Cultural studies and anthropology.

Cultural studies and anthropology. In light of current debates and academic rivalries between culturalstudies and anthropology, the editor of Oceania invited Professor Muecketo respond to the critical review of his book in the last issue of thejournal. His response provides a further challege to anthropology.Toussaint's mistakesSandy Toussaint's review of my book is nit-picking to a fault,it rarely rises to a level of generality, and fails to place the worksatisfactorily in any context; she concludes by saying that she hadhoped it would have drawn her attention to some of 'theepistemological differences and similarities between Anthropology andCultural Studies,' but it was never my aim to enter that debate,rather, it is hers. In fact, my discussions about Anthropology precededby a long shot the recent debates with David Trigger and others. Moreusefully, Toussaint could have identified the book as a loose collectionof papers written between 1982 and 1990, more or less uniting some ofthe persistent themes of my work.But, in my defence, I will enter the debate now, first by undoingsome of her nit-picking, then by taking up a newspaper article by JamesWeiner, which I want to discuss in a spirit of reconciliation betweenAnthropology and Cultural Studies.Toussaint says that an approach to textual representations is fairenough, but goes on to say that I have not provided 'substantiveevidence.' I have to insist straight away that appeals to'evidence' (positivism positivism(pŏ`zĭtĭvĭzəm), philosophical doctrine that denies any validity to speculation or metaphysics. Sometimes associated with empiricism, positivism maintains that metaphysical questions are unanswerable and that the only , empiricism empiricism(ĕmpĭr`ĭsĭzəm)[Gr.,=experience], philosophical doctrine that all knowledge is derived from experience. For most empiricists, experience includes inner experience—reflection upon the mind and its , the legal) are not part ofmy method. I am not writing social science of any sort. Yet she ishoisted on her own petard as she proffers bits of my text forexamination: 'Indigenous languages which could not be understood bythe colonisers were 'replaced by a [non-Aboriginal]representational mode, for instance, alphabetic writing' (p.10).' She stops there (having changed the sense by inserting theepithetical qualifier in square brackets). So am I right or wrong? Ifwrong, where is her 'evidence'? Being part of a larger claimfor the existence of the idea of an 'Aboriginal writing,' myclaim seriously challenges the blithe blithe?adj. blith��er, blith��est1. Carefree and lighthearted.2. Lacking or showing a lack of due concern; casual: spoke with blithe ignorance of the true situation. assumptions of linguists (eg:Margaret Clunies-Ross) that alphabetic modes of inscription can, withgreater and greater refinement, come more exactly to representAboriginal language use. The whole idea of textual spaces is that of thepolitics of enunciation enunciation(inun´sēā´shn),n an auxiliary function of teeth, particularly those in the anterior sector of the dental arch; the formation of sounds : the means by which (as well as where and when)something gets said is as important as putative contents, the objective.Toussaint's own politics of enunciation is to offer up bits ofTextual Spaces for ridicule to an agreeable reader; paragraphs finish inaporiae of indetermination. Does she agree or disagree with Verb 1. disagree with - not be very easily digestible; "Spicy food disagrees with some people"hurt - give trouble or pain to; "This exercise will hurt your back" the bit ofme she has just quoted? At other times I just wonder if it is wilful wil��ful?adj.Variant of willful.wilfulor US willfulAdjective1. determined to do things in one's own way: a wilful and insubordinate childmisreading. She asks: 'whether Muecke includes his own involvementin the 'relations of [Aboriginal textual] production'here?' Well, in Chapter 21 devote a section to 'confessions ofa researcher' which is about an Aboriginal criticism of my work,and Chapters 8 and 9 are about pedagogical ped��a��gog��ic? also ped��a��gog��i��caladj.1. Of, relating to, or characteristic of pedagogy.2. Characterized by pedantic formality: a haughty, pedagogic manner. issues. She claims that I'disagree with' and 'censure' Stuart Hall whereas infact I was 'fairly convinced' and only wondered whether hisargument about the power of the margins could be extrapolated touniversity education issues. Here too, she fails to detect my ironic useof the phrases 'real people,' and 'fragmented unknowingsubjects like the rest of us.' In not being literal about'us,' I have continued my politicisation of speakingpositions. How could she accuse me at one point of an uncritical use ofa 'we' when on p. 23 (and in 1982) I had gone to great painsto discuss the politics of the pronoun, the first time anyone hadconsidered such an issue vis-a-vis Aborigines aborigines:see Australian aborigines. in Australia? And sure,when the Berndts in 1964 talk of 'we Australians' they wereparticipating in an ideology of national consensus which excludedAboriginal subjects. Nothing in my book goes along those lines. Insaying: 'Recognition that a multiplicity of colonial and indigenousvoices have variously emerged and merged over time is sorely missing inMuecke's analysis...' she must have missed the point ofChapter 2, my point about Bran Nue Dae, my juxtapositions of paralleltexts, and the contributions of Gularabulu and Reading the Country(Muecke has no history for Toussaint). And there are other instances ofmisrepresentation misrepresentationIn law, any false or misleading expression of fact, usually with the intent to deceive or defraud. It most commonly occurs in insurance and real-estate contracts. False advertising may also constitute misrepresentation. , for instance when she quotes me as saying it might be'too late' for Aborigines to control their representations,and that this shows I lack an understanding of the processes of culturalchange. I can't find the phrase 'too late' anywhere in mybook, and the idea is certainly a stranger to me.Cultural Studies, unlike synchronic syn��chron��ic?adj.1. Synchronous.2. Of or relating to the study of phenomena, such as linguistic features, or of events of a particular time, without reference to their historical context. Anthropologies of description andevidence, brings historical and philosophical issues to bear in itsanalyses. It sometimes puts forward ideas based on individual examples,so it is speculative in ways that empiricists find infuriating. It mightbe in the business of trying to make people rethink things, to challengethem with an idea, and this has always been the approach I have tried todevelop: trying to provide the conditions under which stories can betold differently, different accounts can be given. Textual Spaces maynot be a great book, but at least it has a couple of ideas in it. Peoplehave used them and built on them. I have evidence for this.James Weiner's worriesAt this point I want to give an example of Anthropology as aself-confessed evidential ev��i��den��tial?adj. LawOf, providing, or constituting evidence: evidential material.ev science and Cultural Studies as its relative(niece, perhaps, nephew?), a rhetorical wielder of historical andphilosophical ideas in cultural domains.James Weiner's newspaper article on the Kumarangk (HindmarshIsland Hindmarsh Island (Kumarangk in Ngarrindjeri dialect, coordinates Coordinates: ) is an island in the lower Murray River near the town of Goolwa, South Australia. ) Affair raises important issues about the status of Anthropologyas expert knowledge.(1) So often, and unfortunately, the issue at stakeis the status of one profession versus another. In Weiner's casethe threat comes from Cultural Studies and Aboriginal Studies, as wellas non-academic consulting anthropologists whose views may be partial.The status of Anthropology as objective science is in doubt, andlivelihoods depend on it. He says:The emergence of these cultural studies approaches to the phenomenonof Aboriginality poses a threat to anthropology that potentially hasboth positive and negative effects. The positive threat stems from thefact that cultural studies arose in response to the kind of world thatwe presently inhabit, a world in which an excess of meaning washes offfrom the burgeoning avenues of communications and image transfer thatnow constitutes our experience of public social life.Faced with an excess of symbols, cultural studies concedes thetextual nature of social life today, and looks to the literarydisciplines for the tools with which to decipher it.and... the negative threat to anthropology is that the public and, inparticular, the government that funds university research, might ask:who needs expensive primary ethnographic research when aboriginalstudies centres are producing portraits of Aboriginal society withoutit?The 'excess of meaning washes off,' shows goodunderstanding of the Cultural Studies heritage from Nietzsche, Batailleand Barthes - hardly 'literary disciplines,' nor'symbols' nor 'deciphering,' but anyway, the pointhas been conceded, perhaps dangerously for anthropology: CulturalStudies has the contract on the contemporary and on complexity; athousand anthropological voices would rise in protest because he hasothered his discipline in a Fabianist temporality tem��po��ral��i��ty?n. pl. tem��po��ral��i��ties1. The condition of being temporal or bounded in time.2. temporalities Temporal possessions, especially of the Church or clergy.Noun 1. : it will be a fairlypassive traditional information retainer while others can have funmaking meaning in the here and now, being pro-active and culturallyproductive.The other concession he makes is about status. If Cultural Studies isacquiring enough prestige to attract funding away from Anthropology,surely the strategy should be to adopt its best methodologies (eg;interdis-ciplinarity and self-reflexivity as many have done) rather thanmerely insist that the basic empirical work must go on regardless. Nodoubt an epistemological reduction has gone on for the sake ofjournalistic brevity - still, the public record is where CulturalStudies (and politics) thrive.When people study people, treating the other as pure object, thenpolitical issues, which Weiner would like to leave to one side,necessarily arise. Increasingly, Aboriginal people state that they donot want to remain the object of science, they want to speak with theirown voices, and have their own (institutions of) authority. This is whatthe Hindmarsh Island Affair has denied them. Not just the Commission,but the media, and now Weiner, in his own way. All seem to agree thatthe people being studied should stay on the other side of the fence, atleast for a moment, until the 'object' is fixed. If they dospeak, it should be on our terms.Now, Cultural Studies is in a better position than Anthropology tounderstand the complex issues at play in the Hindmarsh Island Affair, asWeiner seems to concede (reserving for Anthropology the role of doingprimary, well-funded research). Cultural Studies can admit philosophicaland historical issues as it tries to solve problems (and we do have ourauthorities who will reject any bad 'portraits of Aboriginalsociety' as they come up).In the Royal Commission, Aboriginal people's rights to secrecyhave been challenged. The existence of 'secret-sacred' domainsof knowledge in traditional Aboriginal societies is, of course,well-established. But the continued use of secrecy today among theNgarindjerri is intolerable to our Western institutions, who insist ontransparency. It is as if withholding knowledge is the worst thinganyone could do: secrecy is the bane BANE. This word was formerly used to signify a malefactor. Bract. 1. 2, t. 8, c. 1. of journalists; the judiciary seeksto uncover truths. And politicians? Secrecy is the dark side ofpolitics, and we like to pretend it is not there. Western institutionslike to maintain the fiction that all is on the public record, that weall have democratic rights and access to all information, that secrecy(not-being-allowed-to-know, professional mystifications) is notstructuring social life in a way analogous to Aboriginal societies.'Secrecy can be a force that sanctifies and exalts ritualknowledge,' says one philosopher.(2) There can be dignity and powerin reserving knowledge for special groups - this is what needs to beunderstood about Aboriginal societies, and it is why some protagonistsin the Hindmarsh Island Affair were reluctant to divulge information,and why others may have had to be 'persuaded' with cash byliberal-minded journalists, as Stuart Littlemore's Media Watch TVprogramme contended.Historically, land issues have always been politicised in thiscountry, with stakes so high that truth was always a victim. It is notentirely flippant flip��pant?adj.1. Marked by disrespectful levity or casualness; pert.2. Archaic Talkative; voluble.[Probably from flip. to say that terra nullius Terra nullius (English pronunciation IPA: /ˈtɛrə nəˈlaɪəs/, Latin pronunciation IPA: was the first big fib, yetit was only revealed as that, so to speak, quite recently. Was it the'trust, intimacy and mutual knowledge' engendered byanthropologists in communities that helped this revolution in nationalthought happen? In some profound, cumulative historical sense, perhaps,but in the end it was a political process of the first order. It wouldbe nice if there were the odd eternal truth. It would be nice forProfessor Weiner if 'objective and disinterested knowledge'could be protected from the effects of history, politics and philosophy.It is where those effects take place, on the surfaces of the obvious,that a critical Cultural Studies springs to life, but this is whyCultural Studies is the junior relative. It needs, and is thankful for,the groundwork of established work in more than one discipline. But theHindmarsh Island Affair is one case where a complex of these knowledgeshas clashed with the imperative for commercial 'progress' andthe political parties fighting over that powerful force of Aboriginalsecret knowledge which persists and changes in spite of everything.I think a contemporary and complex analytical overview of that affaircould combine usefully with specialised disciplinary 'truths'(as Weiner says, 'detached, driven by social scientific andhumanistic but not necessarily political considerations'), becausethe only way to maintain the illusion of that objectivity is to keep upthe analysis of the political conditions under which one works as onecontinues to do the work.Stephen Muecke University of Technology, Sydney.NOTES1. James Weiner, `Ethnographers encounter their own rite ofpassage rite of passagen.A ritual or ceremony signifying an event in a person's life indicative of a transition from one stage to another, as from adolescence to adulthood. ,' The Australian, 11 Jan 1996.2. Alphonso Lingis Alphonso Lingis (born November 23, 1933 in Crete, Illinois) is an American philosopher, writer and translator, currently Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Pennsylvania State University. , Abuses, Berkeley, University of California Press "UC Press" redirects here, but this is also an abbreviation for University of Chicago PressUniversity of California Press, also known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. ,1994, p 124.