from a household to a large cognatic kin group, all of which exhibit the internal/external structuring principle. This principle appears to be applicable at the macro-political level in Pakistan (Sherani, 1988). In the first research in Greentown (1982-3) I approached this problem at a low level, using marriage as the focus. An attempt was made to relate the symbolic models of arranging marriages to the practical application of those models in Greentown. Data were collected about past, present, and planned marriages, as well as less structured data about marriage and arranging marriages. The analysis of this 'low level' material was relatively straightforward in anthropological terms, and formed the basis of an 'expert system' (Fischer, 1986; 1994) that made reasonable predictions about the suitability of candidates for marriage. This research suggested that the transactional structure and values underlying the arranging of marriages are replicated throughout the economic and political structure of Greentown (Fischer, 1987). Marriage is not only the basic reproductive act of a social unit, but the prototype for all social relationships. Specifically, inter- and intra-group hierarchy should be derivable from the set of marriages contracted; the historical sequence of marriages is evidence for the evolution of group dynamics in the community. This analysis was the motivation for the present study. It suggests a model of the society as a system, not a model of the society from the vantage point of one or more of its participants. However, if we assume that it is more than an artefact of individual agent activity, we should expect to find evidence in individual marriage-arranging events to support this conclusion. The methods used for collecting information were for the most part standard ethnographic practice. Additionally, I constructed and used a computational model in the field that represented some of the knowledge underlying arranging marriages; this model was constructed interactively and incrementally, with supervision by indigenous consultants. The model assisted me with the central problems of ethnographic method: which questions to ask and contexts to observe.3 Interviewing was supplemented by modelling of two sorts after each interview: the modelling of the interview material translated into a simplified form of Modal Action Logic (Maibaum, 1986) and evaluations of the translations within a logical system. The point of this modelling was

86

When History Accelerates

not to create a formal or semi-formal description; the latter is a means, not a goal. The goal was to determine information required to establish the logical consistency of what people were telling me. One of the major uses of the formal translation was to establish what I did not know about what I needed to know. For example, one domain is how the reputation of various family members influences a woman's marriage chances. If we look at the problem from a statistical perspective, the norm is fairly clear: mother's reputation is most important, followed by older sisters, younger sisters, brothers, and father. However, there is a lot of variation, and the statistical norm does not really match other aspects of reputation. For example, a great deal of mother's, sisters' and female ego's reputation are derived from father and brothers, yet they are ranked lowest in the particular context of marriage chances. What is clearly needed is some information which * explains' this apparent inversion, or at least distortion, of a ranking which in almost every other domain puts male members at the higher end. I thus required further information that related the public status of men to the private status of their women, not as mirror images of each other but as different views of the same situation, which work together within the social framework of marriage. In other words, the structure is more complex in the other domains than had been suspected before. Women may derive their reputation from men, but men derive theirs from their women. This conclusion is not new, and had been strongly stated in previous work (Fischer, 1991). What is new is the significance of the conclusion. Previously I produced an analysis based on reputation as control, with the fundamental form of control as that over women. This argument is not sufficient. Women have control as well, and this is clearly reflected in the ranking given above. Responsibility and control is not concentrated in a specific role, but distributed between a number of agents. This generalization not only accounted for this case, but also leads in a new direction, reconciling some problems with control of the marriage decisions themselves. Earlier statements from consultants about how it is really the mother who decides the marriage take on new significance, and the general analysis of the structure of control and reputation takes a new shape. I am not claiming that these conclusions were not possible without some kind of formal framework, but in a previous period of two years research they were not found, whereas with this new framework they became apparent within the first three weeks of field research. The process of attempting to reconcile differing statements by investigating

Modelling Complexity and Change

87

specific areas of difference led more efficiently to the conclusion: it helped to frame the questions and the interpretation of the results, and helped to avoid endless detail that was not of primary importance to the problem. The method did not arrive at the conclusion. The method did help lay the problem out and expose possible areas of relevance with respect to conflicts in the data. MULTIPLE DOMAINS AND CONTEXT

In the 1988 research, my first attempt at using formal tools to assist ethnographic research, a problem emerged with creating these formal representations. I was required to separate representations of different domains from each other to prevent interference between the domains under study. This diminished the use of the approach, since the different domains could not be combined in the computer representation. This was principally due to the particular form of proposition I was using, a simple 'IF x THEN y' form of rule, and also to an inadequate model of context. In the later research, part of the problem was alleviated by adapting a logical model developed by Maibaum (1986), which was designed for representing and evaluating specifications of computer applications. This logic, called Modal Action Logic (M[A]L), uses action-specific contexts for conditions and outcomes. Rules are expressed 'WHEN agent is performing action a IF x THEN v\ For example, ignoring some details of quantification, one axiom derived from the case study was: in_public(girl) —> [girl,sing(suggestive(lyrics))] bad_habits(girl). (gloss: if the girl is singing suggestive lyrics in public then the girl has bad habits) In essence there is a governing proposition that is action related, defining a context frame for further conditions, which in turn contextualize the action. The use of this formulation solved a number of problems in representing processes because conditions and outcomes could be better organized in terms of the actions in the process. More important, it facilitates a formal representation of ethnographic data in a manner that is closer to the data as they are collected. Ethnographic data are not usually collected in the form of rules rules are the result of analysis. Ethnographic data are more often in the form of sequences of declarative propositions. It is only

88

When History Accelerates

after considerable observation and enquiry that the preconditions and results of these actions in specific contexts can be assessed. Thus we can further explore the proposition: girl,sing(suggestive(lyrics)) in: [attending(girl,mindhi(brother))] obl(girl,sing(suggestive(lyrics))). (gloss: if a girl is attending the mindhi ceremony of her brother then the girl is obliged to sing songs with suggestive lyrics) This form of formal representation facilitates the reasonable development of rules from propositions. By localizing conditions and effects to action contexts many of the problems I experienced in the 1988 research were diminished, without moving explicitly to the use of localized context frames incorporating idiosyncratic features and other ad hoc measures.4 CHANGE BETWEEN 1982 AND 1992

One of the most notable differences between 1982 and 1992 was the increased role that individuals could take in arranging their own marriages. Initially I thought this was simply liberalization. There were, however, few other areas of liberalization in social life. Close examination of the backgrounds of the families involved prompts another account. In 1982 Greentown was a relatively new community, about five years old. Although the population came from varied sources, people came in large groups of between 50 and 300 households sharing a common origin. This was because the Government had allocated them houses to remove them from Government land. They had mostly been dwellers of squatters' settlements, with no legal tenure of housing. The move precipitated two changes. First, there was the establishment of status within the community. Second, many of the new residents had indices of higher status than before. By 1989 relative statuses between families had been established, with little change in 1992. In 1982 there appeared to be very conservative interpretations of many of the preconditions for a 'proper' marriage. One of the most important was the honour of the parties involved. An important component of honour is the deportment of the women of the family. The most extreme position available is purdah, or seclusion of women. The more invisible the women of the family, the more apparent is the

Modelling Complexity and Change

89

honour of the family. In 1982, acknowledging that the prospective groom and bride knew each other was evidence of the visibility of the woman, and suggested danger. Moreover, when statuses were not yet solidly established, any ambiguity was a problem. By 1989, where statuses were more established, the established status could absorb some ambiguity. The overall process of arranged marriage was identical in terms of steps and stages; the principal difference was the input of the candidate. There is still considerable concern over the honour of the prospective spouse, as in this account from 1989 of a mother's veto of a marriage that a young man suggested for himself: I go to my mother and tell her I want to marry this girl. My mother says, 'No. I once went on a minibus and her older sister was in the front. She gave the driver a tape to play. This tape had music with bad words on it. Her sister is not good. This girl cannot be good.' Here his mother is probably using something like a lower-order specification, if elder sister of girl is bad, then girl is bad. People know that this is not always factually true, but it is probable, some say highly probable, and certainly too likely to risk a marriage. Closer questioning reveals an explanatory model of sorts, which explains the specification on the basis of the responsibility of an older sister in shaping the character of a younger sister, and of the mother on both. A bad mother suggests a generally bad family, and so on. We can derive a conjunction of many models, most of which have unhealthy overtones, and all based on a single event. SPECIFICATIONS, EXTERNAL KNOWLEDGE AND KNOWLEDGE DISTRIBUTION

The notion of 'rule' in anthropology has become contentious in recent years. This is particularly so when we are attributing rules to individuals making decisions. A consultant explains his brother's 'bad marriage' as follows: Every time we would go over to [her] house she would be sitting reading the Urdu newspaper like this [modelling]. From this we knew she was well educated. After the marriage she came into our house and gave me a present, which had written on the front, [his name]. I am always the big joker, so I say 'This is not for me', and she says it is. I say 'This is not my name'. She looks at the name, and says, 'Oh, this is not for you!' I knew then that she was not educated. (Conversation in 1990, marriage in 1983)

90

When History Accelerates

He and his family probably do not have an explicit rule, // looking at newspaper then can read and thus is educated. This is not deductively logical: there is no logical necessity between looking at a paper, and being educated. Indeed this turns out to be an incorrect premise, using either the deductive or heuristic approach. What was applied to make this reading of the situation was the specification of a formal deductive world. The specification becomes the higher order model, and it is through the understanding of this model that the girl was able to deceive. Although it is relatively easy to adopt and adapt a logical framework, getting results from the kinds of empirical research in which anthropologists are engaged is rather more complex. The problems include: 1 the interaction between people and their actions and the context within which they are embedded; 2 the almost universal presence of variation in anything people are involved in; 3 the fact that human structures and processes undergo constant change; they are moving targets; 4 the fact that we cannot know what people know, only what they appear to know. This research has attempted to address each of these difficulties, in order to improve the analysis of ethnographic data collected under the influence of a formal framework. The first was approached by using a logical framework that is organized around people performing actions, and which contextualizes these acts by establishing what outcomes will be associated with the action in the different contexts. This fits the ethnographic process well, as ethnographic data most often take the form of sequences of declarative propositions. Only after considerable observation and enquiry can the preconditions and results of these actions in specific contexts be established, but these can then be identified and incorporated easily. This was found to be much more satisfactory than an earlier framework based onfirst-orderlogic. Variation and change were addressed by adapting a method for establishing the pattern of variation that occurs within the community, establishing confidence intervals for different analyses (using a method based on randomized tests and boolean minimization: see Behrens, 1990). I also attempted to treat variant analyses as different projections

Modelling Complexity and Change

91

of a more complex system, where different people could express different views about the course of action that best suited their situation by simplifying the context. An interesting result was the kinds of differences that were expressed. For the most part neither actions or preconditions changed, but outcomes did. That is, the same kinds of actions were occurring, but interpretations changed. The theoretical position at the onset of this research framed human problem-solving in social situations as a social activity: different people interacting to solve a problem, each with their own interests that were joint in a particular context. Because of the differences in interests of the participants it was assumed that the systemic view (the analytic view) would vary from the views of the participants in the situation; they would not be entirely aware of the situation they were jointly creating with others. However, it was implicitly assumed that each individual had a more or less complete view and more or less complete knowledge about his or her own activities. One of the consequences of a social knowledge based orientation was that I had to examine the knowledge that people were bringing to solve the problem under scrutiny, that of arranging a marriage. By the end of thefieldworkit was apparent that the situation was rather different from that assumed. It was confirmed that many different individuals contributed to the solution. What appeared to break down was the assumption of complete knowledge of individuals. A great many of the activities that people engaged in were supported by the use of other people's knowledge (or their assumed knowledge) in meeting goals, and correspondingly providing the use of their own knowledge to others. Arranging a marriage was a human problemsolving activity, though not of one human. Rather, it was the result of a number of cooperative and non-cooperative exchanges and uses of knowledge distributed throughout the community. In other words, a lot of the knowledge that people appeared to mobilize was knowledge about mobilizing other people's knowledge; specifications of the use of knowledge that they did not know, but knew about. Decision processes are characteristically modelled using an 'ideal' self-contained decision-maker, representative of a homogeneous group of such decision-makers. Although theoretical abstraction is necessary, this level of abstraction fails to capture the heterogeneous composition of social groups. It also offers no prospect for modelling aspects of social processes which depend on the heterogeneous distribution of knowledge within a social group. In the case of Greentown I encountered an unusual situation as an

92

When History Accelerates

ethnographer. Not only was Greentown a new community, but in 1982 it was a community where virtually everyone had also acquired 'new' indices of status. Although I was aware of the process of using marriage to consolidate status in Greentown, in my first fieldwork experience I was oblivious to the significance of everyone following the 'rules' of arranging marriages closely and the serious effects on their status if they did not. These rules worked too well. This was consistent with the ethnography available at the time, but it was rapidly apparent in later fieldwork that the rules had either changed or were often 'violated'. Following the later research I now believe that the regularity in the 1982-3 research was an artefact. On the basis of a series of conversations and interviews in 1982-3 I noted that most people had a good general model of how other people of higher and lower status should act, and were able to project this model onto themselves in imaginary lives we discussed. What I did not realize is that this was apparently what they were doing in daily life at the time. Virtually the entire community was engaged in role behaviour in which they were inexperienced. Their specification was detailed enough to undertake positive action and strategies, but not enough to violate norms skilfully. This suggests two hypotheses about social change in general, which should be testable using existing ethnographic data from other areas. First, after change sufficient to alter social roles the affected individuals will adopt behaviour that they associate with these new roles, but in a reduced and 'uncreative' manner. These behaviours will be supported and reinforced by others in the community. This will be followed by rapid social change as people become more experienced in their new circumstances. Second, a general feature of individual life in all societies is changing status, and we should find similar 'reduced' behaviour on the part of individuals as they change status, which may play a part in supporting the stability of social norms over time. NOTES

1 Paul Stirling and the author are preparing a computer database which incorporates the text of Stirling's fieldnotes over the period 1949-89, his book, Turkish Village, a number of papers, and a longitudinal structured database of individuals and households. Contact the Centre for Social Anthropology and Computing, Eliot College, University of Kent for details, or via Internet (in following order of preference) www/Mosaic http://lucy.ukc.ac.uk/stirling.html, gopher lucy.ukc.ac.uk or ftp lucy.ukc.ac.uk [login: anonymous, password YOUR LOGIN NAME@YOUR

Modelling Complexity and Change

93

HOST, file /pub/Research/stirling.txt). This research and results in this paper were supported by the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK under grants R000231113, R000231953, R000233509, R000233933 and R000234791, the Tri-Council Human Computer Interface/Cognitive Science Initiative (UK) under grant SPG8920734, and the Leverhulme Foundation grant 'Enhancing the Use of Computers in Anthropology in the UK and other European countries'. Final reports are available for most of these on request to the author (and on the Internet servers listed in Note 1). 3 Fischer and Finkelstein (1991) gives a fuller account of this research and the construction and use of the computer-based formal database. An elementary description of the use of knowledge-based systems for anthropological research can be found in Fischer (1994: ch. 8). 4 Processes with many concurrent actions can be represented. In the present formulation there is some inflexibility in animating rules: embedding the rules in an active model or simulation. There are situations that require either the creation of states simply to sequence the actions to accommodate limitations of the formal language, or the specification of large condition lists, with subsequent lack of generality, in order to limit the applicability of some rules to some contexts. 2

REFERENCES

Bateson G. (1988) [1979] Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity, New York: Bantam. Behrens, Clifford A. (1990) 'Qualitative and quantitative approaches to the analysis of anthropological data', Journal of Quantitative Anthropology, 2, 305-28. Crick, M. R. (1982) 'Anthropology of Knowledge', in B. J. Siegel, A. R. Beals and S. A. Tyler (eds.) Annual Review of Anthropology, Palo Alto: Annual Reviews pp. 287-313. Davis, J. (1984) 'Data into text', in R.F. Ellen (ed.), Ethnographic Research: A Guide to General Conduct, London: Academic, pp. 295-318. Ellen, R. F. (1984) 'Producing Data', in R.F. Ellen (ed.) Ethnographic Research: A Guide to General Conduct, London: Academic, pp. 273-93. Fischer, M. D. (1986) 'Expert Systems and Anthropological Analysis', Bulletin of Information on Computing in Anthropology, 4, 6-14. Fischer, M. D. (1987) Marriage and Power in Pakistan: Tradition and Transition (Doctoral thesis), Austin: University Microfilms. Fischer M. D. (1991) 'Marriage and power in Pakistan: tradition and transition', in H. Donnan and P. Werbner (eds.) Economy and Culture in Pakistan: Migrants and Cities in a Muslim Society, London: Macmillan, pp. 97-123. Fischer, M. D. (1994) Applications in Computing for Social Anthropologists, London: Routledge. Fischer, M. D. and A. Finkelstein (1991) 'A case study in social knowledge representation: arranging a marriage in urban Pakistan', in N. Fielding

94

When History

Accelerates

and R. Lee (eds.) Qualitative Knowledge and Computing, London: Sage, pp.119-35. Geertz, C. (1975) The Interpretation of Cultures, London: Hutchinson. Maibaum, T. S. E. (1986) A Logic for the Formal Requirements specification of Real- Time/Embedded Systems, Alvey FOREST Deliverable Report 3, Chelmsford: GEC Research Laboratories. Sherani, S. R. (1988) Ritual and Symbol in Pakistani Politics(Doctoral thesis), Canterbury: University of Kent. Sperber, D. (1985) On Anthropological Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stirling, P. (1974) 'Cause, knowledge and change: Turkish village revisited', in J. Davis (ed.) Choice and Change: Essays in Honour of Lucy Mair, London: Athlone, pp. 191-229. Sugita, S. (1987) 'Computers in ethnological studies: as a tool and an object', in J. Raben, S. Sugita and M. Kubo (eds.) Towards a Computer Ethnology, Senri Ethnological Studies, Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology, pp. 9-40.

CHAPTER 5

Social Creativity J. Davis When I was a graduate student at London School of Economics in the 1960s it was quite common to hear the phrase 'social creativity': it was a code-phrase which people used to show that they were sceptical about the power of society to generate itself; and that they wished to redress the balance between individual and collective thought. Raymond Firth wrote about 'social organization', how that was susceptible to innovative negotiation which might affect 'social structure' after enough of it had gone on for long enough (Firth, 1971). Ernest Gellner, so far as I know, never used creativity in this sense, but wrote essays in which he questioned the effort devoted to systematize anthropological data. He said that the attempt to show Nuer, for instance, as perfectly coherent and free from contradiction in all they do and say, could obscure socially useful ambiguity and uncertainty: contradiction might be contra-indicated in a system, but in real life it was quite useful in allowing people to get along (Gellner, 1970). Lucy Mair certainly did use the code-phrase, and indeed wrote about people having 'room for manoeuvre' in which they could make their own space, live with their options open (Mair, 1969). Paul Stirling was, I think, sceptical about the issue, on principle and because he thought it was no more than a code-word for a position which had not been thought through very carefully, which was true. His attack on systemism was more pragmatic, and consisted of showing (for example in his contribution to Lucy Mair's Festschrift) that any system was so complex it couldn't be described by humans (Stirling, 1974). He was and is principally concerned with causes: what people did had consequences, actions were linked in a 'network of connections' of 'some kind of cause and effect' (mainly feedback). They wrote and spoke before either Marxism or structuralism had much of a following in Britain. Some of the graduate students were approaching the period of their strongest commitment to socialism, but only two teachers - Gluckman and Frankenberg at Manchester -

96

When History Accelerates

openly described themselves as Marxists. In Oxford Rodney Needham was organizing the translation of Levi-Strauss's Elementary Structures of Kinship; but the world still had to assimilate his Totemism and The Savage Mind (both 1962), let alone the four volumes of Mythologiques (1964-71). The admittedly rather ideological emphasis on creativity was therefore, I think, a sort of residual Malinowskianism, a resistance to the determinism of collective life which that hero had seen in Durkheim, and which he satirized mercilessly - but I think inaccurately - in the opening pages of Crime and Custom in Savage Society. Durkheim (as Parkin's recent survey now allows us to say openly) had said that crime was a sort of social reinforcer: it reminded people what social rules were for, how useful they were, and led them to respect and obey. Crime, in short, was important sociologically because it strengthened the control of collective representations over individual behaviour (Parkin, 1992). Malinowski in contrast took crime to indicate that rules had no binding force: savages committed crimes, and that indicated they could calculate whether or not to obey laws, customs, conventions; and it further disproved any anthropological theory which suggested that savages were slaves to custom, unthinkingly obedient, their minds and actions controlled by collective forces. For that was the view which Malinowski, characteristically grosso modo in matters of theory, attributed to Durkheim and 'his followers'. It was this rather than Marxism or Structuralism which was the covert object of LSE disdain. The LSE at that time, I mean to say, maintained a traditional scepticism towards the idea that social patterns - patterns of ideas, of actions, of institutions - control individuals, and the code phrase for this was * social creativity'. But while they resisted systemism, they did not often explore the ways in which people created social things. Perhaps Barth's version of exchange theory was the nearest any of them reached to describing the creative process; but that was weakened by his emphasis on rational choice, on a (broadly defined) profit motive which he supposed underlay the choices people made, and which resulted in social change: change in institutions emerged from multitudinous choices which were profit-motivated (Barth, 1966). In any case, with that exception (which turned out to be an interesting but blind alley), they were rather uninterested in the ways people exercised their social creativity. It is that gap which I want to try to fill in this offering for Paul Stirling. So, what are the interesting questions about social creativity? They

Social Creativity

97

seem to me to be four: What does it produce? What are its kinds? What are its raw materials and processes? What are the products like? WHAT DOES IT PRODUCE?

People use their given sociability to create agreements about actions. So, our worlds achieve the appearance of stability and regularity because we agree that certain actions are acceptable in appropriate circumstances, and others are not. By convention we seem to agree that when someone gives a seminar paper they talk mostly without interruption for an hour or so. It is perfectly possible to imagine another world in which this would be ludicrous and absurd, a sort of social gibberish. And if they were at a dinner party - at which we agree conversation is proper - it would be rude and boorish of them to attempt to talk without interruption for an hour. The language we use is often English, and English itself is a roughly ordered set of conventional understandings about the relation between sounds and gestures and meanings. We could, if we thought it necessary, introduce local and temporary agreements: 'in this paper I shall use the term "power" in the following sense ...', and so on. You don't have to go to the seminar (there are 4.5 billion people in the world who for one reason or another usually don't turn up) but when you do we all behave more or less according to convention: we expect, for instance, that speakers do their best to achieve some sort of rational discourse, do not tell lies, do not create fictions, and try also to impress us with their learning and wisdom. In short, we know what to expect, in broad and general terms. The outcome of sociability is an agreement, a convention, a routine. What we create is - within agreed limits - a predictable event, from which certain choices have been excluded: speakers do not sing, and their papers are in prose; they are often fully dressed, sober and fairly clean. It could so easily be otherwise. So when we are creative we attempt to create order and predictability and to eliminate choice, or at any rate to confine choice within certain prescribed limits. I have used the example of a seminar, but the scope of sociability covers all our activities, from eating to sleeping to exchanging material goods and to taking decisions about defence, or about the distribution of common resources. We try to do all these things in a conventional way, and when we agree that we have options we try to create conventional ways of deciding among them. And you should note that creative activity is continuous: lectures and seminars would cease to happen if we did not, so to speak, renew the understanding which makes them, each time we meet for a seminar. I know that some theorists

98

When History Accelerates

speculate that the institutions of lectures and seminars are now so old that they have lives of their own, an accumulated inertia, which makes it very difficult to change or abandon them. Lecturers and their audiences, in this view, are servants (even obtusely conventional, outmoded and unoriginal servants) of the institutions. The force of this argument is all the greater because that is indeed what it can sometimes feel like. On the other hand, you will notice how close saying 'the institution has a life of its own' is to the sort of systems analysis which I wish to avoid if I possibly can. We do know that what was done in the past can have consequences - and in some cases it can create an inertia and an apparent permanency: but perhaps we can incorporate that by taking history into account as one of the raw materials on which people exercise their sociability. In that case it would not be a quality of institutions that they have an enduring or permanent life of their own, but a consequence of the part thought about the past has in our continuous social creativity. WHAT ARE THE KINDS OF SOCIAL CREATIVITY?

The most general is the personally negotiated continuous sociability with which we construct order in our daily lives, as parents, children, spouses, lecturers, students and so on. Every action and thought which involves other people is creative sociability, attempting to make a social world which is secure and stable to live in. It is continuous, pervasive, inescapable that we create as we go along: the words I utter reaffirm my commitment to a particular language which I re-create and modify as I speak. My spouse and children and I negotiate to create a family one which is different, you may accept, from the family in which I am a child. This is a universal, popular and irrepressible activity: everyone is creating most of the time - a universal human propensity to make arrangements which we hope will be relatively stable and durable. It was common enough in the 1970s and 80s to call this kind of activity social reproduction. That was the way in which the common organization of society was re-created and maintained: the forces of production were complemented by the forces of social reproduction, and tended (as the re of reproduction indicates) to be as conservative as photocopiers in a reprographic department, and even repressive. But what I want to emphasize is that this popular creativity is wider in scope than the mother's knee implications of reproduction, and that it is by no means conformist or conservative. For popular sociability is different from, and may sometimes be subversive of, the creative activity which is directed to making rules for others. If my spouse and children and I

Social Creativity

99

negotiate family, that is a relatively direct face-to-face populist activity. For instance, we know from countless studies of peasant societies how such negotiation can ignore or undermine for instance the many civil codes derived from Napoleonic legislation, I do want to say that legiferous activity belongs in the general category of creative sociability; but it is distinguished from the populist variety by the possession or pretension of power: in the Napoleonic case, by state power derived in most instances from conquest. This is formally concentrated; but power is a common enough element in most negotiation: we know of patrons in Portugal, described by Jose Cutileiro, whose creativity was directed to making quite arbitrary and whimsical rules of behaviour for labourers and peasants (Cutileiro, 1971). It is also quite clear that, even within families, power influences and shapes the negotiation of even those insignificant organizations. The distinction between negotiating one's own arrangements face-toface, and devising rules for others - whether as a Portuguese patron or a mafioso or a state's man, is not, strictly speaking, a distinction between kinds of creativity. At present, at any rate, it seems sensible to assume that the basic activity, making social order, is the same in all those cases; and it seems likely that people use power in all cases, when they can. What is different is the scope of the arrangements, the range of people whom you want to agree or acquiesce. All of us, all the time make order with people we know; relatively few of us try to make order with people we don't know, or to make it for all the people in one category or another of a population. So it may not be a crucial distinction. On the other hand, it is interesting because the populist, inevitable creativity quite often subverts the centralized creativity of state's men. For instance, it is not simply that you and I can reach an agreement to break the Prince's peace; but that several hundred - or thousands - or hundreds of thousands of bilateral agreements of an unorganized kind can have diffuse but quite definite subversive effects. So those are the first two questions: I've suggested that imaginative sociability, social creativity is purposeful action aimed at routinizing and ordering life to make shared existence predictable from one day to the next; and that it is in fact a universal, continuous activity: we cannot escape from it. It has two kinds. What I have called popular, populist sociability - the activities which are by others called social reproduction - is characteristically uncentred, undirected: it is a form of diffuse power. The second kind attempts to make rules for others and implies centres of power.

100

When History Accelerates

WHAT ARE THE RAW MATERIALS?

The third question is the most difficult and complex. The chief raw material is experience, both direct and indirect: on the one hand, people's own ideas about what has happened in the past when they did things; on the other, their ideas about what happened to other people. People everywhere think about the past, and what they plan for the future is related to that understanding. So far as thought about the past is concerned, we have begun to understand its place rather better in the last thirty years or so, following Lisdn Tolosana's work in Belmonte de los Caballeros (1966). We call it thought about the past rather than history, because the knowledge and understanding which is produced by literate professionals, often working in the academy, should be kept separate from popular reflection on past events. Of course, historians have a culture, belong in some cases to schools of thought, and are to some extent creatures of their times and social relations. But they also have criteria for establishing truth, methods of settling arguments and a tendency to publish their results, all of which offer some prospect of progressively closer approximation to reality. Other kinds of thought about the past - popular, non-academic home-distilled - do not offer themselves for continual scrutiny, and hence do not offer that guarantee. We understand something about the ways in which thought about the past is affected by notions of time: it is I think quite clear that people who think of time as essentially cyclical live in a world in which they expect recurrence of events, people, processes. A case in point are the Kedang. As Barnes describes them, their notion of cause and of the efficacy of human action was quite different from that of people like academic historians who work with a linear time (Barnes, 1974). Another case which anthropologists have explored in some detail is that of genealogical or lineage time in which past events are located in a genealogy, much as photographs are pasted in an album. The past is a vault of examples of good behaviour - noble, brave, magnanimous, bloodthirsty, merciless - which can be brought out for exhibition and warning. Lineage history, as explored by Paul Dresch among others, is largely static: people claimed 'we are brave and merciless and have always been so'. That implies an understanding of time which asserted lack of change, and placed on human agents the burden of keeping it so (Dresch, 1989). We also now include myth as a kind of thought about the past. Anthropologists who study myths used to contrast (as English-speakers and

Social Creativity

101

others do in ordinary speech) myth and history: one is true, the other is just stories. But it is clear that while it is sensible to distinguish the two, they nevertheless belong to the same general category of thought about the past. We know that the Uduk, when they considered current events, took into account a mythical past in which they were like antelopes and dogs living in the bush. They had an action-influencing sense that they might revert as a result of cataclysm to a condition in which they did not even know the word for mother's brother (James, 1979). In summary: anthropologists know that it is possible to work with more than one notion of time: not all times are linear, and different times seem to affect knowledge of the past, thought about the past. We have also recognized since Lison Tolosana's work that knowledge of the past is mediated by social relations. He emphasized the importance of relations between generations: in Belmonte in the 1950s the main age-cohorts of the population were generally reactive to their predecessors. Those who had fought in the Civil War reacted against those who had, they thought, been responsible for it in some degree; their successors, in turn, were those who were eventually participants in the changes of 1975-9 (although Lison took a fairly dim view of them at the time of hisfieldwork).He was able to show that generations had been in similar relations in Belmonte for some centuries; and that the reactive relationship of each age-cohort to its predecessor had had profound effects on politics, and also on agriculture, family life and so on (Lison Tolosana, 1966). In Belmonte, people's knowledge of the past was mediated by the relations of one generation to another, which were reactive or even antagonistic. The social relations of production of thought about the past are not only those of generations. Members of lineages in Libya, whom I have studied, emphasized the solidarity of multi-generation groups against others similarly organized. And the relations of production of history proper are characterized by controlled and general fission in the pressure-chambers of academia together with a wide diffusion of theory, interpretation and criticism (Davis, 1987, 1989). So when I say that experience is one of the chief raw materials for social creativity, I mean to imply a series of processes, themselves complex and different from place to place and time to time, which shape and organize the past into characteristic products - those of the Academies contrasting with the more popular products of Belmonte or of Yemeni or Libyan tribesmen, or the Kedang or Uduk. But our creative imaginations do not only feed on the past; knowledge

102

When History Accelerates

of other peoples and of how they organize their lives is widely available, and is not confined to members of European and other imperial states. Anthropologists have sometimes underemphasized contact among subject peoples, as if the only important contact was with colonial power. That is much less true now, and the picture drawn by Edmund Leach of the exchange of ideas and models of organization in Highland Burma has been generalized and expanded among others by Eric Wolf (Leach, 1954; Wolf, 1982). In our own case we have records of observation and comment on other people for as long as the English have been literate, and we can observe the social consequences. In some cases, knowledge of other peoples is used to construct a critique of ourselves. Sir Thomas More's Utopia, as Krishan Kumar has pointed out, draws on the sixteenth-century genre of travellers' tales in two ways: its form is a report of a voyage beyond the Americas; its content, too, is partly based on reports of real life in exotic societies (Kumar, 1987, 1991). Some part of our social imagination is fed by observation of customs and techniques of our contemporaries elsewhere, drawing on travel, tourism, and even anthropology. You may mock the solemn absurdities of earnest borrowers - those who wish to incorporate the wisdom of the East, or Meso-America or Africa - but they have their consequences for our own social order: whether they are constituted as other, as oriental or not, people have found new ideas and new procedures. Members of the Theosophical movement and its associated organizations had real influence on British social life in the 1920s and 30s; Western Buddhists are still significant; users of hallucinogens and other possible wonder-drugs have found inspiration in Meso-American ethnobotany; and the movement for natural childbirth draws on accounts of native African obstetrics. You may doubt whether any individual North European tourist to Spain gains much understanding of Spanish lives and cultures and languages. But there have been several hundred million of them in the last thirty years; some increase in understanding there has been, and the Spanish contribution to European integration undoubtedly includes popular awareness, from direct experience, that German, British, Dutch ways of life are not the only ones, nor even in every respect the most desirable. And anthropologists have played their part. T. S. Eliot considered that Frazer's Golden Bough was one of the most influential books of this century, on a par with the work of Freud on the subconscious. Malinowski's Sexual Life of Savages, for many years sold in brown wrappers in dirty bookshops in London (as well as in Dillons)

Social Creativity

103

no doubt disappointed many; but it also inspired others, such as A.S. Neill, who tried to organize his school on Trobriand principles. Direct borrowings are no doubt always slightly ludicrous; but we should take into account the general effect on imagination of an increasing amount of information, in more and more accessible packages, about the lives of others. These examples are mostly European, but I think the argument that the sociable imagination feeds on information about others, as well as on the mediated past, is more generally applicable. We know of general borrowing of models of organization in the Burma Highlands; we know of a general assimilation of Nuer and Dinka religious symbols; and as an example of an informed refusal to borrow we can point to the rejection of state-like forms of organization by Berbers of the Atlas and of the Rif. These are significant cases, and are emblematic, here, of general and widespread phenomena. I have used the phrases sociable imagination and social creativity, and have suggested that these work on information to produce social organization. What can we say about how they work? I suppose the most obvious point is that they are faculties of individual human beings, and that social organization is therefore the product of human imagination and inventiveness rather than an organic growth of some systemic kind, or a spontaneous product of society itself. I also want to suggest that these faculties are aesthetic rather than mechanical or automatic or biological. I mean to say that social creativity is part and parcel of human creativity as a whole, and that the principles and procedures for studying it are those we use when trying to understand the production of music and pottery, songs and dances, houses and cathedrals. In this sense we are all authors of our social worlds, engaged in continuous creative activity. Day-to-day actions of this kind are usually repetitive and reaffirmative: we seek on the whole to maintain things as they were, and to ensure stability and continuity. The point, after all, is to live in order, without the strain of continuous negotiation. For this reason, the processes of the sociable imagination are clearer when we examine the life and work of social engineers and of Utopians, who both in their different ways attempt to change the world. As an example of social engineers you could consider Colonel Qaddafi who took over the Libyan government by coup d'etat in 1969 and then in the subsequent years instituted a revolution. In the period 1969 to 1973 he (and fellow members of the Revolutionary Command Council) first of all maintained the old

104

When History Accelerates

apparatus of the Libyan kingdom; then they copied Egypt, setting up a one-party Arab socialist state. For various reasons they found this unsatisfactory, and set about creating a new order in 1973. The essence of this was the perception that representative government is inherently unjust: the representatives always take power from the represented. In Qaddafi's brand of puritanical and individualist Islam, that can never berightbecause God has given each man (and possibly each woman as well) responsibility for his own salvation. Loss of autonomy, required by a representative system, is damnable: autonomy and responsibility for your own salvation were gifts of God and it was therefore sinful to give them away to politicians. You will know that in Europe and America people are also concerned with this problem, and they seek ways to ensure that the personal autonomy we are constrained to give up is not abused, except in the general good. Qaddafi is more radical: what is inherently unjust can never be made just by checks and balances, separations of powers, constitutional amendments or bills of rights. So his answer was to abolish representative government. This is not the place to describe the circumstances of the proposal, nor the extent to which he succeeded. What I do want to note is that the structure of government which Qaddafi proposed should replace the state was in many respects similar to the relatively commonplace model of Bedouin stateless autonomy, to the idealized image which many Libyans, including Qaddafi himself, had of how they were organized before the state - let us say, a century or a century and a half ago. Qaddafi's creative imagination, I want to suggest, worked by extending and stretching a model of the past, to achieve a partial reconstruction of the Libyan polity. It was one which received assent from many Libyans, much of the time (Davis, 1987). This was also what Lady Thatcher did in Britain in the period 1979-90. She too was dissatisfied with the state, and wished not exactly to abolish it but at least to diminish it. Again, this is not the place to discuss the circumstances, nor the extent to which this piece of social engineering succeeded. But do note that her model society, with which she sought to reshape Britain, was again an idealized image from the past. However, it was not in origin an image of a Golden Age, as Qaddafi's had been, but a nightmare. Victorian economists knew perfectly well that people act in economic affairs from a variety of motives, and are moved by altruism, friendship and religion as well as by profit. But Edgeworth decided to work out the consequences of a worst-case scenario: would the economy

Social Creativity

105

survive if people were motivated solely by self-interest? He thought it would; but the case remained a speculative nightmare. It was later generations who transformed Edgeworth's Bad Dream into a goal for British government policy (Akerlof, 1985). In short, Lady Thatcher's programme of social engineering (reducing the state, augmenting the market) suggests another case in which creative imagination worked by extending an existing model, stretching it to fit new circumstances. We could go on. For instance, I think that the biggest and most ambitious social engineering projects of our lifetimes are the attempts to create a European Union, and the attempts to reconstruct the politics of Eastern Europe. In each case you can observe social creativity at work, negotiation of agreements of a fundamental kind to establish a basis for new sorts of polity: I mean, the agreements will not only be about who gets what, but also about the procedures for deciding. These are informed by thought-about-the-past as much as Lady Thatcher and Colonel Qaddafi; but while those two engineers sought to return to some imagined past, the people involved in European reconstruction and in the creation of a European Union are at least in part inspired by a rejection of the past, and their decisions are designed to secure that previous states of affairs should never occur again. The creative imagination, in short, seems to work in this case by inversion, rejection of old models, rather than by extension of existing images of the past. Although these are social engineering projects, the processes involved - extension and inversion - are also present in the direct, popular dayto-day social creativity. In negotiating social order, people use models, idealized images, derived from experience directly or indirectly, and extend or invert them. Of course, for the most part, popular creativity is used to preserve and maintain social relations in a fairly conservative way: but that is not always the outcome, and in fact people usually plan what they intend as modification of their experience. I daresay that most of us have had the experience of being children in a family. I daresay that none of us intends to produce an exact replica of that experience for our own children. The efforts we all make to stabilize our social worlds are creative acts, and I think that these imaginative actions are accessible to the kind of analysis you would use for a book or a poem: you look for consistencies and innovations between one work and another as Baxandall does in his account of fifteenth-century Italian painting (Baxandall, 1972); you try to give an account of how experience is worked on by the faculties of mind, to produce a new thing as, for example, George Painter does in his life of Proust (1971). The aim is

106

When History Accelerates

to understand how creativity works, the mix of ideas about time and efficacy, of knowledge, experience, social relations, with intention and skill, to produce something new. Of course you might say that Painter and Baxandall are concerned with works of art. Their procedures might do for the work of Qaddafi or Thatcher, but are hardly suited for the humdrum day-to-day conformism with which people try to maintain outmoded institutions such as seminars, say, or families. I think I disagree: our attempts to create social order are part and parcel of a general creative ability, and we should recognize that they are so. But I do agree that there are bad poems and bad novels, as well as good ones, and you should allow that there may be aesthetic as well as political differences between Lady Thatcher's vision of a new Britain, and Colonel Qaddafi's of a perfect Libya. WHAT ARE THE RESULTS OF SOCIAL CREATIVITY LIKE?

The first thing to say is that they are not stable systems: some people may strive to create those; but not all do, and those who do, do not succeed. That is generally the consequence of the diffuse power of other people. You may try to negotiate, for instance, a stable family, and reach the appropriate agreements with the people in your household. But elsewhere other people are also making new things - in the school playground or the classroom, in the marketplace or in a television studio: your arrangements have to be continually renegotiated because your household is not a system, is not isolated from the power of others which may have consequences for your ingenious, inspired and loving creation. The same is true of friendships, and business partnerships; of the relations among colleagues and among members of a party: we all try to create systems, and to buttress and protect them as best we can. In fact, the notion that there is such a thing as a social system (or an economic or political system) is one of the major contributions of social scientists to the optimistic wishful thinking of social engineers. The idea of a social system is a comforting story, a tale that is told to reassure us that our efforts to create stability and continuity are directed to a realizable end. This is a bit different from the position taken by Paul Stirling. As I understand him, he objects to Marxism, Durkheimianism, Malinowskianism, development theory and the rest, because they are so simple: social systems are so much more complex than the models that the models must be seriously misleading. The late Lord Rothschild, who unexpectedly defended the social sciences' failure to produce usable

Social Creativity

107

accounts of social systems, took a similar position: humans are complex and volatile, and chemists and nuclear physicists really have a much easier time. That line of argument may gain some further life from the increasing use of computer modelling in the social sciences: our feeble minds cannot take all the variables into account; but the machines hold the prospect of perfect modelling. But I think you should argue that the belief in social systems is really just a comforter: if the system is really there, we clearly don't have to create it, but simply to discover it: and indeed, we do discover it, everywhere and pervasively. The role of systems analysts is to reassure us that out there there really is an order that is independent of our will and negotiation. Just as the diffuse power of other creators undermines our own creations, so it subverts the efforts of rule-makers and legislators. In my opinion the clearest and most disruptive example of that has been the almost total failure of the international development programmes of the last forty years, in what must by now be every third world country. Legislators and bureaucrats devise programmes and incentives to increase agricultural and industrial production; they are carefully designed; they are adapted to take account of local circumstances and of the errors of previous programmes. Everything is done to ensure that this time the plan will work as it is intended. But in every case, when the plan devised in Washington or Paris or London or Stockholm is transferred into a set of rules and practices for villagers in Bangladesh or Guin^e Bissau or Peru, it comes unstuck: villagers, local officials and others simply do not do what they are told. I do not mean that no change occurs; nor that no benefit follows; but that the plan never works as intended. And that is true even when the planners are advised by the most highly qualified experts in economic systems - even when anthropologists are co-opted to the planning team to take account of what they so revealingly call 'the social factor'. The reason is, in general terms, that the creativity of Bangladeshi or other villagers is irrepressible, and is usually subversive. Some people contemplate these outcomes with despair; but you may also perhaps be reassured by the ability of allegedly simple and ignorant villagers and officials, local big men and bullies included, to subvert the state's men in the Overseas Development Administration and World Bank, with their abundant expert economists and other social scientists. In short, what I want to suggest is that the social order we seek to create is in fact not a system, nor a structure, nor an organic functioning whole nor a necessary and inevitable evolutionary track, but a series of

108

When History Accelerates

ramshackle contraptions which serve to get us through from one day to the next. They are ingenious, clever, often pleasing to contemplate, but they are inherently unstable and need continual affirmative re-creation and maintenance. The analogy is with Heath Robinson rather than Palladio. Anthropologists do perceive patterns: we know that family arrangements were different in the Trobriands from what they were in Tikopia and in Nuerland. And we know that the pattern of Trobriand families was related to the patterns of kinship, political power and exchange activities. The temptation is to regard this real and significant coherence as in some sense a property of the wholly illusory Trobriand system which shaped and determined the lives of Trobrianders, just as the Tikopian system constrained Tikopians to be distinctively Tikopian. It is easier, a simpler way of saying things, to say 'in the Trobriand social system boys did not inherit from their fathers, and that was because ...' and so on. But that simplicity misplaces the source of coherence when it locates it in the demands of a system: the coherence came from the repeated and constant effort of Trobrianders to make an acceptable world for living in. It was an achieved coherence. Let me finally address the issue, why some social arrangements are more durable and more coherent than others. We do have an unmistakable sense that our worlds are more unstable and insecure than some other people's. Is that true? And if so, how can we explain it? I think it is true, even though the total stability, immobility of Nuer or Trobriand arrangements is partly an illusion created by ethnographers: Evans-Pritchard and Malinowski attempted to discover systems, were part of the reassuring movement which sought to show that you could discern a system in relatively simple worlds, and could therefore infer that there is one also in more complex worlds. We know that the Trobriands were in political turmoil during Malinowski's fieldwork, and we can see in Evans-Pritchard's account of Nuer structure (relations defined in terms of social situation, and relations between those relations) signs of improvisation and innovation which suggest that Nuer, too, failed to create a perfectly stable system (Evans-Pritchard, 1940: 266). Even so, I think it is the case that Nuer were more successful than Britons are at eliminating instability. Why should that be? Numbers of people is part of the answer: we are affected by the decisions and negotiations, by the diffuse creativity of 55 million people in Britain alone, leaving aside the 300 million other people in Europe, the 400 million in North America, and so on. Nuer were

Social Creativity

109

about 120,000, in significant contact with 60,000 Dinka, a few thousand Arabs, a few hundred British. The variety of economic, religious, moral and political activities is also crucially important: the people whose creativity undermines our arrangements do not have a single broadly uniform model of family or lecture or parliament. And indeed, because we have travellers' tales and ethnographies, our sociable imaginations and sense of the possible, are wider, and more destabilizing. Thirdly, I think that the kind of history which is current in our world is inherently unsettling: we perceive the present as the culmination of a series of causes and effects in linear time; and we expect that our present is itself a cause of some future state of affairs. In this sense, we know that our world is transitory. The probability is that Nuer of the 1930s thought about the past in a snapshot, repetitive way: the past was a series of examples of right action, used to show that Nuer had always been loyal, aggressive, fearless and so on: it is an essentially static view of the past, and is not one which incites people to innovate. I have tried in this chapter to elaborate the notion of social creativity: it was, for my teachers, a code-phrase to indicate a general position vis-a-vis the French sociology of Durkheim and some other members of his school. The general point, and it is I guess fairly widely accepted, is that such system, such patterned social action as exists is a creation of human agents who are trying to create a system. I have tried to add to that an examination of the ways in which that creativity works, how people's sociable imagination results in effective social organization. On the one hand, you have to consider the ways knowledge is organized the kinds of history, the range of travellers' tales and so on. On the other, you have to try to perceive the processes of creativity itself: I've suggested, less tentatively than I should, common processes of extension and inversion of experience. These should be analysed in the same way that we analyse other products of human creativity - novels, dances, songs and poems. REFERENCES

Akerlof, G. (1985) An Economic Theorisfs Book of Tales: Essays that Entertain the Consequences of New Assumptions in Economic Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barnes, R.H. (1974) A Study of the Collective Thought of an Eastern Indonesian People, Oxford: Clarendon. Barth, F. (1966) Models of Social Organisation (Occasional Papers of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 23), London: RAI. Baxandall, M. (1972) Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy: A

110

When History

Accelerates

Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style, Oxford: Clarendon. Cutileiro, J. (1971) A Portuguese Rural Society, Oxford: Clarendon. Davis, J. (1987) Libyan Politics: Tribe and Revolution. The Zuwaya and their Government, London: LB. Tauris. Davis, J. (1989) 'The social relations of the production of history', in E. Tonkin, M. McDonald and M. Chapman (eds.) History and Ethnicity, London: Routledge, pp. 104-20. Dresch, P. (1989) Tribes, Government and History in Yemen, Oxford: Clarendon. Evans-Pritchard, E.E. (1940) The Nuer. A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People, Oxford: Clarendon. Firth, R. (1971) Elements of Social Organization, 3rd edn, London: Tavistock. Gellner, E.A. (1970) 'Concepts and society', in B.R. Wilson (ed.) Rationality, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 18-49. James, W. (1979) 'Kwanim Pa: The Making of the Uduk People. An Ethnographic Study of Survival in the Sudan-Ethiopian Borderlands, Oxford: Clarendon. Kumar, K. (1987) Utopia and Anti-Utopia in Modern Times, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Kumar, K. (1991) Utopianism (Concepts in the Social Sciences), Milton Keynes: Open University Press. Leach, E.R. (1954) Political Systems of Highland Burma: A Study of Kachin Social Structure, London: G. Bell. Lisdn Tolosana, C. (1966) Belmonte de Los Caballeros: A Sociological Study of a Spanish Town, Oxford: Clarendon. Mair, L. (1969) 'How small-scale societies change', in Anthropology and Social Change, (LSE Monographs in Social Anthropology, 38), London: Athlone, pp. 120-34. Painter, G. (1971) Marcel Proust: A Biography, 2 vols, London: Chatto & Windus. Parkin, F. (1992) Durkheim (Past Masters), Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stirling, P. (1974) 'Cause, knowledge and change: Turkish village revisited', in J. Davis (ed.) Choice and Change: Essays in Honour of Lucy Mair (LSE Monographs in Social Anthropology, 50), London: Athlone, pp. 191-230. Wolf, E.R., (1982) Europe and the People Without History, Berkeley: University of California Press.

CHAPTER 6

Rustic Chivalry: Variations in Honour Ideologies in Italy and the Limits of Historical Explanation Nevill Colclough INTRODUCTION

In this chapter I discuss honour/shame codes and crimes of honour in the small south Italian town of Corleto. Corleto currently has a population of about 7,000, and is located on the edge of the Tavoliere, the fertile north Puglian plain. In income and general living standards, this is one of the more prosperous areas in what, over the last twenty years, has become an increasingly differentiated south. With a large territory and one of the lowest land:population density ratios anywhere in Italy, Corleto is one of its more favoured communities. It is not perhaps surprising that in recent years its inhabitants have come to see themselves as having more in common with the commercially much more dynamic and entrepreneurial 'Third Italy' than with the traditional south (Bagnasco 1977). My interest in local honour/shame codes arose partly in response to a growing Mediterraneanist interest in sources of variation in honour systems, but more specifically because my initial research findings could not easily be squared with the main conclusions and arguments coming from the ethnographic literature of the Italian south. A major puzzle arising from this literature is the wide and largely unexplained variation in the reported forms and relevance of local honour systems. Whilst for the majority of postwar ethnographers a concern with honour has provided an important unifying theme, a master symbol of community values and a key to the understanding of southern family, gender and status systems (Davis, 1969a; Blok, 1981; J. and P. Schneider, 1976; Di Bella, 1992), for an increasing number of others (White, 1980; Arlacchi, 1983; Minicuci, 1986), it has little contemporary or historical significance.1 There is similar disagreement

112

When History Accelerates

among the historians of early modern southern Italy (for example, Delille, 1990; Da Molin, 1990).2 Despite the pioneering analysis of Silverman (1968), who sought to relate an absence of honour/shame codes in central Italy to differences in family structure and patterns of agricultural exploitation between central and southern Italy, such negative cases have attracted little subsequent research. Other sources of diversity have been similarly neglected. Recent studies by Goddard and Minicuci furnish fascinating evidence of variation in the content and articulation of honour codes both between and within communities - differences between metropolitan centres and their rural hinterlands, between elites and popolino, and differences in reproductive ideologies and in the differing degrees to which men and women share the same perceptions of honour (Goddard, 1987; Minicuci, 1989). But, once again, the reasons for these differences have barely been explored and only too often cultural homogeneity has been assumed. Although honour ideologies certainly constitute an important source of moral evaluation in Corleto, their use is discriminating, restricted, sectorial, occasionally theatrical, and is not infrequently met with scepticism and disbelief. Direct enquiry more readily elicits general literary or operatic examples than sustained discussion of local cases - even the acid comment that 'we are not Sicilians here'. Such caution and distancing is in part a response to the generally negative images of honour crimes conveyed in the national media. But, from townsmen well versed in both subtle and grosser differences in the application of honour rules in neighbouring and more distant towns and cities, it also represents a veiled warning to visiting ethnographers not to be seduced by the more exotic aspects of local value systems. In a number of crucial ways, Corletani perceptions of honour and its social significance differ markedly from those reported in other studies. There is, for example, scant evidence of competitive male display and aggressiveness or of an apparently complementary male sexual ambivalence and fear of female sexuality (Gilmore, 1987). Unlike their Sicilian counterparts, men in Corleto will not readily affirm that homicide is the only proper response to slighted honour. And it is far more appropriate to talk of the management of female virtue and reputation than of stringent, absolutist, codes of chastity and virginity. Even by the somewhat lax standards of Mediterraneanist ideological analysis, it would require a heroic manipulation of structuralist logic to construct a systematic binary classification out of gender attributes and differences, or to derive from Corletani attitudes to horns, goats, sheep,

Rustic Chivalry: Variations in Honour Ideologies in Italy

113

spirits, rats and serpents any master symbols of cultural communication (cf. Blok, 1981). Honour is not the main idiom for describing the allocation of economic and political resources, not is it the linch-pin of local stratification systems. The successful management of household resources is not the indispensable prerequisite of political leadership, and it is not the only or even the main criterion on which political and economic partners and clients are chosen. In what follows I shall illustrate the more salient and distinctive features of Corleto's honour system by examining two classic types of honour crimes, murder and abduction, and then consider the language of honour itself and the context in which it is used. HONOUR CRIMES

Honour crimes are not especially common in Corleto, although as far as I can tell from inadequate statistical data, they are no less common than in other south Italian communities with much more stringent codes (e.g. Villamaura, Pisticci).3 In the province of which Corleto is a part, the postwar general murder rate is about 1: 80,000 (broadly similar to that of Britain). Rates in Corleto itself are of much the same order, with honour homicides accounting for about 60 per cent - with a slightly lower percentage prewar. In both province and town there was a clustering of honour homicides in the early 1920s, then again during and immediately after the Second World War. Here is an almost complete list of crimes of honour from recent generations: A Homicides 1 Donna Elvira's Servant, 1940 Donna Elvira was the second wife of one of the most prominent members of the town's landowning/professional elite. She fell in love with and reputedly bore the son of a local lawyer and important Fascist Party official. Her personal maid threatened to talk, and then suddenly died. Another servant accused her mistress of murder and, after an exhumation and autopsy, Donna Elvira was arrested and charged with poisoning her maid. Although she was briefly imprisoned, the case was eventually dismissed at the assize courts. 2 Marisa, 1949 Marisa was the peasant wife of a local butcher (the lowest status category of local tradesmen), a former smallholder and grazier who, together with his brother, had opened a small butcher's shop. Her husband was called up for military service. In his absence, she

114

When History Accelerates

was vigorously courted by Mastro Peppe, a prosperous shopkeeper who, despite having a wife and six children, was well known as a persistent and ineffectual amorist. Fearing her husband's reputation for violence, Marisa eventually impaled him with a butcher's knife on her own doorstep. An honour defence was accepted by the courts. 3 The threshing-floor murder, 1951 Don Rocchino Rosso, the 18-year-old son of a landowner, was forked to death after a quarrel during the grain harvest. His assailant was a member of the somewhat anomalous Barbarito family - non-transhumant shepherds - who, by virtue of owning grazing/potential building land on the outskirts of town, had become quite rich. Widely regarded as uncivilized, they had experienced considerable difficulties in marrying their daughters to suitable townsmen, not least because of their reputation for violence. Barbarito accused Don Rocchino of seeking to seduce his fiancee, who was working as a seasonal labourer on the Rosso farm. An honour defence was not accepted. 4 Martino, 1966 Cristina, an orphan, was made pregnant by the son of a large landowner in whose household she worked. The family agreed to provide a dowry and a cottage in a nearby town and arranged her marriage to Martino, the son of a muleteer employed as a carter on the estate. The marriage failed. In 1961 Martino left for Germany where he established a new household. Cristina took a lover, a local tax official and distant cousin of her former employer. Martino ignored this liaison on several return visits. In the summer of 1966, he quarrelled with his wife (probably over rights to the dowry house), killed her and attacked and wounded her lover. His honour defence was disallowed. On appeal, a plea of diminished responsibility through insanity was accepted. 5 The Moroccan, 1986 A 'Moroccan' migrant who was trying to recruit a rival seasonal labour force was murdered by the henchman of a local gangmaster (both from families traditionally employed as porters/carters). Although honour homicides are no longer recognized as a separate legal category, he pleaded 'offended honour' in mitigation, claiming that he had caught the 'Moroccan' trying to rape his wife. It was widely believed that his wife had actively participated in the murder. Trial outcome unknown. B Marriage by abduction In the period 1946-57 there were three cases of upper-class men - a lawyer, pharmacist and doctor - kidnapped and married 'at gunpoint'.

Rustic Chivalry: Variations in Honour Ideologies in Italy

115

In each case the fiancee or her near female kin was reputed to have organized the abduction, with the implication that 'honour' was at stake. All three male 'victims' came from families that had traditionally used restrictive heirship strategies - non-marriage for younger sons and daughters, repeat marriage with close kin and affinal re-linkage - as ways of maintaining family patrimonies. There was a strong carnivalesque element in each of these abductions, strong indications that the men were not unwilling victims, and some evidence of connivance by civil and ecclesiastical authorities. As far as I know, none of these cases involved judicial intervention. The only known case of female abduction (even this is somewhat uncertain) is among shepherds and dates back to the early 1920s. These crimes, together with some well-chosen operatic examples, constitute the standard set of exemplars used by Corletani in discussing such issues. Plainly, not all of the cases I have cited are regarded as equally honourable. Many Corletani argue that case 5 was not an honour crime at all; and there wererivalversions and some scepticism expressed about case 1. Cases 3 and 4 bring out differences between judicial and popular interpretation. Townsmen were unconcerned about the lack of 'passion' in the Martino case, which reputedly had led his judges to reject an honour defence: they were far much more interested in whether his motives were sexual or material. Similarly they were unimpressed with the unseemly, ill-considered haste with which Barbarito had dispatched his victim. But they thought that judicial rejection of his defence, apparently on the ground that a fiancee was not part of the family, an unnecessary legal quibble. They were fully aware that in a strict legal sense the much discussed cases of marriage by abduction were not crimes at all, and they took delight in commenting on the parody, theatricality and symbolic inversion they entailed. Taken as a whole, these crimes of honour raise a number of interesting issues. The first is the very active involvement of women. Women (as mothers, sisters or more commonly fiancees) initiated and organized marriages by abduction, apparently without male help. They were also the main protagonists in two (possibly three) of the honour homicides. In Corleto at least, women are not the inevitable and inexorable victims of honour crime. Nor are these crimes simply an expression of male competition for material resources and fetishized pseudo-commodities (cf. Gilmore, 1987; Schneider, 1971). A second puzzling feature of Corleto honour crimes is that they

116

When History Accelerates

appear to controvert a central tenet of the south Italian literature, namely that honour homicides occur essentially amongst peers (Davis, 1976; J. and P. Schneider, 1976). As I have tried to bring out in my examples by sketching in the social background and family connections of the protagonists, in none of the five cases are aggressor and victim equals or near social equals. Thirdly, honour homicides are centred on courtship, marriage and female fidelity in marriage. There are no examples of fathers or brothers killing daughters, sisters or their lovers. Nowadays, severe punishment or violence in these relationships is anyway uncommon. Indeed, Corletani men maintain that the only true cuckold is the betrayed husband, and that vigilance over sisters and daughters, although by no means unimportant, is less crucial to the maintenance of reputation. A fourth, and perhaps the most idiosyncratic, feature of Corletani perceptions of honour crime is the sharp emphasis they lay on rustic chivalry and on the rural dimensions of personal violence. Their discourse freely mixes operatic, popular literature and hometown examples: they discuss the honour implications of Otello, Traviata, Cavalieria Rusticana or the Verga 'vita di campagna' stories as readily as any of the cases I have cited. Perhaps as a consequence of this intermingling of operatic and literary tradition, their view of honour crime is distinctly Verga-esque. Thus, they stress rural violence and the conspicuous role of outsiders and countrymen - shepherds, muleteers, carters, immigrants - as honour aggressors. Like Verga they tend to believe that honour crime derives from the tension and lack of mutual comprehension between urban and rural society. Corletani also stress the ineffectiveness of honour solutions. Some forty years on, the even more affluent Barbaritos still find difficulty in negotiating satisfactory town marriages. A quiet word with the chief of police, or the use of informal urban networks and patrons, would have been just as effective in protecting Marisa from sexual harassment and the unwanted attention of Mastro Peppe. In short, honour crimes are a poor substitute for civic skills and discourse. They are an expression of rural isolation, the products of the countryman's lack of sophistication and civilta, impotent appeals to egalitarian principles in a world characterized by patronage, hierarchy and authority. This explanation of honour crime as an expression of rustic chivalry is problematic in two major respects. Not only does it ignore elite honour games, but it runs counter yet again to the view, widely held by southern Italian and Spanish ethnographers, that honour codes are inextricably

Rustic Chivalry: Variations in Honour Ideologies in Italy

117

linked to urban values and civilization (Davis, 1969b; Corbin and Corbin, 1987). It does, however, offer a useful way of exploring the temporal clustering of honour crimes. Both the early 1920s and the years immediately following the Second World War were periods of acute crisis in the relationship between town and country: thefirstsaw the forcible destruction of rural syndicalism, the second the turbulence of the years leading up to land reform in 1952. Furthermore, as a consequence of the considerable economic opportunities offered to rural entrepreneurs in wartime, both postwar periods brought a dramatic restructuring and tense reappraisal of urban-rural ranking orders. In these circumstances a rise in the number of honour homicides is hardly surprising. A similar explanation can be given for upper-class abductions (which are also time clustered). In a period of blocked rents, land confiscation, declining professional salaries and pensions, high inflation and financial stringency, the potential benefits of restrictive heirship strategies were rapidly eroded. Deferred gratification had little appeal for a younger generation when its rewards were so uncertain. The theatricality and symbolic inversion of marriage by abduction arranged by fiancees from outside the community was a particularly clever solution. It offered all the advantages of elopement - low-cost marriage, no family quarrels in advance, avoidance of detailed community scrutiny - whilst at the same time partially exonerating men from a clear dereliction of family responsibilities. THE LANGUAGE OF HONOUR

Although an analysis of honour crimes provides useful insights into the way in which a local community evaluates gender performance, manages courtship and conceptualizes the relationship between town and country, the fact that they are comparatively rare and involve only limited subsets of the population raises doubts about their wider applicability. It is, therefore, necessary to examine more generally the language of honour and the social context in which it is used. In Table 6.1, I have provided a slightly restricted list of the main terms used to designate honour states in Corleto. The first line gives the standard Italian terms for honour, dishonour, modesty and shamelessness. None of these terms are exclusively gender linked. The first two 'onore9 and 'disonore9 are not widely used outside historical or literary contexts. 'Onore9 and its derivatives are almost always used ironically. 'Disonorata9 or 'donna senza onore9 are sometimes used as euphemisms for prostitutes in

118

When History Accelerates

Italian onore Dialect derivative Dialect form Italian

disonore -

vergogna vergognosse

svergognatezza svergognate

gguappe scurnate ccornute ffemmenazze ffruscole zoccole guappo scornato cornuto femmina fruscolo zoccola

Table 6.1 The language of honour nineteenth- and early twentieth-century legal and ecclesiastical documents. 'Vergogna', which can be applied to children of either sex, is mainly used in its secondary sense meaning shy or timid. The epithet *svergognata\ much discussed by Sicilianists, meaning 'whore' or 'shameless woman' is, in my experience, more frequently used metaphorically (as in the phrase 'all politicians are whores') than to designate the moral state of women. Indeed, of this first set of terms, the only one which is clearly gender specific, is the dialect form of 'vergognosa' (shameful), 'vergognosse9. Although in standard Italian this adjective has essentially passive connotations, describing a shy, modest and retiring woman or child, in dialect it takes on a much more active overlay of meaning. 'Na ffemmena vergognosse' is a virtuous woman in the classical sense, a versatile and capable household manager and family provider, sexually faithful too, but above all skilled in maintaining family reputation in public through active participation in civic and life-crisis ritual, and in the successful presentation of children to the community at large. The acid test of a woman's extra-domestic skills is the successful marriage of daughters. Such accomplishments, especially if achieved without the active support of a husband or male kin, may lead to the rare accolade iffemmenazze\ a proper woman. Its male equivalent, i uomm> or 'gguappe\ the proper man, is awarded even more grudgingly. Again, there is a domestic core to this concept - successful economic provision and the avoidance of family sexual scandals - but appraisal is essentially based on performance in the public domain. Economic entrepreneurship, contractual seriousness, confident civic performance and sufficient political skills to play a full role in public life without compromising family reputation or damaging the prospects of its members, are what count. Honour challenges to other men, and political adventurism are far more likely to damage than to enhance family reputation. Conspicuous sexual exploits by men

Rustic Chivalry: Variations in Honour Ideologies in Italy

119

with family responsibilities are likely to attract the negative epithet 'scurndte9 (broken-horned, shamed). As an adjective and in dialect this term is sex specific, applied only to men, and its primary meaning is dereliction of family responsibilities. It is habitually applied to unsuccessful amorists such as Mastro Peppe, or to men who casually renege on marriage contracts; it is equally used to describe economic and political adventurers. Thus a recent town mayor is frequently referred to as 'quillii scurndte di lii sinec' implying a lack of contractual seriousness and general untrustworthiness. Above all, the term denotes a certain wildness and lack of control, and general disregard of the consequences of public actions on family interests. 'Ccornute\ the 'cuckold', the master symbol of much Sicilian ethnography, is used sparingly - more as a term of verbal abuse than as a description of a moral state. Cuckolds are not ostracized, subject to open public ridicule or excluded from the public domain. At worst a diminished family reputation may encourage the children of a cuckold to migrate or compel them to choose marriage partners from outside the local community. Moving to the much more widely used female side of this list of honour pejoratives, the terms 'zoccole' and 'ffruscole' are both etymologically interesting. 'Zoccola' in standard Neapolitan dialect denotes the sewer rat or, in a sexual context, 'whore'. As Goddard points out this is a curiously aggressive choice of animal to represent female shamelessness (Goddard, 1987). Like 'ccornute\ 'zoccoW often serves as a general term of verbal abuse but, in my experience, it is quite widely used as a sexually specific derogative for both unmarried and married women whose chastity is in doubt. Etymologically 'ffruscole' is probably a gender-change corruption of the Neapolitan Jruscolo' meaning 'wild wood sprite'. This meaning is known in Corleto, but in its feminized form the word normally designates small domesticated animals: chicks, lambs, rabbits. But as a moral evaluator, together with the Italian 'sfacciata9 (brazen-faced) which is gradually replacing it, 'jfruscole' is essentially used to describe the courtship strategies of young women whose behaviour errs on the side of the over-adventurous. Courtship is the closest Corleto comes to active honour competition, and it is essentially a competition for female honour and reputation whose antagonists and judges are almost exclusively women themselves. Thus, men formally initiate courtship and, at the end of courtship, fathers and brothers give public guarantees of the contractual seriousness of the imminent marriage. But in the usually long intervening period, the management of reputation (what Goddard calls

120

When History Accelerates

the management of virginity) and, increasingly as courtship proceeds, negotiations and preparations for the marriage itself are essentially handled by women. In seeking marriage partners there are few prizes for passivity or excessive modesty. This is recognized in the proverb 'Chi tenefaccia si marite, chi no reste zite' ('Girls who put themselves forward find husbands, those who don't remain spinsters'). But the balance between the successful presentation of self to the community and to prospective suitors, and a reputation for sexual adventurousness is a fine one. The stakes in courtship competitions are high. Corletani insist that they follow a rule of status homogamy, but this principle predominates only at the extremes of the social spectrum or for late marriage. Nowadays at least, matched marriage is less consistently practised in the middle reaches of society and there is considerable room for manoeuvre and success. If one examines the marriage outcomes of sets of sisters or first cousins, the range of spouses is wide: judge, railway official, unemployed shopkeeper, bus conductor, smallholder in one middling landowner family; peasant migrant, electrical engineer, small builder, factory worker in another. And, in a period of increased occupational mobility and differentiation, the range of variation is widening. In circumstances in which who one marries crucially affects life chances and family reputation, competition is agonistic and intense; the language of female shame does indeed become an idiom for describing the allocation of scarce economic and social resources. Comparing honour/shame codes in Corleto with those of other parts of southern Italy and Sicily, two main differences emerge. The first is their feminization - conspicuous female participation in honour crimes, a skewing of the language of honour itself to reflect an overwhelming concern with the evaluation of female domestic and extra-domestic gender roles, and the crucial role of women in regulating courtship and marriage, which provide the main focus for honour competition. A second major difference is the restricted and sectorial use of honour codes in regulating the political affairs of men. Upper-class honour games, fantasies and theatre apart, for most townsmen honour is the language of the powerless, the uncivilized, the very young, the excluded other. Cast in the egalitarian idiom of a code of rustic chivalry, it is pre-eminently the language of countrymen, on occasion also a language of protest, expressing the hostility and tension between town and country in periods of crisis and rural turbulence.

Rustic Chivalry: Variations in Honour Ideologies in Italy

121

THE USES OF HISTORY

One of the most striking features of the general anthropological analysis of south Italian and Sicilian honour systems is the conspicuous use of history: with the possible exception of the related topic of mafia, no other subject (or region of the Mediterranean) has attracted so wide or so varied a range of historical explanations. The origins and development of honour systems have been variously attributed to weak state formation, scarcity of resources, ecclesiastical self-interest, an absence of the civilizing process, the interplay of pastoral and arable economies, the Mediterranean slave trade, bilateral inheritance systems, the peripheralization of local economies, the penetration of capitalism into the countryside. Chronologically these explanations divide into two distinct types: theories of the longue duree that stress long-term cultural continuity and/or trace the origins of honour systems to early processes of state formation in classical antiquity or, at latest, the early middle ages (Schneider, 1971; J. and P. Schneider, 1976; Blok, 1981; Ortner, 1978; Goody, 1983), and those that correlate its emergence or intensification with the breakdown of the ancien regime and the rapid, nineteenth-century transformation of rural society and its economic and political incorporation into modernizing states (Cutrifelli, 1975; Arlacchi, 1983; Davis, 1976; Goddard, 1987). The diversity of these suggested (often incompatible) preconditions and theories, and the radically different time-scales on which they are premissed, are both a measure of the complexity of origins problems and testimony to anthropological over-ambition. The most disappointing outcome of a generation of theory-making is its failure to document and to offer substantive accounts of changes or variation through time in the articulation of honour and chastity codes. Despite complex chronologies, except for the most recent period, changes in honour states have been inferred, not described. Although Davis may be correct in suggesting that the detailed history of the consequences of primordial state formation is irrecoverable (Davis, 1987), this is certainly not the case for early modern or nineteenth-century Italy. The study of honour codes is as amenable to the techniques of micro-history as exorcism or witchcraft. A second limitation of the generalist theories is their failure to explain variation and negative cases or to keep pace with recent specialist historical research. If honour systems arose as a defensive response to hegemonic attempts by the Western Catholic Church to extend its control over local kinship groups by redefining rules of

122

When History Accelerates

heirship and marriage prohibitions (J. and P. Schneider, 1976; see also Goody, 1983), how might we account for their absence in central Italy which was under direct papal control throughout the pre-modern period? What was the point of a defensive shield when, as Delille has recently shown (1988), south Italian communities were able to maintain lineage solidarity and semi-complex systems of repeat marriage without in any way breaching canonical prohibitions? Whilst dependency on metropolitan markets and the complex interplay of arable and pastoralist interests can be as readily demonstrated for northern Puglia as for western Sicily, the honour outcomes are very different. Nevertheless, over more modest time-spans and at the local level at least, it is possible to provide a more detailed specification of continuities and change in the perception and use of honour codes. Indeed, although historical research in Corleto is still in the early stages, preliminary pilot surveys have already demonstrated the potential.4 By the end of the seventeenth century, Corleto was a small town (citta, a city in the eyes of its inhabitants5) with a resident population of some 2,000 inhabitants situated in one of the commercially most dynamic regions of the kingdom of Naples. Its small size (partly the consequence of a mid seventeenth-century demographic crisis, partly the result of excluding transhumant shepherds and other seasonal workers from the count) is deceptive, and belies its importance as one of the main trading, administrative and ecclesiastical centres in the sparsely populated south Tavoliere. By this date, Corleto had a fully commercialized and monetarized economy. Its prosperity rested more on the storage and commercial exploitation of sheep and cereal products and on the provisioning of large estates and transhumant shepherds than on direct agricultural exploitation. Probably less than one-half of its active, resident male population was involved in full-time farming and shepherding. Under the ancien regime Corleto's economy (and 80 per cent of its territory) was controlled by the Regia Dogana (the Royal Customhouse) which, with its carefully balanced mix of state regulation, inverse transhumance, commercialized grain production and peripheral feudalism, provided a vital source of revenue for the Neapolitan monarchy (Marino, 1988). It was also a highly mobile society with high rates of inward male immigration. Immigrants came from as far away as Malta, Provence, Sicily and Venice, but predominantly from the trade route communities of south Puglia and Campania. In each generation a small subset of

Rustic Chivalry: Variations in Honour Ideologies in Italy

123

migrants was absorbed into the population, often through the process of widow marriage and remarriage. With the abolition of the Dogana in 1806 and the introduction of Jacobin legal and administrative reforms that swept away feudal tenure and jurisdictions and confiscated monastic estates, land use and property distribution in the Tavoliere communes were gradually but systematically transformed. Transhumance was slowly replaced by ranching; trading and marriage links with the towns of the interior withered. The second half of the century, with increasing capital inputs into agriculture, witnessed a steady conversion from pastoral to arable farming and the growth of specialized cereal-producing latifundia which by the 1880s had become the hallmark of the central and southern Tavoliere. The release and sale of Dogana lands and ecclesiastical properties at low prices after Unification attracted land speculators from all over Europe. As Snowden puts it, the Tavoliere had become a new frontier (Snowden, 1986). In this process, Corleto's urban role was transformed from that of administrative and trading centre to classical agro-town. Between Unification and the First World War its population more than doubled (5,000-11,000), as peasant cultivators from the central uplands and south Puglia, tempted by the prospect of small-scale land distributions and the chance of jobs on newly created latifundia, moved into the town. With the rapid expansion of landowner-financed, peasant housing, Corleto, like Snowden's Cerignola, took on the aspect of a company town. Its urban institutions and amenities were swamped by the 'second' Corleto; its core citizens complained of being submerged in a sea of agricultural day labourers. The twentieth century brought still further change: the growth of rural syndicalism in the early years of the century; the widespread mechanization of agriculture; land reform and large-scale overseas migration after the Second World War. By the early 1970s Corleto's population was in rapid decline; its urban role was transformed once again to that of paese di passaggio, a town of passage in which people were born, married and died, but from which they were absent for most of their adult working lives. In addition to these processes of urban and economic transition, it is important to note two significant changes to marriage procedures and patterns. First, because of a high incidence of inward migration, throughout much of this period Corleto was characterized by high rates of masculinity, early marriage for women and a high incidence

124

When History Accelerates

of widow marriage and remarriage. With the rapid expansion of overseas migration in the 1890s, this imbalance in sex ratios was steadily reversed. Marriage age for women increased, widow marriage disappeared altogether. Secondly, until the 1920s, marriage patterns within the core urban population were shaped by a preference for distant cousins (third cousins and beyond), and for affinal relinkage. Indeed, even today, about one-third of urban core marriages are of this sort. With the expansion of the resident agricultural population from the late nineteenth century, the overall incidence of repeat marriage declined, although the period between 1880 and the Second World War saw some increase in rates of first cousin marriage among landowner and professional families. Although the turbulent particularities of Corleto's recent history closely parallel many of the themes, processes and preconditions discussed in the generalist honour/shame literature, they do not in themselves account for the distinctive configuration of its honour system in recent decades. Indeed, on the inferential logic of other south Italian and Sicilian examples, a much more tightly structured gender system with much greater emphasis on honour politics and on codes of chastity might have been predicted. How then might we explain rustic chivalry, an absence of male honour games, womens' conspicuous participation in honour crime and their domination of the politics of courtship? None of the sources I have consulted so far provide sustained discussion of any of these topics; but they do offer interesting examples of honour continuities, and pointers to some of the main directions of change.6 Notarial and ecclesiastical depositions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (and a surviving political diary of the same period) provide abundant evidence of economic and political disputes. Offended honour is, however, rarely a significant issue. Two early cases (1720 and 1741) hint at quarrels over precedence among elites and within ecclesiastical hierarchies. In only three cases (out of 25 in my pilot sample) of commercial and land disputes is honour cited directly as a source of contention, and in each of these cases the main protagonists are outsiders or countrymen. A similar emphasis on the rural dimensions of honour disputes comes from ecclesiastical court records and from the processetti (marriage dispensations) files. Of five processetti (in the period 1780-1845) that mention risk of subsequent honour disputes as grounds for dispensation, four relate to peasants living in satellite settlements or on estates in the open countryside. On the evidence of the processetti and a handful of late eighteenth-century morality

Rustic Chivalry: Variations in Honour Ideologies in Italy

125

trials, there is a strong clerical presumption that it is unreasonable to expect the same moral standards from countryfolk as those required of citizens whose lives are ordered by urban ritual performance and constant pastoral care. In short, countrymen are more prone to feuding and to honour disputes then their urban counterparts; their world is a moral wilderness. If, as the archival sources suggest, male honour politics is largely confined to rural sections of the population throughout the whole period under review, it is important to ask why. The most plausible answer lies in the overall prosperity of the Corleto economy and the wide range of commercial and entrepreneurial activities available to its citizens. For town-based males - landowners, traders, artisans - the opportunities offered by the gradual transformation of the Tavoliere, the creation of a new frontier, and the expansion of provincial and national markets provided a sufficient avenue for mobility and for direct economic and political competition to obviate the need to displace conflict into honour rivalries. In circumstances of relative affluence, there was little point in the fetishization or commoditization of female sexuality. The evaluation of continuity and change in women's roles in local honour systems is more problematic, not least because it depends more heavily on indirect and negative evidence. For the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries notarized marriage contracts are by far the most useful source of information. Although women (except for widows) are treated as legal minors and cannot make contracts or (before the nineteenth century) own property, these formal restrictions conceal a great deal of informal economic power and freedom of manoeuvre. From the beginning of our period, there is clear evidence of sex-linked property, with women controlling the use of special types: houses, jewels, high-cost clothes, bed furniture and accoutrements, which are specifically earmarked for daughters. Eighteenth-century wills, inventories and marriage contracts constantly refer to dowry houses as 'belonging' to women, although they are clearly not the legal owners. Again, it is widows (not adult sons or husband's kin) who, on their husband's death, reveal hidden cash, account books, lists of debtors, and provide intricate details of commercial transactions for the notary's inventory. Diary evidence from the early nineteenth century provides examples of townswomen, usually from the local elite, making occasional forays into the world of politics. Although ecclesiastical comment in parish records on irregular births and the moral blemishes

126

When History Accelerates

of prospective wives is fragmentary, it does not suggest an inflexible or absolutist chastity code. Evidence of women's active engagement in the politics of courtship and marriage (and also in crimes of honour) before the beginning of the twentieth century is difficult to come by, although there is some suggestion from eighteenth-century marriage contracts that husbands were often willing to authorize their wives to act on their behalf in cases of a daughter's marriage. Elderly informants in Corleto sometimes claim that the agonistic nature of courtship competition has steadily increased during their adult lives, and perhaps that of their parents. If they are right, the emergence and intensification of feminized honour competitions coincides with increased marriage age for women and the gradual demise of a traditional semi-prescriptive marriage system. With a growing shortage of eligible male partners, the path to marriage takes on the quality of a moral potlatch. Domestic virtue and a talent for reputation management demonstrated through the rituals of protracted courtship are the idiom in which women increasingly express their rivalry. CONCLUSION

In this chapter I have sought to analyse the idiosyncratic qualities of Corletani honour codes and to offer a detailed and documented account of the historical reasons for their persistence and partial transformation through time. In this respect, Corleto is by no means unique, and it joins a growing list of communities whose honour attributes cannot readily be fitted into the prematurely standardized models of an earlier generation of scholars. In these circumstances, both the zealous pursuit of cultural continuity and generalist origin theories seem increasingly fragile and misplaced. What is required is the systematic exploration of sources of variation, and the development of more modest, middle-range theories that avoid both excessive ethnographic and historical particularism and the dangers of over-generalization. At the beginning of the honour debate, Paul Stirling commented on the conceptual and linguistic difficulties of collecting systematic information on the relationship between moral ideas and behaviour, and warned of the risk of imposing a spurious consistency on complex and often ambiguous sets of ideas (Stirling, 1965). His subsequent analysis of the Turkish concept of namus (honour) was a model of clarity, caution and modesty. Unfortunately, only too often, his warning and example have been ignored. Although early theories of the origins and

Rustic Chivalry: Variations in Honour Ideologies in Italy

121

development of honour and chastity systems produced lively debate and a useful checklist of honour correlates, their proliferation has become counter-productive. The ever-expanding list of possible variables and preconditions outstrips our capacity to evaluate any of them satisfactorily. Set against the ethnographic record available to us, they are plainly over-ambitious. The search for origins is not an adequate substitute for the carefully detailed chronological analysis of continuities and variation through time. Even a generalist theory should be sufficiently specified to allow us to cope with some measure of diversity and negative cases. NOTES

1 Arlacchi's study is mainly concerned with the genesis of mafia. Nevertheless, his analysis of regional variations within Calabria suggests that honour codes are much attenuated in areas (Crotonese, Cosentino) without a strong mafia presence. 2 Whereas Delille argues that honour is of little importance in early modern southern Italy, Da Molin claims that it is mainly responsible for one of the most distinctive features of southern family systems, namely the absence of living-in servants. 3 As far as I am aware, no southern Italian or Sicilian ethnography provides a detailed breakdown of types and rates of honour crime. Extrapolating from the relatively few cases reported in the literature, my strong impression is that the incidence of honour homicide in Corleto is of about the same order as in towns of similar size. Threats of violence are probably less common than elsewhere. Of the cases discussed in the text, three honour homicides (and all the abductions) took place in Corleto itself, two in nearby satellite communities. Although officially infanticide is classed as an honour crime, I know of no recent examples. A handful of interwar and immediate postwar cases are stereotypically attributed by Corletani to the economic and moral privations of rural life. 4 These pilot studies, carried out in 1991 and 1992, are part of a major, ESRC-financed, historical anthropological study of marriage strategy in north Puglia, currently in progress. ('Marriage strategy in North Puglia 1730-1990: A Computer Aided Study', ESRC R000234749.) 5 For example, several eighteenth- and nineteenth-century marriage contracts explicitly describe Corletani dowry arrangements as being similar to those found in 'other central and northern Italian cities of similar standing'. 6 So far, archival work has concentrated on 'statistical' sources - population listings and parish registers - and a small subset of notaries' contracts and ecclesiastical records. A more detailed examination of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century civil and criminal court cases and of ecclesiastical deposition evidence should provide a much fuller account of changes through time in the articulation and perception of honour codes and in the incidence and types of honour crime.

128

When History

Accelerates

REFERENCES

Arlacchi, P. (1983) Mafia, Peasants and Great Estates in Traditional Calabria, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bagnasco, A. (1977) Tre Italie: La Problematica Territoriale dello Sviluppo Italiano, Bologna: II Mulino. Blok, A. (1981) 'Rams and Billy-Goats: a key to the Mediterranean code of honour', Man, 16, 3, 427-40. Corbin, J.R. and M.P. Corbin (1987) Urbane Through: Culture and Class in an Andalusian City, Aldershot: Gower. Cutrifelli, M.R. (1975) Disoccupata con Onore, Milan: Gabriele Mazzotta. Da Molin, G. (1990) Lafamiglia nel passato: strutture famigliari nel Regno di Napoli in eta moderna, Bari: Cacucci. Davis, J. (1969a) 'Honour and politics in Pisticci', Proceedings of the Royal Anthropological Institute, pp.69-82. Davis, J. (1969b) 'Town and country', Anthropological Quarterly, 43, 3, 171-85. Davis, J. (1976) 'An account of changes in the rules for transmission of property in Pisticci, 1814-1961', in J.G. Peristiany (ed.) Mediterranean Family Structures, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 287-304. Davis, J. (1987) 'Family and State', in D.D. Gilmore (ed.) Honor and Shame and the Unity of the Mediterranean, Washington: American Anthropological Association, pp. 22-34. Delille, G. (1988) Famiglia e proprietd nel Regno di Napoli: XV-XIX secolo, Turin: Einaudi. Delille, G. (1990) 'La Famiglia Contadina nell'Italia Moderna', in Storia dell'Agricoltura Italiana in Eta Contemporanea: II, Uomini e Classi, Marsilio, pp. 507-34. Di Bella, M.P. (1992) 'Name, blood and miracles: the claims to renown in traditional Sicily', in J.G. Peristiany and J. Pitt-Rivers (eds.) Honor and Grace in Anthropology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 151-65. Gilmore, D.D. (1987) 'The Shame of Dishonor', in D.D. Gilmore (ed.) Honor and Shame and the Unity of the Mediterranean, Washington: American Anthropological Association, pp. 2-21. Goddard, V. (1987) 'Honour and shame: the control of women's sexuality and group identity in Naples', in P. Caplan (ed.) The Cultural Construction of Sexuality, London: Tavistock, pp. 166-92. Goody, J. (1983) The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marino, J. A. (1988) Pastoral Economics in the Kingdom of Naples, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Minicuci, M. (1986) 'Notes on the condition of women in a southern Italian village', in M. Gadant (ed.) Women of the Mediterranean, London: Zed, pp. 170-7. Minicuci, M. (1989) Qui e Altrove: Famiglie di Calabria e di Argentina, Milan: Franco Angeli.

Rustic Chivalry: Variations in Honour Ideologies in Italy

129

Ortner, S. (1978) 'The virgin and the state', Feminist Studies, 4, 19-33. Schneider, J. (1971) 'Of vigilance and virgins', Ethnology, 10, 1-24. Schneider, J. and P. Schneider (1976) Culture and Political Economy in Western Sicily, New York: Academic Press. Silverman, S. (1968) 'Agricultural organization, Social Structure and Values in Italy', American Anthropologist, 70, 1-20. Snowden, F.M. (1986) Violence and great estates in the south of Italy: Apulia, 1900-1922, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stirling, P. (1965) Turkish Village, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. White, C. (1980) Patrons and Partisans: A Study of Politics in Two Southern Italian Comuni, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

CHAPTER 7

Meanings, Myths and Mystifications: The Social Construction of Life Stories in Russia Ray Pahl and Paul Thompson INTRODUCTION

When we talk of rapid social change, what precisely - as Paul Stirling might ask - do we mean? How can history accelerate? Arguably, since the length of generations can grow or decline - depending on the variable average age of women's first pregnancy, then, as women conceive at a later age, and their children in turn live longer, so history will decelerate. But esoteric demographic modelling would not satisfy a social anthropologist seeking to understand what happens to men and women as the social structures and institutions that have hitherto provided meaning and order in their lives radically change. How do they create new systems of meaning and mental images to make sense of the new order and, simultaneously, how does the new order emerge from the changing forms of consciousness of the people concerned? And how do they relate these new ways of thinking and acting to their own earlier experiences and memories from the old system? An opportunity to explore this central puzzle, which has confronted sociologists for a century or so, was presented to us by the dramatic collapse of communist control in the Soviet Union. We planned our research in the early months of 1991, before the August coup but at a time when the society was in a state of confusion and uncertainty. People felt that the old order was collapsing and the arrival of a market society an inevitability. And, crucially, for the first time since the 1917 Revolution, many of them felt free to speak openly and uninhibitedly about their lives. We felt we had to seize the moment and we were fortunate in being able to organize the recording of a set of interviews, mostly of two members of different generations from the same family, now living in Leningrad (later St Petersburg) and Moscow.l We focused

Meanings, Myths and Mystifications

131

on four main social categories - manual workers, professionals and the intelligentsia, nomenklatura, and 'entrepreneurs'. Ideally, in each couple we hoped for a member from the older generation - that is born between about 1915 and 1945 - and from a 'middle' generation, born between 1945 and 1965. Owing to the unexpected financial restraints imposed on us, we were unable to get the full quota of respondents for which we planned, but we nevertheless gathered some highly illuminating detailed interviews, some of which lasted for up to three hours. A selection of these was transcribed and translated and what follows is based on our preliminary analysis of this selection. Neither of us was fluent in Russian, but all our Russian interviewers spoke good English. We held training seminars in Moscow and Leningrad to provide both an introduction to the practices and procedures that have been developed amongst oral historians and life-story sociologists, and to explain the thinking behind the long and complex interview guide. This was drawn up jointly between us and Dina Khapaeva, our Russian collaborator on the project. Our team of interviewers was made up of mature social scientists from a variety of backgrounds, including social anthropology and ethnography. The whole research operation from the initial planning to receiving the translated transcripts took less than a year: it would not have been possible without the immense dedication and enthusiasm of our Russian collaborators. Our purpose in interviewing was to gather a combination of synchronic (daily life 'as it was') and dynamic (the narrative life story, 'how it happened') ethnographic information. We were warned of particular difficulties in attempting to get this kind of detailed, personal information from people who might have residual or realistic fears about how such material might be used. Many Russians are particularly reluctant to say much about grandparents who may have been shot, exiled to Siberia, or both. There were many abrupt losses of memory in response to questions about grandfathers in particular. There was also a conventional way of presenting a politically correct narrative of their life stories which met the demands of the communist system. Our open, flexible and wide-ranging interview guide led to a style of questioning that some found threatening but others found liberating. Vignettes of childhood experience provided vivid insights into a world they are glad they have lost and which could not be adequately recorded at the time. One of our main concerns was an exploration of the transmission of cultural values between generations. How far, for example, did

132

When History Accelerates

pre-revolutionary values linger on in the privacy of family memories and traditions? How far could political changes and ideologies penetrate family life so that 'Russian' and 'Soviet' forms of consciousness fused into one and, likewise, how easily could such a putative fusion be unscrambled? These were heroic research objectives given the minuscule budget and the fact that our research collaborators were feeling their way with an unfamiliar research technique. In the event we were more than satisfied with the material that was gathered. Our material is exceptionally vivid and can at times be painful to read. The loss or disappearance of close family members, the sufferings and privations of the siege of Leningrad and the impact of de-kulakization, Stalin's purges and the Great Patriotic War are reflected in one form or another in all the interviews. The turbulent history of twentieth-century Russia might lead one to imagine an anomic, destabilized population quite unable to sustain any further acceleration of change. Many journalists, novelists and emigrd writers have offered such images; as have some social scientists, including 'sovietologists'. Yet, paradoxically, many interviews reflect great stillness and calm, often centred on the actual and symbolic importance of the grandmothers. There is a yearning for order, quiet and calm amongst many respondents and this is often found in simple domestic activities. Gathering berries in the forest, meeting with family members at home on festive occasions, the birth of a son or the securing of a tiny but private flat, the symbolic reassurance of domestic religious objects: all, in their different ways, provide immense satisfaction. There are detailed memories of life in wooden houses where every item of furniture is precisely remembered and the reassuring consistency with which familiar pieces of furniture and household equipment are kept in their places seems to provide a sense of security and continuity of identity, even though the scene being recalled is many years in the past. We have been well aware from the start of the dangers of interpreting these interviews literally. Such naive readings are unacceptable even when researchers and informants belong to the same national cultures. Between cultures the traps are sometimes (although certainly not always) less easy to spot. Although both of us have long-standing interests in Russian society, history and language, neither of us pretends to any specialist expertise in this field. Our principal qualification was the experience of other comparative research projects in France, Italy, Scandinavia and Brazil. There are undoubtedly advantages in the fresh eye of the outsider, but we knew that any interpretation had

Meanings, Myths and Mystifications

133

to be tempered by constant discussion with Russians and non-Russian specialists, and this has, indeed, been our strategy. Ultimately, our identification of what is significant here is founded on the interaction between our own instincts as social researchers and the richness of the interviews which our Russian colleagues were able to gather for us. Fortunately the thin thread of an individual's life story provides a continuity which has remarkable strength. If novelists had been free to write honestly under communism then, perhaps, we would have powerful rival interpretations. But in the absence, at least until very recently, of a critical Russian social science, all that is left is the people's own stories. They hold their nation's history in their heads: all official history is ideology. But what is in their heads has been so often filtered to please or to placate official controllers that it is hard to get through to a direct source. Because our method appeared unconventional to both interviewer and interviewee, we believe that we surprised people into saying things they did not believe anyone would find interesting but which often revealed much. The older respondents enjoyed thinking about their grandmothers, what naughty things they did as a child and how they were punished. They were pleased to give detailed accounts of their happy times. Of such episodes and memories a people's history of Russia in the twentieth century might be constructed: there is little else. METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS

Before turning to the interviews themselves, let us consider a little more fully some of the special problems that we encountered in working in this particular cross-cultural context. First of all, we experienced great difficulty in obtaining a suitable sample base. When we started we could find no reliable lists on which to base random sampling. Even published city telephone directories were non-existent. We asked our teams in both cities to work to a simple occupational quota which we had constructed, but there were often cross-cultural difficulties in interpreting this and in allocating particular interviews. This is because the structure of power in Soviet society was shaped as much by access to privileges as by direct occupational incomes. It was obvious that the Communist Party elite, the nomenklatura, needed to be a separate occupational category; so did the 'intelligentsia'. It was much less clear how far it might be important to take notice of such criteria at the lower occupational levels. For example, should people such as shop assistants and hairdressers, who

134

When History Accelerates

were believed to have crucial power in the informal economy, be put into a separate class of manual workers with network power? And more generally, how useful was occupation as a way of constructing a quota sample when the system was in transition? We clearly needed a sample which took account of people's dynamic paths rather than assuming a given level as a stable situation: but how could this be done before a life story was recorded? There were also worrying consequences from the interviewers' characteristically Russian instinct to find interviewees through their own personal social networks: we realized too late that many of them did not understand - or care about - the research principles underlying objective sampling, to the extent of being prepared to interview their own grandmothers, or close friends. We have no doubt that these pilot interviews are in no sense random. For example, bias in the sample very probably explains why we - like most recent journalists, it should be noted - found that almost all of our interviewees who have tried to become entrepreneurs during the current economic transition had worked earlier at some point within the Communist Party structures, although typically at a low level, such as a Consomol secretary. Such difficulties would be greatly reduced for similar research fieldwork now, just two years later. Subsequently we have been able to link the ongoing analysis of these initial interviews, and other transgenerational life-story work on the general population, with the sample used for the inter-Soviet comparative longitudinal cohort survey begun with 1984—5 school leavers (Semenova, 1992). Olga Yartseva, one of our Moscow team, has gone on to carry out more life-story interviews with Russian entrepreneurs, through a strategic sample (starting with the heads of key institutions or enterprises) that she is now analysing in conjunction with Alain Touraine and ourselves. A second sphere of difficulties was in the design of life-story interviews. Such work had not been previously attempted in Russia in any systematic way, although there were a number of very useful hints as to the difficulties from the experiences reported by Russian journalists who had worked on accounts of political repression and the gulag, and also from the oral history experiences of a group of enthusiastic but untrained students in Moscow, some of whom joined our interviewing team. Initially it was not clear whether it would be possible to carry out interviews in the broadly chronological framework that is normal in Western life-story work. Since one of the key techniques of political repression had been to discover among a potential victim's kin ancestors

Meanings, Myths and Mystifications

135

who had been politically on the wrong side, or landowners, kulaks or financiers, etc., our advisers feared that starting an interview by asking about grandparents was likely to be extremely intimidating and offputting. Fortunately, by the time we beganfieldworkthe atmosphere had become so much more optimistic that this did not prove in fact to be a problem. Another problem in this context arose from the fact that Western life-story researchers typically assume that informants are 'actors', who themselves make 'choices' which shape their subsequent life paths. Interviews thus tend to focus on their conscious reasoning at such 'turning points'. Indeed, one of the most important theoretical contributions of life-story research to the understanding of social change has been precisely to highlight the hidden dynamic which comes from the private decisions of individuals whether or not to marry, have children, travel for leisure, take a job, put their savings into an enterprise or a pension fund or a mortgage, move house, or migrate between districts or countries (Thompson, 1980). But the overwhelming view of the Russian interviewing team was that people were not so much 'actors' as 'victims'; and in the Russian context their assumptions are certainly understandable. Citizens of Western countries take for granted their freedom to change jobs or move from town to town, and they rarely worry about the chances of arbitrary arrest or imprisonment. They expect to remain in control of their lives throughout, and to die in their beds. In the former Soviet Union it was much more difficult even for dedicated Communist Party workers to feel such control over their own destinies. Travel was restricted and internal migration narrowly restricted by bureaucratic regulation, which also took the place of open labour and housing markets. Among ordinary workers the cocoon of community and workplace was rarely escapable, except in periods of severe dislocation such as war or famine. Many families lost key members - particularly men - in each generation, victims of international or civil war and political imprisonment. Paradoxically, it was above all in the families of those who suffered most, just because they had become marginal to the protective social system, that the most decisive individual choices can be seen to have changed life courses. Certainly the acceptance, at least tacitly, of conformity with the social system can be seen as a choice. But it is not what we have in mind when analysing change in the West, and the difference of perspective is a major shift. At a more detailed level some themes raised acute problems for the

136

When History Accelerates

design of questions. Thus the language in which issues concerning sex have been discussed is often imported from the West, so that questions using such words are typically interpreted as implying Western attitudes to sexual behaviour. Similarly, the language concerning the free market is again largely Western. This may be one reason why we found that so few interviewees showed any explicit concern for monetary values, preferring instead to speak in terms of careers and service. A third general problem was that of memory in the Russian context. The nature of memory is of course a fundamental question for any research based on retrospective interviews, and Western life-story sociologists and oral historians have become well aware of the nature of memory processes, of the typical tricks of memory such as displacement and telescoping, of problems such as repression and reinterpretation to make sense of the past in terms of the present, and equally, conversely, of how the 'subjectivity' inherent in in-depth interviews can become one of the interpretative strengths of the method (Portelli, 1991; cf. Thompson, 1988). Even thus warned, however, our first encounters with the peculiarities of the Russian situation were strange and in some respects disturbing. Here was a society in which, for seventy years, remembering had been dangerous. The less that people knew about you and your family story the better, because any information was a hostage to fortune. In a more politically comfortable society like Britain, telling stories about yourself is normal, the currency of everyday conversation as well as the essence of relationships between intimates. This has not been so in Russia. Irina Sherbakova, for example, found in her interviews with survivors of the gulag that many of them not only concealed their prison years from their own children, but even, if they married after their return from prison, from their own spouses (Sherbakova, 1992: 103-16). Such habits die slowly. We have been surprised to find, in our own visits to Russia, how little close colleagues are likely to know about each other's personal lives, even when they have spent weeks in intimate contact together on arduousfieldworktrips.2 The extent of such secrecy was brought home to us during a weekend out of Moscow with a young Russian friend. He was regarded by his colleagues as a man with little time for serious relationships with women. We had already set out for the railway station by metro when he announced that at the next station we would be meeting his girlfriend, whose existence he had kept completely secret - from us, from his colleagues, and from his parents with whom he still lived. Still

Meanings, Myths and Mystifications

137

more surprising was her story, recounted at length - and very movingly - during the three-hour train journey to a provincial town. She had been persuaded by her parents to marry a diplomat as a way of securing a safe and comfortable existence, and had gone with him to Cuba. While there the encounter with another culture had persuaded her that a marriage of convenience was insufficient: she wanted a marriage of love. So on her return to Moscow she left him, and when her parents refused to take her back, slept out on railway stations until they relented. Now she was looking for a relationship based in genuine love. But when asked whether it was unusual for Russian women of her generation to marry for convenience rather than love, she simply said that she had never discussed her experiences with anyone of her own age. Perhaps most seriously of all, the Moscow student group had encountered disturbing indications that in a situation in which not only was personal silence normal but, equally, few could trust the public versions of history as a context for recounting their own experiences, the subjective integrity of life stories, which is taken for granted in the Western context, was itself threatened. Thus a fieldwork trip interviewing survivors of the deliberately induced Kuban famine of 1933 had found that many informants, because they still could not understand their experiences or come to terms with the possibility that they had been deliberately reduced to starvation by their own government, seemed unable to recount coherent narratives of their experiences. Similarly, two expeditions had been made to interview in the city of Vladimir in different years. On the first occasion, in 1984, before glasnost had officially begun, it was still not publicly acknowledged that the ancient monastic walls on the hill above the railway station encircled one of Russia's prime political prisons. Most of those interviewed said that they had not known about the prison, and few said that they had had any direct contact with it. But on the group's return to Vladimir four years later, they found that some of the same people, re-interviewed, now claimed not only to have known about the prison all along, but in some cases to have worked or even to have been prisoners in it. While some of these new accounts seemed credible, others appeared from their manner to be adaptations from television broadcasts and newspaper reports, which had so impressed informants that they now genuinely believed them to be their own stories (Khubova et al.9 1990: 89-102). In the light of such reports, what trust would we be able to place in the authenticity of our own interviews? How far did these difficulties affect our pilot project? The most

138

When History Accelerates

obvious effect in the short term was our inability, because of the deficiencies of the sample base, to test our hypothesis that those of the younger generation who were adapting most readily to the new economic situation had had alternative family traditions, most likely in the grandparental generation, of entrepreneurial activity: as kulaks, shopkeepers, bankers and so on. In this respect the pilot itself was unrewarding, although subsequent research that has sprung from it is indeed proving very fruitful. In other respects the pilot interviews have proved rewarding even beyond our original hopes. We have chosen only a few of many possible themes in order to illustrate the richness of information on social patterns and changes that they convey. And our decision to interview two generations in the same family has brought especially valuable results, since it has enabled us to address in a new and illuminating way the issue of memory itself. THE POLITICS OF FORGETFULNESS

One of thefirstpoints that strikes a Western oral history/life-story reader is the number of informants who mention with regret the gaps in their knowledge of their family's story. This is as true of virtuous communists as of those outside the establishment. Thus Igor Smirnov (b. 1923), party political worker with the military like his father, remarked, 'We prefer not to talk about our relatives, who they are'. Igor did not know his maternal grandfather's occupation. And of his grandmother, with whom they lived when he was a child, and whom he greatly admires, he said My grandmother was brought up in a noble family, she was a well-bred person ... an educated person... Unfortunately she never told me sincerely about her life. Probably, she thought it useless or unimportant. She never told me about it. So I got my image of my grandmother's youth and life through my mother's stories, which were rather short ones (1991 interview 41: 7, 12). Similarly Valentin Alexandravich (b. 1933), whose parents were leading communists in Murmansk, knew nothing about his maternal grandparents even though his mother had been the subject of a biography as an exemplary pioneer heroine. I don't know the dates of their lives simply because nothing has survived about them and their youngest daughter (i.e. his mother) got no inheritance from them except for her mother's golden cross

Meanings, Myths and Mystifications

139

and marriage ring (1991 interview 11:9). In the joint photographs of his grandmother and grandfather, his grandfather's image had been deliberately cut out. Valentin only knows that he was in the military, like himself. So his image was cut away from all the pictures, ... but actually I can say nothing about it, because this issue was never discussed in our family. The civil war mixed people up and people were not ashamed of their relatives, they were simply afraid that... memories about them would cause troubles for the rest of the family. They were very afraid of it, and it was never discussed at home ... It was never discussed in our family. And because it had never been discussed, I suspected there was a mystery about their deaths, there had been certain events which my parents preferred not to tell me about (1991 interview 11: 10). For these families, secrecy was necessary about the grandparental generation. It was more difficult still when parents themselves had a questionable history. The father of Pyotr Andrienko (b. 1923) was a leading figure in his village in Siberia. He ran the village shop, and because he was literate people used to come to him to ask him to write something for them, applications for example. And he wrote these applications because his 'handwriting was rather good'. He also had begun (presumably in the early 1920s, the period of the New Economic Policy) to buy agricultural machinery and looms for use by the villagers. Before collectivization life was dynamic and they had a joint stock company ... They were wealthy people. Their storehouse had plenty of bread and they had a lot of cattle and they had their own houses. But then the family's fortunes changed drastically. As the collective farms appeared, everything was united and deprivatised. They took the cows and everything that one had in the household to create the collective farm's property (1991 interview 31:2,4,7). Eventually in 1931 they were evicted from their own home. They came with a cart, they took our things and they put us in the cart and we were driven to Ishin'. From here they were put on a train to another region. After an interval they were allowed to return to the village, but this time to live in a small cottage of 'daubed bricks' rather than their

140

When History Accelerates

fine wooden house. But the worst was yet to come. Three years later one of his brothers was briefly arrested, and his father was taken from them permanently. I don't know when he died, because he was arrested as an 'enemy of the people' ... and we have known nothing about him since it happened (1991 interview 31: 5-6, 8). All three sons fell to the level of skilled workers: two became machine servicers, while Pyotr himself started as a farm horseman. After being demobilized in Leningrad at the end of the war he became a skilled metalworker at the Kirovsky factory. He hated the factory at first - 'I felt mad and I had a din in my head' - and he was always aware that he had not matched up to his father's level. 'I have never been a master myself, I was a simple worker'. But equally, he always knew why; and he had to keep it a secret. I was not able to tell the truth about myself, because I had to fill in a questionnaire when I took the job at the factory. There were questions about your relatives: were they repressed or not? ... That made me very downcast. You could not tell people that your father was repressed and that he was an 'enemy of the people' ... My brothers tried to get educated, but they were not allowed to enter the institutes ... I didn't feel absolutely secure even with my job in the factory. Even now I don't feel secure. We were so put down, that even now I'm afraid of saying anything about it. And no doubt it is better to keep silent about it (1991 interview 31: 7, 13, 15). Perhaps Pyotr feels vindicated by the fact that both of his sons were able to get trained as professional engineers. One works for the Kirovsky factory. But the younger became director, in 1991, of a new small 'co-operative' enterprise. Even now, Pyotr feels suspicious and ambivalent about this return to family occupational tradition. In Pyotr's family the secrecy seems to have been maintained in public, but not in private. He has vivid recollections of the stories told by his father's father. It is also striking that the story-telling here was in the male line. He did not learn about the family tradition from his mother, although she was still there after his father's disappearance. On the contrary, when she started talking, he would not join the group: 'they used to get together, but we boys rushed away' (1991 interview 31:6). More commonly, however, the transmitters are grandmothers. This is partly simply because they were much more likely to be alive, and

Meanings, Myths and Mystifications

141

to play an active role in bringing up their grandchildren. But it may have also been because women felt more wish to talk about the family's past than men did; because the older generation had reached a point in their lives when transmission felt more important than secrecy; and because there is a special kind of intimacy between a grandparent-carer and child, because of the mixture of personal confidence and authority and physical gentleness that often comes with age. Thus Vladimir Ivanovic (b. 1949), a Petersburg mechanic, was largely brought up by his maternal grandmother while his mother, Antonina Petrovna (b. 1923), was at work as a laboratory assistant. Vladimir talked more often and more intimately as a child to his grandmother than to his mother, and often she would tell him 'tales of her life'. There are interesting differences between the stories which Antonina and Vladimir gave us. For example, Antonina said that her fifth sister died of pneumonia in 1943; but Vladimir knew better and said that 'she lost her bread card during the siege, and - well, she committed suicide'. Vladimir also knew that before Antonina's father became a medical assistant at a power station, the family had been village kulaks - perhaps combining medical practice with shopkeeping - and that they had escaped victimization because 'they were defended by the people ... I was told about it' (1991 interview 36: 5, 8; interview 6: 5,11). Antonina told us nothing of this at all: and she said that she had no memories of her grandparents. Her life story begins in her own infancy, after the Revolution; yet it is possible to get a glimpse of the family's pre-revolutionary history from her son, through what he had learned from his grandmother. There is a parallel pattern of transmission in the Birukov family. Ivan (b. 1926), a Petersburg fireman, describes his father Ermak as 'a peasant'. He worked as a team leader ... but he was not very satisfied with the collective farm's way of life. So he took a job as a miner. Ivan said that he had no memories of the collectivization, and that 'nobody told me anything about that time' (1991 interview 27: 6). But it was quite different for his son Vladimir (b. 1954), who became very close to his grandmother, and drew out her stories as a skilled oral historian might have done. We had a lot in common. She felt it because of my curiosity and my questions ... I was interested in everything and I asked her about

142

When History Accelerates

everything. And when a person is old and lonely it is probably nice to keep on being asked, 'How did you live? What kind of memories do you have about it?' ... She loved me the best, I think, among all her grandchildren (1991 interview 26: 10). Equally important, Vladimir used to spend his holidays 'as a little boy' with his grandparents in the village. This also gave him a chance to talk to others about his family: 'when I was in the village I talked to many people'. It is thus from Vladimir, rather than from Ivan, that we obtain the full story of Ermak. It emerges that he too had been a kulak, 'a strong and wealthy farmer', with 'a good household before the revolution... He had two horses and some cattle and sheep and geese'. He is described as 'severe ..., a very strong man and very tall ..., a very hard working master'. This puts a different perspective on his dissatisfaction with the collective farm. But - as Ivan also certainly knows, although he chose not to tell us - he returned to the village after working as a miner, and in 1940-3, according to Vladimir, he was village headman under the German occupation. He was arrested for this, imprisoned for more than ten years, and released only after Stalin's death. More puzzlingly, Vladimir maintains that his grandmother was the daughter of a Communist schoolteacher, while according to Ivan he had been a shoemaker, and 'a wealthy one'. Had he changed his profession? It seems a possibility; for on the one hand, she told Vladimir that her marriage to Ermak had been an arranged one; but on the other hand, according to Ivan, she 'was able to write quite well and she was good at counting and she read quite a lot'. Some things, however, even evaded Vladimir's searching boyhood enquiries. 'How did he manage to survive under German occupation? Well, people tell different stories' (1991 interview 26: 6-7). EDUCATION, WORK AND FAMILY VALUES

Family influences did not seem to be important for finding a job in the formal economy. The overwhelming impression we get from our interviews is of a highly credentialist society. 'Study, study, study', Vladimir Ivanovich (b. 1949) was told by his parents and this was echoed by what most of the others of his generation were told (1991 interview 36: 9). We were struck by the detailed memories many had of their anxieties about the grades they received at school and the crucial importance of their teachers who had full control over their passports to better jobs. It was here that parents' influence on their future career

Meanings, Myths and Mystifications

143

might be most felt. Igor Smirnov (b. 1961) explained: You see thefirstmark which I got was '3' for Russian. When I came home my parents asked me, 'What is your first mark? We think it is a '5',' but I had to answer, 'I got '3'.' But my parents did not show me affection. They said, 'It could happen like that, don't worry', but for me it was a rather unpleasant situation. I wanted my parents to be pleased with me (1991 interview 41: 17). Igor created a crisis for himself by taking a crib into his chemistry examination, even though he was well prepared and quite able to do well without it. When he took the crib out of his pocket his teacher saw him and prevented him from using it. I was terribly ashamed ... even now I still feel it as a shame. And when I meet her I feel ashamed in spite of her benevolence towards me. In general, if someone used the crib at the exam he had to be sent out of the class or, at best, he got a '3'. Everyone knew that to enter the military college I had to have only good marks and I had no '3' on my school-leaving certificate. And she had to give me a '3'. So I was very upset for two reasons:firstly,it was a shame to me to behave like that, secondly I didn't want to disappoint my parents ... Igor was in torment: he was not prepared to humiliate himself by begging, but nevertheless he went to the teacher when all the other pupils had left. She knew she should give him a '3' but as he had been a good pupil over the previous two years she decided to give him a '4'. Igor was greatly relieved. 'I gave her a huge bouquet of flowers and I thanked her' (1991 interview 41: 19). Such teachers clearly had immense power when one mark could make or break a career. Sometimes the rigidities of the system helped people. Vladimir Birukov was interested in science and physics and wanted to enter the craft college for radio electronics in Leningrad. He also had to pass a medical examination, but he failed this because of poor eyesight. However, he was told he could study electronics and high tech at the oddly-named Calculation and Credit College: Nobody knew what it meant in 1970. Well, we went there. And we realized that it's a very interesting profession to deal with computers. It was an absolutely new thing at that time and we were so amazed that there was no competition to enter it at all. I didn't pay any attention to this college ... because of its name

144

When History Accelerates

... And of course the majority of pupils in this college were from the provincial towns ... We passed our exams and we entered it without any problems. It was very easy to do (1991 interview 26: 21). Vladimir is now a chief accountant at a state factory and feels he was very fortunate in being taught rigorously about both computer hardware and software. Family connections certainly might inspire a choice of career, but if they were important in placing people in the occupational structure, we found little evidence for it in our interviews. Of course, once people had the qualifications to enter a particular industry or profession, then personal links could be important. Thus, in the early stages of one's career the gatekeeping role of teachers seemed crucial, and we feel further research is needed on this question. We need to know more about whether the meritocratic system of educational qualifications was supported by the Communist Party in practice as well as in theory. What happened to a teacher who gave low marks to a son or daughter of a senior Party official and how, if at all, has the situation changed? Has the coming of a more open society decreased the value of credentials and the esteem with which teachers are held? Has the bribing or influencing of educational gatekeepers increased or decreased? Has the shift to new curricula strengthened or undermined the older and more experienced teachers? This could be a delicate research area to explore and the life-story method could be a particularly apposite and revealing research tool. Few of our respondents had second jobs or worked in the so-called informal or underground economy, though many were very actively involved as family members in various kinds of self-provisioning work. Many had memories of building a wooden house, either in their own or a previous generation. Vladimir Ivanovich (b. 1949) was brought up in Koltushevo, a village near Leningrad, and he remembers the building of a new wooden house when he was nine. With the help of relatives, his parents paid people to put up the basic log structure, 'but when it was done we did the rest and everybody came to help us'. The new house had an independent hot water system rather than a centralized system. 'You take more care about it because it was done by you ... to improve it for yourself (1991 interview 36: 2-3).

Meanings, Myths and Mystifications

145

Antonina Petrovna (b. 1923), Vladimir's mother, was able to say how much they borrowed - 7,000 rubles - to build the house, which she felt she and her husband had built together. During that time her husband kept more of the family money with him than was normally the case, 'because he had a car at his job and he managed to get the material for the house ... all the stuff ... so he always had money with him' (1991 interview 37: 25). Antonina grew up with the experience of working in a household economy to such an extent that she wistfully remarked, 'actually we had no childhood or youth'. Her father was a medical assistant who worked 60 kilometres from home, so her mother looked after their children for most of the time. We had a kitchen garden there and so we had potatoes ... and we also had a shed where our hens and goats and pigs lived; and we had pigs and ducks and a cow later. The cow was mainly her mother's responsibility, although her father cut the grass for silage, helped by both her mother and her eldest sister. She and her younger sisters helped to dry the hay. 'All the holidays were spent mowing the grass'. There were only four cows in private hands in the village at that time and Antonina's gave 20 litres of milk a day. The cows in the collective farm gave only 6 litres. It was Antonina's job to take the milk around to their private customers in the village. Before she was called up in 1940 she had a job which started at 8 a.m., so the milking and the delivery round had to be done before then. The domestic economy was run by her mother: 'My father simply earned money but he was at his job all the day, so my mother was in charge of all the family's problems' (1991 interview 37: 5, 9-12). When Antonina married, her husband took over some of the work in her mother's kitchen garden: He managed the rabbits himself and he had about 100 rabbits so when Vova (her son, Vladimir) had his wedding he killed 10 rabbits. We arranged the wedding in the canteen of my institute ... They said they would provide us with a hall but not with a kitchen. So my eldest brother-in-law ... had a car,... so we cooked the meal at home and he carried it to the canteen (1991 interview 37: 23). This tradition of self-provisioning has continued through four genera-

146

When History Accelerates

tions. Her son Vova, his wife Natasha and their sons Kirill and Denis have taken over the work previously done by her mother and then by her husband, who died in 1982. Her grandson, Kirill, plays an increasingly important role in stacking the firewood and logs for the winter. The generations all work together: For example, yesterday I asked Kirill: 'Look the water in the cloches is finished but I need warm water to water the cucumbers'. And he was back in a minute and he said, 'Granny it is done: I put the water in the barrels'. Antonina was asked what were the most important things in life that she was able to hand on to her children and grandchildren. She replied: To my mind it is working hard ... for example this year Vova and Denis dug all the kitchen garden and cultivated the potatoes; and they have not allowed me to help them for three years now. But before that I spread the dung, Kirill the cinders, Denis dug the earth and Natasha put in the potatoes and Vova prepared the holes. So, we managed to cultivate the kitchen garden in two days (1991 interview 37: 25, 29). Within the confines of the family, work was organized and responsibilities shared. A household work strategy in the private sphere was generally co-ordinated by a dominant woman - mother or grandmother. Nevertheless the family patterns revealed by the interviews are very varied. Often this is vividly shown through the ethnographic detail which we collected on mealtimes. Two illustrations will suffice to suggest the range of the spectrum in terms of formal organization and simultaneously, of historical change. The father of Pyotr Andrienko (b. 1923) was, as we have seen, a prosperous kulak. He expected his wife to cook - mostly potatoes with butter, and schi (vegetable soup) - but 'my father did the shopping. He was master of the house and the chief person in our family. And he managed the household as well', controlling all the money. This was not a merely formal control which any man in his social position could have boasted: indeed he himself had been brought up in a home in which his mother 'kept all the money' to prevent his father, a thatcher, from wasting it on drink. And his dominance was well symbolized at the table. All the family had a meal together in the evening. There was only

Meanings, Myths and Mystifications

147

one big (wooden) plate on the table and only one big wooden spoon. Nobody was allowed to take a piece before my father took one - if somebody had done it, he would have been hit on his brow with the spoon. Only the parents spoke during the meal: if a child talked, 'he was hit with the spoon immediately' (1991 interview 31: 2-3). We may contrast this with the urban laxity of the childhood of Vladimir Birukov (b. 1954), son of an unskilled building worker living with his parents and two siblings in a single room in a Petersburg communal flat, sharing their common stove with three other families. They had neither time nor space for regular family mealtimes. I think that we did not have a common meal ... Firstly because there was no room to get together, the table wasn't big enough for five people to sit together. Secondly, everybody had a different routine ...; everybody came back at different times. The only exception was for rare special festive occasions (zastolie). These were conducted in an open and egalitarian style. Everybody sat at the table having a meal and talking and discussing all sorts of questions ... They talked to each other sharing their problems and worries ... Life was rather hard, so everybody had their worries ... They used to talk about their lives, who lived how ... Significantly, even the children were not only at the table, but encouraged to talk: 'of course. There were no restrictions on it' (1991 interview 26: 3-4). Our interviews contain equally vivid material on changes and continuities in the nature of marriage and gender roles and in economic attitudes. Sometimes the story recounts the rejection by the younger generation of older values; but sometimes family tradition is followed. Within the family, economic values are handed on more readily from generation to generation when there are material conditions over which family members have some control. Where there is private land on which a house can be built or where there is enough land to produce fruit, vegetables, eggs, and also perhaps milk and meat, there will be a focus for a kind of collective family endeavour. However rudimentary the dwelling or small the plot, generations will work together collectively and imaginatively to get the maximum possible benefits from it. Families without such resources are less likely to hold together and maintain continuity. Dependent on the fragile lottery of credentialism or

148

When History Accelerates

privileges related to political position, links with kin outside the nuclear family home weaken. Yet in spite of these obstacles, some urban families revealed remarkably powerful intergenerational transmissions of family myths and models. Thus Eugenia Ivanovna said that 'people lived in clans in the past', but her retrospective comment was almost exactly echoed by her son Vladimir's contemporary comment that 'our family is a very big one: one can almost say that it's a clan' (1991 interview 37: 6; interview 36: 31). IGOR AND FAMILY TRADITION

Igor Smirnov (b. 1961), now a party political worker and lecturer in a military college, was the only child of an army officer who also became a Communist Party official. Igor has modelled himself very closely on his father, and openly thanks him for the example he set him: 'I'm grateful to my father for it, and I try to imitate him'. He encouraged him to think of following him in his occupation, but not crudely. Father and son would go on clandestine visits to the military college. It seemed to me very romantic: this military college and the servicemen who wore uniforms and bore weapons. It influenced me as I was from the family of an officer ... When I was a nine- or ten-year-old schoolboy he talked to me a lot about his occupation. But he didn't force me to be a soldier in order to preserve the tradition of the profession through the generations. He explained to me about the interesting aspects of his job, and why he liked it, that there were the happy moments, as well as the difficult ones ... He made me interested in it... The most important thing about him is that he never makes a decision in a hurry. He is a very rational and very attentive person (1991 interview 41: 2, 11-2). For Igor, a well-run family should have precisely the same sense of calm order: 'the spirit of order'. We sought for order in our family. My father, my mother, and I, everyone was responsible for our life: everything was decided together. Everybody had the information about the situation, in order not to make a wrong decision. The bedrock of this order was in part his parents' marriage. He remembers his mother as 'warm', 'attentive', 'kind' and 'tactful',

Meanings, Myths and Mystifications

149

and never observed quarrels between her and his father. 'I felt safe because my parents were never cross with each other'. But an equally important figure was Igor's grandmother. Indeed in his early boyhood, while his father was still on active service and away from home for months at a time, Igor and his mother lived with his grandmother in the village where his parents had been born. They had an inherited family wooden house, although now they were only able to keep one floor for themselves; other families occupied the upper floor. Nevertheless, Igor remembers his grandmother's home as a place of secure calm. He was always disciplined with reason and gentleness, never shouted at or 'beaten or badly treated'. So deep, indeed, was his grandmother's influence that he believes that, in his early upbringing, the key figure was probably his grandmother rather than his mother. And her influence has left a permanent mark on him. I think it was my grandmother's way of life, that she put such order at home. Everyone knew their duties and rights, and everyone knew exactly what had to be done. Everything was definite. And I became a member of that order of things ... The most important features of that life were quietness and certainty about everything. I think it influenced my character a lot as well as my deeds. Even in my job I prefer not to hustle, not to make a quick decision, right or wrong: I try to think things over, to think quietly about everything and only after that to make a decision (1991 interview 41: 3, 10, 14, 34). Igor has strongly wanted to hand down this family tradition to yet another generation. He chose his wife Luba with the same careful caution. They met at a friend's birthday party: I realised very soon that she is a very reliable person whom I could ask for advice and whom I trusted. I felt safe with her and that was the most important and crucial thing for me. Then I began to watch how she would behave in different social situations ... After taking her to public occasions such as the theatre and to meet his friends, Igor found his impressions confirmed and in 1985 they married. For Igor, marriage should be built on 'a sense of common labour... The important thing is the spiritual harmony and identity of views ... We try to respect each other and to pay attention to each other. We do not quarrel about who is the chief person in the family... We try to give in if we quarrel' (1991 interview 41: 32-4).

150

When History Accelerates

And already the family torch is being handed down to their three-yearold son. Igor hopes as a father to inculcate in him a sense of ordered tidiness, and for the future, of public service: I want to help him to choose the right way in his life. But I wouldn't try to influence his choice of occupation. My father did the same for me... I want him to be able to solve any problem correctly. The most important thing for him should be not to betray his ideals and we will try to bring him up with the ideals that we ourselves live by (1991 interview 41: 11, 34). Igor reflects on their future relationship, allowing himself just once a thought which might be read as critical of this proud transgenerational family ideology. We are on rather good terms, and he is obedient to me and he understands me. But he is a mischievous boy. He does what he is told to do. But I am a serviceman and a commander and I'm used to the immediate execution of my orders. He can be nasty if he is not pleased with something. Maybe he has inherited from me the features which are typical of commanders. He gives orders to his friends in rather a sharp way: in a way which makes even adults look out (1991 interview 41: 11, 34). Russia's strong tradition of family solidarity, extending to a wide network of kin, has been systematically attacked by wars, purges, revolutions, collectivization, the opening-up of Siberia and much else which has scattered families and brought many of their members to premature death. Journalistic accounts of an atomized and anomic society seem superficially plausible. However, the power of Russian women, especially when coupled with the appropriate material conditions of modest private property, have defended a great resource on which the country might now draw for its future. In many interviews respondents remarked that someone had to work long hours to provide the necessary money. With money the family work strategy could be developed, for example, through the purchase of a log house, a cow or rabbits. The logic is precisely the same as that which one of us (Pahl, 1984) found in a detailed study of household work practices on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent: those with money and material support could engage in self-provisioning, improving their house, car or allotment. Those without employment in a rented flat were also debarred from doing alternative work outside employment. The contrast there was between

Meanings, Myths and Mystifications

151

work-rich and work-poor households. In Russia the equivalent contrast is between kin-rich and kin-poor households, and access to private land has offered one crucial shelter against the squalls of an unpredictable history that have given the Russian people such unstable and painful experiences during the twentieth century. Providing allotments for those without a private plot might be one of the best forms of social protection in the present rocky road to the market economy. RELIGION

It is a characteristic strength of life-story interviews in any society that they can open a window to the workings of the private sphere of life, as in these instances of the subtle complexities of changing family patterns of everyday life and relationships. This private sphere becomes even more important as an indicator of underlying currents of change in social attitudes in societies in which open discussion in the public sphere has been, if not completely obliterated, at least subject to pressures unknown in most Western countries. More sketchily, our interviews also include suggestive evidence on changing attitudes to religion from the 1920s to the present. These are of particular interest because religious belief and practice has been in twentieth-century Russia an important bridge between the private and public spheres: an opportunity to express social attitudes ranging from a dogged upholding of older attitudes to an enthusiastic embracing of commitment to new values. As we would expect, there are sharp differences between particular families: some handed down attenuated versions of Orthodox or Jewish traditions, while others became fully convinced atheists. Nevertheless, we can discern a typical pattern of change over the decades. Before the Communists began their systematic campaigning against religious belief and practice, religion was so embedded in the culture of everyday life that practice did not necessarily imply serious belief. The icons could hang on the wall without being a focus of controversy. Similarly, as a child in a Jewish family Anya Belenkaya (b. 1910) remembers her father as going regularly to synagogue, but on his return home smoking and eating lard: My father was not a very religious person. He liked to eat lard which is forbidden for Jewish people. And he smoked, which was also forbidden on a Saturday (the Sabbath).3 So, he was a secular person... He didn't believe in God and he was a merry one (1991 interview 15: 3,7).

152

When History Accelerates

With the launching of the government's attacks on religion, even such largely social religious practices became dangers: We were forced to think God didn't exist at all. We didn't visit the synagogue because we were ashamed of doing so. I hid the fact that I'm a Jewish woman. We remembered some Jewish holidays, but we didn't celebrate them openly, and we didn't go to synagogue. We went to the Jewish theatre - but that was closed down very soon. Anya has remained, in her family tradition, essentially agnostic: 'I don't know... Maybe life exists after death, maybe' (1991 interview 15: 15, 27). But her own direct experiences of persecution and discrimination forced her to an increasingly acute sense of her Jewishness and of the disadvantages that this brought. As a small child she had grown up in relative comfort. The family ran a village shop in Byelorussia, and lived in a new wooden house, helped by a nurse and cook. Although Anya's mother was illiterate, on her father's side the family had an intellectual tradition, previously rabbinical, but now left-wing. Three of her uncles and one of her aunts had emigrated to America after the failure of the 1905 Revolution: 'they were revolutionaries. They moved there to hide themselves'. Nevertheless, in the 1920s they lost both house and shop 'because we were lishenetz [deprived persons] ... we were deprived of it. We lost everything'. They moved to a nearby town where her father tried briefly to run a market stall before being reduced to unskilled factory work. Anya was forced 'to hide all the time during my studies that my father was lishenetz'. She was prohibited from joining the Pioneers with the rest of her age group:'it was very unpleasant'. Eventually she qualified as a nurse, but: I was only able to work for one winter there. I was thrown out, I was sacked from my job, because I was the daughter of a lishenetz. And they wrote in the newspaper that 'such a fat black-haired bad element tried to penetrate our ranks', etc. You understand they wrote about me in their newspaper and they sacked me from my job. There was a meeting about it, and all of them were doctors, all of them were former lishenetz. But nevertheless they excluded me (1991 interview 15: 2, 6-7, 10). As a result she decided to move to the relative anonymity of Moscow in 1931, where she eventually succeeded in retraining herself as a tram engineer. After a year she was able to arrange for her sister to follow

Meanings, Myths and Mystifications

153

her - 'I falsified her documents' - and after that her parents. Anya married, and after the war had two children and rose to the level of chief engineer with the city's tramways. 'I hid my biography'. But in the war her husband was deported as a Jew and spent four years in a German concentration camp in Ukraine: years about which she said nothing at all in her interview with us, probably because of the intolerable suffering which they had brought. (We know of them through her granddaughter's interview.) Her father escaped such dangers, for he was already dead. He was never able to accommodate to the new indignities of being Jewish. They were badly suppressed, they were able to get nothing... We were very poor at that time. My father took a job at the factory as a cleaner... Everything was frozen up in winter. He had to clean lavatories and he came home very upset and unhappy (1991 interview 15: 11,13,17). In 1938 he finally threw himself under a train. In a much more muted form a similar questioning of their practices was forced on the majority of city families whose Christian religious traditions were Russian Orthodox. Eugenia Ivanovna (b. 1925), daughter of a divorced mother who worked long hours as a washerwoman, lived with her aunt and uncle in a two-room Leningradflatthat was dominated by the 'huge iconstasis' in a corner of the living room. The icons ... were framed with silver and a little lamp was hung under them. And my uncle used to complain and blame my aunt: 'You are a backward woman. These icons have to be thrown away. Let us throw them away.' Eventually the aunt conceded. She did not throw the icons away, but she hid them in the locked attic. But the result did little to lessen her beliefs. So she took these icons away. And the next day it happened - she lost our five food cards. She came home very upset and she worried about it and she began to cry. We tried to do our best to calm her down. She said that she was punished by God for throwing these icons away, and she went up to the attic, and she brought the icons back home. My uncle kept silent. He said nothing about it. But we lived very unfortunately during that month (1991 interview 35: 3). In yet other families there were traditions of outright hostility to religion which fitted the new atmosphere much more easily. Ivan Birukov (b. 1926) was the son of an independent-minded peasant in

154

When History Accelerates

the Kursky region, who later moved to become a miner. Ivan ended up in Leningrad through being demobilized there, and worked as an unskilled building labourer. He never had any time for religion at all: 'we hated the priest ... I held it in contempt'. He says nothing about the attitudes of his mother, to whom he does not seem to have been close; in his story the emphasis is on his father, 'the master of the house' (1991 interview 27: 12, 14). Perhaps she kept her religious views quiet from her husband and son. But she did pass some hints of them to her grandson Alexis (b. 1954), who was very close to her: she showed him the icons she had kept, told him * everything about holy days', and gave him an old copy of the bible (1991 interview 26: 14). If the militantly atheistic Ivan knew that she had, and cared about, icons or bibles, he certainly did not choose to mention it. The rapidity with which the anti-religious campaign took effect is suggested by the fact that even among this generation there were already some families entirely cut off from religious practice. Antonina Petrovna (b. 1923) was the daughter of a power station doctor, who followed her father into medical work, and also into active Communist Party membership. She says that she has only been into a church three times in her life. The first was for her own baptism, which we may speculate was carried out without her father's knowledge (Stoeva, 1993: 181-90). The second was in 1970, for the burial service which her own mother had requested, although apparently absorbing nothing of this belief herself. Her attitude to the current religious revival seems indiscriminatingly ill-informed; she maintains her own atheism, but is happy to go with colleagues to a church ceremony celebrating the return of various holy relics, and she thinks that the revival as a whole is 'rather good' because it may help to 'create the discipline' which the country needs (1991 interview 37: 34). The evidence of the younger generation certainly confirms the general effectiveness of the campaign in the cities, in that few of them have anything to say about religion at all. Their interviews generally convey wholly secular lives. The exceptions, paradoxically, are precisely those who were socialized as dogmatic atheists. Valentin Alexandrovich (b. 1933) is, like his father, a professional engineer. He grew up in Murmansk where, as we have seen, his mother was adulated as a Communist pioneer. His dislike of religion goes back as far as he can remember.

Meanings, Myths and Mystifications

155

You see I was brought up as an atheist from my early childhood... My favourite book is We Are from Igarka [a propagandist novel], and when I read about these people and about their life I'm absolutely sure that God doesn't exist. You see the point? Children play their games and study in school -... the children of exiled people and children of NKVD [security police] people were studying together. And they play all together and one day they come down the hill and they see there the dead bodies of the shot people, who were not buried because it was too difficult to dig the frozen earth there; and one boy says, 'My father is one of them, probably he is lying here'. And he turns back and goes away after that. Does God exist if such things could happen? Valentin continues to regard religion as 'a way to blind or to support feeble people. I don't need that. And I have not much time to live'. In the same spirit, he is totally sceptical of the current revival: 'all that they are saying is lies, because the priests behave like actors on TV.. The priests are spouting banalities. It is a waste of time' (1991 interview 11: 26) Igor Smirnov (b. 1961) also comes, as we have seen, from a dedicated Communist family; both he and his father have been Party political workers with the military. In contrast to Valentin, however, his attitude to religion is pragmatic. I used to think from my school years that religion is the opium of the people and I was not interested in it. What does it mean and what are they doing in churches? So I used to think of it in a rather negative way: that its main goal is to mislead and make people accept living in poverty (1991 interview 41: 30). He began to question this simple condemnation when he discovered that the clergy had played a positive role during the 'Great Patriotic War'. He has gradually come to think that, although religious belief is misfounded, the clergy and the churches have a useful social role to play in contemporary Russia. One has to look carefully, what does the church preach, and whether it preaches kindness and charity... People want to believe in something and if they don't believe in the Communist Party and don't believe in the state, they will believe in God... But what is it that a man really believes in? Maybe he doesn't believe in God, but he believes rather in general ideas of common equality, friendship, benevolence and charity: he is a kind person who wants

156

When History Accelerates

other people to be kind as well. Maybe it is an essential thing about faith - to be kind and attentive to other people? And the rites and cults are only a part of it, so there is no need to be sharp about that. Igor suggests that one of the strengths of the church before the period of persecution was the parochial system which brought a human 'chain' of personal contact and sympathy mixed with moral and ideological advice. And he sees the clergy as having an important contemporary role in helping people through difficult times. The church and the service which I have seen were interesting for me to watch. People are turning back to religion now, because they see all the problems of our society, the tension and the poverty, which makes them angry. There are fewer smiling faces in the streets, people are less kind and have less compassion for each other. Everybody has become cautious, unsociable. And people can see the difference between the wider society and the church, where one can come to share personal problems and get advice. The priest is ready to listen to you and he provides you with a chance for you to tell what you want to, and he gives some quiet advice. Attention like that is attractive. We have a lot to learn from the priests (1991 interview 41: 30-1). As his full life story makes clear, Igor has no interest in religion as an alternative world view of the meaning of human life. He has no concept of the divine, or even of the supernatural. His family tradition and effective socialization have left no space for such perceptions. For Igor today it is simply that he has come to interpret the methods and practices of Russian Orthodox Christianity as parallel to his own activities, as a form of primitive social communism. CONCLUSION: BETWEEN CULTURES, A LIVING HISTORY

We have been able to give no more than a brief foretaste of the richness of the data that these pilot interviews offer, and the subtlety of interpretation which they allow. We feel that our attempt as non-specialists to work directly with Russian fieldworkers, rather than through the mediation of an English sovietologist, has been well justified: it seems clear that there were gains as well as losses in our naivety. So where now? So far, for reasons which we do not understand, our hopes have remained unfulfilled and British funding has not

Meanings, Myths and Mystifications

157

been forthcoming for our main research, despite the widespread enthusiasm which our proposal evoked. How was this? Paradoxically, the cross-cultural feature of the research context which initially we failed to notice, and which appears to have defeated us, was the extent to which 'soviet' ways of working have permeated the establishment of British sovietologists. After its initial stage the Research Council's 'initiative' committee came increasingly under the guidance of 'old soviet hands', and its procedures for distributing funds became increasingly mysterious, even to some of its own members. Communication between ourselves as applicants and the organizers of the 'initiative' was also mostly oral and very sparse. We never succeeded in grasping the procedures after the initial call. In short, despite surviving the potential cross-cultural pitfalls of Moscow and Petersburg, we have proved too naive to handle the culture of post-glasnost academic process in Britain.4 Thus ironically, while qualitative sociological research barely exists in the former Soviet Union and as a result the younger generation of social researchers is particularly keen to learn its methods rather than to continue with the survey approach that was typical of Soviet sociology, the main obstacle to the participation of British social researchers in this process now comes from within Britain itself. But this was not the only rebuff. Even our pilot was not allowed to proceed as such: we were told to hold workshops instead. And for the British workshop we were placed in a humiliating position as hosts, from which we were only rescued by French chivalry. The course of our research and the difficulties imposed on it are fully described in our End of Award Report to the Economic and Social Research Council.5 No mention of our work has so far appeared in the formal reports of the overall research programme, which we interpret as a kind of calculated amnesia.6 Paul Stirling would, we believe, have particularly enjoyed the cross-cultural irony of being prevented from researching in his chosen field through the infiltration of its culture into the thinking of his own compatriots: and he would have chosen to take on the challenge with redoubled vigour. While it may no longer be possible to study soviet cultures in Russia through participant observation, there remain interesting subcultures in the West surviving from the hegemonic era of Stalinism. This is a final way in which, because of the perpetual tendency of the student of a culture to internalize this culture as part of the process of understanding, the fresh naivety of the outsider can bring its own

158

When History

Accelerates

cross-cultural insights. There is a serious danger that the obsession with the grand survey that has afflicted, but fortunately not totally monopolized, social research in the West since the 1940s, will be imposed on Russia, alongside the 'free market', at just the moment of social flux when more sensitive methods are at their most effective. Paul Stirling has had a lifelong distaste for this Western model of research. Rather than joining the heroic masses and pioneers digging the White Sea Canal, he would always choose to use his own spade in a village ditch. NOTES

1 In each city the aim was to interview a quota sample of 20 families, interviewing two generations in each family. The first interviews were to be with the middle-generation informants, born 1945-65, who were to be divided equally between the following four occupational groups: first, manual workers (ranging from skilled workers to migrant workers without residence permits); second, professionals and intelligentsia (including both specialists and lower employees); third, nomenklatura (including the military, but not industrial managers); fourth, 'entrepreneurs' (ranging from Communist Party industrial managers and service sector managers to new independents working in market activities). The overall aim was a balance of 10 men and 10 women. We anticipated that a third should be divorced or separated from their spouses. The older generation would be the parents of these informants, born c. 1915-45. Where possible, the sex should be opposite to that of the middle-generation informant. Where no parent could be interviewed, a parent-in-law or aunt or uncle was also acceptable. It has only been possible for us to carry out this work and to begin analysing the results with the help of many people. Our first and most fundamental thanks are to the 46 Russian men and women who told us their life stories for the pilot stage of the research, and to our teams of interviewers in Leningrad and Moscow. The Leningrad team, led by Dina Khapaeva, were Alexis Bocharov, Natalia Grishina and Olga Mihaluk. We are also indebted to Dr Josef Gourvich of the Hertzen State Pedagogical University in St Petersburg who provided us with the shortlist of applicants from which this team was selected and trained. The Moscow team was led by Jonathan Cohen of Christ Church College, Oxford, and chosen with the help of Irina Sherbakova and Dasha Khubova of the Oral History Centre at the Humanities University, Moscow (previously the Moscow State Institute for History and Archives); they were Katya Makarova, Olga Yartseva, Dasha Khubova, Tonia Sharova and Ilya Reznikova. Single interviews in Moscow were also carried out by Yana Pisarevskaya, Irina Stavitskaya and Aleksei Lerer. We are also

Meanings, Myths and Mystifications

2 3 4

5 6

159

particularly grateful for the hospitality given to us during our visits by Andrei Ivankiev and his parents Vassilye and Nellye, Dasha Khubova and Ivan, Tamara and Lena Mairovna, Josef Gourvich and Rafael Khapaev. We are grateful to the British Council for funding the travel through which we made our initial contacts in Moscow. Within the framework of its 'East-West Initiative', the Economic and Social Research Council awarded a grant that allowed us to carry out our pilot project in the form of training workshops in Leningrad, Moscow and at the University of Essex. When funding from the Research Council was inexplicably reduced and then terminated, we were generously rescued through the help of Daniel Bertaux and the Centre National de Recherches Sociales (CNRS), who paid for the travel of a group of Russian participants to our East European Life Stories workshop in November 1991, and have subsequently made possible the analysis of the material we have collected through inviting Russian colleagues to Paris and enabling us to hold research meetings with them there. During the period of this research we should wish to single out the special help, humour and encouragement which we have received from three people: Any a Zelkina, with whom Paul Thompson relearned his Russian, which had been dormant for over thirty years; Jonathan Cohen, our personal link with Moscow; and Dina Khapaeva, who not only co-ordinated the Leningradfieldwork,but also spent six months at the University of Kent creating English versions of selected interviews to be available for general use by scholars in the field (copies are now held by the co-ordinator Dr George Kolankiewicz (Department of Sociology, University of Essex) of the East-West Initiative). Dina's sheer energy, intellectual passion, and capacity for shouting when we got stuck in the tramlines made this an exceptionally stimulating research experience. Almost the only work to deal with such issues is Vladimir Shlapentokh (1989: ch. 7); cf. the statistical aridities, which convey no sense of the real changes taking place since the mid-1980s, of David Lane (1990: ch. 5). The two words are identical in Russian. We have become so fascinated by this Western sovietological culture in its own right that we have begun a small oral history project on 'Western intellectuals and the responses to change in the former Soviet Union', which we hope to publish separately. 'Family and cultural influences on economic adaptability: Britain and the USSR': Y309 26 3003. It is true that our names can be found on an 'intellectual map' appended to one of the Reports: this provided us with an eerie reminder of the sad monuments to soviet heroes, some subsequently purged from the 'official' historical textbooks, which ring the walls of the Kremlin in Moscow.

REFERENCES

Khubova, D., A. Ivankiev and T. Sharova (1990) 'After glasnost: oral history

160

When History

Accelerates

in the Soviet Union', in L. Passerini (ed.) Memory and Totalitarianism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 89-101. Lane, D. (1990) Soviet Society under Perestroika, Boston: Unwin Hyman. Pahl, R.E. (1984) Divisions of Labour, Oxford: Blackwell. Passerini, L. (ed.) (1992) Memory and Totalitarianism: International Yearbook of Oral History and Life Stories, vol. 1, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Portelli, A. (1991) The Death ofLuigi Trastulli and Other Stories, Albany: State University of New York Press. Semenova, V. (1992) 'Socio-economic crisis in the life experience of Russian families, past and present', paper presented to workshop, Latky, Czechoslovakia, August 1992. Shlapentokh, V. (1989) Public and Private Life of the Soviet People: Changing Values in Post-Stalin Russia, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sherbakova, I. (1992) 'The Gulag in Memory', in L. Passerini (ed.) Memory and Totalitarianism, vol. 1, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 103-16. Stoeva, V. (1993) 'Kichuk Paris: a Bulgarian family story', in D. Bertaux and P. Thompson (eds.) Between Generations: Family Models, Myths and Memories; International Yearbook of Oral History and Life Stories, vol. 2, Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 181-9. Thompson, P. (1980) 'Des recits de vie a 1'analyse du changement social', Cahiers international de sociologie, 69, 249-68. Thompson, P. (1988) The Voice of the Past, rev. edn, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CHAPTER 8

'And Who Now Plans Its Future?9: Land in South Africa after Apartheid Henry Bernstein The main battle in imperialism is over land, of course... who owned the land, who had the right to settle and work on it, who kept it going, who won it back, and who now plans its future... (Said 1993: xiii). The control of land is a central thread throughout the history of white domination in South Africa, and remains - on the immediate eve of the demise of apartheid (as this is written) - one of its principal foundations. Seizure and control of land were key to the virtual monopolization of the resources and institutions of agricultural production by white farmers, and to the coercive formation of a black working class (in mining and agriculture, manufacturing industry and urban services) in conditions of extreme national oppression. All this is widely recognized, but analysing and acting on the legacies of this long history are not so straightforward, not least in the circumstances of a negotiated 'transition' from apartheid that few had anticipated before February 1990 (when Nelson Mandela was released from prison and the African National Congress (ANC) and other opposition organizations unbanned). This is a short essay on a large theme with more than its share of complexities, of contentious - and contested - issues of causality, of continuity and discontinuity, of structure and agency. I have limited its focus to the question of land in restructuring relations of agrarian property and production, rather than try to encompass struggles over land that are as central to the history and future of the cities as of the countryside. Even so, the aim here is to provide a broad framework and an argument, not to engage with the detail of history and ethnography, nor to explore the intense debates of the literature, both academic and political. In short, I try to present a case that those unfamiliar with South

162

When History Accelerates

Africa will find accessible; the cognoscenti, as always, will be able to seize on its elisions and implicit preferences. A STARTING POINT

In an article published in 1971, the historian Stanley Trapido considered * South Africa in a comparative study of industrialization'. Trapido compared South Africa with imperial Germany in its development of capitalist agriculture through coercive labour regimes, with the ante-bellum US South in the centrality of a single export commodity to capital accumulation (respectively gold and cotton), and with tsarist Russia in the use of state-controlled labour migration to supply workers to mines and factories. The 'union of gold and maize' in South Africa provides another analogy with imperial Germany (Trapido cites Gerschenkron 1943 on Prussia's 'marriage of iron and rye', although Gerschenkron in fact refers to the 'compromise between iron and rye', my emphasis). Repressive labour regimes are common to early capitalist development, to those processes and periods that Karl Marx (1976) termed primitive or primary accumulation. They can also be used to distinguish the sociological correlates of particular paths of transition to capitalism, as in Lenin's (1973) well-known distinction between the Prussian and American paths (extended in a remarkable comparative analysis by Byres (1991)). The usual expectation, noted by Trapido, is that labour-repressive, low-wage regimes of accumulation backed by authoritarian states give way to a 'normal' pattern of evolution of capitalism: as productivity rises so do wages, trade unions are effective and the working class is incorporated in political society, there is public provision of health care, education, housing, and so on. Trapido's argument - highlighted by his principally nineteenthcentury cases of comparison - was that South Africa in the twentieth century had not made this transition. Its relatively advanced capitalism was constructed through the persistent labour repression at the core of its encompassing 'racial order', to use Greenberg's term: a society in which 'racial differences are formalized and socially pervasive' (Greenberg, 1980: 29). Despite the development of manufacturing industry, and of conditions of profitability and accumulation that would have allowed the payment of higher wages to a more skilled black working class, in 1970 the real wages of black workers were at the same level as in 1910, and South Africa 'had not incorporated the major part of its working class into its social and political institutions' (Trapido, 1971: 313).

'And Who Now Plans Its Future?'

163

The explanation of this trajectory is as much political as economic: it was shaped by the state established by the Act of Union in 1910 and under the continuous control of the National Party (NP) from 1948 to 1994, more than half its lifetime. The social base of the NP in 1948 united commercial agriculture 'which could not survive without subsidies, loans, and cheap, immobilized labour' (ibid.: 317), a class of white wage-earners dependent on the industrial colour bar for its job security and levels of income, and the emergent business groups (infinanceand commerce) of the Afrikaner nationalist elite. The assumption and expansion of state power by the NP to construct and operate apartheid after 1948, to protect the interests of white farmers and employees and to promote the accumulation of capital by Afrikaner enterprises, entailed the consolidation and refinement of systematic labour repression justified in the name of 'separate development'. Trapido's brief but seminal article indicated particular sets of connections between capitalism and apartheid, between the social categories of class and race, between economic and political processes. These connections are at the core of both Marxist (e.g. Wolpe, 1988) and liberal (e.g. Lipton, 1986) analyses of South Africa, and their confrontations. Significantly, if there was a polemical intention in Trapido's article, it was directed against the 'economic determinism' of those liberals who believed that the imperatives of industrial capitalism would necessarily dissolve the 'irrationality' of (institutionalized) 'colour prejudice'. This belief, of course, resonates wider notions of modernity and modernization that bracket rationality with universalism, irrationality with particularism and ascribed status. Trapido's article is also a useful starting point because of the historical moment at which it was written. In 1970 South Africa was at the zenith of its postwar economic boom and the comprehensive social engineering of 'grand' apartheid, both associated with the successful repression of popular resistance. This was soon to change rapidly in an acceleration of history marked by the rise of the independent black trade union movement from 1973 (Friedman, 1987; Maree, 1987; Baskin, 1991) by the systemic shock of Soweto in 1976 and its ramifications, and by the accumulating and massive urban defiance of the 1980s (M. Murray, 1987; A. Marx, 1992), in circumstances of increasingly widespread economic recession (Gelb, 1991), the fragmentation of the original social base of the regime, and a series of ultimately futile attempts to reform apartheid (Schrire, 1992).

164

When History Accelerates

APARTHEID, LAND AND POPULATION

The Natives Land Act of 1913 demarcated and assigned 7 per cent of the land of South Africa to 'Native Reserves'. The Land Act of 1936 doubled this allocation, but has not been fully implemented until now. The Land Acts connected with a mass of legislation over the decades, specifying and amending the conditions on which blacks could work and reside in 'white' South Africa. This reached its climax with the social and spatial engineering of 'grand' apartheid when the Reserves became ten 'homelands' (in official discourse) or 'bantustans' (to opponents of apartheid) - the territories of African citizenship as well as 'separate development'. Four bantustans became 'independent' Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei - but their 'independence' was recognized only by the Republic of South Africa. Land and population could not be more intimately or explicitly connected than in the demographic politics of a racial order that assigned everyone to one of four 'population groups': African (previously 'Bantu', before that 'Native'), Coloured, Indian, and White, each with its own reserved areas of residence and 'rights', and further classified Africans by a number of 'nationalities', each to its own 'homeland'. Table 8.1 gives data for the growth of population groups between 1911 and 2010 (projected) as background, and Table 8.2 gives the distribution of African population from a reworking of 1980 census data. The main point of Table 8.2 is the underestimation of 'urbanization' in the bantustans by the 1980 Population Census. It gave afigureof 7.4m African urban inhabitants (34 per cent of total African population), being the sum of non-bantustan and bantustan urban as defined by residence in 'proclaimed' (i.e. gazetted) townships. To this de Villiers Graaf added 'peri-urban populations (those dependent on commuting to proclaimed towns for employment) and semi-urban concentrations (settlements of 5,000 or more people)' (Hindson, 1991: 237), to give an African urban population of 12.2m (56 per cent of total African population). The underestimation by census categories gives the false impression that the majority of bantustan residents are rural and supported by farming. Unfortunately, data are not available to update the figures given in Table 8.2, but if we compare an estimated bantustan population of 14m in 1990 (Bundy, 1992: 25) with total African population of 28.3m in that year (Table 8.1), this suggests an apparent decline in the proportion of total African population in the bantustans from 54 per cent in 1980 to 50 per cent in 1990: a 'loss' of over half a million people from the bantustans, had their proportion of total African population remained

165

'And Who Now Plans Its Future?'

Table 8.1 Population of South Africa (by population groups), 1911-2010 Africans Coloureds Indians Whites (Number in millions with percentage of total in brackets) 1911 1936 1960 1980 1990 2000 2010

4.0 (67) 6.6 (69) 10.9 (68) 20.8 (72) 28.3 (75) 37.3 (78.4) 48.5 (81.2)

0.5 (9) 0.8 (8) 1.5 (9) 2.6 (9) 3.2 (8.5) 3.8 (7.9) 4.2 (7.0)

0.2 (3) 0.2 (2) 0.5 (3) 0.8 (3) 1.0(3) 1.1 (2.4) 1.2 (2)

1.3 (21) 2.0 (21) 3.1 (19) 4.5 (16) 5.1 (13.5) 5.4(11.3) 5.8 (9.7)

Sources: For census years 1911-1980, Lipton (1986: 400). For 1990, 2000 and 2010 (projections), adaptedfromRSA (1992: 17). Table 8.2 The distribution of Africans by region, 1980

Non-bantustans Total Urban Rural Bantustans Total Urban Peri-urban Semi-urban Rural RSA Total Urban Rural

Number

%RSA

9 916 700 5 606 700 4 310 000

46 26 20

11818 310 1 809 151 1 747 934 3 011602 5 249 623

54 8 8 14 24

21 735 010 12 175 387 9 559 623

100 56 44

% bantustans

100 15 15 26 44

RSA = Republic of South Africa Source: Adapted from Hindson (1991: 238), following de Villiers Graaf (1985). constant. These figures are very rough indeed, but are consistent with a strong impression of urban migration from bantustans to 'white' South Africa in the 1980s, for example, from the Transkei to Cape Town. Other large-scale urban migration that does not cross the 'border' would not be included in this mode of accounting, for example, from rural KwaZulu to the massive townships of metropolitan Durban which are

166

When History Accelerates

technically within KwaZulu territory and under its administration. It was, of course, permanent African urbanization in 'white' South Africa that was a principal preoccupation of the NP Government elected in 1948. At that time manufacturing industry was expanding rapidly, fuelled by substantial state investment in capital goods production from the early 1930s, by protectionist measures, the stimulation of wartime production, and a postwar influx of foreign capital. With this industrial expansion and its demands for labour, the African urban population in 'white' South Africa doubled between 1936 and 1951 (from 1.1 to 2.3 million) when it exceeded the white urban population for the first time. The number of black workers in manufacturing industry increased by 115,000 during the war years. A central purpose of 'grand' apartheid in its heyday in the 1950s and 1960s was to use African workers in urban industry on the pattern established by the mining economy since the 1880s, that is, as labour migrants who periodically - and finally return to their 'reserves' (now 'homelands'). Many of the best-known and most notorious instruments of apartheid were directed to this purpose: preventing the formation of a stable African working class and urban population, and regulating the distribution of African labour between white farms, the mines, and urban sectors (manufacturing, services). The instruments included the institution of labour bureaux and urban 'influx controls', the extension of the pass laws and periodic intensification of their enforcement, the constitution of the 'homelands', and the forced removal of some three and a half million Africans from 'white' South Africa to the bantustans between 1960 and 1983.J The main point is that the inability of the state, despite all the measures of repression it employed (combined with limited 'reforms' in the 1970s and 1980s), to regulate black urban migration and residence, and to defeat urban resistance, is the most fundamental element in the historic failure of apartheid. Militant opposition to (variously) pass laws, residential segregation, the inferior standards and high costs of services (transport, health, housing), 'Bantu' education, the structures (and personnel) of apartheid local government and policing in the townships, was widespread in the 1950s, before being crushed in the 1960s after the Sharpeville massacre and the banning of opposition organizations. Opposition revived with Soweto in 1976 and then receded after its repression, only to re-emerge quickly in the 1980s when its energies were collected within the United Democratic Front (founded in 1983) and combined with those of the independent trade

'And Who Now Plans Its Future?'

167

union federation COSATU (Congress of South African Trade Unions) (founded in 1985). 'Struggle for the city' (in the striking phrase of Cooper (1983)) over the spatial dimensions of residence, services, employment, and the reform of municipal government, its tax base and expenditure - is one arena of the land questions bequeathed by apartheid.2 The other major terrains of apartheid geography are the 'white' countryside mapped by the Land Acts, and the bantustans shaped by apartheid over the last 45 years. Here land questions link more directly to agrarian questions of restructuring relations of property and production in farming. WHITE AGRICULTURE AT THE END OF APARTHEID

The Land Act of 1913 was the occasion of a wave of removals (not the first nor last) of Africans from 'white' land, graphically described at the time by the black intellectual Sol Plaatje (Willan, 1984: 159-67). The Land Act also destroyed a class of independent and energetic black commercial farmers that had developed over the previous half-century (Bundy, 1979). However, large numbers of blacks remained on white farms as sharecroppers and 'squatters' to endure a protracted and uneven transition via labour tenancy to coercive wage-labour regimes. Many white farmers, while expelling 'squatters' as they extended the commercialization of their land, needed to retain a resident force of 'cheap, immobilized labour' and to augment it with seasonal migrant workers from the reserves. Farmers had to compete with the mining companies which had a long established, centralized system of labour recruitment; farmers also experienced an erosion of their resident labour force when alternative opportunities became available through the expansion of manufacturing and other urban employment (as noted earlier).3 White farmers were a central element of the National Party elected to government in 1948, and ensured its commitment to resolving their labour 'problem' (O'Meara, 1983). The district labour bureaux established in white farming areas were as concerned with 'efflux' control as the white municipal administrations charged with 'influx control', and as interested in the efficient recruitment of labour migrants - and enforcement of their contracts - as the Chamber of Mines in its domain (Greenberg, 1980: chs 4, 5; Lipton, 1986: ch. 4; Posel, 1991). In the 1950s and 1960s farm labour shortages were also relieved by the use of prison labour (First, 1959; Wilson, 1971: 145-7), and then from the 1970s by the increasing mechanization of harvesting as well

168

When History Accelerates

as cultivation in the extensive maize lands of the Transvaal and Orange Free State highveld (de Klerk, 1985). Together with control over land and labour, the third component in the constitution of the white agricultural bloc was its strong institutional representation in the state, and attendant access to a range of government subsidies and other support. The two main pillars of this institutional politics are the South African Agricultural Union (SAAU) and its provincial unions, and the marketing and service cooperatives (the biggest with annual turnovers of billions of rands) organized in the Cooperative Council. It is often difficult to know where the SAAU and the cooperative organizations begin and end, so intertwined are they with each other and with the leading agricultural commodity organizations and state marketing boards, all permeated by NP political patronage (and Broederbond membership) until the 1980s. In 1994 there are an estimated 59,000 white farms occupying 85.8m hectares, of which 10.6m hectares are under arable cultivation, and generating about 90 per cent of gross farm income (the other 10 per cent being accounted for by the bantustans).4 Farming is subject to a general, if uneven, process of concentration manifested in declining numbers of farms and of whites employed in agriculture, increasing average farm size, expansion of corporate capital (notably in sugar, timber, viticulture, fruit, and the typically 'industrial' branches of feedlots and poultry production), and skewed income distribution: in the mid-1980s 6 per cent of farms earned 40 per cent of income in the sector (Levin and Weiner, 1991). Agriculture contributed 5.3 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 1988, and 3.6 per cent of the value of exports, although this omits some processed agricultural exports (van Zyl and van Rooyen, 1991). One should note, however, that the total impact of agriculture on the economy has been estimated at 12.4 per cent of GDP and 24.4 per cent of employment in the late 1980s (ibid.), and that South Africa is virtually self-sufficient in food production at current aggregate levels of consumption (van Zyl and Kirsten 1992). Employment in white agriculture has declined significantly since the 1970s, as indicated earlier. Official labour statistics for 1985 gave 868,000 workers in farming (outside the bantustans), of whom 80 per cent were African and 12 per cent Coloured (mostly in the Cape), a sharp decline from just over one million in 1980. The years 1982-84 were characterized by severe drought, and Pickles and Weiner (1991: 18) state that 'the black population of white farms declined by one million between 1980 and 1985 alone. A total of 1.6m blacks left rural white South Africa during this short period, which is the

'And Who Now Plans Its Future?'

169

highest rate of black outmigration ever recorded'. Dolny (1991: 224) rightly stresses the unreliability of official farm employment data, and gives an estimate of 1.2m permanent workers and 1.8m seasonal and casual workers. Most of the latter are migrants and 'cross-border' daily commuters from the bantustans, especially women and children subject to appalling conditions of work and pay (Marcus, 1989). My own guess is that Dolny's estimate of permanent farm workers may be too high, and in any case would be subject to downward revision following the devastating drought of 1992 when highveld farmers (as in the early 1980s) retrenched large numbers of workers.5 Current outmigration by Africans from the 'white' countryside is an index of desperation in the face of deepening rural poverty and unemployment, rather than the pursuit of greater urban opportunities as earlier: 'push' rather than 'pull'. Now, at the end of apartheid, major sectors of white agriculture are undergoing a crisis that contrasts strongly with their boom period of the 1950s to 1970s. The early 1980s were something of a watershed for 'organized agriculture', as it is called in South Africa, charted in two (interconnected) processes. One was the initially timid but increasing (if by no means complete) withdrawal of support measures to white farmers. The other is that the Conservative Party (CP), formed by a split to the right from the NP in 1982, had a growing base of support in the rural constituencies of the Transvaal, subsequently extending south into the OFS. Today the OFS and especially Transvaal Agricultural Unions (both presided over by Conservative Party MPs) are key sites of CP and other extreme Afrikaner politics, as are some of the biggest cooperatives in the Transvaal. Increasingly since the late 1970s, white agriculture has undergone an accumulation crisis (stagnating or declining capital stock) due to low levels of profitability and liquidity and increasing farm debt (de Klerk, 1991), accentuated by generalized economic recession, drought years, and creeping deregulation and market liberalization. In turn, the latter adds to the pressures on agricultural production, its costs and its markets, exerted by the concentration of corporate capital in agribusiness upstream of farming (in chemicals, seeds, machinery, finance) and downstream (in marketing, processing, distribution).6 This growing crisis (above all, but not only, in extensive grain and livestock areas) was dramatized by the drought of 1992, the worst since the early 1930s and which, as then, raised the spectre of numerous foreclosures and abandoned farms vulnerable to occupation by black

170

When History Accelerates 7

'squatters'. However, the government intervened with a 'drought relief package of over three billion rands, 60 per cent of which was disbursed to white agriculture to cushion farmers' debts, with nominal amounts allocated to the assistance of farm workers (0.6 per cent) and providing emergency water and food supplies (12.2 per cent) to millions of inhabitants of the severely affected bantustans (Adams, 1993; LAPC, 1993). Why should a fiscally hard-pressed government negotiating the end of apartheid have intervened on this scale after a decade or so of gradually reducing concessionary finance to farming? At that (late) stage of the 'transition' game as played by the two Afrikaner parties, winning back white votes to the NP in the farming areas and small towns of the Transvaal and OFS cannot have been a strong reason, even if it was a hope. The strategic concern was to prevent foreclosures and the abandonment of white farms, and to maintain prices in the land market. As also seen in other recent measures, such as the offered transfer of some 2m hectares of state land to bantustan governments to 'administer', the last National Party government tries to ensure the reproduction of existing property rights after the end of apartheid, to establish conditions and fix rules that will limit the scope of a future democratic government.8 THE BANTUSTANS

The 14 million people of the bantustans occupy a land area equivalent to one-sixth of that fenced by white farms. As many as 54 per cent of South Africa's black population lived in bantustans in 1980 (Table 8.2) compared with 40 per cent in 1950, due to forced removals from 'white' South Africa, both urban and rural, and the redrawing of boundaries. De Villiers Graaf's designation (above) of 'peri-urban' and 'semi-urban' focused on concentrations of population that have no official recognition: not being 'proclaimed' towns, they are not eligible for official administration, funding or provision of services. Lacking basic amenities and opportunities, they do not conform to most sociological understandings of urban life - even those that accommodate the 'informal' settlements, shantytowns, bidonvilles, barrios, gecekondu, etc., of metropolitan cities. Peri-urban areas, many in the form of vast camps of the dispossessed and displaced, cluster on the boundaries of bantustans, with much of the limited employment available requiring daily travel (often over long distances) to the farms, factories and service industries of 'white' South Africa. In short, the livelihood opportunities

'And Who Now Plans Its Future?1

171

of most of their inhabitants depend on labour markets over the 'border' (Hindson, 1991). Nor are all those who are 'rural' by the criterion of residence able to engage in farming. Potentially arable land amounts to 0.2 hectare per person (Levin and Weiner, 1991), large areas are marked by severe land degradation, and bantustans are heavily dependent on 'imports' to supply basic food needs. The inability of these areas to furnish an adequate level of subsistence, even in conjunction with labour migration and remittances, has been a matter of comment, investigation and debate (including in government reports) since the 1920s, and has evidently intensified over time as population has increased and an enduring economic recession (manifested today in massive structural unemployment) took hold from the 1970s. Government 'betterment' schemes to promote yeoman farmers, and to enforce land planning and conservation measures, foundered both on the socio-economic realities of land shortage and demographic pressure and on political resistance and evasion (Yawitch, 1981). It has been suggested that 10 per cent of the bantustan population derives its livelihood solely or principally from agriculture (Hindson, 1991: 237), which, if anything, seems exaggerated.9 Who does farm? The great majority are women cultivating 'sub-subsistence' plots to which, as women, they have no claim or access in their own right. They farm without benefit of credit, extension services, and other means of support, with the primary objective of contributing to household food needs. Otherwise, there is a limited but significant (and probably growing) number of petty commodity producers, some of them contract farmers in schemes promoted by public agencies - the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) in collaboration with bantustan agricultural development corporations - and by private capital, notably sugar outgrowers in KwaZulu and KaNgwane (Vaughan, 1992). Whether in independent or contract farming, petty commodity production is associated with male control, and with accumulation from wage or salary remittances and/or positions within bantustan government structures (bureaucrats, chiefs, headmen, their clients and allies). Finally, there is an often-cited 'guestimate' (impossible to assess) of 3,000 or so 'commercial', i.e. capitalist, farmers in the bantustans. The ability of some to utilize remittances and salaries to invest in commodity production in farming (and other activities) reflects the differentiation of the black working class, the growth of a black petty bourgeoisie, and the high level of income inequality within

172

When History Accelerates

the black population generally. Investing in farming requires access to land, in turn requiring connections with the typically authoritarian and often corrupt regimes of chiefs, highlighted in Govan Mbeki's early and prescient account of bantustan formation in The Peasants' Revolt (1964) . 10 The complexities of social relations in the bantustans - their ubiquitous (if not uniform) class and gender divisions, forms of patriarchal, chiefly and bureaucratic control, ambiguities of 'tradition', and intergenerational tensions - will also mark the process of any future agrarian reform that extends from the bantustans into the historically 'white' countryside. AGRARIAN REFORM: A POLITICAL VACUUM?

The ANC Freedom Charter of 1956 declared that land should be given to those who work it, an echo of the call of 'land to the tiller' central to anti-colonial and other national democratic struggles elsewhere. The implication that the agrarian question is synonymous with the 'peasant question' was more plausible then than it is now. In the 1950s there were far more blacks living and working on the farms of 'white' South Africa than today. In addition, they had a fresher historic memory of organizing their own farming, at the same time as working for whites, through previous forms of labour tenancy and sharecropping (Keegan, 1988). The number of permanent black farm-workers (and more generally black families resident on white farms) has been reduced by mechanization, retrenchments and evictions. Those who remain are (mostly) wage workers rather than 'peasants'. There is a larger (and possibly growing) casual labour force of seasonal and especially day labourers, many of them women and children drawn from rural townships or 'commuting' from bantustans, as noted above. In its changing labour organization, then, commercial farming in South Africa exhibits similar tendencies to capitalist agriculture elsewhere. While there is a long history of black resistance - overt and hidden, in both 'white' and bantustan rural areas - to apartheid policies and practices, political representation and organization in the countryside are almost non-existent (especially beyond the most local level). The late 1940s to early 1960s was the last period of widespread and overt rural political agitation (Bundy, 1984; Lodge, 1983: ch. 11; Delius, 1990). Govan Mbeki, who was actively involved in the Eastern Cape in this period, is the only major figure of his own and subsequent generations of ANC leadership to have participated in, and systematically analysed,

'And Who Now Plans Its Future?'

173

the struggles of rural people (like Mandela, Mbeki subsequently spent most of the following three decades in prison). In effect, the ANC has no political strategy for confronting the agrarian questions that it will inherit from the final phase of apartheid. On one hand, the Policy Guidelines adopted at the National Conference of May 1992 set out a framework for addressing land issues (ANC, 1992: 26-30): The present pattern of land ownership which is the direct result of apartheid laws must be fundamentally changed to address lawlessness and land hunger. The programme of redistribution of agricultural land must be accompanied by measures which will ensure that the land will be productively used... The land question... affects not just landholders and the landless, but the whole nation. All South Africans have a responsibility to share the burden of solving it. While the market has some role to play, it will barely touch the problem. The very discrimination which forced the people off the land, has deprived them of the capacity to buy the land back. Expanding these themes, the Guidelines propose principles of land restitution: targeting certain kinds of land for redistribution (land held for speculation, underutilized or unused land with productive potential, degraded land, 'hopelessly indebted land'); some ceiling on the size of individuals' landholding; dismantling the institutional pillars of white agriculture (including the SAAU and the cooperatives) and providing appropriate infrastructure and support to promote the development of black farming; protecting farm workers' rights; equal rights of access to land for women; respect for different forms of tenure including communal tenures. These objectives are tempered by recognition of 'the need to maintain food supplies', and possibly to exempt from any land redistribution 'a productive core of 30 per cent of white farmers who produce 80 per cent of marketed output'. The reform programmes should also follow 'orderly procedures': 'In establishing an equitable balance between the legitimate interests of present title holders and the legitimate needs of those without land and shelter, compensation by the state in the national interest will have an important role to play'. This relatively coherent and radical, though also broad and partly ambiguous, framework was the outcome of a national delegate conference, at which certain activist intellectuals no doubt played a key role in the workshop on land issues. Subsequently, the 'interim' constitution hammered out in the constitutional talks in November 1993 referred

174

When History Accelerates

to restitution of land dispossessed under any racial laws going back to the 1913 Land Act, with claims for restitution considered by a special commission and the courts, and any expropriation of land following a successful claim compensated by the state. On the other hand, to help formulate policies and to commission the research they require, the ANC established a Land and Agriculture Policy Centre (LAPC) in 1993. In contrast to the political character of the 1992 national conference and the Guidelines it produced, the LAPC has followed a much more technocratic route that reflects an intimate relationship with the World Bank (see note 11). THE POLICY DEBATE

Despite their historic and contemporary importance, both materially and symbolically (as recognized in the 1992 ANC Policy Guidelines), (rural) land and agrarian questions are not priorities of the ANC leadership. National delegate conferences are infrequent events. The formulation of a principle of land restitution in the interim constitution is no safeguard against interminable delays in processing land claims in the face of legal complexity and confusion, the manipulation and contestation of historic memories and political stonewalling. In any case, the constitutional status of land restitution (let alone its eventual implementation) could be qualified beyond meaning in the intense process of negotiation and compromise (especially concerning the demarcation of federal and regional powers) preparing the way to elections scheduled for 26-28 April 1994. In short, (rural) land and agrarian issues are not the focus of organized mass constituencies as industrial and urban (including land) issues are, hence they lack political articulation and strength in the agendas of the ANC's national (and regional) structures. This political vacuum has facilitated the domination of the emergent policy debate, and indeed the ANC's role in it, by other forces and agencies, notably the DBSA and the World Bank which work together closely. The DBS A was established by the government of P. W. Botha in 1983 as a development bank for the bantustans. It soon came to claim a liberal reformist stance on rural development, charted in a partial shift from financing large agricultural schemes through bantustan parastatals to a Farmer Support Programme aimed at African 'small farmers'. For its part, the World Bank supports some measure of land reform through a combination of arguments about South Africa 'in the light of experience elsewhere', namely the greater productivity of (some) small

'And Who Now Plans Its Future?'

175

farmers than (some) large farmers (Lipton and Lipton, 1993), the need to dismantle the privileges of the latter through more thoroughgoing market liberalization (World Bank, 1992), and to avoid potential social turmoil in the countryside associated with such extreme inequality in landholding (Binswanger and Deininger, 1993). n The World Bank aspires to wrap up the savage contradictions of South Africa in a policy package of 'efficiency' (liberalization) and 'equity' ('affirmative action', incentives for small farmers) now somewhat tarnished, one would think, by experiences of structural adjustment policies elsewhere in Africa (Bernstein, 1990; Gibbon, 1992; Gibbon et ah, 1993). A particular twist to the wrapping is the attack on the privileges of white farmers in the name of market-driven efficiency, which connects with a gathering campaign in the last decade of apartheid for greater agricultural deregulation and privatization waged by a range of (white) groupings and organizations in South Africa (including some of its leading agricultural economists and commentators). Leaving aside the question of land restitution, the World Bank is concerned that land reform should be 'market based' through assisted purchase of land by carefully selected 'beneficiaries'. This amounts to a policy of 'betting on the strong': such beneficiaries are most likely to be men already active in agricultural commodity production and/or with other assets and sources of capital. Their identification and selection, moreover, are held to require elaborate and rigorous administrative procedures, suggesting a scenario of combined bureaucratic action and market logic: the best or worst - of possible worlds? DIFFERENT QUESTIONS, A DIFFERENT POLITICS

The parameters of 'policy debate' are established by its initial question of 'what is to be done?' (e.g. selective land reform, affirmative action, assistance to small farmers), immediately linked to how it is to be done (an appropriate combination of state action and market logic). A different politics of agrarian reform starts with questions of 'who': who formulates objectives and demands? Who mobilizes around them? Who decides strategies, tactics, outcomes? Bringing in, indeed explicitly 'privileging' (as post-modernists put it), issues of the mobilization, organization and participation of popular social forces confronts the limited options of agency offered by the state (however 'equitable') and the market (however 'efficient'). Struggles over the nature of states and of markets, over their mutual links, what they can deliver and to whom, are everywhere affected by the degree and effectiveness

176

When History Accelerates

of involvement in those struggles of popular social forces. This is the content of substantive democracy and public action in capitalist development (Rueschmeyer et al., 1992; Wuyts et aL, 1992). How is this relevant to land and agrarian reform in South Africa where the majority of black people are divorced from 'peasant' production in its various independent and dependent forms? Do they want to farm? Can they farm? There are two caricatured, but widely and deeply held, kinds of views on the latter questions. The first is held by many of the South African left intelligentsia (particularly those associated with the trade union movement): that blacks in South Africa have been thoroughly proletarianized, an irreversible sociological datum that precludes any 'return to the land' (and renders it an irrelevant or reactionary notion). This, at least, is an historical presumption. Another version deploys an essentialist and perverse anthropological idea (all too close to the racist anthropology of apartheid): that the black indigenes of Southern Africa are cattle-keepers by origin and instinct who have no capacity nor desire to cultivate - the 'bovine mystique' (Ferguson, 1990) or 'can't farm, won't farm' stereotype, also entrenched among Rhodesian whites at the time of Zimbabwe's liberation. The second caricature collapses the historical record of dispossession and oppression into the assumption that black South Africans are a nation of peasants-in-waiting ready to reclaim, reunite with, and live from the land once the moment is right. This pervades the rhetoric of the Pan Africanist Congress, the principal political rival of the ANC among the organizations opposing apartheid. A more rational response, on both intellectual and political grounds, is a very simple one: that we do not know because the questions have not been asked of those able to answer them. However, it is evident that access to land is a preoccupation and aspiration of vast numbers of black people, especially those in the bantustans. Moreover, aspiration is matched by widespread expectations that land will become available to them with the end of apartheid.12 This, then, is the basis for constituting a mass democratic politics around questions of land and agrarian reform. Of course, the term 'popular social forces' may seem ideological rather than analytical to many sociologists. In the context of South Africa's racial order and its historical formation, the very comprehensiveness of the concept of popular social forces embraces the kinds of contradictions and complexities indicated earlier. There are class contradictions (in varying forms, experienced in various ways, with various degrees of acuteness)

'And Who Now Plans Its Future?'

Ill

among the black population, linked in the bantustans to the structures of power wielded by chiefs and other 'traditional' forces. There are also 'contradictions amongst the people', of which those derived from patriarchal gender relations are the most pervasive, and no doubt the most entrenched; there are also, I suspect, important intergenerational tensions, although 'the youth' in the bantustans have hardly been investigated sociologically compared with those of the metropolitan townships (see for example, the illuminating overview by Seekings (1993)).13 Among the complexities are the great diversity of the countryside, both socially and ecologically, and the existence of different kinds of aspirations to, and interests in, access to land. First, and probably most widespread, is an aspiration to land to build a place to live or to retire to: to have a (rural) home secure from the chronic instability so many have experienced throughout the long history of dispossession (not least since 1948). This is central to the ANC Policy Guidelines. Second is an aspiration to land to farm as one activity among others in livelihood strategies, whether for self-provisioning in food, for market production, or both. Third is an aspiration to land for farming as a principal occupation and source of livelihood. In addition, there is a desire for land as a means of accumulation or speculation by some of the black petty bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie, both rural and urban. Ascertaining who wants land, for what purposes, and what kinds of people they are, is precisely the first step in any process of constituting and organizing social forces around land and agrarian reform. This step can only be taken by asking people, especially in the bantustans, what they think and what they want: in short by initiating campaigns on land and agrarian questions. These campaigns could be launched and tested first in those bantustans, and areas within them, where the ANC has widespread support and/or opposition to local bureaucratic and chiefly power is strong. Initial and experimental campaigns of this kind would generate a powerful demonstration effect elsewhere. The political framework established by such campaigns would develop an agenda by soliciting and debating ideas about which land people might accept (and where), what they might need to use it productively in farming, what forms of tenure they envisage, the possibilities of some collective regulation and management of soil, water, grazing and forest resources - and how they are prepared to negotiate these and other issues. Such a process of popular mobilization would be 'messy'. Its progress

178

When History Accelerates

would vary a great deal between rural areas according to their specific social and political configurations, and the quality of local leaders and other cadres involved. It would bear the imprint of the kinds of contradictions noted, which it may reproduce as well as confront. But the essential point is that messiness and unevenness always accompany the unleashing of a social dynamic, in this case releasing long suppressed or hidden political energies. This dynamic has no place (by intention or otherwise) in the 'policy debate', with its blueprints for 'equity and efficiency' neatly drawn by experts to redress 'historical injustices' on behalf of those oppressed and exploited by white domination. The above observations sketch the political conditions and possibilities that are necessary if the objectives on land of the ANC Policy Guidelines are to have any significant impact on the countryside, if they are to be more than gestural and vulnerable to diminution in the name of post-election 'realism', or to appropriation by a corps of international and domestic experts. It is the political dynamic that provides a potentially transformational content to any process of agrarian reform, rather than the scale of its immediate gains. The latter - how much land is redistributed in the immediate future, the conditions of redistribution and of assistance to black farmers (and which black farmers) - will be constrained by both the balance of contending forces, and the time it takes to build and advance political capacities and cohesiveness in communities, regions, and nationally. However, the limits imposed by the balance of forces can only be known by testing them, and the developing capacity of popular social forces itself shifts the balance and extends the terrain of possibility. CONCLUSION

With the end of apartheid, South Africa will continue to be a capitalist society as liberal thinkers have maintained it could (and should) be, against that current in the liberation movement arguing the historic indivisibility of apartheid and capitalism, hence their inevitably combined downfall: the 'no middle road' position (Slovo, 1976). If the liberal critique of the racial order has achieved some kind of victory on this score, it is not one of its own making. The end of apartheid was not delivered by any success of liberal politics in South Africa but by the creative energy, determination and sacrifice of mass struggle (from which liberals distanced themselves), acting on the contradictions of the racial order. This in turn contributed to (re)shaping the strategic considerations of corporate

'And Who Now Plans Its Future?'

179

capital (to which liberals looked for pressure for reform), and stoking its frustrations with the near paralysis of the National Party regime. This is a point about agency in the downfall of apartheid that leads into the key question in South Africa today: what kind of capitalism now? At this point the currents of political liberalism and economic liberalism converge. The former centres on the liberties of non-racially based citizenship (possibly with protection of a former * sociological majority' that now finds itself an electoral minority), while the latter proclaims the freedom of the market with the opportunities - and disciplines - of its universalizing rationality open to all. Effecting this convergence in the 'new South Africa' involves considerable tension, more so in practice than in ideology, in 'levelling the playing field' inherited from apartheid.14 There is much scope here to exercise policy analysis: how to redress 'historic injustices', to pursue measures of 'affirmative action', to 'balance' equity with efficiency, without subverting the demands of market-led economic revival. However, the future of the 'new South Africa' will not be assured by its constitutional provisions, however democratic, nor by its policy expertise, however enlightened (and this is an activity that many left intellectuals in South Africa now pursue single-mindedly), although both are necessary terrains of struggle. To be satisfied in any significant measure, the expectations at the end of apartheid - for jobs, for land, for decent housing, education, health services, for a secure existence - require the vitality of public action mobilized around demands for 'structural reform' (Saul, 1991), with urban constituencies (civic associations, trade unions, student organizations, black business groups, non-governmental organizations (NGOs)) more strongly positioned than those in the countryside and the bantustans. (Rural) land redistribution and agrarian reform are just as necessary to redress the history of dispossession, to make available resources desperately needed for livelihoods, to provide conditions in which black farmers can compete with white farmers, in which a more diversified and viable agriculture can develop. All this is signalled by the ANC which nonetheless has held back from activating the political process that its realization on any significant scale requires. Ultimately, the issue is one of relations of power and how they are contested, not only by declaring the intention of change but by

180

When History

Accelerates

constituting social forces with a stake in defining and implementing its agenda. I have suggested that the potential of such social forces, especially in the bantustans, is considerable, and that they can be mobilized against one of the economically, and now politically, weakest sectors of capital, that of white farming. This is not a fantasy of immediate and total ('revolutionary') transformation. It envisages individual title to land and individual or household farming, commodity production not socialist property or organization. Rather, I have tried to suggest the conditions of political possibility of 'structural reform' in the countryside as opposed to what is otherwise on offer: a limited 'deracialization' of land and farming designed by experts, delivered by the state, and driven by the logic of the market. This excludes the agency of those whose daily struggles for existence bear the deepest imprint of apartheid. Their energies, hopes and creativity are the most important resource in now planning a different future. NOTES

1 On pass laws, influx control and labour bureaux, see Giliomee and Schlemmer (1985), Hindson (1987), and the studies by Greenberg (1987) and Posel (1991) who both emphasize 'conflict and compromise' (Posel's subtitle) in their administration; on forced removals Desmond (1971), Freund (1984), Platzky and Walker (1985), C. Murray and O'Regan (1990). 2 Morris and Hindson (1992) analyse the struggle for existence in the townships today that combines the effects of deep economic recession and massive unemployment, accelerating urban migration, and the success of resistance in making the townships 'ungovernable' (a prominent political slogan of the 1980s) by the apartheid state. All this has led to 'the formation of competing local centres of power', with political allegiance often a cover for gangsterism that organizes patronage and protection in relation to residential plots, services, transport, and jobs. 3 The last twenty years have seen the emergence of a rich historiography of agrarian change in South Africa, accompanied by intense polemics. The key works include Morris (1976), Bundy (1979), Keegan (1986), Bradford (1987) and C. Murray (1992) which is an exemplary exercise in historical anthropology. 4 Official statistics on white agriculture are very detailed and generally reliable except on land and farm ownership (because farm units are the basis of accounting), and, as so often, on the size and composition of the labour force. For the contrast with the state of knowledge of farming in the bantustans see note 9.

'And Who Now Plans Its Future?' 5

181

During 1992 I saw squatter camps of tens of thousands of newly displaced people - farm workers and their families - outside small towns like Bothaville and Viljoenskroon in the flat maize land of the Orange Free State. 6 This, of course, is a general tendency in contemporary capitalism; for illustrations in relation to the South African maize industry (by far the largest field crop branch) see NAMPO (1993), Bernstein (1993). 7 This was one moment among others of moral panic over the verswarting ('blackening') of the countryside, as the combination of the capitalization of farming, drought and depression generated an exodus of whites, including many former bywoners (tenant farmers). The spectre of 'poor whiteism' inspired the first large survey of poverty in South Africa by the Carnegie Commission of 1932, which reported that Afrikaners made up 90 per cent of 'very poor' whites (Welsh 1971: 176), and contributed to the welfarist agenda of volkscapitalisme and of NP governments from 1948 (O'Meara, 1983). The Carnegie Foundation returned to South Africa in the 1980s to sponsor the first major survey of poverty among blacks (Wilson and Ramphele, 1989). 8 Similar moves at local levels usually go unreported, but my colleague Philip Woodhouse discovered the transfer of a dam from state ownership to a (white farmers') irrigation board in a prosperous agricultural area of the Eastern Transvaal, 'as a way of pre-empting any future moves by a reformed parliament to intervene in the running of the dam on the grounds of public ownership' (Woodhouse, 1993: 20). 9 The paucity of reliable statistical data on demographic, economic and social conditions in the bantustans is staggering. To give one example: in an extensive report on the maize economy in South Africa (Willemse et al.y 1993) which contains 27 tables of data, there is just one table on the bantustans - on areas planted to maize in 1988. 10 Cross (1991) surveys complexities of land tenure in the bantustans and helps to demystify some of the prevailing notions of 'traditional' tenure. 11 The articles by Lipton and Lipton (1993) and Binswanger and Deininger (1993) were among a number of keynote papers at a World Bank organized workshop held in Mbabane, Swaziland, in November 1992, and subsequently published in World Development with a joint editorial introduction by Robert E. Christiansen (World Bank), Johan van Rooyen (DBSA), and David Cooper (LAPC). The LAPC's publications to date are dominated by World Bank commissioned reports: 12 research papers and 20 background studies alone in late 1993 generated by the World Bank's Rural Restructuring Programme for South Africa, mostly written by South African consultants drawn from the DBSA and the universities. After completing this essay I received from Gavin Williams an extremely useful paper that provides a detailed and precise critical reading of all the key World Bank, and Bank-commissioned, documents on rural restructuring in South Africa from 1992 and 1993, 'a study of texts and institutions' (Williams, 1993: 2)

182

When History

Accelerates

that supports the propositions only sketched here. 12 This is supported by everyone I have spoken to in South Africa who lives in the bantustans, has family there, or works there as employees in non-governmental organizations or as researchers: it is one matter (at least) on which all informed opinion agrees. It is also supported by more systematic evidence emerging from three bantustan areas in the Eastern Transvaal (Gazankulu, KaNgwane, Lebowa) researched by Richard Levin and others in a project on Community Perspectives on Land and Agrarian Reform in South Africa (CPLAR) - the only example, to my knowledge, of extensive participatory action research with bantustan rural communities. 13 As Aninka Claassens (1990: 62), formerly an activist with the Transvaal Rural Action Committee, observed: 'Sometimes the heroic battles that rural people have fought have created romantic visions of a group of valiant peasants fighting for a just and free future... The reality is often different... some of the strongest people resisting removal at KwaNgema are people who are the masters of labour tenants themselves. The more secure the land, the more profitable the production of their free labourers. Often the labour tenants who take militant stands in court are patriarchs whose income depends on the extraction of labour from their wives and children.' The context of this passage includes continuing forced removals in the 1980s of black communities that had persisted as labour tenants and * squatters' in some areas of the * white' countryside (in this case, the south-eastern Transvaal), and also as landholders (the so-called * black spot' communities), throughout the long transition to wage labour in white agriculture, evictions, and legislation prohibiting labour tenancy (until 1986, when its statutory prohibition was repealed (Budlender and Latsky, 1991: 126)). More generally, there are powerful theoretical accounts, together with empirical references, of rural socio-economic differentiation in the bantustans by Levin and Neocosmos (1989) and Neocosmos (1993). A preliminary sketch of patterns of differentiation found by CPLAR researchers (note 12) is given in Levin et al. (1993: 23-4): - a minority petty capitalist class which includes successful small commercial farmers; - a landed working class, which lacks the necessary land and agricultural capital assets to live only by farming; - around half the rural population is landless and marginalized. These people have access to densely populated residential land, but little else. They live through intermittent employment and petty trading and production of handicrafts. 14 Williams (1993: 29) concludes with a discussion of how the World Bank 'seeks to square a number of circles' in its developing policy agenda for rural restructuring in South Africa, and also cites a Bank document that states its 'guiding principle (is) political and economic liberalization' (ibid.: 2).

'And Who Now Plans Its Future?'

183

REFERENCES

Adams, L. (1993) 'A rural voice: strategies for drought relief"', Indicator South Africa, 10, 4, 41-6. ANC (African National Congress) (1992) Ready to Govern: Policy Guidelines for a Democratic South Africa, Johannesburg: ANC. Baskin, J. (1991) Striking Back: A History ofCOSATU, Johannesburg: Ravan. Bernstein, H. (1990) 'Agricultural "modernization" and the era of structural adjustment: observations on sub-Saharan Africa', Journal of Peasant Studies, 18, 1, 3-35. Bernstein, H. (1993) The maize industry: business as usual?', Indicator South Africa, 10, 4, 33-8. Binswanger, H. P., and K. Deininger (1993) 'South African land policy: the legacy of history and current options', World Development, 21, 9, 1451-75. Bradford, H. (1987) A Taste of Freedom. The ICU in Rural South Africa 1924-1930, Johannesburg: Ravan. Budlender, G. and J. Latsky (1991) 'Unravelling rights to land in rural race zones', in M. de Klerk (ed.) A Harvest of Discontent, Cape Town: IDASA, pp. 115-37. Bundy, C. (1979) The Rise and Fall of the South African Peasantry, London: Heinemann. Bundy, C. (1984) 'Land and liberation: the South African national liberation movements and the agrarian question, 1920s-1960s', Review of African Political Economy, 29, 14-29. Bundy, C. (1992) 'Development and inequality in historical perspective', in R. Schrire (ed.) Wealth or Poverty? Critical Choices for South Africa, Cape Town: Oxford University Press, pp. 24-38. Byres, T. J. (1991) 'The agrarian question and differing forms of capitalist agrarian transition: an essay with reference to Asia', in J. Breman and S. Mundle (eds) Rural Transformation in Asia, Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 3-76. Claassens, A. (1990) 'Rural land struggle in the Transvaal in the 1980s', in C. Murray and C. O'Regan (eds) No Place to Rest: Forced Removals and the Law in South Africa, Cape Town: Oxford University Press, pp. 27-65. Cooper, F. (ed.) (1983) Struggle for the City: Migrant Labour, Capital and the State in Africa, Beverly Hills: Sage. Cross, C. (1991) 'Informal tenures against the state: landholding systems in African rural areas', in M. de Klerk (ed.) A Harvest of Discontent, Cape Town: IDASA, pp. 63-98. De Klerk, M. (1985) 'The labour process in agriculture: changes in maize farming during the 1970s', Social Dynamics, 11, 1, 7-31. De Klerk, M. (1991) 'The accumulation crisis in agriculture', in S. Gelb (ed.) South Africa's Economic Crisis, Cape Town: David Philip, pp. 198-227. De Klerk, M. (ed.) (1991) A Harvest of Discontent: The Land Question in South Africa, Cape Town: IDASA.

184

When History

Accelerates

De Villiers Graaf, J. (1985) 'The present state of urbanization in the South African homelands and some future scenarios', Cape Town: Conference of the Development Society of Southern Africa. Delius, P. (1990) 'Migrants, comrades and rural revolt: Sekhukhuneland 1950-1987', Transformation, 13, 2-26. Desmond, C. (1971) The Discarded People. African Resettlement in South Africa, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Dolny, H. (1991) 'The ownership and distribution of land in a united, non-racial, democratic South Africa', in B. Matlhape and A. Munz (eds.) Towards a New Democratic Agrarian Order, Amsterdam: SAERT, pp. 222-40. Ferguson, J. (1990) The Anti-Politics Machine: 'Development', Depoliticization and Bureaucratic State Power in Lesotho, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. First, R. (1959) Exposure: The Farm Labour Scandal, Johannesburg: New Age. Freund, B. (1984) 'Forced resettlement and the political economy of South Africa', Review of African Political Economy, 29, 49-63. Friedman, S. (1987) Building Tomorrow Today: African Workers in Trade Unions 1970-1984, Johannesburg: Ravan. Gelb, S. (ed.) (1991) South Africa's Economic Crisis, Cape Town: David Philip. Gerschenkron, A. (1943) Bread and Democracy in Germany, Berkeley: University of California Press. Gibbon, P. (1992) 'A failed agenda? African agriculture under structural adjustment with special reference to Kenya and Ghana', Journal of Peasant Studies, 20, 1, 50-96. Gibbon, P., K. J. Havnevik and K. Hermele (1993) A Blighted Harvest: The World Bank and African Agriculture in the 1980s, London: James Currey. Giliomee, H. and L. Schlemmer (eds) (1985) Up Against the Fences: Poverty, Passes and Privilege in South Africa, Cape Town: David Philip. Greenberg, S. B. (1980) Race and State in Capitalist Development: South Africa in Comparative Perspective, Yale University Press. Greenberg, S.B. (1987) Legitimating the Illegitimate: State, Markets and Resistance in South Africa, Berkeley: University of California Press. Hindson, D. (1987) Pass Controls and the African Urban Proletariat, Johannesburg: Ravan. Hindson, D. (1991) 'The restructuring of labour markets in South Africa, 1970s and 1980s', in S. Gelb (ed.) South Africa's Economic Crisis, Cape Town: David Philip, pp. 228-43. Keegan, T. (1986) Rural Transformations in Industrializing South Africa. The Southern Highveld to 1914, Johannesburg: Ravan. Keegan, T. (1988) Facing the Storm: Portraits of Black Lives in Rural South Africa, Cape Town: David Philip. LAPC (Land and Agriculture Policy Centre) (1993) Debt Relief and the South

'And Who Now Plans Its Future?'

185

African Drought Relief Programme: An Overview, Johannesburg: LAPC. Lenin, V. I. (1973) The Development of Capitalism in Russia, Moscow: Progress. Levin, R. and M. Neocosmos (1989) 'The agrarian question and class contradictions in South Africa: some theoretical considerations', Journal of Peasant Studies, 16, 2, 230-59. Levin, R. and D. Weiner (1991) 'The agrarian question and the emergence of conflicting agricultural strategies in South Africa', in B. Matlhape and A. Munz (eds.) Towards a New Democratic Agrarian Order, Amsterdam: SAERT, pp. 85-124. Levin, R., S. Mkhabela and R. Russon (1993) 'The land: aspirations to strategy', Mayibuye, March, pp. 22-5. Lipton, M. (1986) Capitalism and Apartheid: South Africa, 1910-1986, London: Wildwood House. Lipton, M. and M. Lipton (1993) 'Creating rural livelihoods: some lessons for South Africa from experience elsewhere', World Development, 21, 9, 1515-48. Lodge, T. (1983) Black Politics in South Africa since 1945, Johannesburg: Ravan. Marcus, T. (1989) Modernizing Super-Exploitation: Restructuring South African Agriculture, London: Zed. Maree, J. (ed.) (1987) The Independent Trade Unions 1974-1984. Ten Years of the South African Labour Bulletin, Johannesburg: Ravan. Marx, A. (1992) Lessons of Struggle: South African Internal Opposition, 1960-1990, Cape Town: Oxford University Press. Marx, K. (1976) Capital, vol. I, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Matlhape, B. and A. Munz (eds) (1991) Towards a New Democratic Agrarian Order, Amsterdam: SAERT. Mbeki, G. (1964) South Africa: The Peasants' Revolt, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Morris, M. (1976) 'The development of capitalism in South African agriculture: class struggle in the countryside', Economy and Society, 5, 3, 292-343. Morris, M. and D. Hindson (1992) 'South Africa: political violence, reform and reconstruction', Review of African Political Economy, 53, 43-59. Murray, C. (1992) Black Mountain: Land, Class and Power in the Eastern Orange Free State 1880s-1980s, Edinburgh University Press. Murray, C. and C. O'Regan (eds) (1990) No Place to Rest: Forced Removals and the Law in South Africa, Cape Town: Oxford University Press. Murray, M. (1987) South Africa: Time of Agony, Time of Destiny. The Upsurge of Popular Protest, London: Verso. NAMPO (National Maize Producers Organization) (1993) Maize Production in the 1990s, Bothaville: NAMPO. Neocosmos, M. (1993) The Agrarian Question in Southern Africa and 'Accumulation from Below'', Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies. O'Meara, D. (1983) Volkscapitalisme: Class, Capital and Ideology in the

186

When History

Accelerates

Development of Afrikaner Nationalism, 1934-1948, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pickles, J. and D. Weiner (1991) 'Rural and regional restructuring of apartheid: ideology, development policy and the competition for space', Antipode, 2, 3, 2-32. Platzky, L. and C. Walker (1985) The Surplus People: Forced Removals in South Africa, Johannesburg: Ravan. Posel, D. (1991) The Making of Apartheid 1948-61: Conflict and Compromise, Oxford: Clarendon. RSA (Republic of South Africa) (1992) Report of the Committee for the Development of a Food and Nutrition Strategy for Southern Africa, Pretoria: Department of Agriculture. Rueschmeyer, D., E. Huber Stephens and J. D. Stephens (1992) Capitalist Development and Democracy, Cambridge: Polity. Said, E. (1993) Culture and Imperialism, London: Vintage. Saul, J. (1991) 'South Africa: between "barbarism" and "structural reform'", New Left Review, 188, 3-44. Schrire, R. (1992) Adapt or Die: The End of White Politics in South Africa, New York: Ford Foundation. Schrire, R. (ed.) (1992) Wealth or Poverty? Critical Choices for South Africa, Cape Town: Oxford University Press. Seekings, J. (1993) Heroes or Villains? Youth Politics in the 1980s, Johannesburg: Ravan. Slovo, J. (1976) 'South Africa - No Middle Road', in B. Davidson, J. Slovo, A. R. Wilkinson, Southern Africa: The New Politics of Revolution, Harmondsworth: Penguin, pp. 106-210. Trapido, S. (1971) 'South Africa in a comparative study of industrialization', Journal of Development Studies, 1,3, 309-20. Van Zyl, J. and J. Kirsten (1992) 'Food security in South Africa', Agrekon, 31, 4, 170-84. Van Zyl, J. and J. van Rooyen (1991) 'Agricultural production in South Africa', in M. de Klerk (ed.) A Harvest of Discontent: The Land Question in South Africa, Cape Town: IDASA, pp. 179-212. Vaughan, A. (1992) 'Options for rural restructuring', in R. Schrire (ed.) Wealth or Poverty? Critical Choices for South Africa, Cape Town: Oxford University Press, pp. 420-45. Welsh, D. (1971) 'The growth of towns' in M. Wilson and L. Thompson (eds) The Oxford History of South Africa, vol. II, Oxford: Clarendon, pp. 172-243. Willan, B. (1984) Sol Plaatje: A Biography, Johannesburg: Ravan. Willemse, J., G. van Rensburg, T. Takavarasha and J. van Zyl (1993) Agricultural Marketing: Maize, Johannesburg: LAPC. Williams, G. (1993) 'Setting the agenda: a critique of the World Bank's Rural Restructuring Program for South Africa', unpublished paper (cited with author's permission).

'And Who Now Plans Its Future?'

187

Wilson, F. (1971) 'Farming 1866-1966', in M. Wilson and L. Thompson (eds.) The Oxford History of South Africa, vol. II, Oxford: Clarendon, pp. 104-71. Wilson, F. and M. Ramphele (1989) Uprooting Poverty: The South African Challenge, New York: W. W. Norton. Wilson, M. and L. Thompson (eds) (1971) The Oxford History of South Africa, vol. II, Oxford: Clarendon. Wolpe, H. (1988) Race, Class and the Apartheid State, London: James Currey. Woodhouse, P. (1993) Soils and Irrigation Systems in the Hazyview Area of the Eastern Transvaal (draft), Johannesburg: CPLAR. World Bank. (1992) Agricultural Marketing and Pricing in South Africa (draft), Washington: World Bank. Wuyts, M., M. Mackintosh and T. Hewitt (eds) (1992) Development Policy and Public Action, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Yawitch, J. (1981) Betterment: The Myth of Homeland Agriculture, Johannesburg: SAIRR.

CHAPTER 9

Change, Cognition and Control: The Reconstruction ofNomadism in Iran Richard Tapper PREAMBLE

Prominent among Paul Stirling's continuing concerns, to judge from his publications and his comments in public and academic gatherings, have been the themes of change, cognition and control. He has stressed the complexity of the causal processes - the multiple 'causal chains' that link social and cultural change to rapidly accelerating demographic and economic change. He has highlighted the turbulent proliferation in 'social cognition' resultant on the explosion of knowledge and information in rural society. And he has drawn our attention to the ways individuals and organizations (notably the state) seek to control both material and cognitive changes (see e.g. Stirling, 1974, 1982, 1993). Writing of central Anatolian villages, Stirling holds that 'most rapid and important changes in small-scale societies originate outside them' (1974: 202). In rural society, external material factors of change include new agricultural technologies and facilities, demand for produce and labour, supply of goods and services, including health, welfare and education, new transport and communications facilities (radio, television, press, telephones, computers), and also perhaps national-level demographic factors, notably rapid population growth. Stirling claims to be unable to work out sufficiently complex models for analysing the ways these factors affect and are in turn affected by rural social organization and cultural practices; but his own exploration of the complexity and variability of the issues involved has made a major contribution to such analysis (see frontispiece). In particular, he has reminded us that in rural communities the impact not only of new material factors, but of new knowledge, skills and information, is very much a function of 'social cognition': the processes by which people perceive, interpret, understand and evaluate these elements in the light of pre-existing 'cognitive worlds'. These

Change, Cognition and Control

189

processes will vary, and lead not only to increasingly varied choices by individuals, but in turn to an ever-wider 'spectrum of different constructions of reality and morality' (1993: 12-3). Finally, and of most concern to me in this chapter, Stirling has stressed the importance of understanding processes of social control, and in particular the ever-increasing power of the rulers of the state over the lives of individual citizens. At the local, rural level, individuals, families and local communities have new ways in which they can at least attempt to control their destinies; but these are as nothing to the powers increasingly available to governments and other large institutions. In terms of my interests here, it is state-level institutions that both initiate major material changes in society and attempt to control these changes and the cognitive processes that govern their acceptance in society. In most modern states, where governments are at least nominally responsible to the people, ministries initiate or approve social and economic development programmes: improvements in infrastructure (roads, power, services, communications, marketing, etc.), education, health, social security. Whether guided by basic modernization theory or by some other ideology (socialism, conservatism, Islamism), these programmes are intended to increase per capita gross domestic product (GDP), hence to improve people's material circumstances (standard of living) and quality of life (spiritual, cultural), and enable them to achieve their potential and realize their ambitions (whether material or spiritual), if not moral freedoms and opportunities. Clearly, governments (or rather, the individuals in them) are interested in maintaining or improving their own positions; in order to do so, they must persuade the people that these goals meet their interests, that the costs (taxation, restrictions on personal freedom and property, etc.) are worth it, and that the goals are in fact being achieved. This involves control of social cognition, through various means: control over the availability of information and knowledge, the content of education, the press, radio and television. In slogans and manifestos, government promotes the benefits brought by its measures, disguises the disadvantages, possibly conceals the less savoury effects, and massages statistics. Through its propaganda machine, or whatever we like to call it, government controls not only the availability of information and knowledge, but also the language of communication: interpretations and the construction of reality are controlled through official manipulations of key symbols, values and metaphors, and official definitions of fuzzy concepts and categories; a typical strategy is to legislate a certain

190

When History Accelerates

institution or concept into (or out of) existence and to proceed as though it were an established reality. We are all familiar with examples. In Britain in the 1980s, one member of government declared there was no such thing as 'society', and another that there was no such thing as 'social science'; others attempted to redefine ideals of 'family values' and 'Victorian values'; at the time of writing, another government has sought to direct the country 'back to basics'. In similar fashion, governments in Republican Turkey denied the linguistic-cultural identity of Kurds and declared them to be 'mountain Turks'; they also legislated that Islam was no longer relevant to political and social life. In 1960s Iran, the government declared that there were no longer any nomadic tribes. In each case, large elements at least of the educated urban middle classes came to believe what the governments asserted. This chapter pursues these themes of material change and social cognition and state control, in the context of the recent experience of nomads in Iran. It focuses on two meanings in the 'reconstruction' of the subtitle: current Iranian Government attempts to develop pastoral nomadic economy and society; and associated redefinitions of Persian terms referring to the nomads and the consequent redefinition of who they are. The chapter arises from my participation in the international conference on Nomadism and Development held near Isfahan in 1992, discussions with the Director and officials of the Organization for Nomadic Affairs (ONA) who organized the conference, and renewed contact with individuals whose lives as Shahsevan nomads I shared in 1965-6. During August and September 1993, I had further extensive discussions with ONA officials, and also with experts and authorities in the Ministry of Rural Reconstruction (Jehad). I also visited Moghan and Meshkinshahr in the new province of Ardabil (formerly part of East Azarbayjan), where I had done extended field research among Shahsevan nomads in the 1960s, as well as the Kermanshah region of southern Iranian Kurdistan. In both regions I had discussions with ONA officials and fieldworkers, and with nomads and settled nomads who had been on the receiving end of their services.1 The chapter implicitly raises, but does not answer, questions which I hope to investigate in a projected future study of social change and development in rural Iran: how far are standard theories of 'peasant/rural paths of transformation', or world systems integration (which tend anyway to be monocausal) relevant to a situation like that of Iran,

Change, Cognition and Control

191

where a major social, political and ideological revolution has completely transformed the conditions of existence of the rural areas? How does one study rural social change and talk of development in such a situation? Changes in rural Iran may prove as radical as those in Soviet Russia in the 1930s (or the 1990s), or China, or other socialist countries, and far greater in impact than so-called 'revolutions' in other third world countries. Social control through redefining and reconstructing basic categories to fit the new ideology is perhaps a familiar theme in the study of revolutions; but how often has it been studied in detail? BACKGROUND: THE NOMADS OF IRAN

For many centuries up to the present one, major cultural and political cleavages in Iranian society have been between Turk' and Tajik', between nomad and settled. Pastoral nomads sometimes numbered up to half the population of the country; as late as the nineteenth century the nomadic tribes numbered 2-3 million of the total of 6-8 million. Ruling dynasties were of nomadic tribal origins, or came to power with tribal support, and until the end of the Qajar era (1789-1925) tribal militias formed an important element in the state forces, and simultaneously had the potential, which they sometimes exercised, to overthrow the government (Tapper, 1983). Reza Shah Pahlavi (1925-1941) saw the nomadic tribes as a threat to the national integration of the state and as a cultural anachronism in the modern world. He attempted to create a culturally integrated, Persianspeaking nation-state in a country where only half the population (some say less) had Persian as their mother tongue, and where most of the nomadic tribes belonged to the rich variety of cultural and linguistic minorities. In a successful military campaign of pacification in the 1920s he undermined the tribal structures, subduing most of the chiefs, killing many of them and disarming their followers. In the 1930s he thought to remove the tribal problem for good by abolishing nomadism through comprehensive enforced settlement. Migration routes were blocked and tents destroyed, yet little or no provision was made to help nomads settle and start farming. The result was economic and social disaster: no increase in agricultural production, huge losses of livestock and the impoverishment, misery and resentment of the former nomads. After Reza Shah's abdication in 1941, there was a return to nomadic pastoralism; but the attack on the nomadic tribes and other minorities was resumed in the 1950s-70s. There were tribal revolts after the 1940s, but none, in the age of aircraft and tanks, could seriously threaten the

192

When History Accelerates

government. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi pursued a modified version of his father's policies towards the nomad tribes: pastoralism was to continue, but on new terms, with a long-term development policy of planned settlement of nomads, mainly through neglect. Tribal leaders were removed, pastures were nationalized, commercial stock-breeders were allowed to invade - and overgraze - tribal rangelands, while traditional pastoralism was neglected and massive agro-industrial schemes were launched in tribal territories. The government wilfully ignored the contribution pastoral nomads had made to the national economy, notably in exploiting otherwise inaccessible rangelands and supplying meat for the increasingly voracious domestic market. By the mid-1970s, following the oil boom, the livestock economy generally had been undermined by subsidized imports of meat and dairy products. Though this was partly offset by the fact that grain prices were also subsidized, large numbers of former nomads were impoverished and settled, many joining the mass migration to the cities. At the same time, tribes were considered to have ceased to exist as a political element in society, while pastoral nomads were marginalized to the extent that they could be regarded as colourful, folkloric relics from the past, a tourist attraction. As Beck reports (1991: 186-7; cf. 1982), the government facilitated the access of foreign researchers to tribal areas, and urban Iranians were officially encouraged to drive out to the mountains and spend a day as uninvited guests of the nomads, whose banditry and unrest had so recently been a source of government anxiety. The Pahlavi regime's defeat of the nomads and other minorities was celebrated in the Festival of Popular Traditions held in 1977 in Isfahan, in which nomadic cultures were taken out of their social and especially political contexts and displayed in public as museum pieces - a 'culture bazaar', as one Iranian anthropologist has described it (Shahshahani, 1986: 75-6). A major role in this was played out in the famous Meydan-e Shah in central Isfahan by groups of tribesmen, and some of tribeswomen, who performed for public entertainment dances normally confined to specific social and cultural contexts such as wedding celebrations. For this occasion, the dancers introduced inappropriate new movements, and the women wore make-up. In the electric revolutionary atmosphere of the time, all this was intensely inflammatory for the Isfahanis present, many of tribal origins; several men attempted to mount the platform where the women were dancing, and police had to intervene to quell the resulting disturbance.

Change, Cognition and Control

193

There was apparently a growing focus on tribal values among urban revolutionary elements. Sometimes this was explicit, as when some Tehran youth identified with the Bakhtiari as portrayed in the classic film Grass: their struggle against the elements symbolized the contemporary struggle against the oppressive regime.2 THE RECONSTRUCTION OF NOMAD ECONOMY AND SOCIETY UNDER THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC

Nomads themselves played little part in the events surrounding the Islamic Revolution of 1978-9, which was largely an urban phenomenon, although settled tribespeople did participate in events in the cities - and in some parts of the countryside such as Kurdistan (Beck, 1980). At the beginning of the Revolution, some educated young people of nomadic background mobilized forces within their own tribes against the chiefs, especially among the Bakhtiari and the Qashqa'i. Islamic-oriented nomadic youth associated themselves with the Islamic revolutionaries in the cities and argued for some kind of planning and organization for nomadic peoples, and for representation at the highest levels in the new regime. These enthusiastic young men initiated major development plans in some nomadic areas, under the auspices of the Campaign for Reconstruction (Jehad-e sazandegi), though these plans were postponed after the onset of war with Iraq in 1980. The Islamic Republic has seen a revival in the fortunes of the nomadic tribes. Ayatollah Khomeyni declared them to be one of two sectors of the population (the other being the mullahs) particularly oppressed by the previous regime. He termed them Treasures of the Revolution (Zakhayer-e enqelab), and the fourth armed force; officially they are considered to have had a vital historical role in protecting the independence and territorial integrity of the country. Special efforts have been made to foster their social, economic and cultural life and to make sure that they have the same facilities as the rest of the population. President Khamene'i has continued this, describing the nomads as 'a paralysed limb of the people of our country', who have experienced double oppression, as both tribal and rural. Since the 1970s, Iran has seen widespread economic and social development and massive population growth. There have been improvements in communications, education and other services, but also expansion of cultivation at the expense of pasture lands. Pastoralism continues to be a valuable mode of exploiting the national rangelands, producing meat and other important commodities for the market, and nomadism

194

When History Accelerates

continues to be a rational mode of pastoralism in certain conditions, though it requires the support of a government willing to provide infrastructural and marketing facilities as well as controls, for example on overgrazing. Before the Revolution there was an Organization for Mobile Pastoralists (Sazman-e damdaran-e motaharrek), but its brief is evident from the fact that it was part of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development. After the Revolution this organization was reformed and transferred to the Ministry of Agriculture, then in 1983 to the Campaign for Rural Reconstruction (Jehad-e sazandegi), which had now become a Ministry. Renamed the Organization for Nomadic Affairs (Sazman-e omur-e 'ashayer), it was from 1986 to 1992 directed by an economist of Bakhtiari origins, with the status of Deputy Minister, who also sat on the High Council of Nomads (Shura-ye 'ali-ye 'ashayer), of which the Prime Minister, and later the President, was the head. At the provincial level, where it is staffed partly by members of the tribes, the Organization for Nomadic Affairs (ONA) provides infrastructural services and organizes local and regional representation of the nomads. Other services for nomads, such as health, education, security and the control of pasturelands, are organized through other Ministries, though the basic groundwork is done by ONA. ONA also conducts research, which it publishes in books and reports, and in the interesting quarterly journal Zakhayer-e enqelab (Treasures of the Revolution), started in 1987. Nomads initially had no great expectations of any improvement resulting from the Revolution. In practice, life has improved in several respects, largely thanks to the work of the Reconstruction Ministry and ONA. In most nomad areas there are now roads, water and power supply, schools, bath-houses, veterinary services, health-care, shops, and cooperatives for selling pastoral produce and buying basic supplies. Nomads have greater control over their land, and are allowed both to farm and to build on it, which they were not before. The fact that the provision of services, and relations with government, are now in the hands of educated young men from their own tribes appears to have made a considerable difference to nomad attitudes to government. Although in several quarters old ideas persist about the backwardness of the nomads and the need to settle them, the general improvement in their status means that many of the new generation in Iran, including people of nomad origins, value the nomads' way of life and their political and economic contribution to the country. ONA, taking the

Change, Cognition and Control

195

perspective of the nomads and not that of the state, promotes an image of the nomads which is the opposite of that purveyed by the Pahlavi regime. Indeed, the murky histories of many nomad tribes as raiders, as threats to state security, and as agents of imperial powers, have been transformed into a glorious past as freedom-fighters against the oppressive Shahs, and as frontier guards, not least in the war with Iraq. Nomad settlement is no longer directly enforced, though government encourages it with some vigour. The growth in population means a continuing, indeed increasing, flow of spontaneous settlement. Wealthier nomads who have land, as well as the poorest who have nothing, are the most likely to settle, the former as farmers, the latter as migrant workers in the cities. The remaining nomad camps have as neighbours the herdsmen of wealthy village-based ex-nomads; but many large extended nomad families have diversified, with some members farming, others in trade or transport, and others continuing to migrate with the animals. The new roads have eased the seasonal migrations, which are increasingly conducted by truck and trailer - few camels are left. Many former chiefs, deposed officially in the 1950s and 1960s, retained their role as patrons until the 1970s, and several returned to power briefly after the Revolution. But they and their families are now gone, many of them abroad, a few remaining only as private citizens, with some wealth but little or no influence. Authority in the tribes is now in the hands of elected councils of young enthusiasts loyal to the regime. Privileges that used to go to chiefly families now go to families of martyrs, mullahs and government officials. In afinalreversal of Pahlavi policy, armed tribal militias are now charged with security in the nomad areas, and once again young nomads proudly carry arms along with their tribal clothes. A major problem for the nomads continues to be access to pasture. Under the Pahlavis, the pastures were nationalized and traditional systems of grazing rights were abolished. Access is now regulated by a system of permits, which has not yet proved satisfactory. Schemes are under consideration for assuring pastoralists access to particular pastures on a basis regular enough to motivate them to conservation. Other, older, problems continue to be reported: the invasion and seizure of tribal territories, both by village cultivators and by city-based, non-nomadic commercial stock-raisers, and the consequent overgrazing and need for supplemental fodder supplies; extortion by some government representatives; escalating prices, for example for transport; and continuing usury from money-lending merchants. Generally, however, the nomads,

196

When History Accelerates

at least in the major tribes, with their ability to produce at least some of their own food, appear to enjoy a rather better standard of living than many middle-class city dwellers.3 In September 1992, ONA convened an international conference on Nomadism and Development at Shahr-e Kord near Isfahan, with co-sponsorship from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and other international bodies. In the discussions, many government officials expressed views on the future of the nomads that were positive, enlightened and ambitious, compared with those of other modern states with nomadic populations. There was heated debate between modernists (from ONA and the Reconstruction Ministry) who wish to encourage and facilitate either nomadic pastoralism (and economic diversification) or guided settlement, according to the nomads' wishes; and traditionalists (mainly from the Plan and Budget Organization and the Ministry of Agriculture) for whom settlement is the only 'solution' to what they see as the 'problem' of nomadism. But modernists and traditionalists were agreed on the undesirability of forced settlement, which would lead to further urban migration that the overcrowded cities cannot absorb. The modernists were building a high level of nomad participation (by men at least) into both the planning and the implementation of their development policies. It would seem that, in government quarters, until 1992, the modernists were in the ascendant, enjoying the support of the leadership of the regime, to whom they had special access. Belonging to the post-revolutionary generation and enthusiastic followers of Khomeyni, many modernists have a somewhat Rousseauian idea of the nomads. During 1992-3, however, the regime has tilted towards a modified form of the traditionalist line, whose proponents include a number of older ex-nomads, who have left their background behind and been educated into a Hobbesian view of nomadism as dirty, ignorant, backward and anti-social. Although government is committed to continuing services to those who continue as nomads, orderly settlement is now seen as inevitable, necessary and a priority, and nomad settlement is being integrated into larger government plans.4 As we shall see, however, 'settlement', like 'nomad', has been subject to some subtle redefinitions in recent years. WHO ARE - AND WERE - THE 'NOMADS'? DEFINITION AND REDEFINITION

In summer 1987 the first ever comprehensive and reliable census of pastoral nomads in Iran was carried out. The total number of nomads,

Change, Cognition and Control

197

in a population of about 55 million, was nearly 1.2 million, which is perhaps surprisingly close to the figure of 2-3 million nomads usually estimated for much of the nineteenth century, even if the proportion of nomads in the population has drastically declined since then. For the purpose of the census, nomads ('ashayer-e kuchandeh, * migrating tribes') were defined by a combination of three criteria: (a) tribal (qabileh'i) social organization, 'in which individuals feel themselves and their families (khanavadeh) to belong to a larger social group, usually based on kinship, and usually called a tayfeh'; (b) reliance for livelihood mainly on animal husbandry (damdari); (c) a pastoral (shabani) or nomadic (kuch) way of life, moving anything from a few to 500 kilometres between natural, seasonal pastures (Islamic Republic of Iran, 1991: i). This official definition of nomads is clear; it was precise enough for the purposes of the 1987 census, the organizers of which were well aware of past problems of counting the nomads: what constitutes the 'mobile population', what time of the year to count them, and the omission of pastoral nomads who happened to be in houses at the time of the census (cf. Towfiq, 1987). Nevertheless, strictly applied, it excludes non-tribal nomads and non-pastoral nomads, as well as settled tribespeople. In practice, application of the criteria, whether by government officials or by 'nomads' themselves, has been flexible: it depends on what is at stake, what is being demanded of nomads, or offered to them, in terms of taxation, government budgets, services and facilities. Under the Qajar and earlier dynasties in Iran, the Turkish-speaking nomads at least could claim ethno-linguistic identity with the ruling £lite. But under the Pahlavis the languages and cultures of minorities, notably Turks, Kurds, Lors, Baluches, Turkmens, Arabs, including almost all the tribal and pastoral nomadic peoples, were systematically suppressed. Many nomads (Kurds, Baluches, Turkmens, some Arabs) are Sunni Muslims, some Kurdish nomads belong to an extremist Shi'a sect, the Ahl-e Haqq, and many of the Sangsari are Baha'i; these minority religious identities further complicated relations with the Shi'a central authorities, particularly after the Islamic Revolution. As a result, urban Iranian officials and intellectuals, at least from the 1950s to the 1970s, tended to assume that nomad tribes belonged to cultural and linguistic, if not religious minorities, and regarded tribes,

198

When History Accelerates

nomads and pastoralists as the same: 'proper' tribes, it was thought, must be pastoral nomads.5 In Persian, until very recently the terms Hat (Perso-Arabic plural of the Turkish //, 'people', 'tribe') and 'ashayer (plural of the Arabic 'ashireh, 'tribe', 'clan') were used more or less interchangeably, often indeed as a pair, Hat va 'ashayer, meaning 'nomadic tribes', with strong connotations of powerful leaders who at points in the past rivalled and on occasion overthrew and replaced the rulers of the state.6 As plurals, Hat and 'ashayer are shifting, ambiguous terms. What is implied by these terms - pastoralists, nomads, tribes - to the average Iranian today, compared with fifty or a hundred years ago? How indeed should the terms be translated into English? It is not just a question of definition, but also of thorny political/ideological issues - the notion of 'tribe' perhaps smacks more of anachronism, of powerful chiefs, of difficult times in Iranian history, than do either 'nomad' or 'pastoralist'; but terms that can mean all of these carry all their connotations. It seems that the prime reference of the terms has been political, to 'tribes', so that there is sometimes, where necessary, the added precision of damdar (pastoralist), kuchandeh or kuch-neshin (nomadic, migrating), or chador-neshin (tent-dwelling). But increasingly the terms have become differentiated, Hat being reserved for 'tribes', and 'ashayer for 'nomads'.7 Thus, around 1990, the name of the government department (Sazmane omur-e 'ashayer-e Iran) that was concerned with providing services to nomads, and indeed had helped to organize the census, was translated into English as 'Iran's Tribal Affairs Organization'. In 1992 the translation was changed to 'Organization for the Nomadic Peoples of Iran', at least for the purposes of the international conference convened by the department, and the title of the conference {'ashayer va touse'eh) was translated as 'Nomadism and Development'. Nomadism implied pastoralism, and clearly - and usefully - steered conference discussion in the direction of 'the future of nomadic pastoralism', a topical issue in development studies; one cannot conceive of a similarly useful conference being convened to discuss the development or future of 'tribes'. Significantly, the conference brochures avoided any use of the term 'tribe' in the English text, or of Hat in the Persian, where only 'ashayer was used. This shift was a decision by a few individuals, concerned perhaps with the international image of Iran.8 At any rate, the English notion of 'the tribes', and the Persian-Turkish plural term Hat, have been eased

Change, Cognition and Control

199

out, and replaced by the Arabic 'ashayer in its new sense of 'pastoral nomads' and qabileh (as in the census definition) as an analytical term for 'tribal', with social, and no longer political connotations. But the singular // continues to be used for specific tribal groups, and rather more subtle refinements and redefinitions have been produced within official circles. In official publications associated with the census and since, il is defined in more detail: An // is composed of several tayfeh united on the basis of kinship, or social, political or other ties; usually located in a defined geographic area, known as the tribal territory (qalamrou). Tayfeh of an // usually have distant kinship links with each other by blood (nasabi) or marriage (sababi); but some have no kinship links but form an // through social or political necessity (zarurat). The speech, customs and manners and way of life of the different tayfeh of an // are by and large the same. The most well-defined and important pastoral nomad ('ashayeri) social level is the tayfeh, a community {jama!at) usually united by near and distant kinship, linked through a number of generations, by blood or marriage, to a common origin (mabna); a pastoral nomad ('ashayeri) individual is usually identified primarily by his tayfeh name. Independent tayfeh are those which have no // membership. Below this level (the definition continues) the various subdivisions in the tribal structure are peculiar to each tribal group. At the minimal level, however, there is invariably a small group of households linked by close blood relationship or affinity. Other groups, formed for example for migratory or herding purposes, are not counted in the census (Islamic Republic of Iran, 1989: vi).9 Despite the qualifications, this definition is quite precise and comprehensive. However, although it includes the political notions of territory and unity, there is no mention anywhere of the element of leadership, once the sine qua non connotation of 'tribe'. Apart from this omission, the definition has two major differences from its predecessors: on the one hand, it is both more explicit and more flexible than any previous one; on the other, for the first time individuals whose own background is that of ordinary nomadic tribespeople have, through the ONA, had a hand in its formulation.

200

When History Accelerates

TRIBES AND NOMADS

As we have seen, the notion of 'tribes' (Hat va 'ashayer) as the political and social dimension of pastoral nomadism was strongly entrenched in academic and administrative thinking about Iranian society, such that the category of 'the tribes' was conventionally synonymous with 'the nomads'. Further, 'tribes' were strongly associated with powerful leaders. Since the Islamic Revolution, however, official definitions of 'tribes' have played down this political dimension. They now omit all reference to chiefs, and focus instead on the social: tribes in Iran, or at least the major components, the tayfeh, are now defined in terms of a sentiment of kinship. To be sure, the redefinition of the terminology recognizes changing political realities - the chiefs no longer exist; but it is also an attempt to fix current reality in a way that facilitates control. This is also evident in the implication in the official definition that there is, and always has been, a more or less uniform pattern of political and social structure among the nomadic tribes, which is far from the case. Even the upper level of the structure - // divided into tayfeh is idealized. It is not an exact representation of any one tribal group, but somehow the average of all of them, a model of uniformity, and it is a fiction for the purposes of administration and control, in a grand tradition of many centuries during which governments have defined, created and classified 'the tribes'. The tribal groups of Iran differ in many ways. Some scholars have sought to categorize them according to their economic and ecological situations as pastoralists and migrants. But they have been classified in a variety of other ways, for different purposes. Official classifications, for example, have used three types of criteria, alone or in combination: by ethno-linguistic affiliations, by province, or by state-defined 'tribes' and 'clans'. A further mode of classification of the nomad tribes focuses on sociopolitical structures and relations to the state. Tribal political structures have nothing much to do with either pastoralism or nomadism per se. It has indeed long been recognized that the powerful chiefs and tribal groups in Iran were, in large part, moulded if not created by the state and by government policies. Tribes in Iran have formed and derived their character from their relation to particular states at particular times - and there has been much theorizing as to the complex processes involved (e.g. Digard, 1973,1987; Garthwaite, 1983; Beck, 1991; Kiavand, 1989; R. Tapper, 1983, 1991). No simple model of 'the tribes/nomads of Iran' is adequate, unless

Change, Cognition and Control

201

perhaps for very specific and drastic purposes of control. Many academic and official studies of the tribes, however, have based their analyses on the apparent assumption of a uniformity of structure, often based on a reading of Barth's study of the Basseri nomads of Fars (1961).10 Typical formal schemes tend to include the following common elements: (a) A regular segmentary structure of territorial/political units, with terminologies to match (//, tayfeh, tireh, obeh and their equivalents), usually depicted graphically as a star or tree; (b) A matching segmentary framework of descent groups, with a genealogical charter of pedigrees of descent from a common ancestor; again, a tree is the common model; (c) A matching hierarchical structure of political leadership roles (ilkhani, khan, kalantar, kadkhoda, rish-sefid and so forth), accompanied by pyramid-shaped diagrams; (d) A matching pyramid model of class structure, for example: chiefly families, independent commoners, employees, dependants and servants. Careful reading of Barth's account of the Basseri shows them to diverge at many points from this model of 4tribal structure', but his account has been frequently misread, by both Iranian and outside academics, as confirming the elements of the model (Street, 1990; cf. Barth, 1992). Indeed, all the major Zagros confederacies (Bakhtiari, Qashqa'i, Khamseh), despite radical differences between them, are sometimes represented as the archetypes of 'tribal structure' and of pastoral economies and societies in Iran, while other tribal groups are held to be more or less imperfect approximations to them, with fewer levels of organization, less centralization, less powerful chiefs and so forth. However, the idea that there was a uniform or archetypal 'tribal structure' of Iran, a fixed pattern of hierarchical political and social organization among nomads, was wishful thinking on the part of tidy-minded academics and government officials intent on control. Even if certain nomadic societies have similar social and political structures on paper, this says nothing about the functions of groups at any level, the power and role of any particular leader, or the political behaviour of particular individuals. Indigenous terms for political and descent groups, according to which nomads and tribespeople identify

202

When History Accelerates

themselves and act, are not as systematically related or consistent as standard hierarchical models of tribal structures suggest. The terms used tend to denote facets or functions, rather than levels in a hierarchy of groups. Ethnographers often report that individual nomads could not specify whether a given named group of people was a tayfeh or a tireh or an //; this is not evidence of confusion or imprecision on the part of informants, but rather of the contextual nature of the terms. Many such terms are used interchangeably or apparently inconsistently, partly because - like the English terms 'section', 'department', 'division', 'family', 'group', 'lineage', 'tribe', 'clan', 'community' - they are ambiguous, partly because different terms are appropriate descriptions of the same 'group' in different contexts of action. The same Shahsevan social group may be called a tireh in the political context of tribal sections, a gobak as a descent group, or ajamahat as a ritual and moral community (R. Tapper, 1979; cf. Tapper and Tapper (1982) on qoum in Afghanistan; and the discussion of Kurdish terms by van Bruinessen, 1992: 60f.). The same term may have different connotations in different tribal cultures, signifying, for example: community, grazing-group, tribal section, followers of a leader, descent group. Further, //, now officially used for major tribal groups throughout Iran, in the language and culture of the Turkmen nomads of north-eastern Iran means 'peace', 'obedience'. Much the same is true of the terminology of leadership positions. Terms such as khan, beg, katkhoda, rish-safid/aq-saqal, which may be neatly listed in a hierarchical - quasi-military - model of tribal political structure, in practical usage in different tribal contexts may rather have differentiated between leaders who were self-promoted, government appointees, or popularly elected or approved. As for the assumption that nomads conceive their tribal identity in terms of a nesting set of descent groups, this is true in only a very limited sense. The Bakhtiari, and one or two other groups, are reported to have a unifying tribal genealogy, but other major groups, with histories and traditions of heterogeneous origins, make no pretence at such agnatic unity, and invoke frameworks of common descent only at low levels of organization (van Bruinessen, 1983; R. Tapper, 1979). Commonly, indeed, pedigrees and descent claims are only invoked where, as in the case of the Basseri oulad, they bring rights of access to an important resource such as pastureland. At the level of the local community, such as the Basseri camp, common descent is often no more important than other kinds of inter-personal ties as a basis for

Change, Cognition and Control

203

day-to-day relationships and loyalties. Local-level groupings tend to be of very mixed composition, like the major confederacies themselves; most commonly, it is ties between women that structure the composition of the smallest groups of households. Unilineal segmentary-hierarchical models of nomadic tribal society, reproduced in academic and official analyses, appear to create rather than depict or discover structures. They were convenient as administrative blueprints for control, models for use by central government or by tribal chiefs. But they seldom represent tribal structure as it was seen and lived by ordinary nomads, whose stories of the origins of different tribal sections and the connections between them often differ radically from the official, chiefly version (cf. R. Tapper (1988) on different versions of Shahsevan origins; Wright (1992) on Doshmanziari and others). And they certainly do not explain the political behaviour of nomadic individuals: the networks of personal ties of loyalty and friendship, modes of negotiation and accommodation, the formation and maintenance of alliances and rivalries, and the emergence of leaders, including women (whether as wives or mothers of male leaders, or in their own right). These informal processes occur at all levels of nomadic society. At the level of tribe and confederacy their operation tends to be obscured if not suppressed by processes emanating from the state, following the official hierarchical political model. At the local level, on the other hand, these processes reflect real economic and social forces in nomadic society. Tribal organization in the old political sense no longer exists in Iran. The centralized chiefdoms and confederacies, condemned as socially unjust and politically unnecessary and incompatible with a modern state structure, have finally been abolished, and the state, through ONA, has taken over the political and economic functions of the former tribal leaders. Government has redefined 'ashayer, il and tayfeh to include no reference to tribal political organization or chiefship, but specifically to imply both pastoral nomadism and the moral ties of kinship, or shared economic interest. It has in effect recognized the basic social and economic reality of nomad 'tribes'. NOMADS' SELF-DEFINITIONS

How do nomads define their own identities? Do people classified by governments, historians, anthropologists or other outsiders as 'nomads' or 'tribes', actually identify themselves as such, or by some other category? The answers, as in other questions of identity, depend on

204

When History Accelerates

context: indeed, on who is asking the question, in what situation, and for what purpose. What are the elements of their identity? First, for many nomads, the most conscious element of their identity has always been their religion; whether in the case of those adhering to the majority Shi'a faith of Iran, or the Sunni or Ahl-e Haqq minorities. Barth's account of the Basseri supports a conventional Middle Eastern stereotype of nomads as lax Muslims, uninterested in the religion of the mullahs; but there are other, contrary stereotypes, such as that derived from Ibn Khaldun, according to which nomads have a simple, desert religion which brings them close to God, and are liable to respond quickly to the call to reform; and more recent accounts of Iranian nomads such as the Shahsevan and the Komachi show tham to be sincere, committed Muslims (R. Tapper, 1979, Bradburd, 1990). In the traditional context of political relations with the state, with non-tribal peasants or with members of other tribes, nomads would often identify themselves genetically as 'tribespeople' (ilati, 'ashayer), or specifically by the name of a tribal group to which they belonged, depending on the situation. In this context, markers of identity were commonly martial symbols such asfirearmsand stories of past exploits. In the larger tribal groups, as we have seen, members of the chiefly classes served as the warriors and did little herding work; they would be more likely than ordinary nomads or hired shepherds to maintain this tribal identity. In economic and social contexts, where ordinary nomads share the distinctive experiences and problems of tent-dwellers, camp-dwellers, migrants and stock-keepers, as opposed to settled cultivators, traders, city-dwellers, a number of relevant identities (in different languages) are available. The tents themselves, the hearths around which families gather, sometimes the herding skills and practices and aspects of the migration, tend to carry important symbolic meanings associated with this kind of identity. The richest area of symbolic potential for distinctive markers of identity is that of culture and ethnicity: language, history and tradition, religion, custom, and material culture. Cultural differences among the nomads of Iran have been much reported on, and the more visual and tangible aspects such as dwellings, textiles, clothing, food and domestic paraphernalia have been displayed in museums and described in the more popular ethnographic literature. Material items such as tents and clothing are sometimes used as cultural markers by the nomads themselves, but linguistic differences appear to embody more

Change, Cognition and Control

205

important elements of cultural identity. Recently there has been a boom in publication of the poetry and other oral literature of nomads. But there is one area of culture that holds for nomads (as for other people) deeply rooted, and usually unarticulated, meanings: the realm of ceremonies and rituals, in particular those associated with marriage. In basic outline, weddings and other ceremonies are very similar among the different nomad groups; but their richness, and much of the implicit importance for the participants, lies in the details which distinguish the customs and symbolism of each group: often of each clan and sometimes each local community. Nomadic identity seems to be encapsulated in the forms of music and dance practised at weddings - hence the reaction to the dance displays in the 1977 Isfahan Festival referred to earlier. These various identities are not exclusive, but are alternatives, and individuals can and do claim more than one, shifting between them according to circumstances. Much daily interaction between individuals can be interpreted as the continuing negotiation of identities. What determines nomads' changing self-perceptions? Much hinges on relations between neighbouring groups at different levels, which can be manipulated by local leaders or governments. Where groups of different backgrounds are allied (for presumably practical reasons) they can adopt a common identity as pastoral nomads and play down their ethnic-cultural differences, which may over time disappear. This ethnic convergence is more likely perhaps in the case of small groups or minorities adapting to majority or dominant groups, as has frequently occurred in Iranian tribal history, for example between Kurdish and Turkish groups at a local level. In other cases, there is a long history of ethnic rivalry, for example between Qashqa'i Turks' and Bakhtiari 'Lors' on the one hand and Khamseh * Arabs' on the other. This 'ethnic' rivalry often focuses on cultural differences such as wedding customs; it may also affect each group's perceptions of their religious identity, for example (between two Shi'a groups) of their comparative piety (R. Tapper, 1984). Much also depends on how far nomads share cultural, linguistic and religious traditions with the rulers of the state, and on the changing political and economic realities of privilege and discrimination, in terms of social status, and these days access to jobs and contracts and government funding. Before the Pahlavis, rulers were of tribal origins, and tribal identities carried some status in society. The Pahlavis attempted to abolish the tribes, and encouraged an urban contempt for rural and tribal peoples as dirty and ignorant savages, beneath attention.

206

When History Accelerates

Those who were once proud to be 'tribespeople', led by chiefs and a threat to the state, either attempted to merge into the rural landscape as ordinary citizens, or became 'pastoral nomads', which at least carried the connotation of harmless, specialized, even valued producers. This identity and that of Shi'a Muslims have become more respectable in the Islamic Republic, but dominant religious and nationalist values mean that the state is ambivalent in its attitude towards distinctive tribal (even in the redefined sense) and minority identities and cultural practices, for example where these involve music and dancing and women's dress. At the Isfahan conference, however, there was evidence of shifts in the political culture of the Islamic regime: the earlier ban on music and dancing was relaxed, and nomadic women were conceded the right to dress in styles not conforming closely to urban 'Islamic' conventions. Once more, pastoral nomadic cultural practices and products are being promoted for their inherent interest and value as part of a rich national tradition, but this time there is greater respect for their living role in both past, present and future society. It remains to be investigated how far these changes in the external environment will affect nomadic self-definitions and cognition. Preliminary indications are that, just as 'pastoral nomadism' has become more respectable a concept in government, and to the society at large, so also 'settlement' has become increasingly acceptable to nomads who once would have rejected it as threatening the very foundations of their identity. But this change too is at least in part due to subtle reconstructions of the concept in the ways that government promotes it and those concerned perceive it. REDEFINING 'SETTLEMENT'

Since the nineteenth century, governments have accepted unquestioningly that the best, if not the only way to control the nomadic tribes is to settle them. This dogma found its most ardent exponent in Reza Shah, but it has persisted under later governments, including the present regime. As with both 'nomadism' and 'tribalism', however, the government appears to be pursuing its policy of 'settlement' at least in part by allowing or encouraging redefinitions of the term. 'Settlement of the tribes' (eskan-e 'ashayef) once had strong political connotations of bringing the unruly under control. It meant that the nomads should cease migrating and become farmers or factory workers, living in villages or towns under the direct administration of

Change, Cognition and Control

207

government; the economic role of pastoralism was deliberately left out of account. Although settlement has now lost its political rationale, for some it remains a dogma justified by social, economic and ecological arguments. Those I defined earlier as traditionalists, some of them educated under the old regime, continue to urge that nomadism is backward and that the nomads must be settled, for their own economic and social good. They produce reports demonstrating that nomadic pastoralism is economically wasteful (animals suffer unacceptable weight-loss on migration), and ecologically harmful (destruction of pastures). They are supported by some of the new mullahs, perhaps ignorant of nomads and shocked by their first sight of them. They are able to point further to the frequent approaches by nomads to the Ministry of Reconstruction, asking for settled bases and access to facilities such as schools; they gloss over the nomads' requests that, even with the settled bases, they should be allowed continued freedom to move if appropriate. However, like 'nomads' (Hat, 'ashayer), 'settlement' (eskari) is a fuzzy concept. In effect, government can take various actions to sponsor and encourage settlement. At the radical end, it can ban migrations, or it can confiscate nomadic pasturelands, either by ploughing and irrigating them, or giving grazing permits to commercial (settled) stockmen, so that nomads have nowhere to graze their animals and are forced to settle. Or government can control the prices of pastoral produce, for example by massive imports of foreign meat and cheese, so that the nomads' economy is ruined. Or it can give incentives to nomads to plough up their own pastures. Or it can build settled stations in the pastures as bases for supplying facilities, and attract nomads to use these bases or even to settle there. Or, finally, it can abolish nomadism at a stroke by declaring the nomads 'settled'. All these strategies, as we have seen, have been pursued at various points in recent Iranian history, and all beg the question, at what point do nomads become 'settled'? Settlement of people, animals or bases? In 1993, in some parts of the country at least, it appeared that, if nomads can be shown to have settlements (buildings, bases, stations) something all nomads are apparently happy to have - then, even though they may still migrate (by truck or by transport animal), they can be said to have 'settled' and to be pursuing a modern way of life. CONCLUSION

Despite the improved social status that nomads are now accorded, the

208

When History

Accelerates

overall process in the twentieth century - with the radical expansion of the world economic-political system, the revolution in communications and the military power available to the state - has been a decisive and irreversible turn to the ascendancy of settled society. The long-term future of pastoral nomadism in Iran, as elsewhere, must remain in doubt. In the short term, processes of social change must be studied, as Paul Stirling has argued, not only in terms of material and demographic change, but also in terms of knowledge and cognition. In this chapter I have suggested that an important part of these changes will be the contestation and negotiations of the concepts used to control people from above, and also to express identities from below. NOTES

1 Earlier versions were presented in seminars at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) (November 1992) and at the annual meetings of the Middle East Studies Association in North Carolina (November 1993); I am grateful for comments received on both occasions. Travel to Iran in September 1992 and August-September 1993 was made possible by grants from the British Institute for Persian Studies (1992 and 1993) and the Nuffield Foundation (1993), and my visit to Research Triangle Park was assisted by a grant from the SOAS Research Committee. Some of the material is also being used in the 'Introduction' to J. Thompson and R. Tapper, forthcoming. I am grateful to numerous officials and private individuals in Iran who were willing to discuss the present and future of the nomads. I am particularly indebted to Ziba Mir-Hosseini for sharing her knowledge of the nomads with me, and for long discussions during which the main argument of the paper was developed. Jon Thompson has helped clarify both my ideas and the language of the text. I should stress that the chapter is very much a report on work in progress. 2 See Naficy, 1979: 223; Grass is a 16mm film by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack made in 1924. 3 See Beck, 1992. Studies in English of nomadic life under the Islamic Republic are still few. The above account derives from Beck, from reading a variety of reports in Persian, and from personal information, mainly second-hand, on other major groups such as Bakhtiari, Shahsevan, and Lor. 4 Under the Second Five-Year Plan (due to start in March 1994), 80,000 families of nomads are due to be settled. 5 Fredrik Barth writes of 'the pervasive conviction among urban Iranians to whom I spoke [in 1958] that all tribesmen in Iran - the land of Kurds and Lurs and Baluchis - should be nomads' (1992: 177). 6 Other terms have in the past been used synonymously with them: qabayel,

Change, Cognition and Control

209

tavayef, oymaqat, ulusat (Lambton, 1971: 1095-6; Towfiq, 1987: 707). All these too are plural forms, of the singulars qabileh (Arabic), tayfeh (Arabic), oymaq (Turko-Mongol), ulus (Turkish). The singulars have specific references in contemporary Iranian tribal societies. 7 A leading Iranian anthropologist, the late Nader Afshar-Naderi, suggested the reverse in the 1970s (1983: 331). 8 In 1993, when one of the officials of the organization saw that I used 4 Organization for the Nomadic Peoples of Iran' as a translation, he corrected me again: the proper English was 'Organization for Nomadic Affairs'. Nomads themselves call the organization 'Jehad-e 'ashayeri', identifying it with its parent Ministry and its ideology. 9 This definition has also been published elsewhere, e.g. Zakhayer-e Enqelab, 11 (summer 1990), pp. 77-81, and 19 (summer 1992), pp. 17ff. 10 See numerous recent monographs, and Wright (1992). It should also be noted that historians and ethnographers have, through their writings, been among the 'creators' of tribal ethnic identities; the Shahsevan are just one among many well-documented cases in the Middle East (R. Tapper, 1988). REFERENCES

Afshar-Naderi, N. (1983) 'The settlement of nomads and its social and economic effects' (in Persian), in Agah Publications (comp.) Hat va 'Ashayer, Tehran: Kitab-e Agah. Barth, F. (1961) Nomads of South Persia, London: Allen & Unwin. Barth, F. (1992) 'Method in our critique of anthropology', Man, 27, 175-7. Beck, L. (1980) 'Revolutionary Iran and its tribal peoples', MERIP Reports 87, 14-20. Beck, L. (1982) 'Nomads and urbanites, involuntary hosts and uninvited guests', Middle Eastern Studies, 18, 426-44. Beck, L. (1991) 'Tribes and the state in nineteenth and twentieth century Iran', in P. Khoury and J. Kostiner (eds) Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East, Berkeley, University of California Press, pp. 185-225. Beck, L. (1992) 'Qashqa'i nomads and the Islamic Republic', Middle East Report, 37-41. Bradburd, D. (1990) Ambiguous Relations: Kin, Class and Conflict among Komachi Pastoralists, Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution. Digard, J.-P. (1973) 'Histoire et anthropologic des societes nomades: le cas d'une tribu dTran', Annales: Economies, Societes, Civilisations, 28, 1423-35. Digard, J.-P. (1987) 'Jeux de structures: segmentarite et pouvoir chez les nomades Baxtyari dTran', UHomme, 27, 2, 12-53. Garthwaite, G. R. (1983) Khans and Shahs: a Documentary Analysis of the Bakhtiari of Iran, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Islamic Republic of Iran (Plan and Budget Organization: Statistical Centre of Iran) (1989) Socio-Economic Census of Nomadic Tribes, 1987: Tribal Gazetteer, vol. 2-2: The Ilsevan (Shahsevan) Tribe, Tehran.

210

When History

Accelerates

Islamic Republic of Iran (Plan and Budget Organisation: Statistical Centre of Iran, and Ministry of Jehad-e-Sazandegi: Iran Tribal Affairs Organization) (1991) Socio-Economic Census of Nomadic Tribes, 1987: Country, vol. 6: Tribal Atlas, Tehran. Khoury, P. and J. Kostiner (eds) (1991) Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East, Berkeley: University of California Press. Kiavand, A. (1989) Government, Politics and Tribes (in Persian), Tehran: 'Ashayer Publications. Lambton, A. K. S. (1971) 'Hat', Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd edn, vol. 2, pp. 1095-110. Naflcy, H. (1979) 'Nonfiction fiction: documentaries on Iran', Iranian Studies, 12, 217-38. Shahshahani, S. (1986) 'History of anthropology in Iran', Iranian Studies, 19, 65-86. Stirling, P. (1974) 'Cause, knowledge and change: Turkish village revisited', in J. Davis (ed.) Choice and Change: Essays in Honour of Lucy Mair, pp. 191-229. London: Athlone. Stirling, P. (1982) 'Social change and social control in Republican Turkey', in Turkiye I§ Bankasi: Papers and Discussions: International Symposium on Ataturk 1981, Ankara: Turkiye Is, Bankasi, Cultural Publications, pp. 565-600. Stirling, P. (1993) 'Growth and change: speed, scale, complexity', in P. Stirling (ed.) Culture and Economy: Changes in Turkish Villages, Huntingdon: Eothen, pp. 1-16. Street, B. (1990) 'Orientalist discourse in the anthropology of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan' in R. Fardon (ed.) Localizing Strategies: Regional Traditions of Ethnographic Writing, Edinburgh: Scottish Academic. Tapper N. and R. Tapper (1982) 'Marriage preferences and ethnic relations', Folk, 24, 157-77. Tapper, R. (1979) Pasture and Politics: Economics, Conflict and Ritual among Shahsevan Nomads of Northwestern Iran, London: Academic Press. Tapper, R. (1983) 'Introduction' in R. Tapper (ed.) The Conflict of Tribe and State in Iran and Afghanistan, London: Croom Helm. Tapper, R. (1984) 'Holier than thou: Islam in three tribal societies', in A. S. Ahmed and D. M. Hart (eds) Islam in Tribal Societies, London: Routledge, pp. 244-65. Tapper, R. (1988) 'History and identity among the Shahsevan', Iranian Studies, 21, 3^, 84-108. Tapper, R. (1991) 'Anthropologists, historians and tribespeople on tribe and state formation in the Middle East', in P. Khoury and J. Kostiner (eds) Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 48-73. Thompson, J. and R. Tapper (eds) (forthcoming) The Nomads of Iran. Towfiq, F. (1987) "Ashayer', Encyclopedia Iranica, vol.2, pp.707-724. Van Bruinessen, M. (1983) 'Kurdish tribes and the state of Iran: the case of

Change, Cognition and Control

211

Simko's revolt', in R. Tapper (ed.) The Conflict of Tribe and State in Iran and Afghanistan, London: Croom Helm, pp. 364-^00. Van Bruinessen, M. (1992) Agha, Shaikh and State, 2nd edn, London: Zed. Wright, S. (1992) 'Method in our critique of anthropology: a further comment', Man, 27, 3, 642-*.

CHAPTER 10

Creating Law: Trade, Production and Accelerating Change in Late Ottoman Izmir June Starr INTRODUCTION

No anthropologist can rival Paul Stirling in understanding the causes and consequences of social change in modern Turkey. This chapter connects with his work in two ways. First, Stirling (e.g. 1974, 1993) has pointed to accelerating social change in the second half of the twentieth century that occurred, in part, because Turkey became a more active participant in the global economy (see Eralp, 1990: 245). The data I analyse here relate to an earlier period of accelerated social change in Turkey that starts at the end of the eighteenth century. Trade relationships between the Ottoman Empire and European countries intensified during this period, especially in the bustling port city of Izmir. Second, in studying these processes I am, like Paul Stirling, interested in how local changes interact with changes in policies at the level of the state. In this case I find that the nineteenth-century state elites react to pressures from below and to external constraints, in some contrast to the more pro-active styles of their twentieth-century successors. But the details of micro-macro interaction are complex, and we need to avoid simplistic judgements about causal relations. Nowhere is this more true than in the relationships between social change and legal systems. My subject, then, is the complex international trade that had developed at the port of Izmir by the beginning of the nineteenth century.l The interaction of European and Ottoman traders brought together different languages, customs and ethnic groups. The European traders used 'traders' law', a customary system developed during the Middle Ages, while Muslims when trading with other Muslims used the Islamic law of commerce. Thus, different legal traditions and different languages of trade and dispute resolution intermingled. Analysis of complex,

Creating Law

213

historically situated practices of international trade illuminates the variety of local responses to the opportunity for trade. In response to the European demand for fresh vegetables and fruits, a new agricultural farming system based on large estates, the giftlik, developed in the Izmir region through the organizational talents of an emergent rural, localized stratum, the ayan (Veinstein, 1976: 71). By the mid-nineteenth century, these notables had overturned the existing state-managed landholding system, thus subverting the empire's control of land and agricultural production, the empire's law, and the empire's conceptions of landed property. The ayan also worked creatively to achieve other changes in law and in rural administration: the right to hold land as private property instead of being mere vassals in a huge state-owned agricultural system, and the right to pass on both their property in land and their accumulated wealth to their heirs, instead of to the state. They also lobbied for a rural police force to keep the newly created landless, rural, labour force in line; and for the ending of the obligation to provide a standing army unit from the local community. Later, in the 1860s, in addition to making the changes demanded above, the Ottoman central bureaucracy responded to local concerns when the ruling bureaucrats introduced a quite new (and thus presumably uncorrupted) rural administrative system based not on Ottoman, but on French models of rural administration. By focusing on commercial interaction among European traders and Ottoman subjects in the nineteenth century in Izmir and its hinterland, this chapter analyses how changes in international trade shaped and transfigured other local level institutions. Izmir had become the most important Ottoman port of trade by the late eighteenth century, surpassing even Istanbul, the centre of Ottoman state institutions (Frangakis, 1988: 261, 269; Frangakis-Syrett, 1992: xi).2 In this analysis I draw together three different kinds of scholarship usually pursued separately: Ottoman scholarship on agrarian relationships in Asia Minor and the regions surrounding Izmir; Ottoman scholarship concerning international trade in the port of Izmir; and European legal history concerning what is glossed among Ottoman scholars as 'traders' law'. The term 'traders' law' has three referents: first, the customs and the procedures that became everyday practices in international trade; second, the legal concepts used in adjudicating trade disputes; and third, the ad hoc tribunals that were convened to settle commercial disputes. In European legal scholarship, traders' law is referred to as the Law Merchant. This case study of local influences on national legal change in the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century takes a different view of

214

When History Accelerates

legal change from that recently explored in my book concerning the evolution of legal culture in Turkey (Starr, 1992). In that work I argued for the significance of law as a symbol of the secular Republic and as an important instrument in the institutionalization of changes at all levels of society. In this paper the goal is to explain how complex social and trading relations in a local area created political pressures that led state elites to change the law and to recognize forms of dispute settlement that differed greatly from the Islamic commercial law courts that were the official courts of the Ottoman state. By demonstrating that in and around Izmir local level challenges to the hegemonic law of the Ottoman state mostly occurred not through organized resistance, but through everyday ordinary practices performed by certain strata of the society, this chapter develops an argument parallel to those of Stirling, but based on data from a century earlier and suggesting some rather different chains of cause and effect. For Stirling, the introduction of the tractor to the Anatolian plateau transformed agriculture and contributed to the exodus of many farmers and agricultural labourers from the land at the very same time that new opportunities opened for them elsewhere, in cities both at home and abroad. In the case I wish to examine here, the interests of local elites engaged in trade with Europe were instrumental in undermining established Ottoman dispute settlement procedures, ownership structures, and productive systems. ISLAMIC LAW, SECULAR LAW AND TRADE

For six centuries the Ottomans were almost constantly at war with the Christian West - first to impose Islam, and then in its defence. Islam left its mark on all the institutions of state. The Ottoman Turks submerged their identity in Islam, to a greater extent than perhaps any other Islamic people (Lewis, 1966: 13). In its glory in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Ottoman Empire occupied lands from Persia through Anatolia and south-eastern Europe right up to the gates of Vienna. It also stretched through the Arabian peninsula and across North Africa. It was a multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic, multi-religious empire, like the Arab-dominated empire it had replaced. The central institutions of state - its law and its state religion - were those of Sunni Islam. In the classical periods, Islam and state, law and religion were not separate entities, but were interwoven (Von Grunebaum, 1962). Although the 'popular Islam' of the rural people differed from the classical Islam of the ruling elites during Ottoman times, religion nevertheless formed a common bond (Mardin, 1971: 201-6). At the

Creating Law

215

very heart of Islam was Islamic law. Traditionally, 'the Islamic view ... [did] not regard religion and law as separate entities'. Muslims defined jurisprudence as 'the knowledge of the practical rules of religion' (ibid.: 144). Islam was both a system of religious belief and practice, and a 'system of state, society, law, thought, and art a civilization with religion as its unifying, and eventually dominating factor' (Lewis, 1960: 133). Its holy law, the §eriat, was developed by jurists from the Koran and the traditions and sayings of the Prophet Mohammed (cf. Starr, 1989: 497). This holy law also governed all commercial disputes. When Muslims engaged in trade and disputes arose, whether in towns or in countryside, these disputes were settled in Islamic (Kadi) courts according to Islamic legal rules. Over the centuries Islamic law expanded and was refined to cover almost all aspects of life. A hierarchy of Islamic clergy and Islamic courts existed throughout the Ottoman domains, in which Muslims regardless of sect could settle their disputes. Islamic commercial law was in fact older than European commercial law. Arabs had dominated Mediterranean trade from the ninth century. At the time of the first Crusade in the eleventh century, the new European contact with the East led to a renewed intensity in international trade. Islamic trading networks dominated the broad belt of lands lying between Arabia and the Black Sea that in the ancient world had been the great staging area for trade between the East and western Mediterranean countries (Bewes, 1923: 2-3). The Arabs' greater experience in long distance trade meant that their concepts and norms of trade greatly influenced the development of European commercial law in its early stages. In the early medieval period, European diplomats visited the Arab Sultans to make treaties to govern trade and status of European merchants and diplomats within the Arab Islamic Empire. The Europeans won a series of rights that were renewed each time a new Sultan ascended the throne. The practice continued even in later periods when the Ottomans dominated the Islamic world and the sultan came from Ottoman not Arab ruling families. Similar to earlier Arab treaties, these international treaties governed both trade and the status of Europeans trading with the Ottoman Empire (Inalcik, 1986). Trading privileges granted to the Europeans by treaty included: general security of persons and property, freedom of worship, burial and dress, the right to repair ships in Islamic ports, to get emergency rations, to obtain aid against attack by corsairs, and the abolition of the lex naufragii, the law of ships wrecked at sea. The early treaties

216

When History Accelerates

granted Europeans the right to address complaints to the head of the Muslim community. Extra-territorial rights were also granted: these included the right to establish a consulate with jurisdiction over its own nationals, the right of the head of the consulate, the consul, to receive a salary that was untaxed by the Islamic authorities, and the right that collective responsibility not be enforced against foreign nationals who had a consulate within an Islamic jurisdiction, whatever the offence they had committed against an Ottoman subject. Thus, governed by treaty, a customary international law developed between the sovereign Christian states and the Islamic Ottoman Empire. The treaties were signed between heads of states, but did not contain a list of the laws governing international trade. Instead, over the centuries norms and customs developed through local practices both in port cities around the Mediterranean and in the great European fairs that were held along permanent trade routes from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries (Walker, 1980: 727). As time progressed, English common law began to influence the international customary law of trade, which became known to European scholars as the Law Merchant. European traders' law, which had been the lingua franca of trade in the Mediterranean, the Baltic and within the Hanseatic League of cities, became the customary law of trade for Europeans trading with the Ottoman Empire. Down to the nineteenth century, Ottoman merchants in ports and market towns interacted with Europeans in basically the same way as their predecessors, the norms of trade being governed by traders' law. European traders by this time carried documents that had come to resemble licences, which stipulated the place where the bearer was required to go to have a trading dispute heard. Before the licences, European traders in dispute had recourse only to their own consul, who resided in the trading port, or to the major administrative bureau of the ruling Islamic elites, the Porte in Istanbul (Inalcik, 1986: 1180). By 1800-1, however, the licences permitted recourse to ad hoc traders' tribunals (Mardin, 1961: 189-91), which had become customary tribunals of trade under the Law Merchant. §erif Mardin's unique study (1961) of nineteenth-century European traders' licences in Istanbul is relevant to this analysis: a similar system would have existed in Izmir, though to date no Ottoman scholar has studied Izmiri trading licences. The earliest known licences for trade (berat), given under treaty, have been dated to the eighteenth century (Mardin, 1961: 189). These trading licences initially were granted only to European merchants (Avrupa Tuccari). One of the benefits, from a

Creating Law

111

European point of view, was that the licences allowed Europeans to import and export goods for a low customs fee, not more than 3-5 per cent. Another benefit was that European licence-holders were exempted from the jurisdiction of the Islamic courts in commercial matters. Each licence stipulated the tribunals of trade that had jurisdiction and their location, should a dispute arise between Europeans, or between a European and an Ottoman subject (Mardin, 1961: 190-1). For instance, one type of licence, issued in Istanbul, referred the disputants to the central Ottoman government at the Porte in Istanbul. Another type of licence stated that commercial disputes would be settled by an employee of the Ministry of Commerce. A third type of licence stated that lay judges would be selected by the Ottoman Minister of Commerce with the help of the Counsellor of the city's markets (the §eybender) and his assistants, and the parties to the dispute. These tribunals consisted of lay judges who were familiar with the norms of trade, but were untrained in Islamic concepts. Whenever imprisonment was a possible punishment, licences issued in Istanbul stated that the defendant was to be held in custody in the Istanbul Building of Commerce. The licences also stated explicitly that the law to be applied in all these disputes was 'traders' law' (called Kaide-i Tiiccar in Ottoman Turkish). By the nineteenth century Muslim traders were claiming that they were at a disadvantage because they lacked the privileges and reduced customs fees granted to European licence-holders and access to the ad hoc merchants' courts. They wanted access to these traders' tribunals because these had become known for the simplicity of their rules and for the speed of their decision-making processes. The right to purchase a licence was initially extended to non-Muslim Ottoman subjects (the raya merchants), previously required to purchase a licence from a European consulate and trade under its protection and discipline (Frangakis, 1985: 35). By 1810 even Muslim Ottoman merchants (Hayriye Tiiccari) were granted the right to purchase licences directly from the Ottoman bureaucracy (Mardin, 1961: 190). Tribunals of trade were thus clearly in evidence in the Ottoman Empire by the beginning of the nineteenth century. These tribunals were ad hoc 'mixed panels' of lay judges. The term 'mixed' refers to the multi-ethnic and the multi-religious composition of the tribunal, including Ottoman, Christian and foreign nationals. These were not recognized as official courts of the land. They were forums, convened under the traders' licences whenever a problem arose, and they applied the customary international law of trade, the Law Merchant. Traders'

218

When History Accelerates

tribunals were not regulated by the Islamic law of commerce that prevailed in Islamic courts; nor was the Law Merchant employed in Islamic courts, and on some points of the law the two systems were at variance with each other. By 1810 Muslim traders had a wider choice of commercial disputeresolving forums than was open to European traders. A Muslim trader could bring his dispute with another Muslim trader to an Islamic court. In Istanbul the judge with jurisdiction was the Mufti of Public Utility, who held court in the Ministry of Commerce. In any dispute a Muslim could lodge an appeal with the §eyhulislam (the leader of the Islamic community) (Martin, 1961). After Muslim traders had gained the right to buy trading licences, they could also opt to have a dispute heard in the traders' court by secular law, i.e. the Law Merchant. The Law Merchant refers to the habitual customs, practices, and rules of law used by merchants in the conduct of trade and commerce. It was a customary system for local and international trade that defined reasonable commercial standards (Trakman, 1983: 18).3 This law covered contracts, sale, partnerships, limited partnerships, unpaid vendors, mercantile agents, prescription,4 interest, bankruptcy, accounts of husbands and wives, bills of exchange, bills of lading, transport by land or sea, insurance, borrowing on a contract, jettison at sea and the division of the costs of such jettison, double-entry bookkeeping, and the premise that promises should be honoured. Good faith and trust were the essence of a contract between merchants, and a contract was based on a promise and the giving of earnest money. An essential element of the practices of international trade was that disputes should be settled quickly by members of the trade who were cognizant of the rules of trade in that particular place. Although practices differed from place to place, in every type of trade there was general acceptance of the forms and substance of the informal rules of international trade (Walker, 1980: 726-7). INTERNATIONAL TRADE SHAPES THE LOCAL CONTEXT

Izmir had a population of around 100,000 at the end of the eighteenth century. It would have been greater but for annual outbreaks of the plague, and trje occasional devastating earthquake (Frangakis, 1985: 27, 30). European demand for the raw materials of the Ottoman Empire led European merchants to establish mercantile communities in Izmir from the early seventeenth century. French, British, Dutch and later Austrians had settled there with their families, forming communities

Creating Law

219

of foreigners (Frangakis, 1985: 29, 32; Kasaba, 1988: 19-20). Each European neighbourhood was represented by a consul under a written decree from the Sultan (Inalcik, 1986: 1180). The duties of Europeans and non-Muslim Ottoman subjects differed from those of Muslim subjects. Each non-Muslim group or raya was allowed self-rule as long as its members paid taxes to the state and did not engage in subversive activities. Taxes differed for each group, but the raya paid higher taxes than the Muslims. In disputes with Muslims they were subject to Islamic courts. The European merchants who fell under the berati system, the system of trade-licensing described above, were an exception to this rule. Among the non-Muslims of Izmir, the Greeks, Armenians and Jews all had extensive ties with Ottoman producers. They also became the intermediaries between the foreign merchants and the caravan traders, linking Izmir to interior Anatolian areas and to the Silk Road via Aleppo (Frangakis, 1985: 33). By the early eighteenth century, the Jews had become Ottoman subjects, and members of this community sometimes rivalled the Europeans in trade. In eighteenth-century Izmir, the Turks outnumbered the Greeks, but this was reversed in the nineteenth century (ibid.: 29). Izmir was the most cosmopolitan city in the Levant in the eighteenth century and was called gavur Izmir (infidel Izmir) because of the prominence of the non-Muslims. Like other Islamic cities, it was divided into separate quarters for each community. The Europeans lived along a 15-foot-wide street, Frank Street, that extended nearly half the length of the city, including its main market, and the caravan inn. The Greek and Armenian quarters were nearby, but the Turkish quarter was in the upper part of the city around the citadel, well away from the bazaar. The Jewish quarter abutted the Turkish quarter and the Jewish cemetery. The cosmopolitan nature of Izmir and the general religious tolerance of the Ottoman Empire towards the raya is reflected in the existence in Izmir of nineteen Turkish mosques, two large Greek churches, one Armenian church and eight Jewish synagogues. The Europeans had three convents. Yet social contacts between the Europeans and the raya communities were rare: apart from the Greeks, social interaction with the Europeans was almost exclusively restricted to commerce. Greeks, Jews and Armenians engaged in different spheres of trade. Armenians controlled the caravan trade, and had a monopoly in the supply of silk, goats' wool and other goods from Iran, following their 'capture' of the silk trade from Aleppo (Frangakis-Syrett, 1988: 1).

220

When History Accelerates

Armenians also controlled a considerable share of the trade with eastern Ottoman cities such as Erzurum, Tokat, Sivas, Diyarbakir, Kayseri, Antalya and Ankara (Frangakis, 1985: 30-1). A few less prosperous Armenians were shopkeepers in the silk and cloth trade. The Jewish merchants in Izmir were 4the brokers and money-lenders par excellence' (Frangakis, 1985: 31; cf. Gerber and Barnai, 1984). Most links between European merchants and other ethnic groups were forged by them. A Frenchman in his memoir reported that it was simply not possible to negotiate with a Turk, Greek or European without dealing with the Jewish agent who was exclusively attached to the manor house (Four9ade, quoted in Frangakis, 1985: 31). Jews also managed the retail trade of imported coffee, indigo and pepper. The Muslim Turks were the primary rivals of the Armenians for the inland trade with the rest of the Empire to the east. Early in the nineteenth century, however, the British began supplying the Persians with cloth from Basra, thus undercutting and diminishing the number of Armenian caravans arriving at Izmir. But by this time the Armenians had found a new niche in the social structure of commerce. They had become the agents and secretaries of wealthy Ottoman Turks who were acquiring freehold land as private property, and entering commercial agriculture. Sometimes an Armenian agent might lend the landowner money, though the Armenians never rivalled the Jewish merchants in the provision of informal banking services. Money always was scarce in the eighteenth and nineteenth century Ottoman Empire, and banking remained informal until 1840 when thefirstOttoman national bank was established through imperial edict (Lewis, 1966: 109). Under Islamic law usury was prohibited, but lending money at interest was not forbidden by the religions of the Greeks, Armenians and Jews. Jewish merchants were the most important arrangers of 'negotiated loans'. The Greeks were the usual tax collectors, collecting money from other raya communities for the state. Greeks also inspected import/export ships for a clean 'certificate of health', and controlled the wholesale and retail trade in cloth of all qualities.5 Only in the middle of the nineteenth century did European merchants penetrate into the interior of Anatolia for trade. Both before and after this penetration Greeks were the usual agents who acted for European firms. Despite the importance of the raya communities, the Europeans dominated the international trade with Europe, in part because Muslim merchants were forbidden by European laws to live in Central European cities. In contrast, European traders had family members or agents

Creating Law

221

resident in all the principal ports of the Empire: Izmir, Istanbul, Salonika, Cairo, Alexandria and Alexandretta (the port of Aleppo). Within the Empire, too, raya merchants were at a disadvantage compared to Europeans, because of the preferential treatment and lower customs fees which European merchants were granted under the licences discussed earlier. It was always open to raya merchants to purchase a berat from a European power in order to trade under the protection of a European nation and qualify for the same discounts as European berati holders. Only after 1810 was this protection extended by the Ottoman government to Muslim merchants, if the appropriate fee was paid. AN AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION

As early as the eighteenth century, the impact of Europe in certain coastal areas of the Ottoman Empire began to lead to the reorganization of agrarian production into 'big farms' or giftlik.6 By the nineteenth century, these farms produced cotton, rice and wheat for French, Dutch and later Austrian markets. Wills from this period indicate that Ottoman Turks were amassing fortunes in the export trade, and that these plantation-like estates were indeed owned by Turks (Nagata, 1976), rather than by English or other foreign planters as in other parts of the world. Rural Ottomans who amassed family fortunes did so as governors of provinces, as plantation owners, or through usury, tax-farming, and/or as middlemen in the trade between European merchants and Turkish producers (Veinstein, 1976; Inalcik, 1983: 124). The change in agricultural production can best be illustrated by contrasting the new big farms with the previous household farms. The household or gifthane farms were a feature of the early structure of the Ottoman tax-farming system. Each gifthane was inhabited by a man, his wife and his unmarried children, and perhaps a widowed parent. The law guaranteed the peasant a perpetual lease that amounted to actual possession of land by the tiller of the soil. The state, through its agents on the land, ensured that the parties did not alter the original status of the land, or the relationship of the peasant household to it. The household head was entitled to a plot of land (gift), sufficient to sustain one peasant household, and required to pay the rent as a tax to the state (Inalcik, 1983: 106). This system was formerly a moderate social and economic structure, since peasants were charged low rents and relatively few services were demanded of them. The gifthane system was an integral part of the timar system that was the basic military institution

222

When History Accelerates

in the classical period of the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century. Just as the timar was an indivisible and unalterable unit recorded in a survey book, so in principle the gifthane units were indivisible and unalterable, to protect the state's tax income. State control of the timar and of the gifthane system is widely recognized to be one of the causes of stagnation in Ottoman agricultural production (Inalcik, 1983: 107). The European demand for raw materials, including agricultural produce, stimulated in Izmir and its vicinity the growth of market-oriented agriculture by Ottoman entrepreneurs. Unlike the gifthane system, the giftlik system of agriculture represented a new productive system comparable to plantations elsewhere. An emerging class of rural notables used land reclaimed from coastal marshes, or subverted state-owned land from the old tax-farming system which they registered in their own names, or purchased land at state-run auctions. Such auctions were held because the Ottoman state needed capital, and the state was eventually forced to allow purchasers to hold the land they obtained as freehold (i.e. private) property, and to allow their heirs to succeed to this title. Some of the title-holders of tax-farming lands managed to convert their estates into full legal freehold status, alienable and inheritable, according to the §eriat laws governing freehold property (see Tute, 1927: 1, 47). As land auctions became ever more frequent, purchasers were steadily able to extend and confirm their ownership. Finally, in the nineteenth century there was an expansion of land reclamation and improvement of marginal lands, especially in the pastoral and flooded low lands (Inalcik, 1983: 116). Changes in the law concerning land titles during the reform period (1839-76) increased the value of such titles, which over time became a true freehold title deed (Lewis, 1966: 443). A nineteenth-century traveller gives this description of these big farms (giftliks): a giftlik was composed of a manor where the landlord or his agent resided, a number of huts for quartering laborers, a stone tower for defense against rival ayans (a new indispensable element), the stalls for animals, storehouses, a bakery, and a smithy. The plantation-like giftlik consisted of a whole village, or one might say that the big farm was, as a rule a giftlik-viM&ge (Inalcik, 1983: 115). This big farm system arose alongside the state-owned, tax-farming system encompassing small peasant farms. These peasants were charged excessive rents and forced to supply extensive services to the new landowners, the ayan.

Creating Law

223

But how were these sweeping changes in property and productive relations in Izmir and its hinterland accomplished and consolidated? LOCAL AND NATIONAL ELITES, AND LEGAL CHANGE

The Hatt-i Hiimayun was drafted by statesmen of the Ottoman central government in 1839. It was an important reformist proclamation that set the agenda for legal change over the next thirty years. The statesmen of the translation office who were responsible for this initiative were those who had the most contact with European embassies, ambassadors, diplomats and travellers. Their exposure to new ideas and their knowledge of foreign languages made them receptive to reform. In 1840, they successfully urged the Sultan to extend official recognition to the traders' tribunal in Istanbul (Starr, 1992: 22-7). Recognition was extended in 1847 beyond the port of Istanbul to include all existing, informal, secular, mixed traders' tribunals. Every trading port and international market throughout the Ottoman domains was now required to establish mixed tribunals for the application of traders' secular law. These same reformist elites also promoted an Ottoman commercial code based on French models to replace Islamic commercial law. Official recognition and formalization of the previously ad hoc secular traders' tribunals came about through the concentration of a number of separate forces. First, customs taxes provided the most important source of revenues for the Ottoman government during this period, hence its willingness to act in this field. Second, there was external pressure from the English and French ambassadors, who were interested in expanding the protection of their Christian subjects. Third, there was internal pressure from national and local elites involved in export agriculture and trade. They wanted more freedom, new laws, and a new rural police force to keep the agrarian workers in line. The Hatt-i Hiimayun met some of these demands. It affirmed that it was illegal to confiscate the property of non-Muslim Ottoman subjects. It stated that henceforth criminal trials would be public and in accord with recognized procedures. It proclaimed that adequate salaries would be paid to provincial officials to eliminate the temptations of bribery, and that a new penal code would apply to all Islamic clergy, ministers of state and other civil servants. Thus we can see that the intense trading relations of Izmir's markets and the new agrarian economy of its hinterland played a role in shaping the regulatory context, including the ways disputes were resolved between European merchants and Ottoman

224

When History Accelerates

farmers and tradesmen. The Europeans had the money and the bills of exchange, drawn on European currency, badly needed by the Ottomans. This market nexus required that the norms and rules of trade should be European, based on traders' law, the Law Merchant. This same nexus also created a context in which enterprising land-title holders were keen to circumvent existing state rules and institutions in order to reap large profits. The Ottoman government tolerated the growth in power of these rural notables for several reasons. First, Ottoman troops were too busy elsewhere to be deployed to crush law-breakers and land usurpers in western Anatolia (Veinstein, 1976; Wallerstein, 1980; Inalcik, 1983; McGowan, 1981: 171-2). Second, this new productive system brought much-needed revenue, both through state land sales and through state taxes on imports and exports. As the rural notables gained strength, they became a distinctive social stratum. One of their demands was for a rational legal system capable of meeting the needs of the increasingly differentiated system in which they acted (Starr, 1992: 51). They also needed a new land registration system, a new rural police force, and a more efficient and less corruptible rural administrative system: all this at the same time that Muslim traders were demanding licences similar to those given to European traders, and the European traders in the Empire wanted to expand the traders' tribunals. The central Ottoman bureaucracy acceded to these disparate demands by strengthening secular commercial courts. As agrarian and commercial relationships were being transformed in Izmir and her hinterlands, a new class of national administrators arose in the Ottoman central bureaucracy who were more secular and more futureoriented. In the 1840s and 1850s, as the reformist elements in the ruling elites gained power, most of the central government recognized that the Ottoman tax-farming system was a shambles. Many of the reformist elite had studied or travelled in France and had been impressed with the system of private farming in the French countryside, a productive system they felt worth emulating. At a time when many groups throughout the Empire were in revolt, the productive potential of the Izmir region promised stability, if only the new landholding and commercial strata were given institutional support. What was occurring in the port of Izmir and its hinterland was not armed resistance to institutions of state. Rather, social and legal

Creating Law

225

changes were proceeding here in response to multiple stimuli, all of them related to the incorporation of Asia Minor into the world capitalist system (Wallerstein, 1980). The emergence of the big farms affected other social groups: above all it created a new stratum of landless labourers, quite recently dispossessed of the family farms to which they had entitlement rights under the old state tax-farming system. This stratum of previous tenant farmers now felt more oppressed than ever, as Turkish folk songs from this period attest. In the commercial sector of agriculture and international trade, a variety of extra-legal, ad hoc norms and 'law-like but illegal' practices had developed. Reformist elites acted expediently to recognize and legitimate many of these existing local practices and demands: they changed the law to bring it into conformity with the social reality. They recognized that, to preserve their own power and perhaps to save the Empire itself, they must accede to the legal changes advocated by newly emergent landholding and merchant strata epitomized by the local communities in and around Izmir. Most interpretations of the relationship between law and society in Turkey in the Republican period find that changes were initiated in the legal system by new elites, and that these took some time to filter through into local societies (Stirling, 1965, 1982; Starr, 1978, 1989, 1992). But in this chapter I have argued that widespread local practices can themselves be seen to generate national social and legal change. These materials also lead one to question whether one can assert that history is accelerating faster now than it did in earlier periods. The great transformation that Turkey has experienced in the twentieth century, which Paul Stirling has so convincingly documented in his writing and lectures concerning the people of central Anatolia, was in some ways paralleled in the previous century by a no less remarkable period of transformation in Izmir and its environs. NOTES

1 I would like to thank Avner Grief of the Department of Economics, Stanford University, for his extensive references to the Law Merchant, and Tom Grey and Jim Whitman of Stanford Law School for comments on various versions of my work on traders' law and social structural change in Izmir and Anatolia. 2 Towards the end of the eighteenth century, the Ottomans lost exclusive control of the Black Sea to the Russians. This sharing of Black Sea trade meant that Istanbul was gradually reduced from a major centre of trade to a mere port of call. Istanbul's decline allowed Izmir's ascendancy (Frangakis, 1988:261,269).

226

When History

Accelerates

3

For a fuller discussion of the sources, legal rules and context of the Law Merchant, see Bewes (1923), Malyes (1986), and Trakman (1980, 1983). The Law Merchant had multiple sites of origin and varied from place to place. Some scholars trace it back to the Arab trade caravans or to Maghribi traders of North Africa in the eleventh century (Grief, 1989: 860); others trace it back to the Greeks or to Phoenician trading settlements in ancient Greece (Bewes, 1923: 2). Some of its legal ideas originated in the great fairs of the Middle Ages (ibid.: 93) that flourished from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries. Certain elements deriving from Roman law were contributed by Italian merchants in the Middle Ages (ibid.: 1), and trade with Britain meant that some common law ideas entered the customary law of international trade as well. The Law Merchant has been identified with the Hanseatic League (Lopez 1991: 114-9) and Islamic port cities, and for at least three centuries has been studied by European and common law historians. 4 'Prescription' is a legal concept that bars court action when a creditor has been silent for a specified length of time without urging his claim. The Law Merchant allowed norightof acquisition through mere possession, however long something might be in a non-owner's keeping. 5 Cloth was the most important import into Izmir from Western Europe. By the end of the nineteenth century Greeks (and particularly those from the island of Chios) were distributing cloth to all the cities of Anatolia (Frangakis, 1985: 31-2). 6 This system originated in Ottoman territories in the Balkan states that were the first to export to Europe (Stoianovich, 1953). For information on 'big farms', see generally Veinstein (1976: 71-83), McGowan (1981: 1-^4), Nagata (1976), Inalcik (1984: 105-26), and Rahman and Nagata (1977: 169-94). REFERENCES

Bewes, W. (1923) The Romance of the Law Merchant, London: Sweet. Eralp, A. (1990) 'The politics of Turkish development strategies', in A. Finkel and N. Sirman (eds) Turkish State, Turkish Society, London: Routledge, pp. 219-58. Frangakis, E. (1985) 'The Raya communities of Smyrna in the eighteenth century (1690-1820), Demography and Economic Activities', Actes du Colloque International d'Histoire. La Ville Neohellenique. Heritages Ottomans et Etat Grec, vol. I, Athens, pp. 27-42. Frangakis, E. (1988) 'The port of Smyrna in the nineteenth century', in War and Society in East Central Europe, vol. 23. Southeast European Maritime Commerce and Naval Policies from the Mid-Eighteenth Century to 1914. Social Science Monographs, Boulder, CO: University of Colorado Press, pp. 261-72. Frangakis-Syrett, E. (1988) 'Trade between the Ottoman Empire and Western Europe: the case of Izmir in the eighteenth century', New Perspectives on

Creating Law

227

Turkey, 2, 1, 1-18. Frangakis-Syrett, E. (1992) The Commerce of Smyrna in the Eighteenth Century (1700-1820), Athens: Centre for Asia Minor Studies. Grief, A. (1989) 'Reputations and coalitions in medieval trade: evidence on the Maghribi traders', Journal of Economic History, 49, 4, 857-82. Gerber, H. and J. Barnai (1984) The Jews in Izmir in the 19th Century: Ottoman Documents from the Shar'i Court, Misgav Yerushalayim: Institute for Research on the Sephardi and Oriental Jewish Heritage. Inalcik, H. (1983) 'The emergence of big farms, Qiftliks: state, landlords, and tenants', in J. Bacque-Grammont and P. Dumont (eds) Contributions a VHistoire Economique et Sociale de VEmpire Ottoman, Collection Turcia III, Leuven: Ed. Peeters. Inalcik, H. (1986) 'Imtiyazat [Foreigners]', Encyclopaedia of Islam, rev. edn, vol. 6, pp. 1179-89. Kasaba, R. (1988) The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy: The Nineteenth Century, Albany: SUNY. Lewis, B. (1960) The Arabs in History, 2nd edn, New York: Harper & Row. Lewis, B. (1966) The Emergence of Modern Turkey, London: Oxford University Press. Lopez, R.S. (1971) The Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages, 950-1350, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. McGowan, B. (1981) Economic Life in Ottoman Europe: Taxation, Trade, and the Struggle for Land, 1600-1800, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Malynes, G. (1686) Consuetudo, vel. Lex Mercatoria (The Ancient Law Merchant), London: The George [Press]. Mardin, §. (1961) 'Some explanatory notes on the origin of the "Mecelle" [Medjelle]', The Muslim World, 51, 189-96, 274-9. Mardin, §. (1971) 'Ideology and religion in the Turkish Revolution', International Journal of Middle East Studies, 2, 197-211. Mitchell, W. (1904) Essay on the Early History of the Law Merchant, New York: Franklin. Nagata, Y. (1976) 'Some documents on the big farms (giftliks) of the notables in western Anatolia', Study Culturae Islamicae, Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Language and Culture of Asia and Africa, 4, 105-26. Pollock, F. and F.W. Maitland (1895) The History of the English Law before the Time of Edward I, vol. 2, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rahman, A.A. and Y. Nagata (1977) 'The Iltizam System in Egypt and Turkey', Journal of Asian and African Studies, 14, 169-94. Schacht, J. (1964) An Introduction to Islamic Law, Oxford: Clarendon. Starr, J. (1978) Dispute and Settlement in Rural Turkey; An Ethnography of Law, Leiden: E.J. Brill. Starr, J. (1989) 'The role of Turkish secular law in changing the lives of rural Muslim women, 1950-1970', Law and Society Review, 23, 3, 497-523. Starr, J. (1992) Law as Metaphor: From Islamic Courts to the Palace of Justice,

228

When History

Accelerates

Albany: SUNY Press. Stirling, P. (1965) Turkish Village, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Stirling, P. (1974) 'Cause, knowledge and change: Turkish village revisited', in J. Davis (ed.) Choice and Change: Essays in Honour of Lucy Mair, London: Athlone, pp. 191-229. Stirling, P. (1993) 'Growth and changes: speed, scale and complexity', in P. Stirling (ed.) Culture and Economy; Changes in Turkish Villages, Huntingdon: Eothen, pp. 1-16. Stoianovich, T. (1953) 'Land tenure and related sectors of the Balkan economy, 1600-1800', Journal of Economic History, 13,4, 398-411. Trakman, L. (1980) 'The evolution of the law merchant: our commercial heritage. Part I, ancient and medieval law merchant', Journal of Maritime Law and Commerce, 12, 1, 1-24. Trakman, L. (1983) The Law Merchant: The Evolution of Commercial Law, Littleton, CO: Fred B. Rothman. Tute, Sir R.C. (1927) The Ottoman Land Laws, (with a commentary on the Ottoman Land Code of the Seventh Ramadan 1274), Jerusalem: Greek Conv. Press. Veinstein, G. (1976) 'Ayan de la region d'Izmir et commerce du Levant (deuxieme moitie' du XVIIIe siecle)', Etudes Balkaniques, 12, 71-83. Von Grunebaum, E. (1962) Medieval Islam: A Study in Cultural Orientation, 2nd edn, Chicago: Chicago University Press. Wallerstein, I. (1980) 'The Ottoman Empire and the capitalist world-economy: some questions for research', in Turkiyenin Sosyal ve Economik Tarihi (1701-1920) [Social and Economic History of Turkey (1701-1920)], Papers presented to the First International Congress on the Social and Economic History of Turkey, Hacattepe University, Ankara, 1977, Ankara: Meteksan §irketi, pp. 117-22. Walker, D.M. (1980) 'The law merchant', in The Oxford Companion to Law, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 726-8.

CHAPTER 11

The New Circle of Equity Ernest Gellner A PENDULUM-SWING THEORY OF KEMALISM

Turkey has a special claim on the attention of anyone concerned with the future of liberal societies, with economic development, or with Islam. Turkey is located, so to speak, at the intersection of these three great issues. Each of these topics has been of interest to me for a long time, so it was inevitable that I should give some thought to Turkey, notwithstanding my lack of any real, specialized knowledge. The belief is widespread in the West that few liberal democracies can be found in Asia and Africa, and that the prospects for their emergence or survival are poor. Yet there are three very important states in Asia - Japan, India and Turkey - that continue to exemplify some of the fundamental features valued by Western liberals: constitutionalism and genuine elections. Their existence in some measure compensates for the pessimism once inspired by socialist fundamentalism (recently toned down) in China, and Muslim fundamentalism in Iran. In this trio of liberal hopefuls, Turkey stands out for two reasons. Paradoxically, constitutional elective government is both intermittent and deep-rooted. Secondly, Turkey was never colonized or occupied. Indian constitutionalism, though never yet interrupted by military or ideocratic rule, can plausibly be attributed to the institutions bequeathed by the British Raj. In Japan, democracy can be explained by the American occupation, though perhaps it was reinforced by the subsequent economic miracle. Turkey on the other hand can claim that its commitment to modern political ideas owes nothing to forcible alien imposition, and everything to an endogenous development. Turkey chose its destiny. It achieved political modernity; it was not thrust upon it. The fact that elective and constitutional government is periodically interrupted - one is inclined to say punctuated - by military coups, can be interpreted, from a liberal viewpoint, in both a favourable and an unfavourable light. It does of course mean that liberal democracy has not had an easy ride. But it also means that the commitment to constitutional

230

When History Accelerates

government is deep enough to ensure that it is eventually restored. It is an old and hallowed common custom in other lands for any colonel or general who takes over power so as to save the nation, to announce that he is only doing so as a temporary emergency measure: civilian rule will be restored at the first opportunity. He, the colonel or general, has no more ardent wish than to hand over again, and return to the barracks. The endearing eccentricity of the Turkish military appears to be that they actually mean it. In due course, they do actually implement the promise, without needing the encouragement of a military defeat. It was Mark Twain, I think, who said that giving up smoking was easy: he had done it so many times. The Turkish officer class can say that it can demonstrate its great commitment to democracy: it has restored it so often. Others only abolish democracy once: the Turkish army has done so repeatedly. Facetious though the argument sounds, it does possess some force, at any rate to a superficial observer such as myself. The first Turkish paradox is that the Kemalist tradition contains a deep commitment to Westernization, and that Westernization is conceived in nineteenthcentury terms. It is held to include the values and institutions believed at the time to contain the secret of Western economic and military power. Yet the ultimate guardian and guarantor of those values, firmly determined to step in whenever they are seriously threatened, is an institution which by its own function, tradition and lifestyle has little elective affinity with them - the army. The Turks are successful Decembrists and the Decembrist rising has become a permanent institution. A further important feature of the Turkish way to modernization is that its ideology is not orchestrated in any excessive detail. Whatever influence Durkheim or any other Western thinker may have had on the Turkish intelligentsia, there is no highly articulated Sunna of modernity. This conspicuously distinguishes Turkey from countries which modernised 'under the banner of Marxism'. There is a certain resemblance to Brazil, with its loose paternalistic military positivism. The commitment to modernity may be deep, but it is not rigidly tied to any elaborate and constraining doctrine. No doubt there is a corpus of Kemalist hadith, but it is not specific enough to prejudge too many options in the Turkish path of development. One has the impression that the Turkish commitment to modernization of the polity and society has, or initially had, both an Ottoman and a Koranic quality. The new faith, like the old, is linked to the state, constitutes its legitimation, and is itself in turn justified by the strength

The New Circle of Equity

231

that it bestows on the state. The state maintains a certain detachment from society, not so much, one suspects, because of any influence of Adam Smith and his followers, as through a kind of revival of the Circle of Equity: the state is there to be strong, maintain order, enforce good and suppress evil, not to meddle in production. The raya is there to produce enough to keep the state in the style to which it is accustomed, and to obey. As Paul Stirling (1982) has pointed out, during the early decades of its existence, the Kemalist Republic transformed the upper levels of society, the state and the higher intellectual or ideological institutions, but left the mass of the peasantry largely untouched. It was only later that urban growth and migration to the towns meant that the great changes also involved the rest of the population. I well remember my first visit to Turkey, which took place some time in the 1960s. The occasion was a conference, to which I was invited somewhat to my surprise. It was organized by a political science association, and was to be devoted to the subject of religion and its socio-political role. The pre-conference specification of the general theme was abstract and anodyne: religion is an important social institution, and it behoves us to understand its social impact, the conference blurb informed us. The programmatic notice of the conference was somewhat longer than this, and more academese in tone, but that was its gist. No one could have dissented from its innocuous claims, or have learnt much from them. But when I came to the conference, the preoccupations of its Turkish participants were far more sharply defined and focused, and I learnt a very great deal from them. Their concern could also be summed up briefly, and vigorously: how on earth do we stop the Anatolian peasantry, and the petty bourgeoisie of the towns, from voting for the party, or for any party, which chooses to play the religious card? That was the problem. The Turkish elite evidently faced an interesting dilemma. The Kemalist heritage of firm Westernization included both democracy and secularism. The underlying syllogism had been: the West is secular and democratic. The West is strong. We must be strong. So we must be democratic and secular. We must be democratic so as to be strong (for the democratic West is strong). So the carrier and guarantor of national strength, the army, must also watch over the preconditions of strength. If those preconditions contain elements contrary to a military and hierarchical organization, the army, in its loyal and disciplined way, will enforce them all the same. So far so good. But what if it turns out that you cannot, at least in this

232

When History Accelerates

particular country, be both secular and democratic? What if, as soon as you have genuine elections, an excessive proportion of the electorate votes for the party with a religious appeal? What if subsequently, this victorious party endangers the Kemalist heritage itself? What then? If secular democracy votes itself out, what is to be done? Perhaps those who initially forged the tradition had anticipated this problem, and that explains why Turkey did not have multi-party elections in the first generation of the Republic. For those who modified Atatiirk's legacy after his death, no very good theoretical solution is available, though some intellectuals are evidently trying to work one out. But a kind of solution was achieved in political praxis. I noted what the solution was: and no doubt, in my ignorance of the details and the nuances, I may have simplified and travestied it. In essence this solution seemed to me to run as follows: we shall hold genuine elections. If the result goes against us, and confers electoral victory on the religious opportunists, we shall loyally accept the verdict. For a time, anyway. But if the victors go too far, the army, as the guardian of the Kemalist Sunna, will step in, and hang the principal traitor to the Tradition. But our commitment to the Tradition will remain firm, and after a while, we shall re-institute civilian rule, elections and the lot. If the previous scenario then repeats itself, we'll have to repeat our intervention as well. Let none have any doubts about that. There is a monument to the army in Ankara in the form of a giant bayonet rampant. If I read the symbolism correctly, it says, loud and clear: if the raya and/or its elected representatives go too far, we shall step in, and you know exactly what we shall do. We have done it before and we shall do it again. You have been warned. We are the Guardians of the Tradition. The consequence seems to be a new version of cyclical politics, though rather different from the old famous theory of Ibn Khaldun. Whenever the popular backsliding from the Tradition exceeds permissible limits, a Kemalist purification from above is re-imposed by the guardians of the national tradition. As both principal partners to this situation are perhaps driven by an inner compulsion to go on behaving the way they do, there may be no reason why this pendulum should not swing for ever. THE TURKISH WAY TO MODERNITY

The conference at which I made these no doubt superficial observations took place so long ago that some of the ansar of Atatiirk were still alive

The New Circle of Equity

233

and present. From them and their entourage, one could obtain some sense of the moral climate of the first generation of Young Turks. The discussion turned to a newspaper announcement, published by a set of prominent intellectuals, shortly after one of the military coups. The announcement explained why the signatories held the coup to be necessary and legitimate. A person reading a paper at the conference noted that this pronouncement was a kind of Kemalist/flAva. Someone else promptly criticised this view with vigour, pointing out that it was not a real fatwa, because ... I forget the precise reasons why it was not fully up to the standards of a true fatwa, but the reasons were numerous, precise, and formulated with a legal verve and formality. The person raising these objections was obviously not merely an alim of Kemalism, but equally, an erstwhile alim proper: he was well equipped to supply a full, detailed, comprehensive and reliable account of the theology and jurisprudence relevant to the notion of a fatwa. The episode illustrated and confirmed something I had come to suspect: the spirit in which Kemalism was formulated and upheld was, at any rate in the first generation, a kind of perpetuation of High Islam. The spirit was projected onto a new doctrine. The content was new, but the form and spirit were not. After the conference we were taken on an excursion into the countryside. It was pleasant to discover the melancholy enchantment of the Anatolian plateau and highlands. From the viewpoint of one's political initiation, the highlight of the trip came with a visit to a kind of educational club in a large village or small town - 1 later read a scholarly article about this institution by an Israeli Turcologist (Houminer, 1965). We had a long conversation with the devoted and hard-working man who ran the centre. He was a committed missionary of the secular progressive faith amongst the pagans of Anatolia. Obviously a devoted man, he would not fail to perform his duty, whatever the odds, and whatever the discouragement. But he was evidently much saddened by his overall experience, and sustained in the exercise of his calling only by an innerfirmness,and not by any success or external encouragement. However cogent and lucid the enlightenment which he brought to the villagers, it struck no real echo in their hearts, and had little permanent impact. They would listen, but given them half a chance, he said, and off they'll be on the hajj. No doubt many earlier missionaries, for instance purist Muslims endeavouring to wean rustics from their local shrines, had felt much the same. All that was a generation ago. The ansar of Kemal are no longer

234

When History Accelerates

with us. The most recent coup of 1980 was triggered off by a situation which was no mere replay of the overthrow of Menderes: the crucial justification was not so much a suspected betrayal of the Kemalist heritage as the inability of a civilian government to contain an appalling escalation of violence from the extremes of left and right. I remember walking in Ankara on the day of the funeral of the assassinated deputy to Colonel Tiirke§: the tension was palpable and pervasive. A massive military presence was required to contain it. It would be presumptuous for an outsider to dogmatize about why it had happened. But I was impressed both by a psychological explanation offered by §erif Mardin, and a structural one of Paul Stirling's. §erif observed to me that in the old days, every Turkish bosom contained two souls, a macho and a Sufi. Kemalism had done its best to destroy the Sufi: it now had to cope with the macho on his own. Paul stressed the fact that Kemalism had initially transformed only the upper layers of society and political organization, and had left four-fifths of society untouched. When economic change and migration disrupted this large residue, there was no organizational form ready to receive it. A visit to a gecekondu with Paul as guide and interpreter, and a long and illuminating conversation with a local patron, made this situation visible and concrete. The patron had retained his links with his natal village, but carved out a fine position for himself in the town. This position inevitably depended on a double capacity - to link up with a higher supportive patronage network, and an ability to control his local clientele. He gave the impression of being a man of great political skill and moderation, and one who would not employ violence unnecessarily: but when necessary, he would have resolution and willingness to use it. I was also struck by the fact that the next generation of intellectuals no longer upheld Kemalism in the ulama spirit. On the contrary, they had internalized it in a far laxer and more pliable version. The first generation had known and absorbed Islam proper, and presumably had to struggle with it in their own hearts, or at least to guard against it. They possessed no other spiritual equipment, and had to use it and turn it against itself. They had fought the inner fight with the help of the only weapon they possessed - a fundamentalist, rigid, uncompromising, scholastic cast of mind. Members of the next moral cohort, on the other hand, when reflecting,on the endemic conflict between the modern faith and the folk tradition, were more eager to seek a compromise, and thus escape the festering tension. They were psychically able to do so. The

The New Circle of Equity

235

underlying argument is present in an article of Nur Yalman's (1969). It runs, roughly, as follows: Kemalist secularism had been inspired by an exclusive acquaintance with, and repudiation of, the uncompromising High Islam of the central religious establishment, and the assumption that this was Islam. No doubt it was desirable to repudiate that form. But it is a mistake to equate it with all Islam. It is only one special version of it. Ought we not to look at the more humane, earthly or earthy, though less Orthodox, Islam of the Anatolian villages? Let us look to the people. May we not find there a more flexible and open faith, and a set of values compatible with the new secular aspirations, closer to the real folk traditions, and perhaps capable of giving the new society valuable support? §erif Mardin's work (1989) on a semi-modern, semi-sufi Anatolian revivalist movement in effect takes this argument a step further: is there not a great potential for both internal and external harmony, for adaptation to the new world, in the indigenous, and endogenous, spiritual strivings of popular Islam and its spiritual leaders? If there is something in such a quest, a new synthesis could perhaps emerge that would satisfy, all at once, populist, romantic and Republican. The Nurcu movement has its roots in Anatolian folk mysticism, but is elaborated by a thinker conscious of the challenge of modernity, and eager to incorporate its lessons. Once upon a time, Russians vacillating between populism and Marxism asked anxiously whether perhaps Russia could by-pass capitalism, and proceed straight from the village commune to socialism. Similarly, this intellectual trend in Anatolia seems to express the aspiration to proceed straight from the rural shrine to a relaxed, modern, enlightened religiosity, by-passing the stage of puritan scripturalist fundamentalism, to which the Iranian and much of the Arab world now seems to be committed. If this were to happen, the Turkish way to ideological modernity would indeed be original. But perhaps it will turn out to be much more prosaic. Recent researches by Richard and Nancy Tapper (1987a, 1987b) in a prosperous small west Anatolian town makes one wonder about the possible emergence of a Middle Turkey, on the analogy of Middle America, where respectability and normality find their expression in an unselfconscious blend of Kemalist Republicanism and urban Islam, fusing Turkish and Muslim identity in an apparently seamless web of symbol and sentiment, as Ottoman and Islamic identity had once been fused. Being a good citizen and a Muslim may blend once again.

236

When History Accelerates

The Ottoman Empire was exceptional in the Muslim world in that it escaped, at any rate in its central areas after its early period, those two conspicuous features of the world of Ibn Khaldun - the tribal base of the polity, and the fragility of the state. Here there was an individually, rather than tribally, collectively recruited elite, and this was combined with a highly developed version of the millet system. A mamluk-type ruling class was superimposed on a set of self-administering but coercively weak religious communities. The two features were presumably connected: the millet system was most conspicuous in the effectively governed parts of the empire, and much less so in the marginal periphery, where the world of Ibn Khaldun survived. The Turkish way to modernity seems to be similarly distinctive. The modernizing ideology concentrated on secularism and the state, and was relatively free of rigid commitments to economic or social doctrine. The successors of the f/mar-holders admittedly did less well, economically, than the latter-day samurai. Could this be because a hereditary feudal class has a better sense of economic management, than a category of temporary, revocable, centrally appointed prebend-holders?1 The Turkish way to modernity also avoided an emphatically ethnic nationalism when, but for the Enver Pasha adventure, it turned its back on pan-Turanianism. These features have turned out to be a great advance in comparison with, for instance, societies that modernized in the name of Marxism (not to mention those whose reaffirmation is done in the name of Muslim fundamentalism). The formal ideology of Marxism - contrary to its popular image - was absurdly over-liberal, and in effect anarchist, in its long-term view of the polity and the economy. It envisaged both a self-regulating economy and an actually disappearing state, thus bizarrely going far beyond the claims of the laissez-faire doctrine of the liberals. The liberals want a minimal state: the Marxists commended and anticipated, in theory, its total absence. The brutal and sombre Marxist view of political life applied only to class-endowed society and the relatively short run, and was not meant to apply to the order of the future. It was only in its praxis that Marxism became authoritarian: the realities of both economic development, and of running an advanced industrial society, turned out to be incompatible with such over-liberal aspirations. So it was concrete pressure and perhaps local tradition, rather than doctrine, which impelled Marxist societies to an extreme, stifling and inefficient centralism. When this centralism turned out to

The New Circle of Equity

237

be a constricting incubus, no conceptual tools were available for coping with it. So the problem was severely aggravated by the lack of any system of ideas, within the doctrine, which could handle it. As these problems were not theoretically supposed to arise at all, there was no language, internal to the ideology, which could articulate them. The ideologists of the movement were then obliged to cheat in order to inject such notions into their discussion at all (cf. Gellner, 1988). This is of course precisely what they were trying to do throughout the socialist world during its terminal stage. Kemalism, thanks to its relative doctrinal thinness, is fortunate in not facing such a problem. Its entrenched clauses - political secularism and constitutionalism - are salutary, but not excessively specific. On other issues, it is not exactly inspired, but then, it is not muzzled either. It is capable of pragmatic development, without having to strain at some doctrinal leash. NOTES

1 My posing of this question, is in part stimulated by Metin Kunt (1983) and Huri Islamoglu-Inan (1987). REFERENCES

Gellner, E. (1988) State and Society in Soviet Thought, Oxford: Blackwell. Houminer, E. (1965) 'The people's houses in Turkey', Asian and African Studies, Annual of the Israel Oriental Society 1, 81-121. Islamoglu-Inan, H. (1987) The Ottoman Empire and the World-Economy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kunt, I.M. (1983) The Sultan's Servants, New York: Columbia University Press. Mardin, §. (1989) Religion and Social Change in Modern Turkey: The case of Bediiizzaman Said Nursi, Albany: SUNY. Stirling, P. (1982) 'Social Change and Social Control in Republican Turkey,' in Turkiye Is Bankasi. Papers and Discussions: International Symposium on Ataturk 1981, Ankara: Turkiye I§ Bankasi, Cultural Publications, pp. 565-600. Tapper, R. and N. Tapper (1987a) 'The birth of the Prophet: ritual and gender in Turkish Islam', Man, 22, 1, 69-92. Tapper, R. and N. Tapper (1987b) '"Thank God we're Secular!": aspects of fundamentalism in a Turkish town', in L. Caplan (ed.) Aspects of Religious Fundamentalism, London: Macmillan, pp. 51-78. Yalman, N. (1969) 'Islamic reform and the mystic tradition in Eastern Turkey', in European Journal of Sociology, 10, 1, 41-60.

CHAPTER 12

Social Change and Culture: Responses to Modernization in an Alevi Village in Anatolia David Shankland INTRODUCTION

The length and depth of Paul Stirling's research is unparalleled in Turkish ethnographic work, and perhaps in the Middle East as a whole. He conducted his first study in 1950, living in a village near Kayseri (Stirling, 1951). This was the basis of his doctoral thesis and also of six seminal articles (Stirling, 1953, 1957, 1958a, 1958b, 1960, 1964) and the monograph Turkish Village (1965). Conditions were often difficult; the winter that he spent in the village was ferocious. The village had no tarmacked road and the track that it had was often blocked by snow (Stirling, 1965: 16, 24). Running water and electricity had not yet been installed. I too have conducted fieldwork in Anatolia, living in one rural community for a period of a year between 1988 and 1990 (Shankland, 1993a). Unlike Stirling, the conditions that I experienced were not difficult. The villagers allowed me to use a house built by a migrant from the village, a man who now works in Germany. The whole village had running water and an electricity supply that was intermittent but generally enough for radio, television and light. The road, though not tarmacked, was passable for motor transport for all but one or two days of the year. There was a health centre {saghk ocagi) from which they gave me medicine when I was ill. The villagers oftened explained how recently these amenities have come to their lives. Running water, electricity and the health centre only arrived in the early 1980s. The road was built in the early 1970s. More striking were the stories older men told when they reminisced of the changes which had taken place since their youth. They explained that they remembered the village before tea became available; before about

Social Change and Culture

239

1950 they had drunk water or yayla gorbasi, a soup made with rice and yoghurt. They often added that 'in those days' there was intense pressure on resources, much more so than today. They told a grim anecdote which testifies to this, of a man who sent his water buffalo out to graze one day. When it returned in the evening, the man found that it had a large, neat square cut out of its flank, from which someone, presumably, intended to make himself a pair of shoes. The great changes that the village has seen are referred to in this article, and by the villagers themselves, as 'modernization' (modernle§me) or 'development' (geli§me) but it is difficult to verify the causal relationships between the micro-changes that these general terms conceal or the accuracy of the historical data that I have so far collected. For example, drawing conclusions from conversations with the villagers, I believe that migration has led to a decrease in population, that the fall in population has lessened pressure on resources and that the decreased pressure on resources has led in turn to a decrease in conflict between people. There is some evidence for this: during my stay many fields lay untilled, there was ample grazing for all. I witnessed no serious dispute over land or water rights. But in the absence of records, I can only speculate, uncertain even of the existence of the conflict-ridden past the villagers describe so vividly. At these times I feel the guilt, and frustration, typical of an anthropologist trained in the Malinowskian tradition. Stirling sidesteps this problem in a most practical and enviable way. He has seen history, and can compare the villagers' descriptions of their past with his own original ethnography. After his first return to the village in 1970, twenty years after his initial work, this long historical perspective prompted him to publish an article (Stirling, 1974) in which he presents an intricate flow diagram summing up the changes he has witnessed (see frontispiece). The series of micro-changes identified by Stirling is in many ways applicable to the village, Susesi, in which I worked, and it provides a reassuring framework for me to assess my own more scattered data. For instance, Stirling traces the ways that new sources of wealth may alter the social structure: having migrated, some of those who were poor become much more powerful because of their new-found wealth and contacts with the outside world. My landlord, Ahmet, used to be one of the poorest men in Susesi. His wife, who is also from the village, was born into the lineage that had traditionally supplied the village imam. This lineage was both greatly respected and rich in fields. In the late 1970s, his future wife, with whom he had an understanding, was living in Germany, and he in the village.

240

When History Accelerates

They decided when she came back on leave one summer that the time had come to marry. Opposition to the match from her relatives in the village was so great that she sought the help of her elder brother, who was a teacher living in Istanbul. He liked Ahmet, and in any case was not on very good terms with the older relatives still in the village, so he helped her by letting her marry from his house in Istanbul. The couple returned to Germany. There, Ahmet became a successful skilled worker. After some years had passed, he returned to the village in a Mercedes, and commissioned the house in which I came to live. He has also bought property in Istanbul. His social status has risen accordingly, so much so that they refer to him - albeit jokingly - as an aga, a great or powerful man. Those of his wife's lineage who opposed the marriage have done much less well. They no longer provide the imam to the mosque. That function has been taken over by a state employee stationed from outside. Many members of the lineage have left for Istanbul, but few have found jobs. Though similar in these and many other ways, in certain aspects the village I have studied differs greatly from Stirling's Sakaltutan. I cannot provide the same depth, nor, as yet, do I have detailed empirical evidence of the sort he has amassed. In spite of these handicaps, I believe that it is possible to identify the main ways in which the villages we studied differ. There are several reasons why this is important. First, Stirling's quiet authority, and the quality of his work, has caused his village to be widely considered as typical of social change in Anatolia. Indeed, the title of his monograph, Turkish Village, named as if it were the only Turkish village, encourages this authority, in spite of the disclaimer with which the book opens. Secondly, the village in which Stirling lived was Sunni. That in which I lived was Alevi. The Alevi are a mystical, moderate Shi'ite sect, thought to comprise about 20 per cent of Turkey's population (Andrews, 1989: 57). The Sunni are the orthodox majority. Though it is not absolutely clear which changes can be attributed to difference in sect, I believe that there is a radical difference between the paths of change taken by the Alevi and Sunni villages. If this is the case, a comparison between the villages we have studied is highly significant not only for an understanding of the social change that is occurring in contemporary Anatolia but also for our understanding of different forms of Islam throughout the modern world. Both Sunni and Alevi villagers live in patrilineal, patrilocal households clustered together so as to form nucleated settlements (Stirling,

Social Change and Culture

241

1965: 25; Shankland, 1993a: 78). The land is fairly evenly distributed among the households in both villages (Stirling, 1965: 51-3, Shankland, 1993a: 78). Neither village has a special or distinctive crop, but both plant mainly wheat and a little barley (Stirling, 1965: 44, Shankland, 1993a: 84). The soil in both is poor, with yields of no more than about 1 to 10 before using fertilizers, often much less (Stirling, 1965: 44; Shankland, 1993a: 3). Ethnically, the people of both villages are Turkish. Neither village rejects the Republican Government's rule: they are not radical or revolutionary in political outlook. The people of both villages are anxious to obtain health facilities, education, consumer goods and modern communications: that is, to avail themselves of the benefits of modernization. Turning briefly to the differences: Stirling ends his first restudy by considering those aspects of village life that appear to have changed least. the society is still the same society. The villagers in each village are still the same people (or their children and grandchildren) with a recognisably stable system of social relationships and of social values and assumptions. ... the village remains committed not only to Islam but to its own particular interpretation of Islam ... far from declining, formal religion is booming. Increased village economic resources are spent on mosques: societies for religious education of children flourish and increase ... Religious dogma and practice are still absolute and eternal ... (Stirling, 1974: 228-9). Extrapolating slightly (though I think legitimately) from Stirling's article, I think that lying behind this final section is the idea that, whatever the conflicts, disagreements and divisions that Sakaltutan may have suffered whilst modernizing (and much of the article is concerned with development's disruptive influence), the villagers have absorbed many of the problems associated with such rapid social change without any drastic alterations to core elements of their religious beliefs, sense of community or social structure (cf. also Sirman, 1988: 384; Sirman, 1990). The Alevi with whom I lived have had quite different experiences. Their religious life, their traditional social structure and their sense of what it means to be part of a village unit are subject to conflict and transformation. Exactly those elements where Stirling finds the most continuity in a Sunni village are, in the Alevi villages which I studied, the most unstable. This instability may lead ultimately

242

When History Accelerates

to the disintegration of Alevi villages as their inhabitants migrate more rapidly than Sunni villagers to large urban conurbations such as Istanbul and Ankara (Shankland 1993a, forthcoming). A SUNNI VILLAGE MODEL

In a previous article, I linked the diverse changes among Alevi and Sunni to differences in their traditional social organization (Shankland, 1993b). Based on the original ethnography collected by Stirling and on my own recent experiences, my suggestion was that the traditional Sunni Anatolian village, though not necessarily those in other parts of Turkey, consists of one, nuclear settlement whose households farm land which they also own (Stirling, 1965; cf. Sirman, 1988: 26-7). As the villagers become more closely integrated into the modern Turkish state, this community continues to be the basis for local administration: the state labels them officially a 'village', respects their traditional landownership patterns (Sirman, 1988: 248-9), and installs new services over which all villagers have equal rights. The state's etic view of the community largely matches the emic view of the villagers themselves (Tug, 1975: 3-4). I argued also that the comparative stability of the Sunni social structure identified by Stirling can in part be attributed to the nonprescriptive nature of their social organization: all men are regarded in principle as being equal, none have a special rank or authority conferred upon them by birth. There are neither judges nor tribunals indigenous to the community (Stirling, 1965: 149). Great changes in authority and rank can therefore be absorbed without a traumatic effect on any traditional means of maintaining the social order. I further suggested that religious practice in a Sunni village is, perhaps paradoxically, facilitated by greater contact with the present-day Republican, secular state. The villagers studied by Stirling appear never to have been greatly interested in Islamic law, the §eriat, so they are little discomforted by the Swiss civil code introduced to the courts by the Kemalist reforms (Stirling, 1965: 273-4; cf. Starr, 1992). They are, however, interested in following the 'five pillars' of Islam, and in the body of moral ideals, ahlak, which they associate with Islam. The state is able to help them with the practice of these. It can, and does, organize the hac, the pilgrimage to Mecca. It teaches the Koran by appointing Koran-course teachers. It has made ahlak lessons compulsory in all state schools. State-approved imams are appointed to all village mosques.1 These imams not only teach the villagers how to pray, but also officiate at funeral ceremonies and marriages, ensuring that they are conducted in

Social Change and Culture

243

a manner appropriate to an orthodox Islamic believer. Finally, I argue, as have others, that religious and national identity have become deeply entangled in modern Turkey: as the Sunni villagers become conscious of being citizens of a modern nation, they express such membership in part through an increasing sense of being Turkish, and in part by wishing to live in an avowedly Islamic country. That is, their sense of national identity embraces both being Turkish and being Islamic (Stirling, 1958a; G. Lewis, 1957; Mardin, 1971; Harm, 1990; Gellner, this volume). AN ALEVI VILLAGE MODEL

Nearly all these things are different in the Alevi village I studied and others in its vicinity. These settlements invariably consist of more than one village quarter, or mahalle: Susesi has seven mahalle, each nucleated, none containing more than fifty households. Each mahalle substantially follows its own rotation cycle and possesses its own collective pasture. All but two have their own bath house, yunak, (the other two mahalle share one). All but one have a copse, kuru, from which they fetch firewood. Ekmek, the village immediately above Susesi, possesses ten such mahalle. The smallest number I came across in any Alevi village was two, the greatest twenty-five. Here, emic and etic do not correspond. Roads, school, electricity and health centre are all given to the villagers to share as a whole, but the traditional farming methods of the villagers and the reciprocal ties that bind them together are largely based in the smaller mahalle unit, each with its distinct set of ownership rights and obligations. There is a profound disjunction between the basic Alevi community and that of which the state defines them as a part. Moreover, Alevi are not all born equal. Alevi society has three distinct ranks. In descending order, these are efendi, dede and talip.2 These ranks are distributed on the basis of the patrilineage (sulale) into which people are born. Alevi lineages are usually shallow: they rarely have more than fifty households and often far fewer. In Susesi, three are termed dede (lit. 'grandfather') lineages. Many households have migrated but about thirty of the hundred households remaining in Susesi are regarded as being part of these dede lineages. All but two of the eight neighbouring Alevi villages also posses dede lineages. No single founding figure is held to be the ancestor of all the dede, but dede may trace patrilineal ties with certain other local dede lineages, thus forming a network of holy lineages linked by descent. Only very rarely do non-dede lineages trace such lateral descent ties (cf. Gellner, 1969).

244

When History Accelerates

All lineages, whether dede or not, are held to be subordinate to a particular dede lineage. Villagers refer to the subordinate lineage as talip, follower. A talip lineage is never beholden to more than one dede lineage. A dede lineage, however, may have many talip lineages. The most renowned dede lineage in Susesi has talip in many local villages, perhaps encompassing forty lineages in total. All the Alevi of the area in which I worked, whether dede or not, regard themselves as affiliated to the Bekta§i brotherhood or tarikat. Many go as far as to say that there is no difference between Alevi and Bekta§i teachings (Birge, 1937: 211). Their prayers and songs often celebrate Haci Bekta§ Veli, saying that he is their pir, saint. They venerate a number of men as being the descendants of Haci Bekta§ Veli himself, whom they refer to as efendi. Though there are no efendi living near Susesi (most live near the monastery of Haci Bekta§, at the town of that name in the province of Kir§ehir) they come once or twice a year to Susesi to collect modest dues and to answer questions on religious doctrine. The villagers say that dedeltalip links stem from the decree of Haci Bekta§ and can only be changed if the dede commits a grave fault, or neglects to pay regular visits to his talip. Ideally, the leaders of the Alevi are the efendi, the true descendants of Haci Bekta§. As they live far from the village, and come rarely, in practice their duties fall to the dede, who are accepted as being their local representatives (vekil). Often, dede lineages claim also a certain independent degree of sanctity. For example, one lineage claims that it is descended from the famous mystic Ibn Arabi. Another says that it is descended from a follower of Ahmet Yesevi's Sufi school in Horassan (Birge, 1937: 31). Lineages may also claim that they are bestowed with keramet, the ability, given by God, to perform miracles (cf. Van Bruinessan, 1992: 212; Gilsenan, 1973). The dede's duties are usually summed up as to 'enlighten', aydinlatma, according to the teachings of the Alevi/Haci Bekta§ way. This embraces both spiritual and temporal authority: only dede are permitted to pronounce Alevi prayers or to lead Alevi ceremonies, and, within the overall framework of the religious ideology, they are given the power to mediate in disputes (cf. Evans-Pritchard, 1949; I. Lewis, 1961; Gellner, 1969). These two roles are closely intertwined. The principal religious ceremony of the Alevi is the cent. There is no special place where a cem must be held: usually it takes place in the large room of a house. One couple, a man and a woman, should attend from every household

Social Change and Culture

245

of the mahalle. Worship is not permitted unless all present are at peace with each other. Accordingly, before the ceremony begins, the dede asks whether there is any disagreement. If there are people with a quarrel, they must come forward to the centre, to a prayer rug known as 'Ali's space', Ali'nin meydani. As they kneel, the dede questions them on their conduct. If others wish to speak, they may do so, and there may be sustained and heated discussion (Shankland, 1993b: 57-8). After due reflection, the dede suggests an appropriate redress. His solution must be approved by all who are present, otherwise the problem is not regarded as settled. Thus, the Alevi village possesses a number of characteristics not present in the Sunni village described by Stirling. The Alevi have a powerful hierarchy, supported by tradition in many, interlocking ways, which is used to regulate disputes between people and to teach the fundamentals of Alevi religion. Unlike the Sunni, they are spread out in discrete small units within the village. Where the state supports both the inculcation of Turkish consciousness and the Sunni village conception of orthodox Islam, the Alevi are proud of being Turkish, but their religion is Shi'ite: quiescent, unorthodox, and tinged with mysticism in many ways.3 The state does not officially recognize their form of Islam.4 There is thus a continual disjunction between Alevi beliefs and the religious teachings of the state (Pehlivan, 1993). Today, given the explicit way in which the state supports Sunni Islam (B. Lewis, 1988; Tapper, 1991: 10; Pickering, 1989; Ahmad, 1993) some Alevi claim that they have been betrayed by the Republican Government. They claim that it has reneged on Atatiirk's original secularism, one of the most importance functions of which was, according to them, to protect them from Sunni pressure. Certainly, in spite of the unobtrusive way in which the Alevi practise their religion, it is clear that the Sunni villagers in the sub-province where I worked are aware that there are great differences between their forms of worship. They are often deeply suspicious of the Alevi, and sometimes abusive about their cent ceremonies (cf. Yalman, 1969). Fear of the power of the state and of the disapprobation of orthodox believers is not a new problem. The Alevi often recall the persecutions which they suffered under Ottoman rule (cf. Birge, 1937: 66-9). What is new, however, is the dilemma that is forced on the Alevi by their desire to become part of contemporary Turkish society. To become modern citizens, they have to face outward rather than inward: they have to orientate themselves through the state-approved unit, the village, rather than the mahalle. They have to reconcile or accommodate literal belief in their traditions with the ideology of modern Turkish state. Above all,

246

When History Accelerates

they have to accept the right of the state, through all its many agents, to rule over much of their lives. Different individuals react in different ways to the problems posed by these dilemmas. To analyse changes in other peoples' beliefs is difficult. I am acutely conscious that people's positions shift over time, and that a person may hold more than one, often conflicting approach to the world. The schema I propose may have to be revised, or at least widened, as my research continues. With this proviso, I would suggest that there are three broad positions which Alevi men can hold.5 The first, and most common, is to give up literal belief in the dede and turn to Kemalism. The second is to accommodate belief, often uneasy, in the dede, supporting them where they can and, at the same time, offer pragmatic obedience to the laws of the Republic when necessary. These men often vote for parties associated with Kemalism on the national level, but they have not internalized its philosophy sufficiently to wish to oppose their dede in a very active or aggressive way at the local level. Third, and least common, a person may seek to turn more towards mosque worship, and the five pillars of Islam. The political position of these men is much less clear. These different perspectives in turn lead to groups that coalesce around different positions of power in the village social order. To demonstrate how this may come about, it is first necessary to turn to the village cosmology, and to the way that it has adapted to the outside world of the state and Sunni Islam. TARIKAT AND §ERIAT

The villagers distinguish between two jural spheres, Tarikat and §eriat, each with its associated religious practice. Tarikat implies the inner core of the community, that to which strangers are not welcomed and where the villagers' own rules obtain. §eriat implies that area of life governed by the state and the Sunni Islam that is associated with it. This separation is familiar in studies of Islamic societies. However, in this case it is not entirely straightforward. The Alevi way of life does not make an absolute opposition between §eriat and Tarikat. Rather, using the idea of 'four doors' or 'ways' to God, it fits them into a complex, flexible framework whose ambiguities can be exploited both to refer to whole groups of people and also to a person's individual religious development. The four doors are §eriat, Tarikat, Marifet and Hakikat (Birge, 1937: 102-9, Schimmel, 1975: 340). They may use §eriat to refer to the domain controlled by the state. They may also mean it to imply the way of life and practice of Islam typical of a Sunni village.

Social Change and Culture

247

They may also mean that part of Islamic doctrine that remains on the surface, available for all people to practise if they wish, but only the first stage toward God. Equally, by Tarikat they may imply the inner life of their village, subordination to a dede and worship at collective cem ceremonies. They also mean the stage at which a person has come to understand that reality must be sought by looking for meaning that is not purely superficial. Marifat, literally, 'knowledge', appears to have no independent significance other than being a possible stage towards God. Hakikat implies being at one with God: a stage at which the normal constraints of the physical world disappear and miracles are the norm. Villagers refer to people who have reached this stage as 'developed ones', erenler. Haci Bekta§ had reached this stage, and, ideally, so have dede lineages. Villagers stress that, even though most Alevi take the Tarikat path, Tarikat yolu, Islam in fact encompasses all four of these doors, which form a progression available to all people. Thus a person, even if Alevi, may choose to follow the religious prescriptions of thefirst,§eriat, stage as a preparation for the others. This willingness to acknowledge §eriat rather than entirely to reject it, is evident in Susesi and in all the Alevi villages I visited. It is particularly clear in the positions available for men to fill. Whereas those who are responsible for the Tarikat way are dede, and the practice of being a dede is known as dedelik, those who are interested in the §eriat way are called hoca, and the corresponding practice hocalik. The villagers distinguish sharply between these two roles. Only a person born a dede can become one, and the prayers that they pronounce are nearly always in Turkish. Any man who wishes may become a hoca, and his prayers are nearly always in Arabic. Sometimes a hoca may be used as a substitute dede, for example to say a grace at meal after people have eaten. They have additional specialized functions: a hoca reads the nikdh before the consummation of a marriage, and it is generally a hoca who leads the burial service, cenaze, and intones hymns, ilahi, over the body as it is laid to earth. The relationship between the practice of §eriat and Tarikat is profoundly uneasy. In Susesi, for example, there is a village mosque, the very epitome of §eriat. Its imam is Sunni, appointed by the state. The villagers are scrupulously friendly towards him. They have given him a field to plough free of charge and a donkey to fetch firewood. On the other hand, many Alevi express a deep dislike of mosques, saying that whenever the Alevi are attacked by Sunni fanatics, it is

248

When History Accelerates

after the Friday prayers, when they have been incited by the mosque imam. This ambivalence extends also to the secular authority of the state. Men are deeply suspicious of the motives of the state and often question the validity of its laws. They are proud of the techniques that Alevi villages possess to resolve their own quarrels, and compare this with the Sunni predilection for recourse to the state courts. At the same time, they are careful to show respect to state officials. This respect is quite genuine: one of the most desired careers in the village is that of memur, civil servant, ideally a schoolteacher or nurse. When a man who had left the village when he was a boy became a mayor in an important Istanbul municipality, he assumed enormous weight in their community.6 They extend this respect to the village head, muhtar, whom they are required to elect from their number, and who is the officially recognized channel for the state's interaction with the village. Indeed, in all the Alevi villages where I worked, they have now or have had in recent memory, extremely powerful, long-serving headmen who often achieved something very close to dictatorial rule over the community. This appears to be quite different from the situation where Stirling worked, where to be muhtar gives a man no particular power, and the position is little sought after (Stirling, 1965; cf. Hann, 1990: 22). Overall, then, in spite of the great authority that the Alevi religious mores would appear to award the dede hierarchy, there are three distinct structural positions in the society from which men may build a position of power: dede, hoca and muhtar. Of these, in the villages I know, that of muhtar is the most powerful. Of course, men also use all the other devices at their command to achieve power; cunning, wit, deceit, wealth, land, knowledge of the outside world, political contacts, age, force and, if necessary, brutality; but these are the three most significant structural routes available in the current village social order. SOME EXAMPLES

Above, I outlined three distinct ideological positions which men commonly assume: scepticism linked with Kemalism; belief, often uneasy, in the dede; and increased inclination to Sunni Islam. Each of the Alevi villages of the area in which I worked illustrated a different combination of these ideological and structural positions. I turn now to some examples. Ekmek, the village just above Susesi, has ten mahalle. One of these consisted entirely of dede, but they have little temporal power. Just as I began my fieldwork, a muhtar of fifteen years standing, who lived

Social Change and Culture

249

in a mahalle where there were no dede, was about to step down. He was a deeply religious man in the Sunni sense, inclined to follow the five pillars of Islam rigorously. Unlike most Alevi, who have no taboo on drinking alcohol, he eschewed drink. He hoped to go on the hac to Mecca as soon as he could obtain sufficient funds. His house, which was large, was built next to the village mosque. The villagers explained his religiosity by saying that his paternal grandfather was a Sunni who had come to the village as a young man to attempt to convert them. Failing in this, he had himself become Alevi, and his descendants had remained in the village. Whatever the roots of his religious feeling, the muhtar drew much of his power through using means appropriate to his religious orientation. He had close contacts in the sub-province centre, which is predominantly Sunni, where he had a reputation as being a pious and honest man. In the village, he insisted that all men should come to the Friday prayers. He encouraged them by holding meetings to decide village business on the steps of the mosque just after the prayers, and by holding court in his house afterwards to hear any petitioners. The dede of this village are too weak to oppose the muhtar directly. Instead, they have formed an alliance with their neighbouring mahalle, which is not at all inclined towards the form of religion favoured by the muhtar. Indeed, this mahalle provides many of the musicians for local weddings, and is almost entirely 'left-wing' in the sense of being committed Republican and inclined to socialism in a mild way.7 Together, these two mahalle are campaigning in the sub-province centre to be made a village in their own right, but they had not succeeded by the time I left the area. In another local Alevi village, the pattern is quite different. This village is much larger, consisting of eighteen mahalle spread out in an enormous circle along the rim of a large depression in the hills. The present muhtar is himself a dede. He has built himself a very attractive split-level house in the centre of the hills, equidistant from most of the village mahalle. His father, who is the senior practising dede of the lineage, is the manager of the village cooperative bank. In this village, there appears to be no significant orthodox religious opposition to the dede. Rather, the dede's opponents are almost entirely left-wingers, solcular, more extreme than those in Ekmek, who claim that the village is being dominated by a feudal lineage that should be driven from the community. The quarrel was even worse during the 1970s: the villagers say that then the left-wing, anti-dede sympathizers were so strong that the dede had to leave the village. They only came

250

When History Accelerates

back after the 1980 coup, when they could be assured of the protective support of the jandarma. But, the strength of the leftists was broken by the crackdown that followed the 1980 coup (Ahmad, 1993: ch. 9) and nowadays few villagers are prepared openly to condemn their own dede. In Susesi, the combination is different again. Even by the standards of Alevi villages, the muhtar is exceptionally strong. At the beginning of myfieldwork,he had been in power forfifteenyears. During the early 1970s, he was a youth member of the Republican People's Party, the party created by Atattirk. He is fond of music and drink. His hospitality is famous throughout the sub-province. When dignitaries come to the village, he entertains them with gusto. He spends many of his days in the sub-province centre, drinking with figures of all political persuasions. He accompanies members of the village to the government offices in the centre when they need to appear in front of the judge or the governor. He speaks for the village with rigour when it is visited by the jandarma. The muhtar himself, in a conversation with me, attributed his success to two years in gaol as a youth, followed by two years' military service in the east, so that when he returned to the village he was afraid neither of the outside world nor of other men. It is clear, though, that he has not acquired his dominance without first overcoming the factions that opposed him. When he first came to power, hocagil, the lineage that would not consent to my landlord's marriage, still provided imam to the mosque. When the incumbent imam died, the muhtar seized the opportunity to rid himself of the indigenous hoca lineage by requesting that the state provide an official imam to the village mosque. When the imam arrived, the muhtar gave him a house next to his own, the better to watch over him. The muhtar also uses his ability to influence officials in the centre in an attempt to ensure that the imam supplied to the village is ineffectual. This plan has worked. The present imam is young, not very bright and shows great respect for the muhtar. The struggle that the muhtar has pursued against the dede is more complicated. He has created ties with them by marrying the daughter of one of the most respected dede in the village. Yet he has systematically opposed any attempt they may make to impose their temporal authority on to the village. One of the planks on which he bases his position is utter scepticism concerning the dede's claim to be holy, or to have some mystical power. For example, he told me that, accompanied by some friends of his generation, he had opened the shrine of a supposed saint, and found nothing but a horse's skeleton. On another occasion,

Social Change and Culture

251

he told me that there was a tree, in one of his fields, supposed to be sacred, across whose shadow he was not supposed to plough. In spite of a warning from the dede that he should not touch it, he cut it down. 'They said', he added, 'that lightning would come out of the sky to strike me, but nothing happened'. CONCLUSIONS

In this chapter I have explored some of the changes and conflicts of power taking place in contemporary Alevi communities. For the most part I have been able to experience such power struggles in only one phase of their often very long sequences.8 However, I think that even this brief discussion shows that the Alevi villages are characterized by quite different sorts of social change from those observed by Stirling. In the Alevi villages, in contrast to the Sunni villages described by him, the traditional social structure, religion and community are all key areas of debate and conflict. We do not as yet have any equivalent to Stirling's corpus for an Alevi village; his example has blazed a trail that others can now follow in trying to provide comparable accounts for other communities in Anatolia. But his work should be treated with caution. Turkish Village is a rich and powerful text, but only if its findings, and those of Stirling's later work, are placed in the context of other studies will we be able to appreciate the full complexity and diversity of social change in Anatolia. NOTES

1 According tofifteenofficial charts, published in spring 1992 by the Diyanet Isleri Baskanhgi (Council of Religious Affairs) between 1979 and 1989 the number of Koran courses went up from 2,610 to 4,715, the number of children attending them from 68,486 to 155,403 and the number of people going on the hac went from 10,805 to 92,006. I am grateful to Susannah Pickering for drawing these charts to my attention. 2 The terminology varies slightly in different parts of Anatolia. Bumke (1989), Gokalp (1980, 1989), Melikoff (1975), Naess (1988) and Yalman (1969) provide the only recent accounts of life in Alevi villages. Allowing for certain terminological differences, they support the ethnography that I report here. 3 Moosa (1988) describes how the Alevi may be classified as one of a distinct group of unorthodox Shi'ites, the 'Ghulat sects', found in many Muslim countries. 4 For example, the head of the Presidency of Religious Affairs is reported by the Turkish Daily News of the 7 January 1994 as saying 'Alawism

252

5 6 7 8

When History

Accelerates

(Alevi'ism) is not a religion. Nor is it a sect of Islam. Alawism is a culture complete with its own folklore' (TDN, 7.1.94 p. A2). I say men deliberately. I do not have sufficient knowledge of Alevi women to include them in a schema. I suspect that, on balance, they are more inclined to literal belief in Alevi customs than men. The complexity of the local Alevi response to such outsiders is considered also in Shankland (1993c). For a discussion of this political orientation see Hale (1976) or Ahmad (1977). Naess (1988) describes conflicts in the Alevi village he visited similar to those I saw. See also Bumke (1989) and Gokalp (1989).

REFERENCES

Ahmad, F. (1977) The Turkish Experiment in Democracy, London: Hurst (for the Royal Institute of International Affairs). Ahmad, F. (1993) The Making of Modern Turkey, London: Routledge. Andrews, P. (ed.) (1989) Ethnic Groups in the Republic of Turkey, Wiesbaden: Dr Ludwig Reichart Verlag. Birge, J. (1937) The Bektashi Order of Dervishes, London: Luzac. Bumke, P. (1989) 'The Kurdish Alevis - boundaries and perceptions', in P. Andrews (ed.) Ethnic Groups in the Republic of Turkey, Wiesbaden: Dr Ludwig Reichart Verlag, pp. 510-18. Evans-Pritchard, E.E. (1949) The Sanusi of Cyrenacia, Oxford: Clarendon. Gellner, E. (1969) Saints of the Atlas, London, Weidenfeld & Nicholson. Gilsenan, M. (1973) Saint and Sufi in Modern Egypt, Oxford: Clarendon. Gokalp, A. (1980) Tetes Rouges et Bouches Noires, Paris: Societe d'Ethnographie. Gokalp, S. (1989) 'Alevisme Nomade: les communites de statut a l'identite communitaire', in P. Andrews (ed.) Ethnic Groups in the Republic of Turkey, Wiesbaden: Dr Ludwig Reichart Verlag, pp. 524—37. Hale, W. (ed.) (1976) Aspects of Modern Turkey, London: Bowker. Hann, C. (1990) Tea and the Domestication of the Turkish State (Occasional Papers in Modern Turkish Studies, 1), Huntingdon: Eothen. Lewis, B. (1988) Islam et Laicite, Paris: Fayard. Lewis, G. (1957) Turkey, London: Ernest Benn. Lewis, I. (1961) Pastoral Democracy, Oxford: Clarendon. Mardin, S. (1971) 'Ideology and religion in the Turkish Revolution', International Journal of Middle East Studies, 2, 197-211. Melikoff, I. (1975) 'Le probleme Kizilbas/, Turcica, 6, 49-67. Moosa, M. (1988) Extremist Shi'ites. The Ghulat Sects, New York: Syracuse University Press. Naess, R. (1988) 'Being an Alevi Muslim in south western Anatolia and in Norway: the impact of migration on a heterodox Muslim community', in T. Gerholm and Y. Lithman (eds.) The New Islamic Presence in Western Europe, London: Mansell, pp. 174-95.

Social Change and Culture

253

Pehlivan, B. (1993) Aleviler ve Diyanet, Istanbul: Pencere Yaymlan. Pickering, S. (1989) 'Religious revival in Modern Turkey 1980-1988', M.Phil. thesis, University of Wales. Schimmel, A. (1975) Mystical Dimensions of Islam, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Shankland, D. (1993a) 'Alevi and Sunni in rural Turkey, diverse paths of change', (Doctoral thesis), University of Cambridge. Shankland, D. (1993b) 'Alevi and Sunni in rural Turkey, diverse paths of change', in P. Stirling (ed.) Culture and Economy: Changes in Turkish Villages, Huntingdon: Eothen, pp. 46-64. Shankland, D. (1993c) 'Informant's view of the researcher as an epistemological issue: among the Turkish Alevi', The Turkish Studies Association Bulletin, 17, 1, 119-22. Shankland, D. (forthcoming) 'Six propositions concerning the Turkish Alevi', The Turkish Studies Association Bulletin. Sirman, N. (1988) 'Peasants and family farms; the position of households in cotton production in a village of western Turkey', (Doctoral thesis), University of London. Sirman, N. (1990) 'State, village and gender in western Turkey', in N. Sirman and A. Finkel (eds) Turkish State, Turkish Society, London: Routledge, pp. 21-52. Starr, J. (1992) Law as Metaphor: From Islamic Courts to the Palace of Justice, Albany: State University of New York Press. Stirling, P. (1951) 'The social structure of Turkish peasant communities', (Doctoral thesis), University of Oxford. Stirling, P. (1953) 'Social rank in a Turkish village', British Journal of Sociology, 4, 1, 31-44. Stirling, P. (1957) 'Land, marriage and the law in Turkish villages', International Social Science Bulletin, 9, 1, 21-33. Stirling, P. (1958a) 'Religious change in republican Turkey', Middle East Journal, 12, 395-408. Stirling, P. (1958b) 'Structural changes in Middle East society', in P.W. Thayer (ed.) Tensions in the Middle East, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 141-64. Stirling, P. (1960) 'A death and a youth club: feuding in a Turkish village' Anthropological Quarterly, 33, 1, 51-75. Stirling, P. (1964) 'The domestic cycle and the distribution of power in Turkish villages', in J. Pitt-Rivers (ed.) Mediterranean Countrymen, The Hague: Mouton, pp. 202-13. Stirling, P. (1965) Turkish Village, London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson. Stirling, P. (1974) 'Cause, knowledge and change: Turkish village revisited', in J. Davis (ed.) Choice and Change: Essays in Honour of Lucy Mair, London: Athlone, pp. 191-229. Tapper, R. (ed.) (1991) Islam in Modern Turkey; Religion, Politics and Literature in a Secular State, London: LB. Tauris.

254

When History

Accelerates

Tug, A. (1975) Village Administration in Turkey, Ankara: State Planning Organization. Van Bruinessen, M. (1992) Agha, Shaikh and State, 2nd edn, London: Zed. Yalman, N. (1969) 'Islamic reform and the mystic tradition in eastern Turkey', Archives Europeennes de Sociologie, 10, 41-60.

CHAPTER 13

Negotiating Ethnographic Reality: Team Fieldwork in Turkey Emine Onaran Incirlioglu INTRODUCTION: THIRTY-FIVE YEARS OF TRANSFORMATION IN RURAL CENTRAL ANATOLIA1

Anthropologists have long understood that 'reality is not an absolute fact to be recognized but a definition to be bargained over ... [It] refers to an experience of the world in which one lives rather than to that world as a set of physical constructs neutrally defined and existentially given' (Rosen, 1984: 42). Lawrence Rosen argues that many terms to categorize human relations are open-ended and susceptible to social manipulation in various, sometimes contradictory ways. These concepts acquire meaning through negotiation between persons (in Rosen's case the townspeople of Sefrou in north central Morocco), and social life is ultimately constituted by this negotiation and contestation of meaningful concepts. Although some might consider such approaches excessively idealist, there can be no doubt that such negotiation is an essential part of collaborative ethnographic research. When I was working with Paul Stirling in two Anatolian villages, there were times when he and I would spend several hours in the same village house, listening to and taking part in the same conversations in the very same room. Then we would go to our apartment in Talas, our 'headquarters', and come up with totally different stories. Often, we would have grasped different facets of the same event, and we would try to put the pieces together at headquarters, like a jigsaw puzzle. Sometimes the pieces would not fit. When we came up with contradictory stories, and whenever the puzzle pieces did not seem to complete a story, we would begin to negotiate and even fight over our versions of the reality. Even when fieldwork is conducted by a 'lone ranger' rather than a team, negotiation is unavoidable. In the case of a 'lone ranger', the negotiation is a process of internal reflection. In the case of

256

When History Accelerates

teamwork, the negotiation is a dialogue. One gets instant feedback; the negotiation provides more options and alternatives for understanding and describing complex relations; and the process is more productive because teamwork by two persons produces much more than the sum of two independent sets of observations. Of course, this depends on a good relationship between the researchers. Although Paul Stirling hired me for his research and although technically we were in a hierarchical position, he treated me as a colleague. He deliberately referred to me as his Research collaborator' rather than his assistant in his presentations and publications, and during our negotiation processes he was always open, flexible and egalitarian. I have also lived in circumstances where I have learned the hard way that it takes two to bargain and if people in powerful positions do not take you seriously (because you are just a student, a foreigner, a woman, or whatever), you cannot negotiate. Paul's openness, relaxed self-criticism, scepticism and egalitarian attitude made it possible for us to negotiate, and I am indebted to him for this. This chapter arises out of a wider research project, 'Thirty-five years of transformation in central rural Turkey', conducted by Paul Stirling. The project arose from Stirling's previous research in two villages, Sakaltutan and Elba§i, where he did his doctoralfieldworkbetween 1949 and 1951. In addition to the dissertation itself, the major product of that research was the monograph Turkish Village, published in 1965. In 1971 he paid a brief visit to both villages and took surveys of all households in Sakaltutan and a random sample of one household in three in Elba§i. He also visited some local families who had migrated to various towns in Turkey. The data comprised mainly the household compositions, occupations of members, income sources, kinship relations among and between households, and basic demographic information consisting of births, deaths and migrations. In 1981-2 he produced a documentary, shot in Sakaltutan, Adana and Pforzheim, Germany. Shortly after this, Stirling embarked on a more ambitious restudy of the villages and their urban offshoots, to generate comprehensive longitudinal data. His 1983 research proposal set out the following aims: to contribute to theoretical discussions about the transformation of agrarian societies; to test and retest a number of theoretical propositions concerning the process of industrialization; and to provide a set of historical data for future scholars.2 After funding was secured we carried out fieldwork in Sakaltutan and Elba§i for eight months in 1986, and for further short periods in various locations in the summers of 1989 and 1993. We

Negotiating Ethnographic Reality: Team Fieldwork in Turkey 257 have been sharing data and communicating over the results throughout this period. POWER AND LANGUAGE, GENDER AND LIFE CYCLE

I first started thinking about team fieldwork before I actually went to the field. In January 1986, as I was waiting for Paul Stirling's security clearance in Ankara, I prepared for fieldwork by reading his old fieldnotes and going through the card system he had devised in order to learn as much as I could about the people I was about to meet. Almost every day Paul and I would meet and he would brief me about the research. I was quite excited and had already started to keep a journal. In that journal I noted that it would be an interesting experience for me, a 28-year-old Turkish woman trained in American anthropology, to work with a 65-year-old Englishman trained at Oxford. It certainly was. I did not know what our differences might be in terms of ideological/theoretical orientation, but I was sure that we would have unstated biases that we had not formulated or articulated. We certainly did. Although it took me a while to admit it, I realized at some point during the fieldwork that I had a class bias in my relations with the 'uneducated peasant', that stemmed from my socialization in a professional, Kemalist, somewhat intellectual and bourgeois Ankara household. I had not started off with respect for the peasants' experiential wisdom. With their jokes, intimidation and teasing, they insisted on treating me as an equal. I also had a political-ideological bias against the nationalist right, which stemmed from the political climate at the Middle East Technical University where I had done my undergraduate training in the 1970s. When I was talking to some village emigrants who had adopted a right-wing nationalist ideology, I had a hard time relating to them and understanding them as persons. I remain glad that they were not at the core of the research. Paul Stirling, for his part, had a gender bias, which he himself recognized and explicitly stated. I do not therefore seek credit for recognizing male bias in his work. In fact he had hired me primarily for two reasons: because I was a native speaker of Turkish, and because I was a woman social scientist. Both of these factors had important implications for the research. When I look back, I see that each of us had clear power in certain areas. I had bargaining power related to language, access to women's perspectives and what I call 'cultural sensitivity' that stems (at least partly) from my national origin. On the other hand, in three other areas

258

When History Accelerates

Paul Stirling had the greater resources: knowledge of village history, access to men's perspectives, and wide anthropological knowledge for comparison and cross-cultural reference. Sharing the same native language is clearly one of the most important advantages of native anthropologists over 'foreigners'. The subtleties, jokes, implications, hidden insults or praise, even outright lies, are all easier to follow in one's native tongue. If, as Geertz has stated (1974:45), knowing a culture is 'grasping a proverb, catching an illusion, or seeing a joke', then I am bound to say that I have more confidence in my knowledge of the culture than anyone who speaks Turkish as a second language. I cannot even imagine how anthropologists who do not speak the language of the group they study can confidently write and publish. Even in my case, I experienced misunderstandings and misconceptions during thefieldworkthat stemmed from semantic differences in our dialects or simply from our idiolects. Although a linguistic analysis was not my purpose, nor even a tool I planned to use in the research, I collected over two hundred words and phrases in Sakaltutan and Elba§i which I had never heard before. Paul Stirling did speak Turkish. He began studying Turkish at Oxford, then continued in Ankara taking some classes at Ankara University. He had relied on Turkish with no translators ever since his fieldwork commenced in the 1940s. Furthermore, he was quite good at 'code switching', shifting back and forth between the village dialect and 'Standard Turkish', and at 'language play' which exploited the vocabulary differences in the two dialects. He was self-conscious about his Turkish because he could never have the same command of Turkish that he had of English. He told me several times that he could not understand 'one hundred per cent' of the conversations, and he would give me some percentages - although I never understood how he measured them! Of course, there were certain things I could do better than him. For instance, I could sit down in village houses, watch television or videotapes, and simultaneously follow the remarks and reactions of those present. Paul found this difficult. I could participate in a philosophical, mystical conversation with a village Sufi, whose long and complex arguments would send Paul to sleep. To be honest, I seldom understood 'one hundred per cent' of everything said myself. Many times, especially at the beginning of the research, I would sit and wonder how the others present were related to each other. I frequently pretended that I was following conversations when in fact I had little idea what they were talking about. Nevertheless,

Negotiating Ethnographic Reality: Team Fieldwork in Turkey 259

Paul Stirling (third from right) during fieldwork in central Anatolia in the early 1950s Turkish was my native tongue and this gave me strength during my negotiations with Paul. Whenever we had different understandings of an event, I could say, 'no, no, no, that's not what they said', and he would usually concede the point. Another area in which I had the upper hand concerned male bias in the production of anthropological knowledge. I was anxious to produce a 'gender sensitive' ethnography and it was agreed with Paul Stirling that I should spend more time with women in the villages, especially the 'grass widows' of migrant husbands, who lived alone or with their children. I decided to focus on gender relations and households for my dissertation for this was the material that I came to know best. Paul Stirling had recognized both the revolutionary impact of feminism on anthropology in general, and the necessity for gender-sensitive research in our case. Yet, he still had gender bias at different levels. The research design was based on a patrilineal bias and only the patrilineal descendants of the households in his original study were to be followed up. He used the patrilineal model as a theoretical filter, and made observations with a patrilineal bias. For example, in one blood-feud case in Sakaltutan that begged for explanation, he ignored what the informants had to say because it did not fit the idea of patrilineal responsibility for revenge. In general, he took male informants more seriously and sometimes ignored

260

When History Accelerates

women even when they volunteered information. My fieldnotes are full of examples of such biases. Being a woman may be preferable for studying women's lives, but it is not necessarily sufficient. My iife-cycle stage' limited my credibility in the field, at least in certain areas. In 19861 did not have any children. I remember several villagers, both women and men, making comments about the fact that I had been married for five years without producing any children. I never thought that this would have any bearing on the research itself, yet there are at least three entries in my 1986 fieldnotes where I noted that I had been left out of conversations because I had no children. Once a group of women had discussed the frequency with which they became pregnant; some would need exactly forty days after giving birth to their previous child and some would not conceive until after they had stopped breastfeeding. When I had wanted to enquire about some details, one of them had immediately closed me out. * You have not given birth, so you wouldn't know', she said. On another occasion when I had been in Ankara with Giil, a friend from Sakaltutan, she and one of my childhood friends Ay§e, who happened to be pregnant at the time, had begun to talk. Giil gave Ay§e some tips about pregnancy and child care, and they engaged in the kind of conversation they never had with me. Similarly, when I once asked another village friend to correct me in an interpretation, she said, 'So you want me to educate you! You are ignorant yet, my child. Only when you have your children following you, can you become educated' (Ne zaman dolleri arkana doken, o zaman ehille§in). In 1989, 1992 and 1993 when I went back to the villages with my husband and young daughter, totally different kinds of conversations and discussions were opened around the subject of children. Those discussions led to more than practical information on child care. Although I received the 'warnings' in 1986, I really did not know what I was missing until 1989. Paul Stirling, in contrast, having had good rapport with some families and with the experience of raising four children (although he had not given birth) would often find himself in contexts where children or pregnancy could readily be discussed. KNOWLEDGE OF VILLAGE HISTORY

'Thirty-five years of transformation in central rural Turkey' was a longitudinal project which had started before I was born. For me, the work in 1986 was synchronic, but for Paul there was continuity. The whole research was about change and I needed to understand the

Negotiating Ethnographic Reality: Team Fieldwork in Turkey 261 history to make sense of what was going on in the village. This was not made any easier by informant inaccuracy. Just as what people say they do and what they actually do are not always the same thing, so there can be discrepancy between what they say happened in the past and what 'really' took place. People forget; memory is not a reliable source. Absolute or relative 'dating' of certain events may be impossible if, as is usually the case, people do not record them. After so many years, informants will say they don't remember how many miscarriages they had, when their children were born, or how many years ago they were married. They may give clues like, 'she was born during the onion-weeding time' or 'he died right after the harvest time', but we are not satisfied with such relative dating in a framework of cyclical time. People make mistakes not only with dates but also concerning the people who take part in the events that they travesty. Even I could observe some such errors in the seven-year period which elapsed between 1986 and 1993.1 remember the last man using oxen to plough in Sakaltutan, Nevzat Altay, an old man in 1986. I met him, I had made notes about him, had had long conversations with his wife, and had recorded the date when Nevzat had sold his last pair of oxen when his son had bought a tractor. In 1992 when I visited Sakaltutan Nevzat and his wife were long dead. In a conversation with young men, who had been boys in 1986, they insisted that the last man who used oxen was San Ali. This certainly was not a lie, but a game their memories played on them, and not without some logic. San Ali and Nevzat Altay had both been among the poorest in the village, and both had continued ploughing with oxen long after most households had converted to tractors. Similarly, in 1993, when we visited Zeynep and Osman's household in Antalya, they confidently told me that their eldest son was six, the same age as my daughter. I challenged them, pointing out that Osman had been doing his military service in early 1986 when Zeynep had been visibly pregnant, and that the boy had to be seven years old, one year older than my daughter. Osman produced the boy's birth certificate as proof of their point. According to the birth certificate they were right, but I knew that they were mistaken by one whole year; as is usually the case, Osman had not registered his son immediately but waited until several years after his birth. Eventually they agreed with me as we went through the events of the last seven years. Inaccuracy on this scale is not going to make a tremendous difference in our research, but this event clearly shows that people can be completely confident in a fallacy, especially when it is 'documented'.

262

When History Accelerates

People also do things that, unless you are forewarned, you would not even think of asking them about. For example they change their surnames (perhaps because it is one of the few things in their lives they can control). One man in Elba§i had changed his surname three times since the 1950s. Several families in both Sakaltutan and Elba§i had adopted new surnames, and by 1986 it was often difficult to detect members of lineages by their surnames. People can and do lie and deliberately mislead. There were numerous cases when informants preferred to leave out parts of their past, particularly events considered embarrassing. A woman whose husband was in prison in Ankara for knifing her lover very carefully and successfully evaded my questions; a rape (or attempted rape) case was systematically excluded from conversations, as were many less dramatic events. For example once I was at the ev interviewing Nur about her natal family, while Paul was in the oda? She told me all about her parents, sisters and brothers, and gave extensive demographic information about infant mortality. Later, as we were going through the old genealogies Paul had accumulated in 1949,1 noticed that Nur had not mentioned her youngest brother. Paul said that he was some kind of 'black sheep' in the family: he had left home and acted irresponsibly. That was probably why Nur omitted him in her stories. Without Paul's previous documentation of family histories I would have relied on the informants and missed some important data concerning migration histories. People also make myths, sometimes very innocently, and it is hard to specify the qualitative difference between making history and making myth. History is usually taken to have 'validity' and 'reality', whereas myth implies 'fabrication', but of course one group's history may be another's myth. In their myth-making, villagers put together a lot of detailed descriptions from events happening in different times with different key characters. They are different from simple human error, as illustrated in the cases above, because myths are usually exquisitely complex and convincing. I actually lived through several myth-making processes, and listened to stories that I knew were not 'real'. One day Sevil told me that Paul and his wife had lived in her gorumce's (husband's sister's) house for two years in 1949 and 1950.1 disagreed. She insisted, saying that he had actually painted the walls while living in that house. Pictures of hearts, pots, flowers and so on, which he had drawn on the walls, were still visible. We argued for a long time. She brought 'evidence' that Paul had lived in the village for about three years: two years in her gorumce's house, and ten months in the school

Negotiating Ethnographic Reality: Team Fieldwork in Turkey 263 building. I struggled in vain. She was certain. I knew that what she narrated was simply not 'true'. I knew where in Sakaltutan Paul had lived. I knew that he had lived there for about 10 months during his first stay in 1949, and that he had not painted pictures on the walls. There was, apparently, some kind of confusion. Maybe a teacher from outside the village had lived there, two outsiders (or 'strangers' as the villagers would say) were put in the same slot, and in due course they could substitute for one another in the villagers' minds. But I was not able to convince Sevil. Another example: Mehmet Ali, one of Paul's best friends since 1949, told me on several occasions that Paul had converted to Islam, went to the mosque regularly and did everything he was supposed to do as a good Muslim. Mehmet Ali had actually taught him 'everything he had to know', yet 'for some curious reason', at the end of his stay in the village Paul had changed his mind and 'returned to Christianity'. Paul, however, told me that he was particularly sensitive about not misleading anyone on the issue of conversion: he had explicitly told everyone that all he wanted to do was to learn their ways. I did not argue with Mehmet Ali. As far as Sevil and Mehmet Ali were concerned these accounts were real; this was history that they would repeat and consolidate. If we stop for a while thinking in terms of 'what really happened' and think in terms of the 'consequences of the past' (Davis, 1992) as accounted by Sevil and Mehmet Ali, one consequence of their accounts was to draw Paul closer to themselves. Sometimes, then, the researchers know, through other more 'reliable' sources, that the information they receive at some point is not 'valid', at least not in a positivist's sense. This makes one wonder about the validity of other information: if you have evidence that one piece of data is 'erroneous', how can you be sure that other data, that you cannot check, are any more reliable? Paul Stirling had known most of our informants as children, and also their fathers and grandfathers (and sometimes mothers and grandmothers too!), most of whom were dead by 1986. He had recorded genealogies and had documented links between lineages that most villagers themselves did not know. Even with those genealogies, following them would have been impossible for me were it not for Paul's detailed knowledge of family histories. While reconstructing history during our fieldwork it was always he who had the last word concerning what had 'really' happened over the past thirty-five years. In cases where two informants told me two different and uncorroborated versions of the same story, I made a choice depending on

264

When History Accelerates

the characteristics of the informants, the relevance of the stories, and my overall assessment of the context. Most of these cases involved minor details, such as whether a particular woman was her husband's second or third wife. Similarly, I sometimes had to choose between the 'facts' as an informant portrayed them and the facts according to Paul. The differences between Paul Stirling's data files and informants' reports were interesting in some cases, not so much for the content but rather for understanding the kinds of systemic distortions of 'facts' and 'myth-making'. Enquiring into these systemic inconsistencies, such as omitting the 'black sheep' and 'unsuccessful' marriages in their families, whether they are deliberate on the part of the informants or not, would yield valuable information on how people make their histories. As Hastrup has pointed out, 'the story of the past is ... a selective account of the actual sequence of events, but it is no random selection' (1992: 9). In matters of 'interpretation', differences could be associated with different conceptualizations and theoretical orientations, and Paul and I could always negotiate. But on 'factual' issues where Paul had 'hard data', he had such power that there was no room for bargaining. If my information about the informants' ancestors was not consistent with Paul's 1950s data, if I had doubts about the lineage names, if there was a question concerning the fission and fusion of lineages, or matters of landownership, land divisions and conflicts in land use, Paul Stirling's documented evidence gave him resources far superior to the memories of most informants. There is no way, of course, to claim the validity of his data in a positivistic sense: did Paul's data files never get it wrong? But I had no 'reliable' alternative. Knowledge and prior documentation of village histories were, of course, the baseline for the research. Could just any researcher in possession of Paul Stirling's data files have conducted fieldwork using the same baseline? The old black-and-white photographs Paul had brought with him, and his very existence in a village room, created a context for reminiscing and comparing the present with the old days which no one else could have created. INSIDER AND OUTSIDER: 'ONE OF US' VERSUS THE GAVUR

In both Sakaltutan and Elba§i, the villagers have a clear categorization of an extended self as 'us', existing in opposition to the 'other'. The content of these categories, i.e. who belongs to the category of 'us' and who to the category of 'other', may change depending on context, but the two categories are always there. Identity is quite commonly marked in

Negotiating Ethnographic Reality: Team Fieldwork in Turkey 265

Paul Stirling with Haci Ahmet §ahin, Sakaltutan villager, 1986 (photograph by E. Incirlioglu) everyday language and is expressed in ethnic, religious, national and regional dimensions. The Sakaltutan Imam in 1986, a young man from the Eastern province of Siirt, was referred to as 'Kurd', though whether he was of Kurdish origin I do not know. Similarly, two brides from a Kurdish village of Van province were called Kurt gelin (Kurdish bride). All brides from other villages were called by their village of origin, such as Zerezekli (from Zerezek), Alayinli (from Alayin) or Suksunlii (from Siiksun). Several villagers had the nickname Gavur§a, a combination of the two words Gavur and u§agi, meaning 'infidel's child'. When I asked what it meant, they told me in Elba§i that those people were 'gavurdan donme' (converted from the infidel). Turkish nationalism too is also ever-present in daily language. According to Turkish laws, all foreign scholars need to get a security clearance and permission in order to do any kind of research in Turkey. In this case complications and delays in the security clearance process were probably related to the Turkish Government's sensitivity to the historically complex ethnic structure of the region, especially the 'Armenian Question', although it was not relevant to our research. Probably the worst consequence of these delays was the suspicion it caused among the villagers. Either the gendarmes or some junior secret policemen, or both, had gone to the village prior to the

266

When History Accelerates

issuing of Paul Stirling's permit to ask the muhtar (headman) and the village elders (who had known Paul since 1949), about the kind of research he was conducting. This extraordinary event obviously gave rise to gossip and 'myth-making' in the villages. On our first day in Sakaltutan, in the muhtar's 'guest room', an old woman said 'hosgeldin' (welcome) to Paul, asked what he was doing there, and then added, 'gdzaltxndaymissin' (we've heard that you were under arrest). There was some friction in the air. She couldn't finish her sentence. Even during the last days of our stay, in spite of all the rapport we had with the informants, lasting for most of a lifetime in Paul's case, some people continued to discuss whether Paul was a 'spy' or not. The muhtar was particularly worried, as he would be the person to face gendarmes if anything went wrong in the village. He became almost paranoid about the research, insisting that we visit one of the Vali Yardimcisi (assistant governors) in the provincial capital so that he could 'hear with his own ears' that Paul had a permit, and was fully authorized to conduct research. I remember an annoying situation before this visit when we were talking in the muhtar's house about the logistics of doing the interviews. The muhtar's reaction had surprised me. He had said that he would write a report against me if I did interviews all by myself separate from Paul, because it would be difficult to control the information we received if we interviewed different people in different households simultaneously. Furthermore women, being ignorant about the importance of sensitive issues, would give me 'wrong' information to which Paul should not have access. Right up to the end of the research, in spite of his good intentions, the muhtar was always uncomfortable dealing with Paul Stirling. When Paul donated 20,000 Turkish lira, worth about $30 in 1986, for the renovation of the saglik ocagi (health centre) building, the muhtar was afraid to take the money. He was afraid to write a receipt in Paul's name. He was afraid that he would be doing something illegal and insisted on writing the receipt in my name instead. We also experienced considerable inconvenience because of a law requiring all foreign researchers to be accompanied and supervised by a mihmandar (guide or host/hostess). Accompanying the researchers to the field and keeping them under supervision was part of the mihmandar's job, but the medical doctor allocated to us was a busy man who did not welcome his appointment and the experience was a frustrating one for all concerned. Yet we were lucky to have him, for his presence led to discussions of important topics that would

Negotiating Ethnographic Reality: Team Fieldwork in Turkey 267 never have come up otherwise. In Elba§i health centre, for example, which in 1986 had been in operation for six years, our guide gave managerial advice to its newly appointed young doctor. He also made us aware that goitre was widespread in the region. Conversations about the villagers' medical problems provided contextual information about a wealth of subjects, from diet to identity. The presence of our guide gave many villagers, who otherwise would not have done so because of financial limitations and transportation problems, the chance of seeing a doctor. At the same time our guide's presence led to some problems, for we had entirely different approaches to 'research'. First he asked whether we would be using anket (questionnaires), which he wanted to inspect as an indicator of the research framework. I told him about Paul Stirling's previous projects, but I was unable to convince him of the merits of 'holistic' ethnographic research and the 'participant observation' methods. We could not communicate at all on such matters. He himself was involved in several research projects. One involved sending out questionnaires to health centre doctors in central Anatolia to explore health issues in rural areas and the problems faced by doctors. Another project aimed to establish a baseline for future longitudinal research on the effectiveness of health centres on the improvement of health and environmental conditions of villagers. He therefore opened up medical and environmental topics wherever we went, and employed a rather didactic style to 'educate' the villagers. He tended to dominate conversations, sometimes to the extent that we were unable to conduct our own research. Moreover, he took his supervisory role very conscientiously, to the extent of reporting to both Sakaltutan and Elba§i muhtars as well as the gendarmes in Elba§i behind closed doors. All this produced tension: my fieldnotes from this first month record for every single day the unnecessary problems we had to confront because of his presence. Due to conflicts in our schedules and his own commitments this doctor resigned after one month as our guide. He was succeeded by a graduate student and research assistant in the Department of Theology at the University in nearby Kayseri. Our experiences with our second mihmandar were completely different. This man had no agenda of his own to pursue and, moreover, was actually interested in sociology. He respected the idea of ethnographic fieldwork and participant observation. He did not see himself as a state officer

268

When History Accelerates

there to supervise a foreign scholar who was probably a spy. Rather he saw an opportunity to learn from Paul, and he defined himself as his 'student'. During the Elba§i part of the research he and his wife agreed to live in the village with us, taking along their four-year-old son, a considerable sacrifice on their part. During the following months, his perspective on events in the villages, given his personal, cultural and academic background, provided an invaluable contribution to the research. It is important to understand these circumstances because research like ours is directly affected by the suspicions people have about anthropologists, or strangers in general. Unlike some other parts of the world, people in Turkey are not familiar with the discipline of anthropology and they are not used to being interviewed by social scientists. Even the word that is used for 'research' in Turkish (arastirmd) is associated with 'search warrant for guns', a misunderstanding I had to deal with several times in various villages. In this context the problems surrounding Paul's research permit created extra question marks in the villagers' minds, that cost us much time and anxiety. One day about two months after the research started I was visiting Gul, later to become my best friend in the village. Gul's brother's daughter Sevil, a neighbour, was also there. Sevil's husband was a migrant worker in Saudi Arabia; they had a decent income by village standards, so she had given up weaving carpets. Having only one daughter, about five years old at the time, she did not have much housework, which gave her ample time to visit her neighbours, friends and family. Sevil was an outgoing, talkative and curious person. She was a quick thinker, able to make logical connections and to integrate different perspectives. She was always among the first to learn of extraordinary happenings in the village; and she enjoyed surprising people with new, exciting and unexpected information. In her enthusiasm, however, she frequently neglected to double-check her sources of information. Sevil was the kind of person who would make a successful tabloid journalist, if not an ethical one. Although her neighbours and friends made allowances for these characteristics, at times she would succeed in stirring things up and spreading misinformation. When I ran into Sevil in Gul's house I did not yet know any of this. I had seen her a few times before, but had not heard other people's views of her, nor had the chance to make observations of my own. Giil, Sevil and I were

Negotiating Ethnographic Reality: Team Fieldwork in Turkey 269 talking about husband-wife relations; I was recording the conversation and also taking notes. All of a sudden Sevil started asking me questions and, since the tape-recorder was on, I incidentally recorded that conversation, too. Here is a very literal translation of the transcribed tape: Sevil: Emine, girl, kadani alayim,4 girl, what on earth have you been writing? Emine: Remember, I told you I was working with Paul ... Sevil: Look, kurbanin olayim,5 what if this Paul has been thinking about something [against] us? What shall we do then? Emine: What if he thinks what? Like what? GUI: Come on, what would he think? (Silence) Emine: You know I go to school in America: there, you need to write a thesis to graduate. So, here, I am working both for Paul and for my thesis. Sevil: I don't know kurban oldugum, some say that the things being written are not being written with good intentions. So, we are scared. Emine: What else but good intentions? Anyone, of course, can have any intention and you would not know, but in this trade the main interest is to learn how people live. Because different people have different ways of life. What we have seen in the city is quite different from here. If I had not come here, I would not have known your ways ... So, all we do is expand our knowledge and experience. There is nothing bad or hidden behind it. Sevil: You don't, kurbanin oldugum; it's him we are talking about. What if he thinks of badness; that's why we are scared. GUI: Oh no, Sevil, what shall he think? What can he think? He has been coming here all this time, going home and coming back again. Sevil: That's precisely why I am afraid. When they say all those things about him, I am afraid. Emine: I know Paul; he does not have any bad intentions. He really has no hidden intentions. Sevil: Remember that boy [young man] who used to walk around with him; well, he said, 'even our wisdom is not enough to say who is what.' He said, 'Our, our reasoning is not enough to understand what he is. We don't know if he is here for goodness or badness,' he said. 'But,' he said, 'don't show your bad sides.' There, at the mosque he said all this, in our mosque. Emine: No no no. He would not say anything like that. People must

270

When History Accelerates 6

have made it up. Sevil: That's what I know. People heard him say it. He really said it. [She waited for a while and started talking again, to convince me.] Look. You and I are both Turk. Right? But he is gavur, 'infidel'. We do not know what he is. I argued against this and gave examples of how Paul had been personally helpful to so many people since 1949. She herself had witnessed some of the cases I mentioned and had certainly heard of the others. 'And', I said, 'if I had doubts about him, I would not be working with him in the first place. If you trust me, and you say you do, you must know this.' I found out later that even these protestations did not succeed fully. Paul's national origins were important for other informants too, and for different reasons. One old Sakaltutan man was particularly nationalistic and antagonistic towards the British, who had been part of the 'enemy' during the First World War and the War of Independence. This man held Paul and his 'folk' responsible for the death of his kinsmen during seferberlik (wartime). In April 1986, when I was visiting a Sakaltutan emigrant household in Adana, the male household head said, 'once upon a time there were many Armenians around Kayseri, and because Paul is also an Armenian, the villagers were right to be suspicious of him.' Both his wife, who had known Paul since she was a child, and I said that Paul was not an Armenian but an Englishman. But this man stood firm: 'Armenian and English, they are all related', he said. Then their teenaged son and his friend asked if Paul knew about the hidden Armenian treasure, and if he was still hunting for it. Later I heard similar rumours from others too, about hidden treasures the Armenians had left behind when they left this region. In the Adana office of a construction contractor, another Sakaltutan emigrant questioned me about Paul. 'Paul did research in the East, didn't he?' he asked. 'Not as far as I know', I answered. 'He went to Russia, too, right?' he asked. 'Not for research', I said. After a few more questions, with a very solemn face, this man said he did not want to be disturbed. He did not want to answer any of my questions concerning household composition and demography, asking suspiciously what I was going to do with the information. Nothing like that had happened to me before, so I left frustrated and depressed. Paul told me that he was used to being rejected in this manner, and clearly a difference in national origin between the researcher and the researched can make a difference in the research process. Partly as a result of their

Negotiating Ethnographic Reality: Team Fieldwork in Turkey 111 world view (which some call 'peasant suspicion') but mostly because of the warnings of the authorities, including our first mihmandar, at least some villagers deliberately withheld information on subjects which they thought to be important. However the villagers' religious identity and nationalism that led them to classify Paul as 'other', did not lead to constant suspicion and fear. One old man who had been friends with Paul for over forty years told me sadly that some villagers did not appreciate Paul as much as he deserved ('kiymetini bilmediler') because they were plain stupid, stupid enough to buy the rumours against him. Being a foreigner and a non-Muslim did not always place Paul Stirling at a disadvantage. Some men who had worked in western Europe as labour migrants appreciated the 'humanity' of Europeans. I also remember several events when villagers redefined Muslim to include Paul, for example when Paul had agreed to drive a few Sakaltutan villagers to a distant village for a funeral, through rough muddy roads in snow. Some villagers had even fabricated myths about Paul to show that he was one of 'us', and they would come to believe in these: for example, I heard in Elba§i that in the 1950s Paul had wanted to name his son Elba§i, after his stay in the village; and in Sakaltutan, that he had wanted to adopt several village children. According to Paul, these were all fabrications. The bureaucratic procedures and the reactions of the villagers and emigrants towards the research itself led me to question the meaning of this or any other ethnographic fieldwork. Many villagers explicitly stated that they did not see any point in what we were doing. Once I happened to record the comments of a young woman: 'In the old days the village was in poor condition, they say, and now it has advanced. Why is it advancing? That's what Paul has been researching. I don't know about the old conditions, but now the men are in Arabia, and that's why we are better off. It's that simple'. Probably most villagers felt that studying thirty-five years of change in rural Anatolia was, at best, a waste of time and money. Why would Paul want to be away from his family, home and country? Why would I be away from my husband? They did understand that I had to go through this 'trouble' for my dissertation, and it was not my choice, but the research itself, whatever it was, certainly could not justify such pains. Although the villagers did not think highly of the research, at least they accepted and accommodated us. Some Sakaltutan emigrants did not even do that. The same successful construction contractor in Adana who questioned Paul's motivations also criticized the research on the grounds

272

When History Accelerates

that it was not 'systematic' enough. As he used standardized designs for window and door details, so we should have used standardized questionnaires and clarified our goals. And although we felt we could rebut these criticisms, there were indeed times when we too felt discomfort about the research, and especially about creating an ethnographic 'reality' in which the research itself had no place. My status as an 'insider' was a factor here, for I was sure that I was the one who was more 'sensitive' to the village culture. I remember several instances when I felt that Paul was not 'playing by the rules', and I was caught between Paul and the villagers. For example, he would accept a lunch invitation before waiting for more insistence; or when I felt a villager was expecting him to insist a little more, he would not. These instances were context dependent, difficult to formulate and impossible to generalize. One just feels it is right or wrong. Once, in 1986, a few days after the death of a villager whose father and Paul had been very close friends in 1949, we went to pay our condolences to his family. The house was full of family members and friends, who were all very sad, some crying and sobbing, some refusing to enter the room where the man had died. Not knowing what to say or do, I was sitting quietly on the divan next to the deceased man's mother, looking down at my feet. I was thinking of death, the possible consequences of this particular death on the household economy, and who knows what else, but taking out my notebook was the last thing I would do. Meanwhile Paul was sitting on the other divan; and when I raised my eyes for a moment, I saw him talking with some men who had come from other villages and writing in his notebook. He was using the opportunity to get some information he otherwise could not have obtained. I remember experiencing more than a little self-righteous indignation at what I perceived to be his 'insensitivity'. I don't know if my 'sensitivity' stemmed from my gender, or my inexperience in the field, or my personality, or national/cultural origin, or all of these together. Probably all. I don't know if I would be more 'objective' if I were doing research in another society. And I don't even know if I was really behaving in a 'culturally sensitive' way from the perspective of the villagers on this occasion. Perhaps my affection and respect for Paul was being distorted by a subtle ageism in this incident, but perhaps this is too simplistic an explanation. Nevertheless, on occasions such as this, I found in myself the authority to criticize Paul's 'cultural insensitivity'. He was open enough to

Negotiating Ethnographic Reality: Team Fieldwork in Turkey 273 welcome my criticisms and even try to change his behaviour, accepting my authority. CONCLUSION

Questioning the validity of research results in anthropology is not something new, but methodological concerns infieldworkhave become a more serious focus for critical discussion since the increase in numbers of women and native anthropologists in the field. Researchers are social, cultural, political and gendered beings, and their backgrounds influence both their research and results. Each person, in our case each anthropologist, has unique experiences, and the expertise and authority to make statements based on these experiences. So, although there is no way to know how exactly the results of our fieldwork would have been different if it had been conducted by one researcher rather than a team, looking back at our negotiating processes now I think they did result in data of better quality. Doing teamwork does not, of course, guarantee producing accurate and complete information, but it increases the chances of a better understanding. Teamwork is more than the sum of the members' work: it is a context which provides discussion and helps further analysis through a 'feedback system'. Variation among the researched may be better grasped if there is variation among the researchers. At the end of the day, team fieldwork is not for everyone. It is not for people who (a) know exactly what they are doing and do not want to be bothered by distracting questions from their co-researchers; (b) do not know what they are doing and do not want anyone else to know it; (c) are more interested in making a name than understanding in a satisfactory way, and do not want their authority to be questioned; (d) find egalitarian and reciprocal relations difficult; and (e) are interested in getting things done rather than getting things right. NOTES

1 Parts of this chapter are taken from my Ph.D. Dissertation (Incirlioglu, 1991); an earlier version was presented at the 26th Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association held on 29-31 October 1992 in Portland, Oregon. I would like to thank Tori Angela and Paul Stirling for reading and commenting on earlier versions. 2 All ourfieldnotesand writings, and some documents, will be made available for posterity on a CD-ROM, with a large database. For information on the database see Stirling and Ryan (1992); for the CD-ROM project see Fischer

274

When History

Accelerates

1994a: 59; 1994b. 3 The term ev, literally 'house' is used for referring to the living quarters of the house including the kitchen while oda is used for misafir odasi, literally, 'guestroom.' 4 Kadani alayim and some other terms of endearment that are part of the regional dialect are difficult to translate not only into English but also into my dialect of Turkish. So, I will use the exact phrase, noting that it is a loving, caring term used frequently in daily language. 5 Kurbanin olayim is another term of endearment, which literally means 'let me sacrifice myself for you.' 6 It was clear that Sevil was talking about the doctor, ourfirstmihmandar. REFERENCES

Davis, J. (1992) 'History and the people without Europe', in K. Hastrup (ed.) Other Histories, London: Routledge, pp. 14-28. Fischer, M.D. (1994a) Applications in Computing for Social Anthropologists, London: Routledge. Fischer, M.D. (1994b) 'Forty years in the Turkish village: the Stirling CD-ROM project', Bulletin of Information in Social Anthropology and Computing, 10, 1-3. Geertz, C. (1974) 'From the native's point of view', Bulletin of the American Academy of Sciences, 28, 27—45. Hastrup, K. (1992) 'Introduction', in K. Hastrup (ed.) Other Histories, London: Routledge, pp. 1-13. Incirlioglu, E.O. (1991) 'Gender relations and rural transformation: two central Anatolian villages', Doctoral dissertation, University of Florida. Rosen, L. (1984) Bargaining for Reality: Construction of Social Relations in a Muslim Community, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Stirling, P. (1965) Turkish Village, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Stirling, P. (1974) 'Cause, knowledge and change: Turkish village revisited', in J. Davis (ed.) Choice and Change: Essays in Honour of Lucy Mair, London: Athlone, 191-229. Stirling, P. (1982) 'Social change and social control in Republican Turkey', in Turkiye I§ Bankasi: Papers and Discussions: International Symposium on Ataturk 1981, Ankara: Turkiye I§ Bankasi, Cultural Publications, pp. 565-600. Stirling, P. (1988) 'Labour migration and changes in Anatolia', unpublished paper delivered to the Conference on Mediterranean Migrations held at Al Hoceima at the University Al Charif Al Idrissi, Morocco, 1 1 - 1 4 July. Stirling, P. (forthcoming) 'Labour migration in Turkey: forty years of changes', Essays presented to Bozkurt Guveng, Ankara: Kiiltur Bakanhgi. Stirling, P. (1993) 'Growth and changes: speed, scale, complexity', in P. Stirling (ed.) Culture and Economy: Changes in Turkish Villages, Huntingdon: Eothen, pp. 1-16. Stirling, P. and N. Ryan (1992) 'Two Turkish villages and their emigrants:

Negotiating Ethnographic Reality: Team Fieldwork in Turkey 275 1950-86: Comments and Advice. "Data Dictionary'", provisional unpublished report.

CHAPTER 14

Social Standards and Social Thought Alan Rew DISTINCTIVE INSIGHTS?

At the 1980 conference of the Society for Applied Anthropology, held at Edinburgh, Paul Stirling's vision and efforts led to the creation of the Group for Anthropology in Policy and Practice (GAPP). Two key tasks for the new organization, he argued, would be the creation of jobs for anthropology graduates and the practical demonstration that anthropology had important insights which decision-makers should note. The labour market has joined with GAPP to address the first of these two requirements. The second undertaking has proved quite difficult to carry out, but there has been progress. This chapter suggests one further way forward. It is not always easy to demonstrate anthropology's distinctive insights into practical problems. The same conference that witnessed Paul Stirling's inauguration of GAPP also heard Sir Raymond Firth caution against too great an enthusiasm to apply anthropology. He argued that it would continue to be 'the awkward science' whenever practical applications were at issue (1981). Indeed, the awkwardness can often be detected behind a fa$ade of polite or even encouraging interest in the anthropologist's work. Initial enthusiasm can sometimes prove to be superficial; agreement that social factors are important in project and policy work can quickly lead on to disagreement when multi-discipline work actually begins and conclusions are sought. An episode soon after the same Edinburgh conference illustrates best for me the uncomfortable discrepancy in working assumptions between anthropology and engineering, and hence the difficulty of providing convincing practical applications. I had been asked by an engineer with third world interests to provide examples of the anthropological contribution to aid his publicity of the benefits of multi-discipline work. I had offered, among other illustrations, the now venerable observation that the enthusiasm of some planners for the increased use of more fuel-efficient and smoke-free wood stoves in villages was not always

Social Standards and Social Thought

277

shared by village residents themselves. Improved stoves usually require a stove pipe exhausting through the roof; many residents with thatch roofs have worried that stray sparks would set them on fire. Even those householders with metal roofs might worry about sparks because roofs can also be used in dry climates for drying or storing grain, or for displaying the bounty of the harvest and the farmer's skill. The implication, I had thought, was relatively simple: planners and administrators should recognize the force of the social context. To my surprise the engineer's initial interest in anthropology had been replaced by frustration. How, he asked, could a planner or engineer anticipate and give weight to such difficulties? Every case might be different. Should one expect to alter the design - and how? - or abandon the attempt to help? My observations, he suggested, were plausible but appeared incapable of generalization. The only way of safeguarding against the practical and analytical difficulties of implementation would be to take an anthropologist along on each occasion, at prohibitive expense to a low-cost programme! Anthropology itself did not seem portable. Contrary to my representations and my engineer colleague's scepticism, the dominant external view has been that anthropology does have distinctive insights, and that it must be urged to recognize a larger public responsibility for interpretation and advice. This interest has been especially marked in the case of development project planning over the last decade, and the need to address the compacted social features of international poverty. More recently it has been extended to the context of ethnic violence. Benthall and Knight (1993: 1) report the endorsements in a national newspaper of Gellner's view that social anthropology can and should provide a guide to ethnic politics and nationalism. In the field of development project planning and in the design of poverty alleviation strategies, anthropologists have already moved into increasingly influential positions. There has been a significant growth in the numbers and status of social development advisers within the United Kingdom's bilateral development aid programme (Rew, 1992). Most of these advisers have postgraduate qualifications and fieldwork experience in anthropology. The World Bank has set up a department for environmental and social policy advice at vice-presidential levels and with anthropologists in key positions. One obstacle preventing anthropologists from claiming a centre-stage role has been their sense that the discipline was quite unprepared to take on these large responsibilities. This is argued forcefully in one off-thecuff review of the Fourth Decennial Conference of the Association of

278

When History Accelerates

Social Anthropologists (ASA) by a postgraduate participant who noted that the skills demanded for anthropology's popularization did not seem to be taken seriously. There was: an institutional blindness to the importance of a recently much discussed aspect of any kind of discourse - its performance ... in practice, it's often not just a matter of how well you know what you know but how you present it that counts (Roberts, 1993: 17). Even though anthropologically the world is a complex place, regard for the practicalities of knowledge does require the 'vulgarization' of the discipline for non-academics; or at least it requires the production of a set of extension messages packaging the insights of the science, and written in the language and idioms of the users of the information. If there is doubt about the message, better that the message not be given. If there is a message that can be conveyed, then the anthropologist needs to choose the best medium for it and consider carefully the rules of its discursive practices. INSCRIPTION AND SPECIFICATION

Post-modernist influences in anthropology have not always helped our effective intervention in policy and practical debates. Through its irreverence and deconstructionism, post-modernism has certainly helped anthropology to heighten awareness of cultural relativism and, for at least the chattering classes, of the importance of questioning cultural assumptions. Post-modernism's indeterminacy and its self-conscious doubts and ambiguities, however, have encouraged a style of writing and communication in anthropology which limit the popularization of its many more specific conclusions. Doubt now seems radical in places where guidance might have been expected and where cultural perspectives on economic life ought to offer practical insights. For example Long (1992), as editor of a recent collection that tries to relate theory and practice in social research and development, admits that the volume's papers are uncertain about conclusions that go much beyond the methodological. He doubts our ability to explain the harsher realities of poverty, marginalization and powerlessness, while noting the book's lack of explicit attention to 'the large and disturbing questions of Third World poverty' (ibid.: 272). Even though 'actor-oriented' analyses provide a thorough means of understanding the complexities of the battlegrounds for knowledge and power, there is some doubt that poverty and marginalization can

Social Standards and Social Thought

279

be approached at all. Global realities of poverty and disadvantage are deconstructed by making them sit within quotation marks - we read of 'the "real" world' rather than inadequate incomes or nutrition but the complexities of anthropological analysis do not yet allow for its reconstruction. What may be needed for anthropology and the analysis of development outcomes is the kind of 'hermeneutic tacking' between the two fields, moving first one way and then the other, that Geertz recommends for the relationship between law and anthropology (1983: 170). In an interpretive science, Geertz writes (1973: 27), the already relative distinction in the experimental or observational sciences between 'description' and 'explanation' becomes even more relative in the distinction he draws between inscription and specification. The first of these terms signifies 'thick description': a setting down of the meaning particular social actions have for the actors whose actions they are; an uncovering of the conceptual structures that inform our subject's acts; recording the 'said' of social discourse. Where, though, and how are these inscriptions to be set down? The very term used to characterize (specify? inscribe?) the essential nature of 'thick description' reveals the medium. To create an anthropology of inscription is to embook (Geertz, 1983: 190) the description in, usually, several or many pages of published academic text. As a system of knowledge, anthropology has, like Islam, an inherent respect for the certainty of embooked truths, in the one case the truths of divine will revealed in the Koran in the other that the truths of the cultural encounter will be revealed in the ethnographer's account. The medium and nature of specification is less sharply inscribed in Geertz's writing. Specification is 'diagnosis'; a system of analysis 'in whose terms what is generic to those structures ... will stand out against the other determinants of human behaviour' (Geertz, 1973: 27). In the essay on 'thick description' Geertz (1973: 30) is concerned that cultural analysis, in the search for the all-too-deep-lying, will lose touch with the hard surfaces of life. The only defence is to train cultural analysis directly onto such realities and necessities in the first place. But in a 1980 essay (Geertz, 1983: 19-35), the distinction becomes consciously blurred and what was specification appears now to be lost in the increasingly discredited metaphors of 'elaborate machinery', 'quasiorganisms', or even (hard surfaces indeed) plumbing and engineering. Of course there are doubts: he admits that this new interpretive turn may lead to obscurity and illusion as well as to precision and truth.

280

When History Accelerates

Indeed, the doubts are radical and pessimistic. There is no hope at all to be found in 'the humanist sage delivering lectern judgements'. The prospect for salvation from the social technologist is also bleak. But perhaps it is not quite as bleak as in the case of the humanist sage for although 'the specialist without spirit dispensing policy nostrums goes ...'(ibid.: 35), s/he does presumably go somewhere. My guess is that his or her destination will be Delhi or London to pursue more influential and better-paid jobs, and to help specify the standards for development programme and project design that can help reform injustice. Geertz's recommended 'hermeneutic tacking', although promising as a strategic course for an anthropology of development outcomes, is ultimately disappointing when we reconsider the speed and efficiency of the actual sailing. We sail close-hauled and successfully into the steady winds of inscription but on the other tack there is little headway in the face of the fluky gusts of diagnosis. Geertz's final position in the race resembles that of the Frankfurt School as seen by Gellner: The Frankfurters picked on not so much specific distortions of real objectivity but rather the cult of objectivity as such: this was the source of distortion, and it was their task to rectify it ... But they still retained the notion of an alternative sound position, at least in principle, as an ideal (1992: 34). The 'hard surfaces', to use Geertz's phrase again, are there and, ideally, should be confronted head-on. Indeed, the concept of 'thick description' itself recognizes that there can be knowledge beyond cultural constructions and moralities: inscription requires a counterbalancing specification. But other pressing problems of interpretative distortion continue, somehow, to get in the way of the specifications and need to be settled first. The impasse in the anthropological theorization of development practice may lie in the choice of, and attitude to, 'otherness'. For the thorough-going post-modernist anthropologist, it is the awe of the Other which is dominant. The wonder of 'otherness' leads to chasms of meaning both between the researcher and the informant and between the writer and the reader. Those who hold at least in principle that some knowledge of material outcomes beyond culture is possible have nonetheless usually based their account of 'otherness' on a local space rather than in the otherness of time and historical change in knowledge and power. Long (1992: 275) appears to doubt any position except that which focuses on 'strategies of local actors that include the ongoing

Social Standards and Social Thought

281

transformation and interpenetration of local and external models and experience'. The converse position, which would focus on the strategies of official and non-governmental development workers and would include a similar set of 'transformations and interpenetrations', more longitudinal in their coverage than local 'otherness' usually allows, is considered only in passing. There is a hint it could even be dismissed since, however worthy the development worker's intention, 'the notion of "powerful outsiders" helping "powerless insiders" slips constantly in' (ibid.). But development work can be researched by anthropologists without the need to leap from the micro-local to super-macro mechanisms and all-comprehending structural determinants. Arce and Long (1992 and 1993) explore the interface or bridge between official and village worlds through a case-study of 'Engineer Roberto'. Marsden (1992), considerably widening the scope of local-bureaucracy ethnography, has studied the world and work of community development officials in Hyderabad using recognizable anthropological tools. Indeed, his kind of study should have priority, since many of the constraints in investment and social service planning are not in the overall policy design but at the point of implementation, in the interstices of its administration, and within its organizational connections. Batley (1983) has explored these links and this argument for urban Brazil. It is a point made powerfully for pre- and post-Mao China by Bhalla (1992) - from within economics - and Croll (1993). Bhalla concludes that: From the 1950s to the 1970s both China and India followed somewhat similar development strategies - import substitution and self-reliance with a view to rapid industrialisation and technological independence. In the 1980s both shifted away from state interventionism to market liberalisation. Thus faster growth in China cannot be attributed to differences in the growth strategies that were adopted, but rather to differences in their implementation (1992: 242). Sen (1983), anticipating this conclusion, pointed out that while famines have been almost non-existent in modern India this has not been the case in China. The strong press and democratic institutions and oppositions in India forced the government to act quickly to take preventive action. China, by comparison, with a policy of isolation that may have raised the costs of famine still higher, could not avert the famine of 1959-61. On the other hand it was much more successful than India in controlling malnutrition, partly because of Mao's egalitarian

282

When History Accelerates

strategy, and partly because production and distribution of food were much better integrated than in the market-oriented Indian economy. The very factors of opposition and information flow that in India are invoked to explain its ability to prevent famines tend to slow down its implementation of regular programmes to combat insidious malnutrition (Bhalla, 1992: 250). There are, then, very practical consequences for specific villages and for national policy, livelihoods and life chances if programme implementation fails. In many cases, failure will, no doubt, be overdetermined by a combination of social, economic and technical factors. Implementation failure is not, however, inevitable, and progressive change can sometimes be observed over time. Blair (1985) makes a similar argument concerning changes in the status of decentralization and local participation in decision-making in rural Bangladesh. In the short term there are reverses and uncertainties; over a 20-year period, however, there has been noticeable cumulative change towards greater decision-making powers being exercised at local government and village levels. The interaction between state norms and standards and village or other local custom and practice is a very fruitful area of investigation for anthropology and it leads to a definition of the 'other' which is neither based on awe nor confined to the local space. Paul Stirling (1957), for example, strikingly illustrates the way that Turkish villagers have a propensity to ignore outside legal norms while at the same time trying to control them in the interests of their own marriage and landholding arrangements. Beyond this important methodological insight we may also find that the configuration of state-locality relationships can vary a great deal. As T. S. Epstein (1962: 145) observes of Mysore villagers, 'they consider their caste and village panchayats to be the ultimate judicial authority in all matters, except... [that they] take their disputes over land to the State's courts'. In north India, however, Marriott (1955: 182-4) sees a different pattern. Village land was administered through the 'Mahalviri' tenure system in which segments of dominant lineages became responsible for land revenue payments. The result was the 'mutual penetration' of local kinship systems and lower-level administration. An exchange of mutual self-representation by villagers and lowerlevel cadres, leading first to unity and then to growing conflict that ultimately results in implementation failures, is reported for China by Croll (1993). She describes the implementation process as a macro-level

Social Standards and Social Thought

283

social drama of purification and rectification. Respect for the knowledge of local populations and a recognition of the need for their cooperation was judged essential and led to adaptation in the process of implementation. At the same time the single development agency - the state - issued central development directives that were mainly goal-oriented and paid only limited attention to implementation tactics. This resulted in a situation where national policies and goals were formulated, transmitted and translated at each level of the state administrative hierarchy. But within the villages they were communicated directly to the local population by those members of the local population who had sole responsibility for their implementation. This pattern of implementation was based on the regime's respect for local populations and its encouragement of self-reliance. It also created, maintained and reprocessed more or less exclusive patron-client relationships between state cadres and their village agents. The information flows encapsulated the local population and made specific sets of villagers gatekeepers to privileged knowledge. As policies changed and cycles of rectification were set in motion, local populations were subdivided into objects and agents of change by the privileging of new forms of knowledge within the village. This also generated selective ignorance and led to suspicion of other villagers' positions and intentions and to the emergence of major gaps in the information flow. The constant redefinition of agents and objects disrupted village social relationships and production. Croll argues, therefore, that the development policies were themselves jeopardized by the process of their implementation despite considerable openness to local knowledge systems. In the Indian administrative and management system, greater care is taken to try to control the details of implementation. Higher officials charged with translating national policy deliberations into action do so through the specification of standards and targets. The specifications have important representational implications for the middle- and lower-level officials whose job it is, in turn, to represent the state at regional and local levels. These administrators come to the village 'others' armed with forms of general knowledge and action brought from the wider society - and they also come with the means of coercion if necessary. But their administrative machineries enable them to come into these other people's worlds with models, measurements, logics and means of performance and representation which may help them to adapt and construct new environments and even to populate them with new 'others' (cf. Cohn, 1987: 44). At the same time, the 'others' have to

284

When History Accelerates

restructure their worlds to encompass the official presence and aims and their means of representation. The result is invariably a process of the self-representation of each to the other involving varying combinations of technical authority, general authority, public protest, quiet resistance, acceptance and material claims and effects. A CASE STUDY FROM MEWAR

The complicities of knowledge, power and specification involved in official action to implement development policy at local levels in India are best illustrated by a specific example. The ethnographic material concerns the desirability of various standards of housing and resettlement and intellectual tensions concerning poverty and disadvantage. These issues were at the forefront of project work which I evaluated in association with SamajShastra Hindi Karya Samiti (SHKS) of Udaipur - a 'scholarly NGO' composed of sociologists who were trying to create a specifically Hindi-language social science for reasons of cultural pride and to meet the immediate tuition needs of their students. The SHKS team was led by Dr Mohan Advani of Sukhardia University, Udaipur. He was acting as a consultant to a public enterprise which was developing a mine in the Mewar area of Rajasthan. The mining development was part of a much larger industrial development in the southern Rajasthan region which was being funded by the Overseas Development Administration (ODA). As a social development consultant for ODA, I visited the project, local officials and the villages involved on four occasions between 1989 and 1992, but each time for no more than a few weeks or days.1 While I was there I concentrated on the project context and observed, at first hand, the process of negotiation between the Company, as I propose to call the Government enterprise, the revenue department officials and the villagers. After my first and longest visit, the Company accepted my advice that detailed social research on the local communities and on the process of resettlement was needed. The need for social development consultancy hadfirstbeen identified by Dr Sean Conlin, an anthropologist working for ODA as a social development adviser.2 The Company commissioned Dr Advani and his team to carry out qualitative research and social surveys (Advani, 1990). The project work centred on a small village in what was the previous princely state of Mewar in southern Rajasthan. The area had been judged highly conservative and unwelcoming to new development initiatives when it was a separate political entity; within Rajasthan it had retained

Social Standards and Social Thought

285

something of this conservative reputation, but had seen pockets of industry develop rapidly in the last decade or so. The immediate occasion for the social development visits was the development of an open cast mine to expose and exploit an ore of world class quality and of considerable value for India's industrial processes and for international trade. This was the responsibility of the Company. The village whose lands were needed for the development of the mine will be called Rampura, in a time-honoured tradition of anthropological naming. Rampura village is not a very old village. It was founded some 50 years ago and has been dominated from the start by Gujars. It is not a large village, having around 100 households at the time the mining developments began. The lands are in a semi-arid part of the state and so crop farming is quite marginal. Only a very small portion was being irrigated, from wells. There were some significant livestock holdings. It was an attractive Rajasthani village based on a single narrow street, with living quarters on each side that were enclosed by boundary walls to create large spacious walled courtyards. For the most part these were open to the sky, with one or two rooms at the back for sleeping and grain storage, and one or two rooms adjacent to the street for the purpose of receiving guests. The central open-air portion included areas for animals, farming equipment and fodder. Most of the houses and courtyards in Rampura were of kaccha construction, built with mud bricks and render, and often decorated. The development of the mine required the acquisition of a large area of several villages' lands but it also required the physical relocation of Rampura since it sat over one end of the ore body. The discussions with the villagers concerning physical relocation took a considerable time, whereas the acquisition of the agricultural lands proceeded very quickly. The Company was offering a very good price for the land by local market standards and had many takers. Indeed the Company had more land offered to it than it wanted to acquire. The very few complaints about the land acquisition process were mostly restricted to questioning the boundary set for land acquisition - too restricted it was claimed by the complainants - rather than the principle of mine development or the rate of compensation paid. The difficulties in project-to-village relations came with plans to relocate Rampura. There were both long-drawn-out negotiations concerning the price to be paid for the residential land and disagreements concerning the character and layout of the new housing and the method of rebuilding individual houses. There were also fears about the way

286

When History Accelerates

the compensation payments would be administered, but on this score the worries were not about the company's procedures but about those of the local administration. The legal standard set for compensation for land required for an industrial development in India is the payment of the market value plus a small discretionary element for disturbance. The market value is established by reference to similar purchases made in the district concerned over previous years. The law recognized no significant obligations on the part of the Company beyond the payment of the cash compensation to the local administration on behalf of land and house owners. In addition to the cash compensation there might be some additional assistance from the local administration for the rehousing of people who could not house themselves or were from social groups scheduled for positive discrimination in the Constitution and in various administrative programmes. If families or individuals were destitute they might, in addition, be given public relief work, for example, employment in stone-breaking. But this is not how the Rampura villagers saw the issue of compensation. For them 'shifting' was a watershed in their lives full of threats, but also of new possibilities that could be secured if the negotiations were carefully managed. It was clear from the outset that the negotiations and representations would not be restricted to the statutory provisions for cash compensation for land and houses. The company, the administrators, the villagers and the ODA advisers were aware of developments elsewhere which had led to help with the construction of new villages, to offers of employment, and to compensation bargains which were higher than they would have been at the prevailing market rate. The representations of the Company's officials, local administrators and advisers were substantially about the standards appropriate to particular organizational responsibilities. The villagers countered, initially, with their own logics and measurements but were also blocked by their inability to predict the social and cultural composition or scale of the project community that the plans and representations of the engineers and administrators would bring about. The two issues which surfaced first were compensation levels and house designs. These issues were fiercely contested and, after an initial provisional agreement had been repudiated by the villagers, they lodged a legal challenge to the relocation proceedings in the High Court of the State. Positions were polarized but there was, nonetheless, complete agreement about the parties who would conduct the subsequent

Social Standards and Social Thought

287

negotiations. The negotiating fora were public meetings held in a small square in the main street. All the heads of household from the village's main caste groups were present as their other obligations allowed; adult women hovered in the background covering their faces with the edge of their saris; children crowded around the male negotiators until reprimanded. The official position was represented by the Company's engineers, and from time to time the Collector.3 The ultimate responsibility for the administration of the contested issues - for the payment of valid claims for compensation and for any local physical planning and necessary rehousing - lay with the Collector's administrative staff, the Collectorate. The Company volunteered its help as an agent willing to negotiate individual claims and to try to reconcile the conflicting standards. It had a large group of technical staff at the mine and had considerable experience of population resettlement from previous industrial projects. It would also be responsible for meeting the bill for the final settlement of the outstanding issues. The administration was pleased to accept its help. ODA wanted to make sure that responsibility for co-ordinating the project stayed with the designated executing agency (the Company) and so the relevant advisers welcomed the Company's offer to conduct the negotiations. Moreover, the failure to reach agreement was beginning to unsettle the schedule for physical works in the mine and gave added urgency to the need to reconcile the alternative positions. The Rampura villagers agreed that the negotiations should be between themselves and the Company. They had anxieties about the Government's standards for compensation compared to those of the Company. They also had worries about 'charges' that might be levied at tahsil level,4 and had similar concerns about possible delays in payment if cheques were issued by the local administration. They much preferred that the Company should handle the compensation directly. The critical issue in compensation was the standard of measurement for residential plots. The villagers' local measure of space was different from that being used at Collectorate headquarters. Villagers claimed that the use of the administrative measure devalued their property by about 25 per cent. Reference to the local measurement standard was probably in part tactical; there was keen awareness that the effect of the measure was to increase the price they would be paid to relocate. There was also an hiatus in meaning and salience. For the Company and the administration, the measurement has an absolute value and its certainty had to be defended in the negotiations. The Rampura villagers

288

When History Accelerates

stressed the cultural relativity of the standards by referring to differences in measurement in various parts of the Mewar area. These comparisons were critical because the Rampura residents were clearly aware through visits they had organized to other components of the overall industrial project that there were differences between the deal on offer to them and that which had been struck in an area to the south. The actual area designated by the Hindi language word for a unit of land area the bigha - did in fact vary substantially within their own Collectorate and between their Collectorate and the adjacent one. Through official eyes the rate of compensation was seen to be set by relative scarcity values, rather than by a schedule of fixed rates for units designated by the same Hindi term. In the negotiations, however, the villagers repeatedly defended local customs of measurement; the officials and engineers reiterated the universal principles of metric calculation and the laws of supply and demand. There was another gap in standards and expectations concerning rehousing. Government of India (GOI) and State regulations made provision for a small house or house plot of 18m by 12m for people who were homeless. The Rampura villagers were keen to obtain help if called on to 'shift' and wanted assistance with basic infrastructure in any relocated village. The State Assembly Member for the village's constituency, who was an important person in state wide Congress politics, decided that his constituents should have a new village, to be called 'Indira Gandhi Village'. Such a project would need to be based on the official, standard plot sizes which had been designed to achieve equity in housing allocations and to conserve scarce national land. There were state funds available and contractors ready to build the new 'housing colony'. House plots would be allocated to eligible individuals - to those who, as a result of the compulsory purchase of their land, were 'homeless'. The villagers, however, did not want to live in a monument to the Government of India's equitable standards of social housing. Nor did they want to move on an individual basis - unless, that is, they were first sure that their next-door neighbours would be from the same caste and that they would be rehoused together with their agricultural chattels and animals. There was also the disturbing factor that the proposed Indira Gandhi Village, though ideally situated to make use of vacant and marginally productive land, was also immediately adjacent to an offshoot of the village, formed following an earlier dispute. The Rampura villagers feared both a loss of status and amenity in rejoining the junior branch of the village.

Social Standards and Social Thought

289

The solution to the conflict in housing standards owed much to the intervention of the anthropology advisers, to the ingenuity of a sympathetic Company engineer and to the villagers themselves. The anthropologists monitoring the developments recommended that sufficient plots should be allocated to allow for the village's growth and any predicted division of households through marriage and population increase as a result of the new employment opportunities created by the mine and initial processing plants. Since this became the donor's requirement, a larger land area than originally intended was set aside. This larger area for the new village allowed a new design to emerge. Plot size was still limited to the standard allowed of 18m by 12m; 1.2m boundary walls would be erected to ensure that this standard was respected. But there were no standards restricting the number of connecting roads. In addition to the normal front road that would be developed a back-of-house road was provided to allow for the traffic of farm animals, bullock carts and ploughs. In effect, a rear entrance and herding area for cattle was created which might allow their subsequent enclosure and incorporation into the plot as a byre or yard. Two further amendments to the design were agreed. Plots were allocated to individuals, but they were made to all individuals in one sub-caste, and then to another and so on. Finally, the building process was modified. The Company agreed that it would adopt a 'site and service' approach to the housing and be responsible for building the roads, social infrastructure and plot boundary walls. However, it would give a cash payment to each of the villagers, who would then use their own or others' masonry skills. In this way a package emerged that met both GOI requirements and villagers' requirements for self-built farmsteads with space to lock up their animals, equipment and crops, while remaining adjacent to their jati co-members. At the same time the negotiation and implementation arrangements prevented any significant leakage of benefits out of the mine area and its new residential adjunct. All these were significant modifications to the package and greatly eased the path towards immediate relocation. It was, however, doubtful that everyone would be able to buy alternative farming land without moving away from the area - in other words, some would end up with new houses and cash compensation, but no livelihoods. The Company explained the intentions of Government compensation measures and urged that compensation monies should be invested to give a secure cash income. The villagers were uncertain about the wisdom of this means of

290

When History Accelerates

livelihood and held out until, under considerable pressure, the Company agreed to give the relocated population access to mine employment. The villagers thought this was very desirable since it would substitute the vagaries of marginal agriculture with a regular wage from a government enterprise. The Company's norms for recruitment and the villagers' understanding of their job claims were nonetheless different. The villagers knew that they had been promised one job per relocated household, provided they could supply a suitable individual. The Company however, needed to administer this award carefully, taking into consideration the Government's labour laws, the need for harmonious industrial relations with other employees, and the fact that the mine and processing plants had extremely limited needs for unskilled labour. The entitlement to a job was in fact the preferential claim of an able-bodied, adult, relocated male to a vacancy, and this entitlement was therefore surrounded by a package of industrial standards and norms concerning which the villagers had little knowledge or control. For example, there was a minimum bodyweight for those eligible as able bodied, and this standard was used to reject the nomination of certain family members. The gap in understanding was never a serious problem for the mine or the community but there were a number of difficult-to-resolve domestic problems as a consequence. One family had only underweight sons and an over-age father to nominate; one aged widower nominated his younger son for employment rather than his oldest son and created considerable domestic conflict as a result; and a widow with small children surviving on small jobs and charity and with no address of her own could make no claim at all. There were other outstanding issues that remained unresolved when the village decision-makers agreed to relocate. First, although women listened to the public discussions they did not seem to play a significant role in them. After the move the least satisfied of those resettled, according to the SHKS survey, were the women, who deeply regretted the loss of the decorations and orderliness of their old homes. There were also significant changes in village composition. The best placed of the families bought land in the neighbouring village and moved there. Members of the Chamar scheduled caste were granted plots but did not move to them, at least not immediately. A group of tribal people in a small hamlet on the opposite side of the mine was never included in the discussions about relocation. They were attached, as agricultural labourers, to another village whose main residential site was some

Social Standards and Social Thought

291

distance from the mining operations, and therefore they were not scheduled for relocation. The Company explained that, because the main village was not affected, the hamlet was not entitled to relocate: and so they were left to face the prospect of significant disruption when mining operations began. There were other loose ends to the process of accelerated change that will, in time, either refasten themselves or unravel further. Six months to one year after relocation only one-third of the compensation aid had been deposited in banks; a similar amount had been spent in house construction. Only 23 per cent of resettled villagers, using 12 per cent of the compensation paid, had been able to purchase other agricultural land at the time of an SHKS survey, and 43 per cent of the village family heads were still looking for agricultural land to buy with their compensation payments. The rest were planning to construct houses (28 per cent) or use their remaining money for social ceremonies and related purposes (8 per cent). Following the relocation and new land purchases nearly 60 per cent of villagers have some agricultural land but the average parcel was 4.5 bighas, without irrigation. Two villagers still had 85 and 37 bighas, but the rest all have less than 13 bighas per family. Whereas 25 per cent of Rampura villagers were landless before relocation and no one had a local job, at the time of the SHKS survey 40 per cent were found to be landless and 80 per cent of the relocated households had some employment in the mine. The conclusion and analysis of the SHKS survey helped the Company and ODA to meet its own and other relevant international standards on resettlement. The need for such standards has arisen, Cernea (1993) argues, because of greater knowledge of resettlement processes arising from applied social science work during the 1980s. The key principles now accepted by major donors are: 1 Involuntary displacement should be avoided or minimized wherever feasible because of its disruptive and impoverishing effects; 2 All involuntary resettlement and rehabilitation should be designed and executed as a development programme providing sufficient investment resources and opportunities to assist resettlers to improve, or at least restore their former living standards; 3 The existing social and cultural institutions of resettlers and their hosts should be relied upon in conducting the displacement, transfer and rehabilitation process; 4 The executive agency and the donor together should ensure the

292

When History Accelerates

quality of the resettlement planning and execution in the same way as they would ensure the soundness of the other economic and technical components. SETTING STANDARDS

Investigation of the detailed relationship between local and expert knowledge is recommended as a job for anthropologists (Hobart, 1993: 14). It would, however, be naively optimistic to assume that communications within development projects will ease as a result since there are many reasons why people may wish to remain silent or prefer evasion and dissimulation. Communication is a matter of degree and the end result of much mutual work (ibid.: 11). The events in the Rampura case-study show this. Hobart goes much further, however, than pointing to difficulties in communication; development situations, he concludes, are usually marked by disjuncture and a radical incommensurability. There is: an unbridgeable, but largely unappreciated, gap between the neat rationality of development agencies representations which imagine the world as ordered or manageable and the actualities of situated social practices, an incommensurability tidied away in the sociological jargon as 'unintended consequences' (1993: 16). The result has been 'a growth of ignorance' in development policy and practice. An irony of this rather grand conclusion is that the author admits in the same chapter (ibid.: 25) that he lacks experience of development work and projects. This present chapter addresses the 'communication difficulties' of development practice through direct analysis of the representations of development project protagonists rather than through conjecture. Although there were gaps and difficulty in communication at Rampura, there was also a tactical use of representational systems to aid negotiations. The end result was a growth in knowledge and social innovation, not ignorance and incommensurability. The Rampura villagers were right to see the mine and subsequent negotiations as a watershed in their lives - but there was promise and new knowledge as well as threat and hiatus. As the housing and employment options began to unfold, some started talking of the New Rampura as a 'bazaar'; it would have shops, kiosks and eating places and cater to the needs of passing drivers and mine employees. For others there was uncertainty and an awareness of great vulnerability

Social Standards and Social Thought

293

for those who had neither agricultural land nor mine employment. The SHKS survey of 1990 captures precisely such a mood of possibility but uncertainty. The futures were largely speculative; physical relocation and house building posed immediate challenges if people wanted to secure their positions. When I visited the area after Rampura's demolition and relocation I found that, as might have been expected, most households had adopted and rough fenced a portion of the back road to their house plots. These areas were clearly destined to become farmstead yards and byres; animals and bullock carts were already housed there and, in some cases, permanent walling had been started. The houses fronting the main road past the mine compound had, in some cases, already started small shops and kiosks. Most people seemed fully occupied rebuilding their living accommodation. The village relocation activities and resourcing had prevented the almost certain drifting away of the weaker groups and their possible eventual pauperization. It was extremely unlikely that the village could have avoided the usual pre- and post- demoralization which resettlements usually suffer without the solidarity built up through the negotiations, the apparent opportunities at New Rampura, the social work support of SHKS, and the social development advice to the engineers and administrators. The immediate benefits were clear: new pucca houses for almost everyone and waged jobs for most families in place of the risks of farming in a semi-arid environment. The coming of the mine had accelerated change in a somewhat conservative but not unusually poor part of Rajasthan. The incidence of female literacy was extremely low even by the State's already low standards. Unequivocal data on other aspects of poverty in this area compared to other parts of the State are hard to obtain; the general impression, however, was not one of extreme hardship and deprivation. The deprivations that could arise were likely to do so after the next two years as the mine became fully operational and the full-complement workforce was in place. The skilled and semi-skilled workers would be recruited more widely than from the local area, often on an all-India basis. This new influx may create daunting challenges for the New Rampura residents; alternatively, the resettled villagers may find previously unimagined opportunities from the presence of the newcomers. So far in the history of Rampura the contest has been between the Gujars and the other castes, between senior and junior branches of the

294

When History Accelerates

same lineage, and between the village united and 'the mining engineers'. The Company has been able to represent itself so far as a kindly and generous corporate patron standing between the State of Rajasthan (and its policemen if necessary) and the village community. As it becomes the overwhelmingly dominant landowner, employer and producer in the whole Collectorate, its engineers will become the dominant occupational caste, with their own separate colony and buildings and distinctive lifestyles. The Company predicts that the New Rampura farmers will take up market gardening and sell the fresh produce to the Company's housing colony. It is too early to say whether the villagers see this future as desirable. They themselves talked mainly of the new types of people coming to their 'bazaar' and of a future as cultivators for which they had no coherent plan. The villagers and the anthropologist observer lacked suitable benchmarks from which, in one case, to plan their future lives and, in the other, to plan an analysis of the villagers' situation. Now that the abolition of the village has been avoided and employment guaranteed, fears of the immiseration of a sizable section of the population have been allayed. The 25 per cent of the population who prior to relocation were landless and the 15 per cent of those (most likely to be marginal smallholders) who also lost their lands in the mine acquisition would not have enough compensation money to survive in the area in the short term without industrial employment. The analysis of the Rampura situation can thus turn from questions of immediate poverty relief to questions of possible social disadvantage for individuals and households within a new buoyant local economy. A final analysis of possible trends in Rampura would be speculative. There is considerable evidence from other disciplines and other parts of South Asia to suggest, however, that households move in and out of poverty and disadvantage. Sanscritization and other forms of upward mobility for castes occur, but so too do instances of downward economic and social mobility. What we lack for the village of Rampura, and comparable villages, is any account of historical change in the villagers' circumstances and the way they have dealt with systems of power and knowledge to improve or maintain their positions. Judgements about the future could be made more easily if there were such historical accounts of changing responses in earlier periods. There is a more general point here, since anthropological accounts of disadvantage are scarce and accounts of poverty are few indeed. It

Social Standards and Social Thought

295

is alleged that these subjects were not even mentioned at the ASA's Fourth Decennial Conference (Roberts, 1993). There have been some studies of disadvantage, which have examined both material and non-material dimensions. Cohn's study of the changing position of the Chamars in Uttar Pradesh identifies their lack of income but only incidentally: 'only in rare instances are Chamars economically well enough off to be proprietary cultivators' (1987: 284). The focus of Cohn's analysis in his first article on the caste is on the way the Chamars try to raise their social status in new social and economic situations. When he returns to Madhopur for a second period of fieldwork, however, he concludes that the position of the Chamars is not only 'still desperately poor' but has in fact deteriorated markedly in the six years he has been away. Brides were now running away because they could not get enough to eat in their husbands' homes; and there was a marked increase in migration to the cities (1987: 300). A decline in the incidence of poverty coupled with its transience and a considerable level of instability in household welfare emerges from the findings of (non-anthropological) researchers at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Tropical Tropics (ICRISAT) in Hyderabad. The data appeared in the World Development Report for 1990 (World Bank, 1990: 35). The ICRISAT study of the persistence and transience of poverty tracked the incomes and consumption of 211 agricultural households in central India between 1975 and 1983. The transient component from year to year was large; yet there was also a substantial core of persistent chronic poverty, experienced from season to season, but around a generally downward trend. From 64 per cent in 1975, the incidence of poverty in the sample fell to a low of 41 per cent in 1982. The average proportion of the poor during the study period was 50 per cent. Only 12 per cent of the households remained out of poverty during the nine years; 19 per cent were poor throughout the period; and 44 per cent were poor for six years or more. Surprisingly, there are very few studies by anthropologists of the meaning of poverty or the social relationships involved in the kind of changes reported by the ICRISAT researchers. Although anthropologists have studied disadvantage as part of their studies of inequality, they have not often tried to specify poverty. Jansen's study of competition for scarce resources in rural Bangladesh remains unrivalled. He writes:

296

When History Accelerates

no matter what analytical approach is chosen by social scientists when interpreting social and economic activities in the rural area of Bangladesh, the scarcity of land and of opportunities for employment are facts which cannot be disputed... the competition around scarce resources permeates almost all social intercourse and dominates and shapes the lives of the peasants. Given the pervasive poverty most people face, there could, as we have shown throughout the study, hardly be anything else which from their point of view should receive higher priority and more attention (1987: 280). Jansen's close study of the dynamics of poverty allows him to discover why patron-client relations are more likely to emerge in Bangladesh than are class-based alliances. Given the current state of their discipline, it is perhaps easier for anthropologists to study group disadvantage than to study poverty. Disadvantage is always relative and implies a multivalent state and process. Poverty, however, is a deficiency or scarcity in the quality of life. To analyse poverty therefore requires the specification of a standard against which the assessment of the deficiency can be judged. This standard is undoubtedly a social standard in that it requires a prior assessment of what is proper and desirable. To arrive at it implies a high degree of consensus among the group studied about the nature of the deficiency. Poverty has been a difficult concept for anthropologists to define and work with, but is not so for the official and non-governmental agencies. There is a fair measure of agreement among them that the incidence of global poverty is highly uneven and that while nearly half of the world's poor live in South Asia, this region has only 30 per cent of the total world population. Among the poorer social groups and categories, it is generally agreed that women are usually the most disadvantaged. They often shoulder more of the workload than men, are less educated and have less access to employment. Children (especially girls), it is also agreed, can suffer disproportionately, and their future lives are compromised by nutritional, health care and educational disadvantages (Kynch and Maguire, 1989). Anthropologists know from their local knowledge that national and local averages, which can be bad enough themselves, disguise the often shockingly low levels of life expectancy and educational attainment among the poorest members of 'their' society. All these analytical issues require the specification of standards or

Social Standards and Social Thought

297

measures. Standards of measurement for poverty and social expectations became a very important part of the basic needs debate in the 1970s (Rew, 1979). Disputed standards were central to the local events in Rampura. The Government of India emphasized housing standards to achieve equity in the allocation of scarce national resources and in the context of the existing social hierarchy. The Company used international standards of amenity and environmental impact to set the requirements for land acquisition and population resettlement in a locality in rural Rajasthan. It then negotiated with the villagers in terms of national, state and company standards for compensation and employment entitlement. These standards are specifications or diagnosis (to echo Geertz again) of that which is thought proper or desirable by a corporate participant in the local social process. They are an objectification of the social process and provide measures against which others are judged, or towards which they should conform. Specification of the standards takes the form of a detailed design of either materials and space or specifies goals for work to be undertaken. The standards act to skeletonize social demands and claims so as to narrow the moral and distributive issues to the point where authoritative rules for official action can be employed to take decisions concerning specific individuals and categories. In Schaffer's theory of access through administrative institutions, these rules are, sequentially, the rules of eligibility, the rules for ordering and scheduling and the standards for final allocation (Schaffer, 1986). Anthropologists are in fact in a very good position to describe them and to comment on them. Sometimes standards are treasured embodiments of special expert knowledge - for example, in the assessment of environmental pollution. Sometimes they have the force of monuments handed down from a previous, perhaps colonial, regime - venerated or just accepted for their size, because of the difficulty of removing them or through fear of the cost and effort required to do so. They serve as icons of expert and general power and knowledge and as representations of the norms and rules of official provision and regulation. They have intrinsic ethnographic and theoretical interest but also a practical consequence. The standard narrows social claims to allow administrative action, but in doing so produces outcomes that can be problematic. The anthropologist's inscription of local context, knowledge and power can provide a powerful commentary on the salience and consequences of the standard. It also allows the anthropologist to propose different specifications and standards, with different practical and moral consequences. The distinctive role of the anthropological

298

When History Accelerates

adviser is to sail between, on the one tack, the inscription of history and local culture into project and policy documents and the specification, on the other tack, of standards for provision, outcome and administered process. There is potential for both anthropological history and for practical development work. The better the anthropologist's knowledge of the locals' history of poverty and well-being, the more easily (s)he can highlight the choices for the specification of appropriate standards. NOTES

1 ODA has no responsibility for my academic commentary on the project. The opinions expressed are my own and have no official status. My aim in discussing the material is to show how social development advice is employed in practice and can benefit project outcomes. 2 I am grateful to Dr Conlin for his initial advice and to the assistance and wisdom of Mr P. K. Bhatia, a mining engineer with extensive local knowledge. I am also deeply indebted to the insights, friendship and help of Dr Mohan Advani. 3 The title of the chief administrative officer of a district in India. 4 A tahsil is a sub-division of the district or collectorate. REFERENCES

Advani, M. (1990) Compensation Uses and Rehabilitation of Evacuees from Rampura Village, Udaipur, SamajShrastra Hindi Karya Samiti. Arce, A. and N. Long (1992) 'The dynamics of knowledge: interfaces between bureaucrats and peasants', in N. Long and A. Long (eds.) Battlefields of Knowledge, London: Routledge, pp. 211-46. Arce, A. and N. Long (1993) 'Bridging two worlds: an ethnography of bureaucrat-peasant relations in western Mexico', in M. Hobart (ed.) An Anthropological Critique of Development, London: Routledge, pp. 179-208. Batley, R. (1983) Power through Bureaucracy: Urban Political Analysis in Brazil, Aldershot: Gower. Benthall, J. and J. Knight (1993) 'Ethnic alleys and avenues', Anthropology Today, 9, 5, 1-2. Bhalla, A.S. (1992) Uneven Development in the Third World, London: Macmillan. Blair, H. (1985) 'Participation, public policy, political economy and development in rural Bangladesh 1958-1985', World Development, 13, 1238-47. Cernea, M. (1993) 'Anthropological and sociological research for policy development on population resettlement', in M. Cernea and S. E. Guggenheim (eds) Anthropological Approaches to Involuntary Resettlement: Policy, Practice and Theory, Boulder, CO: Westview, pp. 13-38. Cohn, B.S. (1987) An Anthropologist Among the Historians and Other Essays, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Social Standards and Social Thought

299

Colson, E. (1974) Tradition and Contract: The Problem of Order, Chicago: Chicago University Press. Croll, E. (1993) 'The negotiation of knowledge and ignorance in China's development strategy', in M. Hobart (ed.) An Anthropological Critique of Development, London: Routledge, pp. 161-78. Epstein, T.S. (1962) Economic Development and Social Change in South India, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Firth, R. (1981) 'Engagement and detachment: reflections on applying social anthropology to social affairs', Human Organisation, 40, 3, 193-201. Geertz, C. (1973) The Interpretation of Cultures, New York: Basic Books. Geertz, C. (1983) Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology, New York: Basic Books. Gellner, E. (1992) Postmodernism, Reason and Religion, London: Routledge. Hobart, M. (1993) 'Introduction: the growth of ignorance', in M. Hobart (ed.) An Anthropological Critique of Development, London: Routledge, pp. 1-30. Hobart, M. (ed.) (1993) An Anthropological Critique of Development: The Growth of Ignorance, London: Routledge. Jansen, E. (1987) Rural Bangladesh: Competition for Scarce Resources, Dhaka: University Press. Kynch, J. and M. Maguire (1989) 'Wasted cultivators and stunted girls: variations in nutritional status in a north Indian village', Applied Economics Discussion Paper, no. 69, Institute of Economics and Statistics, University of Oxford. Long, N. and A. Long (eds) (1992) Battlefields of Knowledge: The Interlocking of Theory and Practice in Social Research and Development, London: Routledge. Marriott, M. (1955) 'Social structure and change in an Uttar Pradesh village', in M.Marriott (ed.) India's Villages, Calcutta:, pp. 20-32. Marsden, D. (1992) 'A study of officials', Papers in International Development, no. 4 , , Swansea: University of Wales. Mosse, C.D.F. (1994) 'Authority, gender and knowledge: theoretical reflections on the practice of PRA', Development and Change, 25, 3, 497-525. Rew, A. (ed.) (1979) 'Down to basics: reflections on the basic needs debate', IDS Bulletin, 9, 4. Rew, A. (1992) 'The consolidation of British development anthropology', Development Anthropology Newsletter, 10, 1. Roberts, J. (1993) 'Using global knowledge down the local', Anthropology Today, 9, 5, 17-8. Schaffer, B. (1986) 'Access: a theory of corruption and bureaucracy', Public Administration and Development, 6, 357-76. Sen, A. (1983) 'Development: which way now?', Economic Journal, 93, 4, 745-62. Stirling, P. (1957) 'Land, marriage and law in Turkish villages', International Social Science Bulletin, 9, 21-32. World Bank (1990) World Development Report 1990, Washington DC.

CHAPTER 15

The Application of Anthropology in Britain, 1983-1993 R.D. Grillo There is no doubt that this was far and away the most Applied conference of the ASA ever. This demonstrates a profound and rapid change of opinion ... We have a lot of learning to do as a discipline. What we need, above all, among those who supervise student research, is a genuine and perceptive concern for the future professional life of the students who do it. We live off our students; we owe them a lot; and contrary to some arguments in Cambridge, there are many things which can be done ...to make the future brighter - if not for the current generation, at least for those to come (Stirling, 1983: 5). INTRODUCTION

The engagement of anthropologists with policy has a long history in Britain as in other countries, though in Britain that engagement has generally been more off than on. For some thirty years after the Second World War, the application of anthropology outside the academy was a despised occupation, and only in the late 1970s did significant numbers of anthropologists once again tackle 'applied' problems. This contribution to When History Accelerates looks at what has been happening in British applied anthropology as the century draws to a close. What emerges, once again, is the difficult relationship between 'mainstream' anthropologists and those who wish to contribute to changing the world as well as to understanding it. The third Decennial Conference of the Association of Social Anthropologists (ASA), held in July 1983 at Cambridge, was an occasion which brought to a head the debate on applied anthropology in general, and development anthropology in particular. Paul Stirling played a significant part in that debate, not least through his insistence that the

The Application of Anthropology in Britain, 1983-1993

301

discipline was morally obliged to 'do something' about the plight of the many doctoral students, produced during the golden age of Social Science Research Council funding, with little prospect of gainful employment as professional anthropologists. He had an important influence on the redirection of British anthropology during the 1980s, as an active member of groups and associations whose organization I shall be discussing in this chapter. Stirling's own involvement with applied anthropology is of a piece with his perspective on, and engagement with, with contemporary society. In the late 1970s, I convened a series of seminars on the Anthropology of Europe in which he was an active participant. His paper (typically left unpublished) sought to define our kind of society, indicating how it was changing, and with what consequences for the work of anthropologists. He began with 'order' and the classic distinction between 'traditional' and 'modern' modes of social organization. History was full of watersheds. It was commonplace to say that one such occurred around 1800 when many of the features characterizing 'modern' society took their shape: strong states not tied to the rule of powerful monarchs; nations and nationalism; industrial modes of production and bureaucratic systems of organization; representative government (at least as ideal); the systematic reproduction of knowledge, especially scientific and technical knowledge, and its harnessing to the productive systems, and so on. But there had been other watersheds, which terms such as 'advanced' or 'post industrial', or more recently 'post-modern', attempted to capture. So, it might be said, from the end of the Second World War there had emerged a form of social, economic and political organization as different from 'modern' society as that was from its 'traditional' predecessor. Stirling drew attention to the assumption that economic growth was desirable and possible, and to the sustained rise of production and consumption, even in ailing Britain, which had led to expectations quite different from those of previous generations. There had been increasing social, economic and spatial mobility, stemming from demands for sustained growth, and made possible by it. New skills had appeared, others had declined; there had been an enormous increase in literacy and general education. There were opportunities for acquiring new identities, and a disruption of built-in mechanisms of social control. Social life had become more compartmentalized and privatized, but a decreasing span of primary affective relations at one level was accompanied by a widening span

302

When History Accelerates

at another, somewhat removed from direct experience (global villages, imaginary communities). Stirling also stressed the increasing power of the state and its involvement in both production and consumption, particularly so-called 'collective consumption', even in societies emphasizing 'private' enterprise. The capacity, and the will, of the few to govern the many, to co-ordinate the activities of millions of people, mostly without resort to overt coercion, he found particularly thought-provoking. Much anthropology concerns people who are caught up in these changes, often those at their margins. Inevitably we work in areas that are 'policy-affected', even if we have no wish to be 'policyinvolved'. In this and other ways, society 'structures' the anthropologist's task, and obliges us constantly to redefine the object of our enquiries. It will thus be apparent that Stirling's applied anthropology has strong theoretical as well as practical and ethical foundations. A CONCISE ORGANIZATIONAL HISTORY

In 1979, Stirling became chair of the Royal Anthropological Institute's 'Development Anthropology Committee'. Following unsuccessful efforts to establish an 'Introduction Service' for Fellows interested in consultancies, Stirling circulated a call for the foundation of a British-based 'Applied Anthropology Group' (AAG) . It was intended to bring together anthropologists based in the academy with those 'professionally concerned specifically with social aspects of planning, helping to execute, monitoring and evaluating projects, initiatives, activities or policies' (ASA Annals, 2: 23). It would 'integrate such "applied" anthropologists fully into the profession, and seek to ensure them equal standing in it'. A Steering Committee was established with the priority of publishing a newsletter. Within months, the organization changed its name to 'Group for Anthropology in Policy and Practice', or GAPP, in which Stirling continued to play a crucial role as 'instigator, facilitator, and network manager' (GAPP News, 4: 1). The modest first issue of GAPP News in April 1982 contained two letters from members (of which GAPP claimed 65), two book reviews, a report of a workshop on 'Anthropologists in industry and elsewhere', and a notice of another: 'Roads and road-building projects - is there an anthropological contribution?' The editor (Sean Conlin) explained that GAPP had been established

The Application of Anthropology in Britain, 1983-1993

303

'because a number of people felt that there were issues in policy and practice which could benefit from an anthropological perspective. A number of possible gaps in understanding should be explored between: people and planners; anthropologists and planners; 'academic' and 'applied' anthropologists'. He hoped GAPP activities would 'feed back into the training of social anthropology students so that they are capable of taking up different (non-academic) roles while still maintaining their identity as anthropologists'. From its inception GAPP organized an ambitious and varied programme of seminars, lectures, one-day conferences, and training workshops. For example, in 1982, as well as the workshop on anthropology in industry there was a conference on 'People, trouble and the state', and a 'Simulation workshop on development'. In 1983, GAPP held a 'one day forum on the employment of anthropologists' that attracted nearly 70 participants, very few of whom came from mainstream anthropology departments, with follow-up meetings on 'Health and Social Services', 'Anthropology for engineers', and 'Society and information technology'. The programme for 1988, the last year of GAPP's separate existence, included two major conferences on 'Anthropology of tourism', and 'Ethnography of the north: anthropology in policy and practice'; a series of informal lectures and seminars on topics as varied as the business world, planning, disaster relief, journalism, and rural extension programmes. Alongside memorable titles such as '"Shit and sex": an anthropologist gets involved in health issues', there were also the more prosaic such as 'Simulation of problems in applied anthropology'; and 'Vocational Practice'. GAPP was not the only organization to emerge from this period. Following the recommendations of its 'Action Committee on employment and training in applied anthropology' in 1983, the ASA asked Peter Lloyd to convene a group to consider issues relating to the employment of anthropologists in the field of social and community work. Lloyd had become interested in this field in Britain, having previously studied community action in Latin America, and was in the process of securing Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) support for research on community groups in Brighton. Lloyd wrote to those known to be interested, who in turn suggested other names. He approached the Nuffield Foundation, pointing out that there existed

304

When History Accelerates

a category of people who still closely identify with social anthropology and wish to maintain their links with the discipline. Hitherto these links have been most tenuous and such people have been 'lost'. There is thus a need to bring these people together and establish closer links with the academic discipline and departments (Lloyd to Nuffield, Oct. 1984). With Nuffield help, Lloyd organized an inaugural meeting that examined the anthropological contribution to social and community work, including the research anthropologists might undertake, and the careers open to them. The success of this meeting (Lloyd, 1985) encouraged participants to form a group entitled 'Social Anthropology: Social and Community Work'.1 This organization (SASCW) issued its first Newsletter in July 1985 and it ran for 11 issues. Lloyd kept up the momentum by arranging workshops on 'Rural community work', 'Client groups', and 'Contribution of social anthropology to professional social work practice'. In Lloyd's own account these 'demonstrated quite vividly the relevance of concepts, which though not exclusive to social anthropology are part of our intellectual equipment - concepts such as community, social network, myth and symbol. Repeatedly, speakers suggested approaches, insights and analyses which those trained in other disciplines tended to miss' (Lloyd 1985). Similar meetings were held in the years that followed. The over-riding concern of SASCW from its inception was 'community' (see Lloyd, 1984) with, increasingly through the 1980s, a focus on 'Care in the community' as that policy came to the forefront of public attention. Another central concern was ethnicity and racism (cf. La Fontaine, 1986). Following preliminary discussions, and appeals for information from or about social anthropologists 'themselves members of minority groups' (SASCWNewsletter 5), a two-day conference, originally entitled 'Social anthropology and ethnic issues', but later changed to 'Social anthropology and anti-racist issues', took place in 1987. The objective was to enable anthropologists to 'enter into dialogue with social and community work practitioners' (Kelly et al., 1988). A fundamental point was the elaboration of a common framework, and this was located in an anti-racist position that assumes asymmetrical power relationships in society resulting in prejudice ancl discrimination ... The role of the social anthropologists

The Application of Anthropology in Britain, 1983-1993

305

- being mostly academics and white people - lay in contributing to a better understanding of the causes of discrimination and in describing specific instances of structural and institutionalised discrimination (Kelly etaU 1988). It was also concluded that 'If social anthropology retains its popular image of a concern for exotica and if a functionalist stance is adopted stressing consensus at the expense of the study of power relationships and conflict, then it has little to offer'. By 1987, therefore, SASCW and GAPP were among the most important organizations active in applied anthropology in Britain. There were others: the British Medical Anthropology Society (BMAS), founded as early as 1976, had held some 40 conferences and claimed over 200 members (Helman, 1988: 7). An Anthropology and Nursing Association (ANA) was formed in 1986 (Littlewood, 1988), while Anthropology in Training and Education (ATE) emerged from the defunct Education Committee of the Royal Anthropological Institute. There was inevitably overlap in membership, and all these bodies were hampered by lack of resources and infrastructure. The various committees therefore began to explore the benefits of a single body. Both SASCW (through Lloyd) and GAPP (through Stirling and Sue Wright) believed such a move would be in their mutual interest. With funding from the Wenner Gren Foundation, in spring 1988 it was announced that GAPP, SASCW, and ATE would come together in an umbrella organization, the British Association for Anthropology in Policy and Practice (BASAPP). BASAPP was launched in December 1988. Its aims were (and remain) to improve the profile of anthropology in policy and practice in Britain; to promote collaboration with other professionals and policymakers and encourage the awareness of anthropology; to provide a forum for students, teachers and practitioners on the use of anthropology in policy and practice in a wide range of fields in Britain and overseas; to provide training for students in the application of anthropology in policy and practice; to encourage the use of anthropological perspectives in education at all levels; and to encourage the teaching of anthropology in policy and practice in tertiary and adult education. A sense of BASAPP's work since its foundation can be gleaned from its very professional newsletter (eventually known as Anthropology in Action), which reports both its own activities and those of its constituent organizations and others sheltering under its umbrella. What is striking

306

When History Accelerates

is the variety. As well as short articles on topics as diverse as community care (Collins, 1989), environment and development, (Leach, 1990), and anthropology in adult education (James, 1991), there are regular reports on conferences, workshops, and a wide range of other meetings; book reviews, themselves illustrative of BASAPP interests; and short reports on ongoing or recent research. Some issues have been devoted to specific topics, though never to the exclusion of other material: for example, 'The Gulf War' (Summer 1991), 'New Reproductive Technologies' (Spring 1992), 'Anthropology and HIV/AIDS Research' (Summer 1992), and 'Community Care and Social Policy' (Autumn 1992). Three broad themes emerge: rural development, especially, but not exclusively in the third world; the anthropology of health and welfare, especially in Britain; and education and training. Not everything fits easily under these headings. There is, for example, interest in organizations (Croft, 1990; O'Sullivan, 1990) and in tourism (Selwyn, 1988); and cutting across everything is the 'politics' of anthropology and of anthropological research. Lectures, seminars, conferences, newsletters are the meat and drink of professional associations. In these respects, much of what BASAPP and its predecessors did was nothing new. More ambitious, because in the context of British anthropology novel, were the training workshops and courses in 'Vocational practice in anthropology' that GAPP initiated. The need for adequate training in applied anthropology was apparent from the outset. GAPP News 3 contained two reports on the first 'Simulation Workshop', which illustrated the prospects and problems of this kind of activity. The Workshop had centred on a simulated project involving 'the application of anthropological principles to a hypothetical land development and population resettlement scheme' (Rew and Delazun, 1982: 3), for which prospective participants had been sent 'dummy' terms of reference, and invited to prepare submissions. Rew and Delazun's account of what transpired is dressed up as a letter from 'Cedric Wedgewood-Tebbitt', the alleged author of the terms of reference: Only one person submitted a proposal by the deadline; Two more proposals came in over the next few days ... I assume with such a low response from your short list of specialists that business in anthropology must be really booming these days ... It is quite remarkable that anthropologists' services are in such demand even though newcomers to the applied field ... Do we accept the only proposal we received in

The Application of Anthropology in Britain, 1983-1993

307

time, as is our normal procedure? The quote is, unfortunately, totally disproportionate with the scope of the study. The person concerned wants an input for the whole period of the study and quotes two man years of work on a one year study! (Rew and Delazun, 1982: 4). One of the participants, who admitted being taken in by WedgewoodTebbitt's letter, commented: My initial response to the project brief was apparently untypical. It seemed that this Wedgewood-Tebbitt ... had been told by someone that he should include 'human factors' in the consultancy proposal ... To me, 'social considerations' should permeate the project and the input one could make therefore depended on how finalized was the [proposal]. My response would have been to telephone, and glean more background on the project ... and see what they thought they meant by 'human factors'. In the absence of a telephone number on the workshop brief I had done what to my mind was the only responsible thing: nothing (Wright, 1982: 1). Rew and Delazun responded (p. 3): 'Has there been a cultural misunderstanding between anthropology and engineering? Could it be that anthropologists and engineers don't actually talk the same language?' Encouraged by the experience gained through this and other short courses, GAPP organized further workshops concentrating on selected case-studies in sectors such as development, health, industry, and the social services. The next more ambitious step was a one-week course in 'Vocational practice in anthropology', which took place in 1985 under the direction of A.F. Robertson, then at Cambridge. The stated goal was 'to provide training in the vocational practice of anthropology outside the University in order to extend the scope for employment of postgraduates', through 'practical exercises, teamwork, descriptions of different agencies employing anthropologists, discussions of policy oriented work and of report writing, consideration of the ethics of practice'. Four years later, GAPP was able to repeat the experiment, again with help from the Economic and Social Research Council, and thereafter the training week became a regular event. Stella Mascarenhas-Keyes, who ran the 1989 and later courses, described their aims as enabling participants to: (a) Decide on the practical approach to an applied project; assess the policy and ethical issues, make reasoned estimates of the time and resources required and costs involved,

308

When History Accelerates

(b) Write a concise and well-constructed proposal and present and support this orally, (c) Decide on appropriate data collection methods, make informed decisions on sample size and sampling methods, construct a questionnaire and determine whether manual or computer analysis of data is appropriate, (d) work in teams and keep to strict deadlines (Mascarenhas-Keyes, 1989: 9). The original proposal for the 1989 course envisaged case-studies in overseas development, health, inner city, industry and education, but in the event they were reduced to three - health, development and an 'enterprise' initiative - with an additional module in statistical analysis (Lowe, 1989). The course was based on the 'experiential' method (Wright, 1990: 3), using specially prepared case-studies led by role-playing facilitators (Jones, 1991). Typically, the two dozen or so participants would break up into smaller groups who would collectively work out their approach to the problem, determine appropriate methods, settle on proposals, and write a report which would be defended in a plenary session. It was usually the practical skills that offered most benefit: Working in small groups ... we experienced the strains as well as the benefits of teamwork. We thus acquired a very good, if at times uncomfortable, appreciation of the conditions under which consultancy teams operate in the real world when working together ... I probably learnt more skills with a practical value in this one week than in my one year's Masters' course (Bailey, 1990; see also Mascarenhas-Keyes, 1991). Although alternative training for anthropology postgraduates has been their principal preoccupation, GAPP, SASCW and later BASAPP have actively engaged with the training of other professionals, for example seeking ways in which an anthropological dimension might be inserted into the education of nurses and social workers (Barber, 1992). There has also been a concern to extend the availability of anthropology within secondary and further education (Godwin, 1991), and to extend the training of social anthropologists to include undergraduates. A 1989 BASAPP conference on the undergraduate curriculum (originally intended as a follow-up to SASCW's anti-racist initiative) asked: 'Do we convey skills or concepts at the undergraduate level which will

The Application of Anthropology in Britain, 1983-1993

309

be useful to these graduates in their future professional work?' (Sharma and Wright, 1989: 7). The meeting developed three themes: the need to address the 'exoticization' of other peoples in the classic monographs of social anthropology; the importance of incorporating the ethnography of Britain into the curriculum; and the value offieldworkprojects in undergraduate anthropology. This last topic generated a robust rejoinder: 'the skills and techniques of anthropological field research can be reserved for those who are likely to be in a position to apply them in professional life - namely the budding anthropologists' (Ingold, 1989: 3). To this Ursula Sharma replied that, although a primary aim of such projects was to assist the student's understanding of how 'social scientific knowledge is constructed' (Sharma, 1989: 4), the skills that could be learned in this way would be applicable to whatever social anthropology students did after graduation, even if this was not professional anthropology (see also Sharma, 1991, and Thorn and Wright, 1990). 'NOW THE REAL CONFERENCE HAS BEGUN'

This recent exchange between Ingold and Sharma over undergraduate teaching formed part of the ongoing debate between applied anthropologists and those who considered themselves to be in the academic 'mainstream'. The remark cited above, made by a prominent British social anthropologist after the 'development' sessions at the ASA's Third Decennial Conference had concluded, neatly illustrates the continuing difficulties experienced by applied anthropologists in securing recognition for their activities. So too does the following extract from the Minutes of the 1983 business meeting: Prof. Stirling stressed that the Action Committee should also investigate ways of persuading the main departments to adopt a more concerned attitude regarding the future employment of their students, more especially their research students. Prof. Leach strongly dissented from this view. Leach set out his position in a letter to the Action Committee: As is clear from the [Minutes] I felt the general line of discussion wrong-headed and out of touch with reality. The ASA was started as a 'professional trade union' in the sense that it sought to ensure that when social anthropology was taught in Universities and elsewhere the people who were employed to do the teaching were properly qualified in the subject ... As a professional body we need to tell Heads of Departments that

310

When History Accelerates

they should discourage potential students from embarking on a course of studies leading to a PhD in social anthropology. It must be emphasised to such potential students that the prospects of ever being employed as a professional social anthropologists are extremely small ... I would personally be horrified if it became apparent that the 'syllabus design' of what is taught in a University Department of Social Anthropology was slanted towards 'applied anthropology'. This would indeed be ironical! ... the original role of the ASA was to prevent the Universities from employing unqualified refugees from the disappearing Colonial Service to teach 'applied anthropology'! (Leach to Grillo, 5 August 1983). The continuing intellectual divide between 'applied' and 'mainstream' anthropology (e.g. Lewis, 1988) is further illustrated by the paucity of articles on applied or development topics appearing in British anthropology's most prestigious journal, Man. Between 1984 and 1992, I can locate only one occasion when these were addressed directly: correspondence between Whiteley and Aberle (1989) on anthropologists' involvement in land disputes. Even papers whose content is applicable, or directly relatable to application (a good example would be La Fontaine, 1988) are rare - about one a year on average, less than 5 per cent. It takes two to argue, of course, and 'participants at the SASCW inaugural workshop were critical of the elitism of the ASA in restricting membership almost exclusively to university teachers and to the lack of interest shown by most heads of department ... to our area of anthropological study' (Lloyd, 1985: 2). The GAPP Register for 1983 listed 161 members. The rough breakdown by employment was: Lecturers in higher or further education Researchers based in higher education Business sector (inc. consultants) Public sector (admin/research) NGOs/Voluntary sector (admin/research) Research students Other students, other, not stated

60 23 15 8 7 25 23

Thirty-four per cent of those in the GAPP Register for 1983 were also listed in the ASA's Register of Members for the same year. The 1991 BASAPP Register, which does not cite occupation, therefore making

The Application of Anthropology in Britain, 1983-1993

311

direct comparison with GAPP 1983 impossible, listed 308 members, of whom only 21 per cent also appeared in the ASA's 1992 Register.2 Putting it the other way round, roughly one in eight of ASA members was in B AS APP. There is some overlap, but the two serve very different functions and interests, and address quite different audiences. The ASA, an organization of professional anthropologists, does not admit students (51 of whom were B AS APP members in 1991), or those simply interested in the subject, even when this interest is directly linked to their professional activity. The ASA has, traditionally, recruited within the academy, though recent rule changes have broadened its scope to include, among others, professional anthropologists in other walks of life. It is an international organization, with many overseas members (especially, but now not exclusively, the Commonwealth), whereas BASAPP has mainly local (i.e. British) recruitment. BASAPP and its predecessors emerged because, as Stirling and others rightly saw, mainstream anthropology was not catering adequately for its students, and not providing an environment, intellectual and other, in which they could develop their careers in the new fields which they had entered. For this and other reasons it is plausible to suggest that anthropologists in Britain now form two distinct networks or even intellectual cultures, one based on BASAPP, the other on the ASA. One must not exaggerate. For example, a high proportion of GAPP/BASAPP officers have tended to be ASA members and the core leadership remains 'ASA', if not so predominantly as ten years ago. There has also been considerable interaction between the ASA and AAG/GAPP/BASAPP. The ASA (prodded by Paul Stirling) itself took the initiative, bringing together department heads and practitioners for a conference on The Training and Employment of Social Anthropologists' (Akeroyd, Grillo and Tapper, 1980). Between then and the ASA's Third Decennial Conference, and the setting up of the Action Committee, it was Stirling and others, working through AAG and then GAPP, who made the running. The ASA's first 'Ethical Guidelines' emerged from the interaction during this period. In other respects too, the gulf between the applied and the mainstream has not been as wide as it might seem. GAPP courses tried to 'pass on' their accumulated expertise and training ideas to anthropology departments (Wright, 1990: 3). Mascarenhas-Keyes (1990) has noted the extent to which applied training is integrated within mainstream programmes in a number of countries, including Britain. In fact, although they may not go far enough, and may be limited to a highly intellectualized and inappropriate form of training, there has been

312

When History Accelerates

a considerable expansion of 'applied' Masters programmes in British university departments over the last decade. There may not be a vast choice, but students can now undertake advanced study of, for example, the anthropology of development, of tourism, of community work, and of medical anthropology. Many of these students also attend the annual GAPP 'Vocational practice' course. CONCLUSIONS: THE APPLIED ANTHROPOLOGIST AS JANUS

This account of applied anthropology in Britain has concentrated on the principal organizations and on questions of training. I have not attempted to review the whole range of applied work done by British anthropologists over the past decade: consciously researching and writing in areas known to be of practical concern; undertaking commissions from policymakers; consultancy; advocacy; working as an anthropologist in a government agency or NGO; using anthropological training in another profession, and so on. It is clear, nonetheless, that there has been a considerable expansion of activity on all fronts, as the pages of BASAPP, if not Man, abundantly testify. What conclusions can be drawn from this work about contemporary applied anthropology? During the ASA's Fourth Decennial Conference, held at Oxford in July 1993, whose plenary sessions were concerned with 'The uses of knowledge, global and local relations', BASAPP organized a parallel Section on 'Anthropological knowledge in policy and practice' (see Stirling, 1993). A key question which those attending the Section were asked to address was: 'What have we got to say, and to whom?'. It was apparent from the discussion that many applied anthropologists still, Janus-like, feel obliged to face two ways, and address two quite different audiences. The first of these is outside the discipline. Much contemporary applied anthropology in Britain, as in the past, focuses on what used to be called the third world (as indeed does that in many other countries - see Development Anthropology Network, Spring 1992, special issue on Europe). British anthropologists continue in the forefront of this field (Pottier, 1992; Rew, 1992), where, despite some intriguing differences (e.g. the relationship between development anthropology and Catholic missionary activity in Spain: Gammella, 1992), the problems they face are broadly similar to those encountered elsewhere, and similar to what they have always been. Development anthropologists still operate in a world of agencies and institutions whose personnel,

The Application of Anthropology in Britain, 1983-1993

313

though often sympathetic towards anthropology, have great difficulty in accommodating anthropologists within their schemes. The same is true of applied anthropologists working 'at home'. Various pressures, including the closing of traditional areas of research in the post-colonial world, have over the last decade increasingly impelled British anthropologists towards the study of their own society. This shift, coupled with the growing interest in (or need to engage with) applied research, has pushed anthropologists into crowded fields, in which the rules of engagement are already well established, and obliged them, too, to ask what place would there be - could there be - for social anthropology? For example, an important volume (Donnan and McFarlane, 1989) sought to demonstrate the specific contribution that anthropology might make to policy in and for Northern Ireland. In the 1970s and 1980s, for reasons which may be self-evident, many anthropologists teaching in Ulster turned their attention to local issues, applying an anthropological perspective to that troubled province. Donnan and McFarlane place this orientation in the wider context of the redirection of British anthropology in the 1980s, and explore a number of problems 'at the boundary between social anthropology and policy professionals'. They point out that anthropologists frequently perceive those policy professionals as possessed of a 'stereotype of the anthropologist as hopelessly and exclusively wedded to qualitative methodology' (p. 12). Their defence of applied anthropology, therefore, begins and ends with a defence of anthropological method. Just as development anthropologists (e.g. van Donge and Long, 1992) feel they must continually state and restate the methodological advantages of the anthropological perspective, to the point where practitioners of other disciplines and policy professionals may be tempted to dismiss this as special pleading, the response of anthropologists working on applied topics in Britain is to justify the subject's 'ethnographic', or 'soft' approach (Howe, 1989).3 In her discussion of the myth of the 'female breadwinner' in Deny, McLaughlin argues that 'the unique contribution of anthropology to policy research is its attention to competing perspectives and conflicts of interest between social groups both in the formulation of policy and in the impact of policy on the meanings and procedures of "everyday life'" (McLaughlin, 1989: 64). She is right to claim that the anthropological perspective at its best illuminates complexities which other methodologies cannot begin to tackle. But if policy professionals still need to be persuaded of the value of applied anthropology, so too does the other audience of professional

314

When History Accelerates

academic anthropologists, and they are unlikely to be convinced by arguments about method. In fact, applied anthropologists, if they are still minded to enter into dialogue with mainstream anthropology (some of them are not, though they should be), need not be so defensive. Brokensha (1992: 3-4), lists some of the themes that currently engage anthropologists working on development: agriculture and land-use; environment and natural resource management; rural and political development; women and gender issues; participation and indigenous knowledge; technical aid; medical anthropology; and international migration. None of these is marginal: they are all highly significant from both a practical and a theoretical perspective - anthropological work on gender or, for example, indigenous knowledge is highly sophisticated, theoretically, and potentially of great utility. To these may be added concerns about the development process itself, including ethical and political aspects, as reflected in debates about 'participatory development' and 'advocacy'. Applied anthropologists have constantly to address questions of power, especially institutional power. Indeed, it is in and through application that such questions are addressed most consistently and acutely in current anthropology, in ways that the mainstream appears, recently, to have forgotten. That the importance of such a contribution to anthropology at large needs to be stated and restated perhaps indicates the limit of what has been achieved over the past decade. NOTES

1 I would like to thank Peter Lloyd for access to much unpublished material concerning the origins of SASCW, and Sue Wright for comments on an earlier draft. 2 Only 35 of those listed in the GAPP 1983 Register reappear in the BASAPP 1991 Register. During the 1980s, a very high proportion of the GAPP membership (126 out of 161) disappeared from the milieu, with a net addition of 273 adherents, many of whom came via SASCW. 3 Alternatively, there is the temptation to emphasize perceived similarities as in Edgar's account of 'tentative parallels' between anthropologists and social workers, including a shared holistic approach, and the fact that both 'work in either unfamiliar societies, or in an unfamiliar part of a familiar society, and frequentlyfindthemselves "in the middle" between different cultural groups [acting] as translators/brokers and advocates' (1988: 5). REFERENCES

Akeroyd, A., R. Grillo and N. Tapper (1980) 'Training and employment of

The Application of Anthropology in Britain, 1983-1993

315

social anthropologists', Rain, 41, 5-7. Bailey, J. (1990) 'Vocational practice course', BASAPP, 5, 5. Barber, R.C. (1992) 'Anthropological contributions to nurse education', Anthropology in Action, 12, 4—12. Brokensha, D. (1992) 'Development anthropology in Europe: an introduction', Development Anthropology Network, 10, 1, 1-5. Collins, J. (1989) 'Power and community care: implications of the Griffiths Report', BASAPP, 4, 12-3. Croft, J. (1990) 'The anthropology of organisations conference', BASAPP, 5, 4. Donnan, H. and G. McFarlane (eds) (1989) Social Anthropology and Public Policy in Northern Ireland, Aldershot: Avebury. Edgar, I. (1988) 'Social anthropology: social and community work', BASAPP, 1,5-6. Gammella, J.F. (1992) 'Development aid and development anthropology in Spain', Development Anthropology Network, 10, 1,20-3. Godwin, D. (1991) 'The role of anthropology in development education in the UK', BASAPP, 8, 10-2. Helman, C. (1988) 'British Medical Anthropology Society', BASAPP, 1, 7-8. Howe, L. (1989) 'Social anthropology and public policy: aspects of unemployment and social security in Northern Ireland', in H. Donnan and G. McFarlane (eds) Social Anthropology and Public Policy in Northern Ireland, Aldershot: Avebury, pp. 26-46. Ingold, T. (1989) 'Fieldwork in undergraduate anthropology: an opposing view', BASAPP, 3, 2-3. James, A. (1991) 'Mirrors and masks: social anthropology in adult education', BASAPP, 8, 12-3. Jones, W. (1991) 'Anthropology as therapy: the perspective of a trainer on the GAPP vocational practice course 1991', BASAPP, 9, 7-8. Kelly, E. et al. (1988) Social Anthropology and Anti-Racist Issues in Social and Community Work Training, Report on SASCW Conference, December 1987, xeroxed. La Fontaine, J. (1986) 'Countering racial prejudice: a better starting point', Anthropology Today, 2, 6, 1-2. La Fontaine, J. (1988) 'Child sexual abuse and the incest taboo: practical problems and theoretical issues', Man, 23, 1, 1-18. Leach, M. (1990) 'Environmental, development and anthropology', BASAPP, 7, 11-12. Lewis, I.M. (1988) 'Anthropologists for sale?', LSE Quarterly, 2, 49-63. Littlewood, J. (1988) 'Nursing and Anthropology Association', BASAPP, 1, 8. Lloyd, P.C. (ed.) (1984) Whose Problems? Social Anthropology and Social Community Work in the UK, (special edited section of RAIN, 63, 2-15), London: Royal Anthropological Institute. Lloyd, P.C. (1985) Workshop on Social Anthropology and Social and Community Work, University of Sussex, cyclostyled.

316

When History

Accelerates

Lowe, R. (1989) 'Vocational practice in anthropology', BASAPP, 2, 10-1. McLaughlin, E. (1989) 'In search of the female breadwinner: gender and unemployment in Deny City', in H. Donnan and G. McFarlane (eds.) Social Anthropology and Public Policy in Northern Ireland, Aldershot: Avebury, pp. 47-66. Mascarenhas-Keyes, S. (1989) 'GAPP vocational training for anthropologists', BASAPP, 2, 8-9. Mascarenhas-Keyes, S. (1990) 'Training in applied anthropology: an international perspective', BASAPP, 6, 11-2. Mascarenhas-Keyes, S. (1991) 'Vocational practice in anthropology course: an evaluation', BASAPP, 8, 2. O'Sullivan, M. (1990) 'An anthropological approach to organisational change' BASAPP, 6, 7-8. Pottier, J. (ed.) (1992) Practising Development: Social Science Perspectives, London: Routledge. Rew, A. (1992) 'The consolidation of British development anthropology', Development Anthropology Network, 10, 1,23-6. Rew, A. and F. Delazun, (1982) 'An anthropology of apprehension', GAPP News, 3, 3-4. Selwyn, T. (1988) 'The anthropology of tourism', BASAPP, 1, 9-10. Sharma, U. (1989) 'Fieldwork in undergraduate anthropology: its merits', BASAPP, 3, 3-4. Sharma, U. (1991) 'Field research in the undergraduate curriculum' Anthropology in Action, 10, 8-11. Sharma, U. and S. Wright (1989) 'Practical relevance of undergraduate courses', BASAPP, 2, 7-9. Stirling, P. (1983) 'The ASA Decennial Conference', GAPP Newsletter, 5, 3-5. Stirling, P. (1993) 'The uses of knowledge: the ASA Decennial', Anthropology in Action, 16, 2-3. Street, B. (1988) 'Anthropology in training education', BASAPP, 1, 6-7. Thorn, R. and S. Wright (1990) 'Projects and placements in undergraduate anthropology', BASAPP, 7, 4-5. Van Donge, J.K. and N. Long (1992) 'Development anthropology in the Netherlands: commitment, crisis and outlook', Development Anthropology Network, 10, 1, 15-9. Whiteley, P.M. and D.F. Aberle (1989) 'Can anthropologists be neutral in land disputes? The Hopi-Navajo case', Man, 24, 2, 340-4 (correspondence). Wright, S. (1982) 'Impressions for a simulated consultancy workshop', GAPP News, 3, 1. Wright, S. (1990) 'BASAPP's first year and the future', BASAPP, 5, 1-3.

Index

abduction, 114-5, 117 accelerating change, x, 1, 11, 18, 130, 16X212,225. See also change; social change acculturation theory, 55-60 accumulation crisis, 169 ageism, 272 agency, x, 161, 175, 179, 180 agrarian change, in India, 294; in Italy, 122-3; in Ottoman Izmir, 221-3; in South Africa, 172-4, 176 agriculture, in South Africa, 163, 167-70, 171-2 agro-town, 123 Alevis, 12, 14, 24-2, 243-51 passim, 251-2, n.3, n.4 ambiguity, 89 Anatolia, 11-2, 15, 188, 219, 220, 231, 233, 238-74 passim. See also Turkey ANC, 161, 172-174, 176, 177, 179 anthropology, analysis of causality in, 71; applied, x, 14-15, 17-18; 300-14 passim; as historiography, 16; 'at home', 14, 313; development, 279-82, 289; environmental, 55; European, 301, 312; feminist, 259; historical 2-8, 11, 15, 16, 100-1, 121-7, 12-26,294, 298; history of, 3-7, 15; in America, 3, 24, 55; in Britain, 3, 14, 300-14 passim; natural science model, 4; philosophy and, 17; post-modernist, 278;

perverse idea in South Africa, 176; practical versus intellectual orientations in, x, 14, 292, 309-14; research conditions in Turkey, 266-8; research methods, 5, 55; subjective and objective aspects, 10; training in, 306-9, 311; value of research in, 13-4, 19n.2, 271-2, 276-8, 294-8, 313-4; vulgarization of, 278. See also ethnography anti-racism, 304-5 apartheid, 10, 14, 161-82; 'grand', 163, 164, 166 archaeology, 3, 7, 26, 63, 71 Aristotle, 23 Armenian Question, 265, 270 Armenians, 16, 219-20 art, 105-6 ASA, 5, 8, 277-8, 294-5, 300, 308, 310-11,312 Atatiirk, 11,232,245,250 ayan, 213, 222 Azande, 5 Bachofen, J., 24 Bagehot,W.,40-4,48n.l4 Bakhtiari, 193, 201, 202, 205 Bangladesh, 107, 282, 295-6 bantustans, 164-5, 168, 169, 170-72, 174, 177, 179, 180, 181n.9, 182n.l2,n.l3 bargaining (in fieldwork), 12, 255 Barth, F., 5, 59, 96, 201, 208n.5 BASSAP,305, 308, 310-12 Basseri, 201, 202

318

When History

Bateson, G., 57, 65, 81 Bekta§i brotherhood, 244 berati system, 216, 219, 221 Berbers, 103 Bernstein, H. ix, 10, 14, 161-87 biology, 23-4, 32, 36-7, 49n.l5, 57 biologism, 32 Bock, K., 27, 28 boolean minimization, 90 bovine mystique, 176 Braudel, F., 61-2 Brazil, 230, 281 bridewealth and dowry, 67 Britain, 9, 104-6, 108, 113, 157, 190, 270, 301; anthropology in, 3, 14, 301-11 passim; contrasted with Russia, 136 Brokensha, D., 314 Brunei Dusun, 68 Burrow, J., 25, 28, 48n.l4 capitalism, 18, 162, 178, 179, 225 caste, 84-5, 285, 289, 290, 293^, 295 catastrophe theory, 70 Catholic church, 121-2 causation, x, 5, 6, 10, 16, 17, 55, 58, 71,75,95, 161, 188,212,214 central places, 58 centre-periphery models, 56-7 Cernea, M., 291-2 change, categories of, 59-60, 62-3; cultural, 11-2, 69; demographic, 62; environmental, 39; honour systems, 121; knock-on effects, 66; linguistic, 62, 64; long-run processes, 7, 8, 19n.6, 61; material, 190, 208; measurement of, 59-60, 63-4; non-recurrent, 60-2; rates of, between levels of organization, 66, 68-70; short-term processes, 4, 5, 8, 61; subsystems, 66-8; recurrent, 60-1. See also accelerating change; social change chaos theory, 66, 70, 82 chastity codes, 112, 124, 126 Chiapas, 60

Accelerates chiefs, 191, 195 childhood, 131, 133, 138, 151, 296 China, 191,229,281-3 gifthane system, 221-2 giftlik, 213, 221, 222 civilization, 11, 37, 41-2 class, 176, 201, 222, 224, 257, 296 cognition, 11, 17, 188-9, 208. See also knowledge Cohn, B., 283, 295 Colclough, N. 7, 111-29 collapse (of systems), 70 collectivization, 139-40, 141, 150 Collectorate, 287-8 Comaroffs, 4, 78 communication, 189, 292. See also language communism, 9-10, 130-59 passim, 236-7 compensation, 286-9 competition, 34, 35 computers, 5, 13, 16, 78-93, 107 Conlin, S., 284, 302 contradictions (in systems), 79-80 control, of land in South Africa, 161. See also social control Corleto, 111-29 countrymen (in Italy), 116. See also peasants; villagers courtship, 114, 119-20, 126 creativity, individual, 95-6; intellectual, 2; social, 1, 5, 7, 9, 12, 14, 15, 18, 95-109 passim, 180 credentialist society, 142-4 crime, 7, 96, 113-5 cuckold, 119 culture, anthropological approaches to, 5, 55; as second nature, 37; cultural change, 11-2, 60, 69, 238-52 passim; cultural continuity, 126; cultural core, 62; cultural environment, 47n.9; cultural gene pool, 38; cultural lag, 67; cultural load, 37; cultural materialism, 62; cultural relativism, 6, 278; cultural sensitivity, 12, 272-3: cultural

Index values, 131-2; determining individual's character, 32; inter-cultural understanding, 132, 156-8, 292; legal, 214; of nomads in Iran, 202, 204-6; of villagers in Anatolia, 11, 238-52 passim. See also society (as entity); social change cybernetics, 37, 56 Darwin, C, 3, 24-5, 26-34 passim, 45n.l,n.2,46n.4, n.5, 48n.l5 data collection, 12, 79-80, 87-88, 255-74, passim. See also ethnography Davis, J., 6-7, 14, 16, 95-110, 111, 116, 121,264 Dawkins, R., 23, 39, 45n.l development, 2, 14, 193, 284-94 passim, 306, 314; failure of programmes, 107; policy, 283. Development Bank of South Africa, 171 development studies, 18, 198 deviance amplification, 58 diffusion (of innovations and information), 70 disadvantage, studies of, 294-6 division of labour, 56 Dogana, 122, 123 domestic economy, 145 domestic groups, 61, 69. See also family; kinship Doshmanziari, 203 Dresch, P., 100 Durkheim, E., 54, 96, 106, 109 ecology, 2, 3, 57, 68 economic determinism, 163 'efflux' control, 167 Ellen, R., 5, 8, 16, 54-74 elites, Afrikaner, 163; in Ottoman Izmir, 11,212,214,223-5; as producers of history, 8; in republican Turkey, 11, 18, 231; in southern Italy, 112, 116, 120, 125 empiricism, 13, 17 energetic efficiency, 55

319

Engels, F., 3 epistemology, 2, 6, 13, 14, 17, 57 ethical guidelines, 31 ethnicity, 8, 14, 204, 212 ethnography, and history, 7, 8; knowledge, 1 2 ^ , 19n.2, 255, 272; research methods, 5, 9-10, 13, 55, 85, 131, 255-74 passim, 313. See also anthropology; fieldwork; knowledge ethnohistory, 8 ethno-linguistic identity, 197 Eurocentrism, 6 Evans-Pritchard, E., 4, 5-6, 15-6, 17, 108 evolution, 3, 6, 23-49 passim, 65. See also social evolutionism Fabian, J., 6 family, 106, 111, 112, 119, 142-4, 146, 148-51, 190. See also kinship feedback, 58, 67, 273 Festival of Popular Traditions (Isfahan), 192, 205 feudalism, 123 fieldnotes, 92n.l, 257, 260, 267. fieldwork, 4, 12-3, 14, 255-74 passim, 284; 'insider' and 'outsider' positions, 265-71; 'lone ranger', 255. See also anthropology, ethnography Firth, R., 8, 13, 95, 276 Fischer, M., 6, 13, 75-94 formal descriptions, 79 Frankfurt School, 280 function, 61, 65, 71 functionalism, 3—4, 60-1, 71n.l fundamentalism, 229, 234, 236 fuzzy concepts, 189, 207 Galton,F. 31,32 GAPP, 15, 276, 302-3, 305-8, 310-2 Geertz, C , 258, 279-80, 297 Gellner, E., 7, 11-2, 15, 36, 61, 71n.l, 78, 95, 229-37, 277, 280 gender roles (in Italy), 112, 117-20,

320

When History

124, 125; (in Russia), 147-8. See also honour gender-sensitive ethnography, 259 genealogies, 80-1, 100, 201, 262 geology, 26 Giddens, A., 56, 61 global model, 76, 77 Gluckman, M., 7, 95 Goddard,V., 112, 119-20 grandmothers, 138, 139, 140-1, 149, 264 great transformation, 1, 11, 19n.3, 225 Greeks, 219, Greentown, 83-5, 88 Grillo, R., 15, 17, 300-16 Gujars, 285, 293 gulag, 136 Gwembe Tonga, 66-7 Haeckel,E., 31,32 hajj (hac), 233, 242, 249, 251n.l 'hard' facts, 7, 12, 13, 264 hard surfaces, 280 Hatt-i Humayun, 223 Hawaii, 70 healthcare, 13,267 heirship strategies, 115, 122 hermeneutic tacking, 279-80 history and anthropology, 2-8, 14, 19n.6, 100-4, 121-2, 180n.3; and ideology, 8, 133; in Indian villages, 294; in Turkish villages, 12, 260-4; in work of P. Stirling, 16, 19n.6; official, in Russia, 136-7; of honour systems in Italy, 121-6; of land in South Africa, 161-70; of nomadism in Iran, 191-2, 197; of Ottoman Izmir, 212-26; 'real', 2, 7; subjective and objective, 10, 14; 'Western', 3, 6. See also longitudinal studies; microhistory; oral history; social change Hobart, M., 2, 292 homicides, 112, 113-4 honour, and courtship, 119-20; and gender systems, 112, 117-20,

Accelerates 124, 125; and shame, 7, 124; and urban values, 116-7; feminization of, 120; general explanations, 7, 121, 127; language of, 117-20; rustic chivalry, 116, 120, 124; theories of origin, 121, 126-7 household surveys, 16, 257 household work, 145-8 housing, 284, 288-9, 293 Huxley, J., 35, 46-7 Huxley, T., 27, 33-4, 37, 46-7. Ibn Khaldun, 204, 232, 236 ICRASAT, 295 incirlioglu, E., 10-1, 12, 16, 255-75 India, 14, 229, 282, 283-98 indigenous knowledge, 19n.l, 77 individual, as basic unit, 57-8, 68-9, 70, 92, 189, 289; as choice makers, 9, 88, 135; creativity of, 5, 95-6; life stories of, 133; versus state, 189 Indonesia, 65 influx control, 166, 167 informal economy, 134, 144 informal settlement, 170 Ingold, T., 2, 48n.l5, 57, 58, 60 inscription, 279-80, 297-8 intelligentsia, 133, 176 intergenerational relations, 101, 131, 148-50, 177 international law, 216 international trade, 215-21 Internet, 92n.l interpretive science, 279-80 Iran, 10, 190-211,229 Islam, among Iranian nomads, 204; in Brunei, 68; in Libya, 104; in modern Turkey, 229, 233, 234, 235, 242-51, 263; in Ottoman Turkey, 214-5, 217-8; Islamic law, 214-5, 222. See also Alevis; Bekta§i brotherhood; fundamentalism; hajj (hac); religion Islamism, 189 Italy, 111-28 Izmir, 11, 212, 218-21, 224, 225

Index Jansen, E., 295-6 Japan, 229 jati, 84 Jews, in Ottoman Izmir, 219, 220; in Russia, 151-3 jobs, 290, 294 Kedang, 100, 101 Kemalism, 229-37, 246. See also Ataturk Khapaeva, D., 131, 159n.l kinship, 65, 69, 134, 197, 199, 200-3, 256, 282; and Catholic church, 121; kin rich and kin poor households, 151 knowledge, anthropological, x, 17, 109, 188, 208; applications of, Preface, 13, 278-80, 292, 296, 301; distribution of, 77, 89; ethnographic, 12-3, 19n.2, 255, 272; expert, 14, 292, 297; historical, 4, 10, 294, 298; local, 19n.2, 292; of the past, 8, 100-4; representations of 75, 77, 79, 81, 82, 89-92; scientific and technical, 301. See also anthropology; cognition; history Koran, 262 kulaks, 132, 135, 138, 146 Kurds, 190, 197, 265 Kumar, K., 3, 11,23-53, 102 KwaZulu, 165, 171 Lamarck, J-B., 25, 26-7, 33, 36 land, in India, 286, 287-8, 291, 297; in Italy, 19n.4, 117, 123; in Russia, 147, 151; in South Africa, 10, 161-82 passim; in Turkey, 17, 213; land reform, in Italy, 19n.4, 117; in South Africa, 175. See also agrarian change language, 62, 64, 97, 136, 189-90, 198-9, 258-9, 288; of honour, 117-20 latifundia, 123 law, and social change, 11, 115, 213^, 215-6, 223-5, 242, 246 Law Merchant, see traders' law Leach, E., 4, 78, 102, 309-10

321

leadership, 200, 202, 244, 248-51 legal codes, 11, 115, 213-14, 246 L£vi-Strauss, 6, 78, 96 Lewis, I., 5, 8 lex naufragii, 215 liberal democracy, 229, 236 liberals (in South Africa), 163, 178,179 Libya, 101, 103^, 106 life story, 131, 133, 134-5. See also oral history lineages, 101, 122, 243-4, 262, 264, 293-4. See also kinship lishenetz, 152 Lison-Tolosana, C , 7, 100-1 Lloyd, P., 303^, 310 local model, 76, 77 logic, 82, 85, 86, 88, 89, 112, 124 London School of Economics, 15, 17, 95-6 Long, N., 278, 280-1 longitudinal studies, 13, 17, 134, 256, 261 long-term research, 55, 238, 256-7 longue duree, 1, 8, 61-2, 121 Lubbock, J., 25 McLennan, J., 25, 26 mafia, 99, 121, 127n.l mahalviri system, 282 Maine, H., 24, 43 Mair, L., 8, 62, 65, 95 male bias, 259 Malinowski, B., 3-4, 17, 71n.l, 96, 102, 106, 108, 239 Malthus, T., 2 Man, 310, 312 Mardin, S., 216-7, 234, 235 Marett lecture, 4, 15 market economy, in South Africa, 175, 180; in southern Italy, 122, 125; Russia, 135, 136, 151 marriage, as moral potlatch, 126; by elopement, 117; changes in, 123-4, 126; in Iran, 205; in Italy, 114-7, 126; in Pakistan, 5, 82, 83, 85, 86, 88, 89; in Russia, 137, 147-9; in Turkey, 282; of

322

When History

widows, 124; prohibitions, 83-4, 122; records, 124, 125; women's management of, 118, 120, 126; Marx, K., 6, 8, 31, 46n.7, 48n.l5, 54, 62, 95-6, 106; Marxism, 6, 18, 62; Marxism-Leninism, 10, 236-7 Mascarenhas-Keyes, S., 307-8, 311 Maya, 70 Mbeki, G., 172 Medawar,R, 29, 31-2, 33, 36 memory, 8, 10, 131, 132, 136-8, 157, 261 microhistory, 121 migration, 123^, 135, 152, 165-6, 167, 169, 197, 207; of Turkish villagers, 12, 16, 231, 239-40 passim, 242, 263, 256, 268. See also nomads; resettlement mihmandar, 266, 267, 271 millet system, 236 Modal Action Logic, 85, 87. modelling, 75-93 modernist, P. Stirling as, 17 modernists (versus traditionalists in Iran), 196 modernity, 301; in Turkey, 11, 222-6 modernization, 12, 18, 121, 189, 230-1, 239, 241 Moluccas, pre-colonial polities of, 58 Morgan, L., 3, 25, 65 muhtar, 248-50, 266 Muller, M., 24 muslim traders, 217-8, 224. See also Islam myth, 4, 12, 100-1, 148, 262-4 namus, 126 nationalism, 258, 265, 270, 277, 301 National Party (South Africa), 163, 169, 170 natural selection, 25, 26, 30, 32-3, 41. See also Darwin; evolution network power, 134 New Economic Policy, 139 New Ethnography, 78 New Guinea, 67 new reproductive technologies, 15 nomads, and settlement, 10, 14,

Accelerates 191-2, 195, 196, 206-7; and tribes of Iran, 200-3; cultural practices, 206; definitions, 10-11, 196-9; Rousseauian and Hobbesian views, 196; self-definitions, 203-6 nomenklatura, 131, 133, 158n.l norms, 82, 86, 92, 282, 297 Northern Ireland, 313 Nuaulu, 61, 67-8 Nuer, 95, 103, 108-9 Nurcu movement, 235 ODA, 107, 284, 291 ONA, 190, 196, 199, 203, 209n.8 oral history, 9, 10, 131-8 organic division of labour, 69 organizations, theory of, 56 orientalists, 11 'Other', awe of, 280 Ottoman Empire, 11, 212-26, 236, 245 Pacific, 7 paese di passaggio, 123. See also migration Pahl, R., 9-10, 130-60 Pakistan, 81-93 pan-Turanianism, 236 pastoralism, 10, 190, 191, 193^, 195, 198, 206, 207. See also nomads; transhumance patronage, 99, 116,234 peasants, 11, 176, 231. See also countrymen (in Italy); villagers philosophy, 2, 17, 18 physical traces, 63-4 physics, 76, 81-2 Polanyi, K., 1, 19n.2 political economy, 2, 10 popolino, 112 Popper, K., 30-1, 44, 46n.3 popular social forces, 176, 178 positive discrimination, 286 positivism, 17, 26, 264 Postan, M., 44 postmodernism, 18, 175, 278, 280 poverty, 10, 11, 238-9, 278-9, 294-7, 298

Index power, 6, 9, 10, 99, 102, 104, 179, 251, 302; and creativity, 99; and knowledge, 284, 297 primitive accumulation, 162 primitive social communism, 156 private property, 150, 213, 222 progress, 2, 3, 10, 18, 30, 32-3, 42-3, 45n.2, 65 progressivism, 37 purpose (and effect, compared), 65, 71 Qajar dynasties, 197 Qashqa'i, 193, 201 qualitative research, 9-10, 157, 313 racial order, 162, 164, 176 Radcliffe-Brown, A., 4, 16 Rampura, 285-94 raya, 219-21, 232 rebellion, 9 reciprocal altruism, 69 regenerative loops, 58 relations of production, 62 religion, 59, 104, 151-6, 219, 231, 241, 243-8. See also Islam repeat marriage, 122, 124 representations (of knowledge), 5, 75,79-81,87-8,89,284 repressive labour regimes, 162-3 reproduction, biological, 68-9; domestic, 68-9, 71; social, 54, 68-70, 98, 99 reputation, 86, 119-20 resettlement, 14, 67, 84, 284-94 passim. See also nomads resistance, 172, 214, 224-5, 284 restitution (of land in South Africa), 173-4 revolution, 8-11, 12, 103, 130, 180, 191, 1 9 3 ^ Revolutionary Command Council (Libya), 103 Rew, A., 13, 14, 17, 276-99, 306-7 Rosen, L., 255 Runciman, G., 45n.2, 47n.l, 48n.9, n.15 rural syndicalism, 123

323

Russia, 9-10, 130-60; contrasted with West, 135; life-story interviews in, 134-5 Sahlins, M, 6 Sakaltutan, 16, 18, 256-71 sanskritization, 294 SASCW, 304-5, 308, 310 Schaffer, B, 297 self-provisioning (households in Russia), 145-6 Sen, A., 281 §eriat, 215, 222, 242, 246 sex-linked property, 125 Shahsevan, 202, 203, 204, 209n.l0 Shankland, D., 4, 12, 13-4, 238-54 Sharma, U., 309 Sheppey, 150 Sherbakova, I., 136 Shia, 204, 205, 206; in Anatolia, 204, 245 SHKS (Udaipur), 284, 290, 291 Silk Road, 219 Simpson, G., 31 skeuomorphs, 65 sociability, 97-9 sociable imagination, 7, 102, 103 social anthropology, see anthropology social change, analyses of, 5, 8, 12-3, 14, 54-71 passim; 'from above', 11-12, 103-5, 188-91; general features of, 1-3, 54-6, 130, 190-1, 208, 301-2; in Africa, 4, 161-87; in India, 281-98 passim; in Iran, 188-211 passim; in Italy, 122-4, 130, in Pakistan, 75, 76, 88-9, 92; in Russia, 130-60 passim; in Turkey, 16-17, 22-75 passim; materialist approaches to, 66; total, 54. See also accelerating change; change; social engineering; state social control, 188-90, 191, 208, 301 social creativity, 1, 95-110 Social Darwinism, 3, 24, 31-2, 40, 44, 46n.5

324

When History

social development advisers, 13, 284, 289 social diversity, 3, 40 social engineering, 3, 11, 103-5, 106, 163, 286 social evolutionism, 40, 44, 45n.2 social man, 23 social memory, 8 social rules, 83 social science, ix, 1-2, 13, 16, 17, 19n.2, 24, 132, 133 social standards, 14, 287-9, 291,296-8 social structure, 2, 4 social system, 82, 98, 106-8 society (as entity), 37-8, 55, 61, 69, 190; modern, 301 Society for Applied Anthropology, 276 socio-biologists, 24, 31, 46n.5 soft (ethnographic) approach, 313 South Africa, 10, 161-82 sovietologists, 132, 156-7 Soviet Union, 9, 70, 130-59; ethnographic sciences in, 3 specification, 75, 81, 82, 83, 87, 89, 279-80, 284, 297-8 Spencer, H., 3, 24-5, 26-7, 29, 30, 45n.2 Sperber, D., 17, 82 stability, 9, 61, 71n.l, 106, 108 Starr, J., 11,212-28 state, GAPP conference on, 303; in China, 283; in Iran, 188-9, 191, 198, 203, 204, 208; in Italy, 121; in Libya, 103-4; in Ottoman Empire, 214, 223-5; in South Africa, 162, 168, 166, 175, 180; in Turkey, 12, 229-37, 242-8 passim; interaction with local forces, 166, 212, 282; 242, 243, 245, 246, 248; of Rajasthan, 286, 288, 294; power of, 11-2, 99, 188-9, 302; weakness of, 166. See also power; resistance; social change Stirling, P., analysis of social change, frontispiece; x, 16, 55-6, 60,

Accelerates 61, 62-3, 70-1, 75-6, 95-6, 106; concern for students, 17, 301, 309; discussion of namus, 126; encouragement of applied anthropology, 17-8, 276, 302, 311, 312; general profile, 15-9; main theoretical concerns, 16-7, 54, 130, 188-9, 301-2; preferred research styles, 157, 158; work in Turkey, 12, 15-16, 18,48n.l3, 92n.l, 188,212,214,225,231, 234, 238-9, 240-51 passim, 255-73 passim, 282 strange attractor, 82 structural adjustment policies, 175 structural reform (South Africa), 179, 180 structuralism, 4, 5, 76, 95, 112 structuration, 56 structure of tribes, 203 struggle for the city (South Africa), 167 Sunni, 12, 204, 214, 240, 245, 246-9, 251; village model, 242-3 survival of the fittest, 34 swiddening, 61 symbolic knowledge, 17 symbolic models, 85 synchronic study, 4, 7, 8, 12, 16-17, 55, 131, 239 synchronization, 66 systems, analysis, 56; approaches, 5, 7, 16, 55-71, 96, 106-9; berati, 216, 219, 221; boundaries, 59; gifthane, 221-2; collapse, 8, 70; cybernetic, 37; differentiation, 55; duality of, 57-8; formal, 80; honour, 111; mahalviri, 282; millet, 236; nesting, 58; ontological and typological use of, 58-9, 62, 70; physicality of, 65; regional, 71; representational, 292; stability of, 61,65, 71; stratification, 113; systems theory, 76; world 6, 11, 57 Taine, H., 44 Tapper, R., 10, 14, 188-211

Index tarikau 244, 246-8 tax farming, 221, 222, 224 team fieldwork, 13, 255, 273 technical change, 67 Thatcher, M. 18, 104-6 Theosophical movement, 102 Thomas, N., 4, 7 Thompson, P., 9-10, 130-60 Tikopia, 108 timar system, 221-2, 236 time, 3, 4, 8 Touraine, A., 134 tourism, 102 tractors, 214, 261 traders' law, 212, 213, 215-8, 224, 226n.3 trading licences, 216-9 tradition, invention of, 65 transhumance, 122, 123 Trapido, S., 162-3 travel literature, 7, 19n.6, 102, 109 tribes (in Iran), 10, 190-209; definitions, 198-203; political organization, 203; relation to state, 200 Trobriand Islanders, 4, 103, 108 Tshidi, 8 Turkey, Alevi villagers in, 238-51; army in, 229-30, 231; in Ottoman period, 11, 212-28; modernity and social change in, 11-2, 15-7, 18, 59, 75, 190, 212, 214, 225, 230-37; nationalism in, 265; Sunni villagers in, 256-72. See also Stirling, P. Turkish Village, 16, 92n.l, 238, 251, 256 Tylor, E., 25, 26 Uduk, 101 University of Kent, 15 urbanization, in Pakistan, 84; in South Africa, 164-6 urban-rural relations, 117, 164, 167, 171 urban values, (Italy), 116-7 values, 112, 116-7, 131-2;

325

transgenerational transfer, 131, 148-50 variation, 78, 79; in Darwinian theory, 43; in honour systems, 112,121 villagers, creativity of, 14, 107; in Rajasthan, 284-94; in Turkey, 11, 12, 13, 15, 233, 242-6, 257-73. See also countrymen; peasants; urban-rural relations vocational practice in anthropology, 303, 312 Vogt, E., 60, 61 Westernization, 230, 231 widow marriage, witchcraft, 64, 121 Wolf, E., 6, 102 women's roles, 115, 118-9, 125-6, 150, 203, 296 World Bank, 10, 14, 107, 174-5, 18 In. 11, 182n.l4,277 world system, 6, 11, 56, 225 Yemen, 100-1 Yir Yiront, 66 Zagros confederacies, 201 zastolie, 147 zat, 84, 85