Rethoric and The Authority of Ethnography - Steven Sangren

Rhetoric and the Authority of Ethnography: "Postmodernism" and the Social Reproduction of
Texts
Author(s): P. Steven Sangren
Source: Current Anthropology, Vol. 29, No. 3 (Jun., 1988), pp. 405-435
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for
Anthropological Research
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2743456 .

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CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Volume 29, Number 3, JuneI988

? I988 byThe Wenner-Gren
Foundation
forAnthropological
Research.All rightsreserved
ooII-3204/88/2903-oooI$3.00
Few anthropologistsor other professionalsengaged in

what currentjargon terms "cultural studies" can have
failedto notice the recentproliferation
ofbooks and articles that analyze the rhetoricof ethnographicwriting.
This proliferationof a sort of "meta-anthropology"
is
clearly part of the larger "deconstructive"or "postmodemist" fashion' in literarycriticism inspired by
continental (mainly French) philosophy. One consequence of this trendis that culturalanthropologymust
add to its polemics against economism and scientisma
defense against attacks from, epistemologically,the
otherside. Anthropology
now findsitselfidentifiedwith
labels that it is accustomed to attachingto economics,
political science, and sociology: unconsciouslypositivistic, naive, and unreflectiveof its own historicaland
culturalcontingency.
Some of the more widely publicized of these attacks
come fromoutside the discipline (e.g.,Said I978), but I
shall focus on critiquesoriginatingwithinit, especially
two books-Anthropologyas Cultural Critique:An ExperimentalMoment in the Human Sciences, by George
Recentcriticsofanthropological
autheorizing
andethnographic
E. Marcus and M. J.Fischer,and WritingCulture: The
thority
haveclaimed"reflexivity,"
and "dialog"as
"polyphony,"
Poetics and Politics of Ethnography,
editedby JamesE.
corevaluesforanthropology's
This paperexseff-deconstruction.
Clifford
and
E.
Marcus.
These
books were pubGeorge
aminesthisclaimandthesevalueswitha particular
emphasison
lished in close succession in i986, and their authors,
their(perhapsunintended)
institutional
consequences.It argues
thattheboundariesofreflexivity
in "postmodernist" editors,and manyofthe contributors
constructed
to WritingCulture
discourse(focusing
mainlyon authority
in texts)havebeen
have been at the forefront
of the intemal critique of
framedin ultimately
misleadingandsurprisingly
unreflective
rhetoricand authorityin ethnographicwriting.2
waysthatdiminishboththelegitimacy
andthelogicofpostLike many of my colleagues, I am simultaneouslyinmodernist
claims.Thus,thispaperis intendedin partto defend
thetraditional
bases ofethnography's
butmore
triguedand appalled by the combinationof insightand
authority,
significantly
it intendsto suggesthow anthropology
can be rehubris that characterizesthis making of anthropology
flexivein waysunelaborated
critics.It also atbypostmodernist
itselfan objector "other"forstudy.This endeavorraises
temptsto showhow a particular"totalizing"theoretical
stance
(onethatlocatesthelogicandreproduction
ofpowerandauthor- intriguingissues; among them one of the most important is the notion that the "reflexive"turningof the
ityin societyas a whole-includingacademicinstitutions-
Rhetoricand the
Authorityof
Ethnography
"Postmodernism"
and theSocial
Reproduction
ofTexts
byP. StevenSangren
ratherthanin textsalone)can dispelsomeofthe"paradoxes"left

unaddressed
ofpostbypostmodernist
critics.An ironiceffect
modernists'
eschewinganthropology's
self-definition
as a science
is an indirectinstitutional
ofthekindsofscientisms
legitimation
thatpostmodernists
findmostreprehensible
(e.g.,biologicaland
economicreductionism).
Moreover,
postmodernist
"privileging"
ofexperience
theepistemology
of
unintentionally
reproduces
Westernindividualism
in thenameofitsradicaldeconstruction.
withskepticism
regarding
i. Fischer(i986) equatespostmodernism
postthe groundsof authority.
One wonderswhetherself-styled
modernists
believetheyare unique in theirconcernwithsuch a
who assertsthe augeneralproblem.Whatbecomesfashionable,
and theoperationsoffashionin
thority
to definethefashionable,
aspectsofthe social reintellectualinstitutions
are all important
productionofknowledgeaboutwhichthe authorsdiscussedhere
are surprisingly
unreflective.
2. Manyofthethemesaddressedin thetwobooksare anticipated
SANGREN is AssociateProfessor
ofAnthropology
at
CornellUniversity
(Ithaca,N.Y. 148 5 3, U.S.A.). Bornin 1946, he
was educatedat PrincetonUniversity
(B.A.,i968) andat Stanford in Marcus (ig8oa), Clifford(i983), and Marcus and Cushman (i982).
in thesearticles
The positionsI disputeare mostfullyarticulated
in
University
(M.A.,1974; Ph.D., ig80). He has donefieldwork
Taiwan (1974-77, I984, i986-87) and is currently
and in Marcus and Fischer (i986), Marcus (i986a, b), Fischer (i986),
engagedin researchon theideologicaloperationsofbiologicalscience,inClifford
(i 986a,b),and,to a lesserextent,Crapanzano(i986), Tyler
stitutionalized
economics,andthe"humansciences."His publi(i986), and Pratt(i986). Rosaldo's (i986) critique of Le Roy Ladurie
cationsinclude"TraditionalChineseCorporations:
and Evans-Pritchard
seemsto me to be at somevariancewiththe
Beyond
as I shallpointout
moregeneralclaimsofhis fellowcontributors,
Kinship" (JournalofAsian Studies 43:391-415), "Social Space
andthePeriodization
ofEconomicHistory:A Case fromTaiwan" below. Both Asad (i986) and Rabinow (i986) raise issues that sugorat leastlimitations
ofpostmodern
(ComparativeStudiesin Societyand History27:5 3 I-6 1), History gestsomeoftheshortcomings
and MagicalPowerin a ChineseCommunity
In whatfollows,bypostmodernist
or
ethnography.
Stanford orexperimental
(Stanford:
I mean mainlythe positionsmost explicitlyarexperimentalist
University
Press,i987), and "HistoryandtheRhetoricofLegitimacy:The Ma Tsu Cult ofTaiwan" (ComparativeStudiesin Soticulatedby Clifford,
Marcus,Marcus and Fischer,Marcus and
in
in this discourseobvicietyand History,in press).The presentpaperwas submitted
Cushman,and Tyler.Fellow participants
finalform24 ix 87.
ously do not entirelyshare theirenthusiasmforthe "new moment,"andI do notwishto implythata monolithicbodyofopinion existson the contentiousissues of anthropological
authority
it
andrhetoric.
However,forthepurposesofthisessay'sargument,
subtle
wouldbe too cumbersometo referto all ofthearguments,
and marked,that distinguishwritersassociated, closely and
rhetoricand authority.
broadly,withdiscourseon ethnographic
P. STEVEN
405

406
| CURRENT
ANTHROPOLOGY
Volume 29, Number 3, June I988
anthropologicalgaze towardanthropology
itselfsubverts formsof the very discourses they attemptto delegitithe discipline's objectifyingauthority.However,in my mate. In orderwords,such voices do not constitutethe
view the termsin which thisreflexivity
has been framed alternativesSaid sees in them because theyin effectreare ultimately misleading and surprisingly"unreflex- producethe structureof the rhetoric(ifnot the instituive" in ways that diminishboth the legitimacyand the tions) of dominationhe describesin Westernculture,4
logic of the argumentsit produces. Thus, this paper is albeit by shiftinglegitimacyinto the hands of different
intendedin part to defendthe traditionalauthorityof (can theystill be called "Third World"?)elites.
thereare two
Said's positiveinsightsnotwithstanding,
ethnography(althoughwithout denyingimportanceto
problematics raised in this regard), but more sig- importantrespectsin which his analysis of Orientalism
nificantlyit intendsto suggesthow anthropology
can be underestimatesthe counterhegemoniccontributionsof
truly reflexive in ways unelaborated by self-pro- Western study of exotic cultures. First, Westem anforexample,can make as legitimatea claim
claimed "reflexive"anthropologistsand to defendeth- thropology,
nography'sauthorityby invokingthis somewhat differ- to have providedvoices for Third World cultures and
entlyconceivedreflexivity.
It also attemptsto show how values in the world as can Westemized Third World
a particular,"totalizing" theoreticalstance can dispel elites or literarycritics.Althoughanthropologydoes to
some of the "paradoxes" left unaddressed by recent some degreemake an objectofthe "other,"thisis not all
it does. The disciplinewas dialogic long beforethe term
criticism.
I focus here on criticismfromwithin the discipline became popular,and in ways that criticscommittedto
not onlybecause I am an anthropologist
but also because too literala definitionof "dialogic" processesoverlook.
in my view this intemal dialog has more intellectual (I shall returnto this point below.) One example is the
merit,and thus "authority,"than those originatingout- influenceof Chinese Taoism on the emergenceof strucside the field.A briefdiscussion of Said's (I978) widely turalismin Francethroughthe works of Marcel Granet
discussed critiqueof "Orientalism"may serveas an ex- and Claude Levi-Strauss.5 Second, the comparative
ample in this regard.I believe thata coherentargument study of ideology makes insightslike Said's possible.
can be made thatthe objectconstitutedin Said's concept This is a debt he does not adequately acknowledgeperof "Orientalism" is a fabricationof preciselythe sort haps because it would demystify
the masked hegemonic
thathe claims to discoverin the Westernconstructions ambitions(or "will to power") of his own position.
of "Oriental" cultures.Moreover,one of the properties Books like WritingCultureand Anthropologyas Culof Said's fabricationis that it appropriatesimportant tural Critique do not challengeanthropology
as categorrelativizinginsights fromthe very disciplines it sub- ically as does Said's work. Afterall, their authors are
verts. In other words, argumentslike Said's, although mainly anthropologists.However, by differentiating
a
not withoutmeritand insightregardingthe social and groupof "sophisticated"(thewordis used repeatedlyin
historicalconditionsnecessaryto produceanthropology the texts-see also Marcus and Cushman i982 and Clifand similar disciplines, in the end underestimatethe fordI983) writersfromotherswho have yet to get the
importantcounterhegemonic
possibilitiesin thesedisci- postmodernistmessage, the books quite seriouslycall
plines in orderto mask theirown appropriationof the into question the authorityand legitimacyof much of
legitimatingpower of preciselythese possibilities.
therestofthe profession.In otherwords,any attemptto
To accomplish this,Said must constructan impover- constructa discoursemeta- to anthropologychallenges
ished and ideologicallymystifying
(I revealmy "positiv- the authorityof the discipline and invites response.
ism" here)image and historyof "Orientalism."In short, Moreover,I shall arguethat,even thoughthe contentof
he reproducesa rhetoricofdominationand legitimacyin the critique may call for the questioningof textually
makingof "Orientalism"an objectthatis logicallyanal- constitutedauthority,the endeavornecessarilyconstiogous to that he points out in the ways "Orientalism" tutesa playforsocially constitutedauthorityand power.
makes other cultures its object and thus becomes an Consequently,unless anthropologists
are preparedto acinstrumentin their"domination."This appropriation
of cept mutely the authorityof postmodem ethnography
legitimacyallows him to writewith the authoritythat
was once the Orientalist's.Said attemptsto defendthis 4. Westernculture,of course,has no monopolyon hegemonic
appropriationof what Michel Foucault3terms"knowl- ideologies.
5. The dialogicrelationship
betweenChinesecultureas mediated
edge/power"bygrantingauthorityto variousproblemat- in
Granet'sworksandWesternintellectualhistoryduringthe2oth
ically fabricatedliteraryvoices fromthe "ThirdWorld" centuryseemsto have beenlargelyoverlooked.This hiatusstems
(includinghis own?) and by seeing in them the "really" in partfromthe dominanceof philologicalvalues amongSinologists,who have tended(at least in the Anglo-American
world)to
legitimatevoices of the "other."
What he refusesto take fullyinto account-to do so paylittleheedto Granet'sthoughtbecauseofhisviolationofstandardsofSinologicalscholarship,
andfroma moregeneralpenchant
would undermine the legitimacyof his endeavor-is
ofsomemodernWesternthinkers
forsupposingthatonlyourculthat when such voices are identifiedas those that em- tureis capableofimaginingsuch complexities(Sangreni987a, b;
body stratagemslike his, they are essentiallylike the Freedmani975) Despite the apparentrespectforothercultures
the mythical
hegemonicrhetoricof legitimacy,power,and authority apparentin defensesof "dialogical" ethnography,
of intellectualhistoryembodiedin these same dethat they claim to subvert; they thus reproducethe construction
fensesis one ofintellectualprogress
andadvancein theWest,with
3. For a trenchantcritiqueof Foucault'sown shiftinessin this
regard,
see Merquior(I985).
no significant"dialogic" recognitionof the contributionsof

"other"culturesto worldphilosophy(e.g.,Tyler I986; Marcus
i986a, b; et al.).
i986a; Marcusand FischerI986; Clifford

SANGREN
Rhetoricand theAuthorityof Ethnography| 407
tion that even thoughtexts cannot be trulydialogic or

polyphonic,theycan "evoke" dialog and polyphonyexpresses a desire,not a possibility.Can an anthropology
be groundedon the valorizingof "polyphony"and the
conscious eschewal of "totalizing" epistemologies?I
thinknot,and I shall attemptto defendthispositionnot
"logocentric"termsbut also by
only in straightforward
an analysis of the structureof the arguments,the
rhetoric,and the implicitappeals to authoritymade by
advocates of postmodemethnography.
To anticipate, I believe that I can show that the
rhetoricproclaimingthevirtuesofthe "new, experimental moment in ethnographicwriting"(even more than
most ofthe ethnographicwritingso labelled)reproduces
in formsmoreopaque and "mystifying"
thando manyof
the older formsit delegitimatesthe same strivingsfor
hegemony,power,and authoritythatit attributesto the
olderforms.My own rhetoricheremay seem overlycontentious,but I believe the argumentsI criticizesanction
this contentiousness.By makingthe rhetoricof authority in ethnographythe object of analysis, critics draw
attentionto theirown uses of rhetoric.Attemptsto inoculate their own texts against deconstructioninevitably ring hollow in such a context-e.g., Clifford's
(i986a:24) assertionthat "these textsdo not prophesy"
is a rhetoricalattemptto confrontpreciselythe factthat
theydo prophesy,and in the most extravagantterms.In
other words, a critic of criticismis as freeto employ
rhetoricin the deconstructionof rhetoric'sdeconstruction as are its deconstructors.The critics cannot authoritativelyset the rules or bound the contextsof discourse. As they ought to be the firstto acknowledge,
such
effortsare masked appropriationsof power,and I,
6. Forexample,Clifford
(i 983:1 34) notesthat"whileethnographies
cast as encountersbetween two individualsmay successfully forone, shall contesttheirlegitimacy.
and inof fieldwork
give-and-take
dramatizethe intersubjective,
My interestin taking up a defense of conventional
voices,theyremainrepreofauthoritative
troducea counterpoint
ethnographic
authority (but not necessarily convensentationsofdialogue."Yet he goeson to argue(p. 135), "Butifitis
albeit by somewhat unconventional
ethnography),
procedures,
fordialogicalportrayalsto escape typifying
difficult
degree,resistthepull towardauthorita- tional means, is more than an exercise in personal or
theycan, to a significant
of the other.This dependson theirability disciplinaryself-vindication,
tive representation
however.I believe thatthis
of the othervoice and to defensecan serveas an example ofhow a particularvarito maintainthe strangeness
fictionally
hold in view the specificcontingenciesof the exchange."It is
to see how this "solution"to the problemof authorial ety of "epistemologicaltotalizing"can be more "reflexdifficult
is anysolutionat all; it seemsto amountto an argument ively" enlighteningthan self-styleddialogic or "decenauthority
unpleasantfactthat tered" approaches. To this end, I shall argue that
formaskingat a deeperlevel the(forClifford)
In this anthropologicalanalysisofthe authorityofethnography
the writerinevitablyassumesa kindof textualauthority.
ofpossi- must
Habermas's(I976) attemptto definetheconditions
regard,
production
specifythe conditionsofethnography's
bilityof a criticaltheoryofmodemsocietytakeson muchmore
instituand
in
academic
society,
especially
reproduction
to
can
"pretend
thequestionofhowwe
andforthrightly
reflexively
stand above the fray,alooflyassessingthe discourseof others, tions,not just in texts.
no different Althoughsome ofthe writersdiscussedheremanifest
is butanotherinterpretation,
whenourinterpretation
ofthosewhosediscoursewe an awareness of this hiatus in their"reflexivity,"
in principlefromtheinterpretations
none
seek to assess" (Thompsoni984:I3) thando the postmodemists.
the
more
for
follows
to
examine
its
implications
through
explicitlya theoryofsocialevolutionin
He does thisbydefending
developa ambitiousof postmodemism'sclaims. For example,exprogressively
whichprocessesofsymbolicreproduction
He avoidsthe pressingwhat seems to me a less disingenuous"reflexivconceivedrationality.
potentialfora humanistically
relativismwithoutappealingdogmat- ity" than that displayed in some of the other essays,
excessesof postmodernist
andcritiqueofHaber- Rabinow notes that "it is still not clear whetherthe
Fora summary
icallyto scienceas authority.
mas's extensive writings,see Thompson (i984:255-302).
turn(an admittedlyvague label)
talks a deconstructive-semiotic
7. Rabinow(i986:244) notes in this regardthat"Clifford
establishing is a salutaryloosening up, an openingforexcitingnew
ofdialogue(thereby
greatdeal abouttheineluctability
as an 'open' one), but his textsare not themselves work of major import,or a tactic in the fieldof cultural
his authority
dialogic.They are writtenin a modifiedfreeindirectstyle.They politics to be understood primarily in sociological
convention'tone,while
evokean 'I was thereat theanthropology
a
maintaininga Flauberteanremove.BothGeertzand terms" (i986:242). He goes on to arguethat sociology
consistently
is
But
not even
knowing
of
anthropological
needed.
morethana deas anything
Clifford
failto use self-referentiality
Rabinow confrontsthe challengesany conceivablesuch
vice forestablishing
authority."
and its vaguely definedcalls to replace epistemological
"totalizing"with "polyphony"and "partiality,"the discipline had best rethink and perhaps defend its authority.
Let me be clear regardingmy intentionshere.It seems
to me that attentionto the locus of authorityin ethnographicwritingand cultural studies in generalhas had
and continuesto have a salutaryeffect.The disavowal of
epistemologyadvocated by Rorty (I979) and promulgated by many of the argumentsofferedin these two
books (e.g.,Rabinow I986) notwithstanding,
the issues
are essentially epistemological ones-what are the
philosophical bases for anthropologicalknowing? Of
course,knowingis not unrelatedto powerand authority.
Moreover,the ways in which knowledge,power, and
authorityare sociallyand culturallyreproducedare characteristicallymasked, opaque, and unconscious to actors. To some degree,all cultural systems-including
anthropology-are based on the delusion that, to use
Geertz's (I973) felicitous phrase, they are "uniquely
realistic."
"To some degree,"but to what degree?This seems to
me to be the crucialquestionthatthemanycontributors
to these discussions fail to confront.Cliffordasserts
(i986a:24) that "the authorsin this volume do not suggest that one culturalaccount is as good as any other,"
but he does not constructan explicitargumentspecifying the criteriafora "good account." Presumablygood
accounts are more polyphonicand dialogic,but as Cliffordhimself6points out, polyphonyand dialog are logically,to coin a term,untextable.7Tyler's (I986) conten-

408
| CURRENT
ANTHROPOLOGY
Volume 29, Number 3, JuneI988
sociologywould pose forthe basic claims made by proponentsofpostmodernethnography.

I believe thata preliminaryoutliningof some of the elements that must
entersuch a sociology of the productionand reproduction of ethnographies,criticismof ethnographies,and
criticismofthe criticswill serveto point out some serious deficienciesin the postmodemiststance.
Millennial Rhetoricand the Locus

of "Dialog"
There is a strikinglymillennial tone in some of the
rhetoric of recent meta-anthropology.Marcus and
Fischer (I986) repeatedlyannounce the currentcrisis
and imminentcollapse of "grandtheory"in anthropology.8Cliffordinformsus thatthe authorityoftraditional
ethnographicwritinghas crumbled(I 986a:2), thata new
"complex interdisciplinary
area" is emergingfromthe
"crisis in anthropology"(P. 3), and that "the essays in
thisvolume occupya new space openedup by the disintegrationof 'Man' as telos fora whole discipline" (P. 4).
(Anda new space foryoungacademics seekingto occupy
the higherpositions in the hierarchyof academia?) According to Marcus (i986:263), "the larger theoretical
project of twentieth-century
social and cultural anthropologyis in disarray."9In short,a new day is dawning not only in ethnographicwritingbut in cultural
studies in general.
It is, of course, a classic characteristicof millennial
movementsthat the presentorderbe strippedof legitimacy, oftenby definingit as rifewith corruptionand
decay. The old orderis exposed as unviable, immoral,
extinct;out with the old, in with the new! It is also a
characteristicof millennial ideologies that a legitimating "history"be constructedto explain why the old orderno longermakes sense and how thingshave come to
such straits.In this regard,Marcus and Fischer'sreconstructionsofthehistoryofanthropology
in the I96os are
millennialmyths.The efforts
ofanthropologists
priorto
the 196os were, in their view, "thoroughly delegitimated"when it became increasinglyapparent(because of the Vietnam War) that, "in purely analytic
terms[?],reducingthe richnessof social life,especially
conflict,to the notions of functionand systemequilibrium on which the Parsonian vision depended,proved
unsatisfactory"(I986: iI).
A surprisinglyconventionaland unidirectionalview
ofsocial theory's"causes" in recentsocial historyerupts
sporadicallythroughoutAnthropologyas Cultural Critique (e.g.,PP. 4I, 79, ii8, i22; see also Marcus I986a).
Clifford(i983: iI8) also assertsthat"the presentpredicamentis linkedto the breakupand redistribution
ofcolonial power in the decades after I950." The following
quotationfromMarcus (i986a: i67 n. 3) is illustrativeof
both this strategicallymythologized"history"and its
unselfconsciousassertion of a "privileged" (to borrow
fromthe rhetoricin question) status forMarcus and experimentalethnographers:
This move towardthe ethnographicin Americanacademic political economy ... is relatedto a widely
perceiveddecline ofthe post-WorldWar II intemational orderin which Americahas held a hegemonic
positionand to an underminingofthe Americanform
ofthe welfarestate itself.A sense ofprofoundtransition in the foundationsof domesticand intemational
reality,as seen fromthe Americanperspective,has in
tum been reflectedintellectuallyin a widespreadretreatfromtheoreticallycentralizedand organized
fieldsofknowledge.Goals oforganizingscholarly
practicein such diversefieldsas history,the social
sciences,literature,art,and architecturehave given
way to fragmentation
and a spiritofexperimentation
thataims to exploreways to evoke and representdiversityin social life.... Amongthe vehicles ofexperimentation,
precociousin relationto this trend,is
in anthropology.
ethnography
The assertionofa "widespreadretreatfromtheoretically
centralizedand organizedfieldsof knowledge" is itself
highlycontestable(e.g.,note Bourdieu'swidespreadinfluence in anthropology,not to mention Habermas's
even broaderaudience), but even if granted,the notion
that intellectualtrendsso mechanically"reflect"political economy betraysa ratherunreflectivetheoretical
"totalizing"at a macrosociologicaland -historicallevel
thatis inconsistentwiththe antipathyMarcus and other
postmodemists manifest toward "totalizing" theories
at the micro- (or "actor's-point-of-view")level (see
below). 1
In addition to a rather mechanistic and selfcontradictorysociological determinism,several essayists invoke an image of progressin the recenthistoryof
ideas-placing those arguedin the essays themselvesin
8. At thesame time,however,theyfrequently
appealto theirown io. Marcus's treatmentof the question of "unintendedconseauthority
as arbitersofgrandtheorygenerallyopaque to manyof quences"ofsocialactionmanifests
his lackofunderstanding
ofthe
theirreaders(e.g.,Foucault,Derrida,Bourdieu,et al.). In thisre- challengesattentionto suchconsequencesraisesforhisprivileging
gard,Fischer's(i986:229) assertionthatamongprominent
perspective
on culture.His solutionto
intellec- ofan actor's-point-of-view
thedialecticaltruismthatculturalsubtuals Levi-Straussand Derrida are the textual stylistsmost theproblemofreconciling
"pleasurableto read"and lackingin "pedanticlaboredness"is not jectsareboththeproductsand,collectively,thecreatorsofculture
and, one mighteven argue,individonlyamusingbut also a rhetoricof power;it communicatesthe with his phenomenological
message that what most readersfinddifficultthe writerfinds ualistintuitionsis pureexpediency:"theMarxistsystemimagery
remainsthe most convenientand comprehensive
pleasurable.
framework
for
9. Rabinow(i986:243) tempersthemillennialenthusiasmofsome embedding single-locale ethnographyin political economy"
of his colleagues,notingthat "the insightthat anthropologists (i986a:i69). Logicalcontradictions
are sanctionedby eschewalof
writeemploying
literary
conventions,
althoughinteresting,
is not "totalizing"ambition.I returnto these contradictions
in subsequentdiscussionofcultureas "text."
inherently
crisis-provoking."
Indeed!

SANGREN
the vanguard,of course (see, e.g., the turnof phrase in

Marcus and Fischer's assertionthat Parsonian "totalizing" has been historically [and scientifically?]"disproved"). Apparentlythe authors see no contradiction
between their positivistic, assertive, unargued, and
highly mythologized assessments of the historical
causes and intrinsicvalue of other social theoriesand
the case they make forrelativity,subtlety,dialog, and
pluralismin ethnographictreatmentsof the "other." I
believe this myopiais groundedin the millennialstructureof theirrhetoric;a peculiarlyreconstructedand deterministicview of the historyof anthropologyand social theoryis necessary to legitimate the hegemonic
position that theyattemptto constructforthemselves,
even thoughthe characteristicsofthathistoryare quite
positivisticand contradicttheircharacterizationsof the
natureofthe anthropologicalenterprisethatis to occupy
the new, theoreticallyand ethically "higher" ground.
This kindofself-contradictory,
logicallycircularmyopia
is no doubt a common characteristicof ideologybut especially strikingin a discourse which claims to make
"our taken-for-granted
ways recognizable as socioculturalconstructionsforwhich we can exerciseresponsibility"(Fischeri986:202)."
Several advocates of the "new moment" in ethnographymanifestan undisguisedself-consciousnessas belongingto an enlightenedvanguard,a groupof insiders
againstthewidercommunityofscholarswho have inexplicablyfailedto get the "news" that "[a] returnto earlier modes of unselfconsciousrepresentationis not a
coherentposition" (e.g., Rabinow i986:230). This selfconsciousness as possessors of a new truthis also characteristicof millennial thought.So, too, is the notion
that by some kind of rite of passage, the discipline of
anthropologymust be born again.12 Justas the proselytizers of the new experimentalethnographyhave been
transformed
and have transcendedthe misguidedviews
of theirgraduatetraining,so should the restof the profession. Clifford(iI986a:25) anticipates criticismslike
the present essay: "In the wake of semiotics, poststructuralism,hermeneutics,and deconstructionthere
has been considerabletalk about a returnto plain speaking and to realism. But to returnto realism one must
firsthave leftit!" He implieshere,in some contradiction
to the generalthrustofhis essay-e.g., that,"in cultural
studiesat least,we can no longerknow thewhole truth,
or even claim to approachit"-we can nonethelessre-
Rhetoricand the Authorityof Ethnography1409
turn to the high ground of "reality" if we have first

that
passed througha liminalperiodofunstructuredness
allows us laterto recapturea morerelativizedor contingentreality.
I shall returnpresentlyto the logic of this assertion.
WhatI wish to drawattentionto hereis the understated
millennialpromiseto "return"to the comfortsof order
bypassingthroughthe "space" ofchaos. Only afterhaving undergonesuch initiation does the anthropologist
acquire the right to speak (or write). This statement
amounts to a bold assertionof authoritythatthe reader
is encouragedto accept on faith.No argumentor analysis of the way this renewed"realism" relates to the deconstructivethrustof the rest of the argumentis provided. For example, again in response to anticipated
critics, Clifforddefends "literary,theoreticalreflexivity" againstthe chargethatit may constitutea "barrier
to the task ofwriting'grounded'or 'unified'culturaland
historicalstudies" by assertingthat"in practice... such
questionsdo not necessarilyinhibitthosewho entertain
them from producing truthful,realistic accounts"
(i986a:24-25).
There is sleight-of-handinvolved here; those who
have acquired the appropriateattitude (in practice by
invokingthe authenticatingdiscourseof appropriateintellectualdeities13)are empoweredto claim the authority of access to a realerrealityby means of denyingits
existence."Grounded" studiesmay be producedonlyby
those who have learned that there is, ultimately,no
ground.The structureof this kind of logic is once again
strikinglysimilar to that of millennial and other revealed faiths.
Let me shift"registers"here and confrontopenly an
aspectofmyown rhetoric.By equatingliterary,theoretical reflexivityof the sort claimed in these texts with
millennialideology(which,no matterhow dialogic,relativist, and reflexiveits analyst's rhetoric,never acquires ideological authorityin Westernacademic writing), I clearly intend to call the logic (and, hence,
legitimacy)ofthe formerinto question.In otherwords,I
admit that there may be a kind of rhetoricaltrickinvolved in constructinga parallel between ideological
justificationsfor the new, experimentalethnography
and a worldview so obviouslylackinglegitimacyin the
minds of conceivable readersof this argument.
But is this trick,deconstructingthe rhetoricof the
deconstructionof the rhetoricof anthropology,really
much different
fromthe deconstructionofconventional
ethnography
attemptedin the essays in question?Obviously, I think not; but in any case the comparisonof
with millennial ideologyis instrucmeta-anthropology
tive forother reasons as well. Most importantamong
these,in myview, is the relationshipbetweenauthority
and orderthat the comparisonsuggests.One need not
constructa literal "voice" forthe otherin ethnography
(in anyevent,as Marcus [I98 6a] notes,the claim to do so
i i. The assertionthatsomehowpostmodemism
assumesgreater
responsibility
for its productionsis not defended.Very much
counterto thespiritofpostmodernists
likeFoucault,whoseemsat
social or
times to eschew any formof responsibility-either
the
scientific-forhis productions,
Habermasdirectlyconfronts
philosophicaldifficulties
surrounding
the task of makingcritical
theorya liberating
projectin humanterms.
i2. Note thesimilarity
betweenthislogicandVictorTurner'sidea
is
thata periodofliminalsuspensionofstructure
("antistructure")
characteristic
of ritesof passage.I discussthe logicaldifficulties
in an I3. Note Clifford's
involvedin Turner's(e.g., 1974) notionof "antistructure"
(i986a:3) invocationofacademicluminariesto
analysisofChinesepilgrimages
(SangrenI987a; see also T. Turner no apparentpurposeotherthanto authorizeand locate his text
withintheiraura.
'977).

4IO
I CURRENT
ANTHROPOLOGY
Volume 29, Number 3, fune I988
is highlycontestableand can be seen as anotherformof decay, initiation,"decentered" chaos, and retum-are

authenticatingrhetoric)'4to engage in a dialogic rela- also foundin Chinese sectarianism.I believe that these
tionshipwith anotherculture.With this point in mind, themes are significantbecause in both cases they emlet me digressinto a dialogic considerationof aspects of body a veiled strivingforpower and transcendence.If I
heterodoxreligiousideologyin Chinese culture.
am correctin this regard,this strivingor desireis espeOne of the most interestingcharacteristicsof millen- cially ironic or, better,utopian (a fact that both Tyler
nial ideologyand sectariangroupsin China (e.g., Over- [I986] and Clifford[I983] admit but fail to confront
myer I976; Jordanand OvermyerI986; Sangren I983, fully)in the case of the advocates of experimentalethI987a; Naquin I976) is the way they upset, delegiti- nography'5because the rhetoricalrejectionofpowerand
mate,call into question,or invertconventionalChinese authoritybecomes the means by which power and aucosmologies. I have writtenelsewhere on the relation- thorityare acquiredand legitimated.Justas Rosaldo sees
ships between what I term heterodox and orthodox in the writingsof Le Roy Ladurie a case of invokingthe
structuresof value in Chinese thought(SangrenI987a). "will to truthin orderto suppressthe document'swill to
In brief,I argue that Chinese heterodoxies,although power" (I986:79), it is possible to perceivein the "will to
theyfrequently
call dominantsocial and culturalcatego- unmask the will to power" a displaced will to power
ries of "reality"into question,only make sense to Chi- verysimilarto that which it subverts.
nese (includingsectarians)as counterpointsto orthodox, Again, it is Rabinow who is most perceptiveof this
order-affirming
ideologies.
potentiality.Citing PierreBourdieu's studies of French
I also argue that despite the fact that Chinese education,he notes that "Bourdieuis particularlyattenheterodoxies(includingso-called philosophicalTaoism, tive to strategiesofculturalpowerthatadvance through
the White Lotus religion,and various formsof world- denyingtheir attachmentto immediate political ends
rejectingBuddhism)are philosophicallyinterestingand and therebyaccumulatebothsymboliccapital and 'high'
have played an importanthistorical role in China by structuralposition" (i986:252). Rabinow does not link
incorporating an element of skepticism in self- this observationdirectlyto argumentslike those adconsciously positivistConfucian institutions,they are vanced by Marcus, Fischer,and Clifford,
but the linkage
socially less robustpreciselybecause theycannotlegiti- seems inescapable.
mate any conceivable cultural or social order. They
In Chinese thought, one of the classic forms of
make social (as opposed to textual or philosophical) heterodoxskepticismis denial ofcategoricaldistinction.
sense only in opposition.
Taoism, forexample,was as aware ofthe inherentlyemOf course, much the same point is frequentlymade poweringactivityof dividingrealityinto categoriesas
with referenceto the deconstructivemovementin the are today's deconstructionistsconcernedover the "vioWest.Consequently,thiscomparisondrawsattentionto lence" enacted upon textuallycreated"others." I shall
the fact-the imaginativemythsconstructedby enthu- not go into the possible psychodynamics(perhapsunisiastic proponentsnotwithstanding
(Tyler's[I986] is es- versal)embodiedin what must be seen as a desirerecippeciallynotable)-that the discoverythatconceptualor- rocal to the "will to power" (call it utopianism,tranderingis a formofpower and authorityis not unique to scendence?);16 what concernsme here is the way even
the modem West, much less to postmodems.In other order-questioning
epistemologies (whetherthey admit
words,let us dispensewith the "authorizing"idea that
the "new moment" of order-questioning
is altogether 15. My proseis awkwardherein
partbecause despitethe impasnew. By the same token,althoughthe recentpopularity sionedarguments
forpostmodemor "polyphonic"ethnography,
it
of deconstructiverhetoricin academia may not be as- is definedas an ideal that could never be implementedin a
straightforward
practice(Tyleri986). This positionamountsto a
cribable to "fashion alone" (Marcus i986a:I66-67),
comparison with Chinese "similar differences"(con- formofmysticism.
I6. The natureof the connectionbetweenculturally
and socially
trasts between order-affirming
and order-questioning constituted
authority
and thepsychodynamics
ofindividualdesire
epistemologies)suggeststhatwe shouldnot conclude,as is one ofthegreatunresolvedproblemsofsocialtheory.Thatthere
Marcus seems to do, that deconstructiverhetoricbe- is such a connectionis clear,but attemptsto explicateit by,for
longs at the advanced end of some kind of progressive example,existentialpsychiatry(e.g.,Otto Rank,ErnestBecker,
RichardSennett)fallshortofexplainingculturaldifferences.
Nonedevelopmentof knowledgeand understanding.
theless,one mustadmitthattheproblematics
ofauthority,
order,
All the millennial elements foundin the rhetoricof and meaningmotivateindividualscholarsengagedin "cultural
is undoubtedlyalways
the "new, experimental moment in ethnography"- studies."At some level, self-vindication
involved(myownargument
obviouslynotwithstanding).
However,
thenatureofthepsychogenesis
ofargument
doesnotbeardirectly
on its intrinsicvalue. My own guessis thatthelogicoftherepro14. See also Rosaldo (i986), who points out how "Le Roy Ladurie
deploysthefalseethnographic
authority
ofpolyphony"
systemsdialecticallyencompasses
(p. 82) and ductionof social-cum-cultural
noteshowEvans-Pritchard's
"tale ofthefieldworker
as loneheroic thereproduction
of culturalsubjectsor "personalities."
The relavictimestablisheshis innocencefromcolonial dominationand tionshipmustbe somesortofmutualconstraint
broadlyanalogous
validateshis credentialsas a disinterested
scientist"(p. 93). Note to the relationshipsbetweenand among individualorganisms,
howeasilytheseinsightscanbe extendedtoreflect
uponthetaleof breedingpopulations,species,and ecosystems.It is thenatureof
anthropologists
as decentered
ofexperimental
or post- this"dialectic"thatmustbe thoughtthrough
facilitators
moreclearlybefore
modemethnographies
thatin effectestablishtheirinnocenceof studiesof"cultureandpersonality,"
of
the"culturalconstruction
thewill to powerandvalidatetheircredentials
as bothmoreintel- emotions,"or postmodernism's
claim to providea kindof social
ligentand moreethicalthanthoseoftherestoftheprofession.
psychotherapy
(e.g.,Fischeri986) can beginto makemuchsense.

SANGREN
to beingepistemologiesor not) are inevitablytumed toward legitimatingotherordersand authorities.Because

the contrastbetweenancientTaoist thoughtand Confucian hierarchy(e.g.,Mote I97I, SangrenI987a, Girardot
I983) is so well known,I shall focuson two otherexamples: theworshipofthe UnbornMothercharacteristicof
the White Lotus religionand many relatedcults in late
traditionalChina and still active in Taiwan (Sangren
I983, i987a; Overmyer I976; Jordanand Overmyer
I986; Naquin I976) and a case describedby Strickmann
(I978) centeringon the influenceof the I2th-century
Taoist adept Lin Ling-su on the Sung emperor Huitsung.
The term"Unbom Mother" or "EternalMother" (Wu
ShengLao Mu) refersexplicitlyto the Buddhistdoctrine
of rebirth.The deity is asserted to exist outside or beyond the cycle of karmic retributionand cosmological
hierarchy.ForChinese sectarians(forexample,members
of the I-kuan tao or "Unity" sect prominentin presentday Taiwan), the significanceof this transcendenceis
syncretic.The groupclaims to have directand exclusive
access to the unifying"way" (tao) that is the historical
source of all religiousknowledgethroughoutthe world,
including specifically Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism,as well as Christianityand Islam. All these
otherreligionsare subordinatedto I-kuantao byplacing
I-kuan tao at theirhistoricalorigin.'7
The UnbornMotheris more than an obvious attempt
to subordinate symbolically competing religious
ideologies and institutions,however. It also manages
both to capturethe legitimatingauthorityembodied in
orthodoxculturalorderings(e.g.,the state,family,traditional pantheon,etc.) and to satisfyan evidentdesireto
escape the unwantedconsequences of such orderingauthority(a will to "disorder" or "unpower"?). Historically, order-questioning
movementsin China have appealed to various categoriesof outsiders,oftenled by
scholars whose ambitionsin the imperialexamination
systemwere frustrated.Order,distinction,and hierarchy all applypower in the sense thatpoweris, in effect,
the activityof ordering.Anotherway to put this is that
power consists in the mediation of (or, to invoke currentlypopularbut mystifying
jargon,powerexistsin the
"space between") orderand disorder.Power,like authorityand order,is somethingbothdesiredand experienced
as oppressive.The UnbornMotheris at once an escape
frompower,authority,and orderand theirsource.
The Unborn Mother-unlike more unambiguously
Chinese symbolssuch as heaven (t'ien: a
order-affirming
kind of abstract orderingprinciple in high Confucian
philosophy),the emperor(heaven's mediator,the t'ientzu), and the JadeEmperor(Yii Huang Ta Ti: the Em17. Studyof the historyof Chinese philosophyand of Chinese
historyin generalis significantly
complicatedby the rhetorical
in
penchantofchroniclers
ofideas andeventsforseekingauthority
conthe past. The authorityof competitors
was thusfrequently
testedbydiscovering
an authority
moreancientthantheone they
invoked.In thisrespect,Chinesesectarianism
employsa rhetoric
ofauthority
pervasivein Chineseculture(Sangrenn.d.b).
Rhetoricand the Authorityof EthnographyI 4II
perorofHeaven)-is not at the top ofhierarchicalorder(ings) but outside them. But a kind of ideological
shiftinessallows this "outside" to be read "above" when
contextmakes this desirable.Thus, one ofthe appeals of
the symbol is that it gives worshippersa more direct,
unmediatedaccess to power (definedas the mediationof
orderand disorder)than do more orthodoxorderings'8
but at the same time allows them to affecta detached,
uncommittedstance relative to more entrenched,orthodoxorderings.
A similar uncommittedstance is occupied by postmodernistcritics. Clifford(I983:I37), forexample, invokes Bakhtin:
ForBakhtin,preoccupiedwith the representation
of
non-homogeneouswholes, thereare no integrated
culturalworldsor languages.All attemptsto posit
such abstractunities are constructsofmonological
power.A "culture" is, concretely,an open-ended,creative dialogue ofsubcultures,ofinsidersand outsiders,ofdiversefactions;a "language" is the interplay
and struggleofregionaldialects,professionaljargons,
genericcommonplaces,the speech ofdifferent
age
groups,individualsand so forth.
Even thoughCliffordrecognizesthatrhetoricalattempts
to textualizethis "polyphony"are still "representations
ofdialogue" (p. I34),he maintainsthatethnographicauthorityought to depend on an "ability fictionallyto
maintainthe strangenessof the othervoice and to hold
in view the specificcontingenciesof the exchange" (p.
I35). To justifythis as a possibility,he again invokes
Bakhtin,who, in Clifford'sview, "discovers a utopian
textual space where discursivecomplexity,the dialogical interplayofvoices, can be accommodated."Like the
UnbornMother,thisutopianspace is claimed to subvert
the notion of totalizingordereven thoughits own textual constructionis itselfan orderingand empowering
totalization.
I believe Bakhtinand manycriticsof anthropology
interestedin textual authorityconflateauthorityin texts
with authorityin society.The formercertainlyplays a
role in theproductionand reproductionofthe latter,but
if "textual" authoritywere as efficaciousas some literary criticsimply,writerswould be kings.Viewing textual authorityas centralto authorityin generalclearly
commends itself to literarycritics in part because it
places the deconstructionofsuch authorityat the center
ofpolitical and social action. In otherwords,by making
textualauthoritystandforculturalauthorityin general,
the literarycritic,as fabricatorand deconstructor
ofthat
authority,places him-/herselfin a position of transcendentpower-if not that of a king,at least that of a
high priest.Althoughthis appropriationof power may
be socially effectivein academic institutions-Writing
in this
I8. The femalenessof the UnbornMotheris important
is
:order:disorder:yang:yin
regard. The contrast male:female:
pervasivenot onlyin culturalcategoriesbutin Chinesesocial institutionsrangingfromsystemsofmarriageand familyorganizationto the state(SangrenI983, i987a).

4I2 | CURRENT
ANTHROPOLOGY
Culturemaybe takenas evidenceofthisphenomenonsuch authoritydoes not seriouslythreatenotherways of

constitutingand reproducingauthorityin society as a
whole.
At the beginningof this essay I referred
to Said's association of the Orientalists'authorial constructionof a
textuallydominated"other" with colonial domination.
Historically,such an association clearlyexists,and one
can even arguethatcolonial dominationwas a necessary
conditionforOrientalism.However, as I noted above,
this observationobscures the fact that Orientalismis
not onlya productofor legitimatorforcolonial domination. Whatever"authority"is created in a text has its
most directsocial effectnot in the worldofpoliticaland
economic domination of the Third World by colonial
and neocolonial powersbut in the academic institutions
in which its authorparticipates.
I shall considerthe effectof this more immediatesocial context on the reproductionof ethnographictexts
and authorityin a later section; what I wish to draw
attentionto here is that whateverits othercharacteristics, this social context has been and continues to be
"dialogic." (The implications of Geertz's [I973]and
Boon's [I983] argumentsto this end are not fullyrecognized by Clifford,Marcus, Fischer,and Tylerin this regard.)One need not createa utopianspace in a particular
textforfictionalizedpolyphonyor dialog; whateverreal
dialogexistsexistsin thesocial processesofcompetition
and reproductionof such texts (i.e., in the ways criticism,careers,academic promotions,etc.,combineto encourage or discourage deeper understandingsof exotic
societiesand cultures)as much as in thefieldworksituation. Moreover,whatever"authority"is constructedinheres in this social processmuch more than in the constructionofan authorialvoice overa dominated"other"
in a text.Writerslike.Cliffordand Said make too much
of this lattersort of authority,and this leads them not
only to a lack of attentionto the largercontexts (of
which fieldworkis onlyone part)withinwhich the various "authorities"constructedin individualtextsare authoritatively
judged but also to a lack of reflexivity
regardingtheirown location in such a context.
Consider in this regardthe case of Lin Ling-suas a
contributionto a culturally"dialogic" critiqueof postmodernist criticism. Strickmann's (I978) account of
how the Taoist Lin acquired dominantinfluencewith
the Sungemperorbymeans ofa creativerestructuring
of
the Chinese cosmos is a fascinatingexample of the social/historicalprocess by which Taoist skepticismand
speculationregardingthe origins,operations,and "reality" of orderbecame more closely identifiedwith the
values of the state (e.g.,
unambiguouslyorder-affirming
GirardotI983). Yet the rhetoric(in the formof the constructionof a cosmologicalreordering)
employedto this
end bears a notable resemblance to that developed in
more recent millennial cults focused on the Unborn
Mother.Accordingto Strickmann(I978:336-37), Lin
was obsessed with a regionofthe heavens,or beyond
the heavens,called Shen-hsiao.It was centraland supremeamong the Nine Empyreans(chiuhsiao), and
its spirit-administrators
controlledthe furthest
reachesofspace. Hence the other,olderTaoist orders,
thatderivedtheirauthorityfromone or anotherof
the lesser celestial palaces, were all logicallysubordinate to Shen-hsiao.What is more,Lin was able to
demonstratethe relevanceofhis revelationto the
currentsecular regime.In Hui-tsunghe recognized
the JadeEmperor'selderson, the GreatLordofLong
Life,Sovereignof Shen-hsiao.19
Thus, as in the case of the Unbom Mother,a symbolic
"/space"is assertedto transcend(temporallyas well as
spatially)otherorderings.20
The foregoingcharacterizationsof Chinese orderings
are consistentwith a more detailed analysis of Chinese
notionsoforderand powerimplicitin ritualand cosmology (SangrenI987a). In my view, the Chinese construction of the logic of relations among power, order,and
authorityprovidesa usefulperspectiveforanalyzingthe
uses ofdeconstructiverhetoricin currentWestem intellectual discourse.I shall not attemptan elaborateargumentto thiseffecthere.To reiteratemypoint,an analysis of this type can constitute a more truly dialogic
method than those that invoke the authorityof the
"other's voice" per se, even thoughthe authorityI invoke is still "logocentric," Westem, and-broadlyscientific.
Both the Unbom Mother and Shen-hsiao are transcendentsymbolsthat at once appropriatethe ordering
power of conventional, orthodox, or preexisting
ideologiesand, by the same rhetoric,usurptheirauthority.The "space" theyoccupyis analogous to the "space"
createdforpostmodemethnography
in therhetoricofits
proponents.As Tyler (I986) notes, this "space" cannot
possiblyexist exceptas an ideal. What he does not note,
however,is that it must nonethelessbe constructedin
orderto legitimatethe metaethnography
of its proponents and at the same time to appropriatethe authority
of conventionalethnography.(It is noteworthyin this
regardthat the quantityof publication discussing the
over the
i9. Justas Lin discovereda new heaven transcendent
heavensinvokedby earlierTaoists,so do intellectualscommonly
findin the writingsof obscureand overlookedscholarstheideas
thatenablethemto outflankmoretraditional
authorities
and the
present-day
scholarswho invokethem(notetherecentpopularity
ofBakhtin).
2o. The emperorHui-tsungsubsequently
initiatedan activeantiBuddhistpolicy. However,unlike earlierT'ang emperors,Huitsungdid notforceBuddhistmonksand nunsto returnto laylife.
Instead,"a more subtleand thoroughgoing
sinification
could be
effectedsimplyby purging[Buddhism]of its more conspicuous
remaining
alienelements,includingall theterminology
thatmaintained its separate identitywithin the state" (Strickmann
byrequiring
a "rectification"
of
I978:347). This was accomplished
namesconsistentwithLin's reconstructed
cosmology:"As Taoist
priestswere called tao-shih,'scholars of the Tao,' henceforth
monkswereto be called by the complementary
title'scholarsof
virtue'(te-shih);theywereto be knownbytheirsecularnamesand
to adopt Taoist garband hair style.The historicalBuddhawas
termed'GoldenImmortalofthe GreatAwakening,'
Arhatsstyled
'immortals,'
Bodhisattvas'greatones' (ta-shih)."This case brings
to mind the substitutionof Marxisttermssuch as "relationsof
production"
for"social structure"
(orof"discourse"for"culture")
in ethnographies
thatare otherwiseverysimilar.

SANGREN
characteristicsor ideals of postmodern ethnography

seems to exceed the quantityofsuch ethnographicwriting itself.)
In sum,thefabricationofa "decentered"centerallows
postmoderniststo appropriatethe "partial" truthsof
predecessors,even when these "truths"are logicallyirreconcilablewith the rhetoricby which theyhave been
appropriated(see, e.g.,Marcus's appropriationofMarxist
approachesto political economyas "background"to the
"literary/semiotic,""symbolic," and "experiential"
rhetoricwith which he is more at home).
Althoughargumentslike Clifford's,
Marcus's, and Tyler's grantother approaches or epistemologiesa proximate or partial legitimacy (encompassed within the
negative assertion of an encompassing epistemology),
this eclecticism or pluralism-like Hui-tsung'sappropriationand hierarchicalreordering
ofBuddhistthought
(see n. 2o) and institutions-is misleading.As the sectarian constructsa space both "beyond" and "above" conventionalorderings,postmodernethnography
places its
proponentsin a privilegedposition relativeto contending viewpoints throughthe stratagemof denyingthe
legitimacyof such privileges.
Other Rhetoricsof Power

An unacknowledged(hence masked) desireforpower is
also evidentin otherrhetoricaltechniquesemployedby
advocatesofpostmodemor experimentalethnography.
I
have alluded to some of these above. One of the most
effective
amountsto a kindofdemonology.The creation
of the category"postmodern"itselfnecessarilycreates
an "other." Yet despite theirinvocationof writerslike
Derridaand Foucault, the advocates of postmodernethnographyare surprisinglyunreflexiveabout their own
rhetoricofpower in this regard.In seekingto inoculate
his argumentagainst the same rhetoricaltechniques
it employs, Clifford,for example, unselfconsciously
indulges in creating such a demonic other (i986a:7):
"Ethnographic truths are thus inherentlypartialcommittedand incomplete. This point is now widely
asserted-and resistedat strategicpoints by those who
fearthe collapse of clear standardsof verification.But
once acceptedand built into ethnographicart,a rigorous
sense of partialitycan be a source of representational
tact." Those who do not submit to Clifford'sargument
are rhetorically
groupedin a categoryofunselfconscious,
totalizingpositivists.It goes withoutsayingthat a few
anthropologistslike to think of themselves in such
terms.Masked in this statement,however,is the unargued assertionthatthose who believe thatthereexistsa
social and culturalrealityabout which ethnography
aspires to communicate "truths" are so deluded as to
thinkthattheirattemptsto communicatethattruthare
identicalto it. Few anthropologists,
even amongthoseof
quite self-consciouslypositivistleanings,reallybelong
in such a category.By drawingthe line betweeninsiders
and outsiders as he does, however, Cliffordmakes a
rhetoricallyconvincingcase thatis at once a creationof
authorial power and an argument that masks or
ofEthnography
Rhetoricand theAuthority
I 4I3
mystifiesits own logical flaws and will to power (see

also Marcus and Cushman's [i982:58] contrastbetween
"sophisticated"ethnographers
and "realists"who insist
on "absolutist" standards).
It is ironic that Cliffordemploys the rhetoricaltechnique of creatinga problematicallydefinedother,because he also employsthe techniqueof subvertingsuch
distinctions.To returnto the precedingquotation,Cliffordcertainlydoes not intendto imply that those (we)
who accept the "partial" (in my view, a bettertermis
"contingent") character of ethnographicdescription
must also wish to abandon "clear standards of
verification"(althoughhe remains vague regardingthe
possibilityof definingthese). Indeed, he explicitlyemploysthe techniqueofdenyingsuch an unwarrantedcreation of this other"other," "we."
In sum, Cliffordboth employs the technique of fabricatinga mystifying
"other" where it suits his rhetorical purposes and demystifiessuch fabricationsas another rhetorical step in the fabricationof his own
authority.Rhetoricaside (which is, of course,impossible), it is entirelypossible, indeed it is the dominant
stance in cultural anthropology,
to accept the inherent
limits of ethnographictexts to "represent"reality(and
especiallyany realityfromanother'spoint of view) and
simultaneouslyto claim that there are such realities.
Perhaps Cliffordwould not contest this assertion,but
the rhetoricofhis text,in its own masked way, depends
on its denial.
A relatedrhetoricaltechnique,clearestonce again in
Clifford's
prose,is the attemptto cooptimaginedcontestantsby definingone's positionas essentiallyincontestable. The rhetoricalfabricationof the contestantas demonic otherattemptsin advance to discouragereaders
fromcontesting.One way this is accomplishedis by a
straightforward
assertionthatmanyofthelegitimateobjections that come most readilyto mind are beside the
point (e.g., "The authorsin this volume do not suggest
thatone culturalaccount is as good as any other.Ifthey
a relativism,they
espoused so trivial and self-refuting
would not have gone to the troubleof writingdetailed,
committed, critical studies" [Clifford i986a:241).21
Rhetoricalflourishessuch as thefrequentusage ofterms
like "detailed, committed" and, in related contexts,
"rigorouspartiality"(oxymoronic?)and "more subtle,
findit neces2i. The factthatmanyadvocatesofpostmodemism
saryto disavowexplicitlyand frequently
a total departure
from
"standards"while at the same timeespousingpolyphony,
decenteredness,
andutopianspaces(whichsomehowsubstitute
forsuch
standardsby denyingtheirpossibility)is similarto the frequent
proclamations
ofallegianceto filialpietyone findsin thepublications and pronouncementsof heterodoxChinese sects. Even
thoughsectarianiconography
and ideologyunderminethe philosophicalfoundationsof hierarchicalorderingsthat are, in tum,
basic to filialpiety,thisimplicationis explicitlydenied.I believe
that such denials are necessaryto assureboth sectariansthemselves and suspiciousauthoritiesthat,despiteappearances,heterodoxideologiesdo not challengeordercategorically-inother
words,thatthepromiseofutopiansubversion
oforderas a means
into directaccess to celestialpowerunmediatedbyhierarchical
stitutions
can be reconciledwithfilialpiety,eventhoughlogically
it cannot.Not eventhe sectarianscan forgothepleasuresoforder
entirely.

4I4
1 CURRENT
ANTHROPOLOGY
concrete"applied to the efforts

ofthe in-groupsimilarly
substituteassertionforargument.In the lattercase, the
assertionis accompanied by the implicationthat Clifford'skindofethnography
will lead to "new conceptions
of culture as interactiveand historical" (i986a:25) as
thoughcontestantscould not lay claim to similarambitions and even accomplishments.
In anotherpassage (p. 2o) Cliffordwrites,"If thereis a
common resistanceto the recognitionof allegory,a fear
thatit leads to a nihilismofreading,thisis not a realistic
fear.It confusescontestsformeaningwithdisorder.And
oftenit reflectsa wish to preservean 'objective'rhetoric,
refusingto locate its own mode of productionwithin
inventivecultureand historicalchange."In thispassage,
the imagined contestantis psychoanalyzedas an authoritarianpersonalityneuroticallyattachedto a reified
order.Yet the passage betraysits author's own will to
powerby attemptingto (allow me anotherpostmodemistic neologism) disenvoice its fabricatedcontestants.
Viewed in this light,one wonderswho, indeed, is the
more fearfulof contest.
Employinga similar rhetoric,Marcus calls fora new
"modernistformof the essay" that (i986a:i9i)
opposes conventionalsystematicanalysis,absolves
the writerfromhavingto developthe broaderimplications ofhis thought(whilenonethelessindicating
thatthereare such implications)or ofhavingto tie
loose ends together.The essayistcan mystifythe
world,leave his subjects' actions open-endedas to
theirglobal implications,froma rhetoricalpostureof
profoundhalf-understanding,
half-bewilderment
with
the worldin which the ethnographicsubjectand the
live. This is thus a formwell suitedto a
ethnographer
time such as the present,when paradigmsare in disarray,problemsintractable,and phenomenaonly
partlyunderstood.It is finallya hedgeon the holistic
The
commitmentsofanthropologicalethnography.
open-endedmysteryofphenomenapartlyexplained
is an
("thereare always alternativeinterpretations")
essentialfeatureofthe rhetoricofthe experimental
which can be
posture.Unlike realistethnography,
backgroundedwhen the textsquarelyaddressesgreat
events,the modernistethnographicessay grapples
with the textualproblemofhow the worldis to serve
as backdroponce conventionaltechniquesofrealistic
are ruledout.
representation
withoutbearingresponsibilityfordefendingone's positions; and an openlyacknowledgedfreedomto engagein

mystificationand creative self-empowering
fabrication
unaccountableto any challengeoflogic or factis simultaneouslyand summarilyappropriatedforexperimental
writersand denied to totalizing"others."
In a recentcritiqueof what he terms"theoreticism,"
Crews (I 986: 38) notes a widespreadtendencyin intellectual circles "towardpositingineluctableconstraintson
theperceptionsand adaptabilityofeveryonebut thetheorist himself." Such "theoreticism,"Crews argues, is
characterizedby "a refusalto creditone's audience with
the right to challenge one's ideas on dispassionate
grounds."In a similarvein,Asad's contributionto Writing Culture argues that "in orderforcriticismto be responsible,it must always be addressedto someone who
can contest it" (I986:I56). But if conceivable contestantsare rhetoricallystrippedof legitimacyin advance,
can one thus conclude that postmoderncriticismlike
Marcus's and Clifford'sis irresponsible?
The obviousanswer to this rhetoricalquestion is yes. Asad's critical
gaze is turnedtowardconventionalethnography,
but his
insight seems to me equally relevant to some of the
rhetoricemployed by Clifford,Marcus, Fischer,Pratt,
and Tyler in the same volume.
Social Reproductionand "Texts"

The logic of the productionand reproductionof textsis
not identical to the logic of social and culturalproduction and reproductionas a whole. One of the shortcomings of postmoderncriticismis its ambiguityon precisely this point. I believe it is importantto elaboratea
pointtouchedupon earlier;theways in whichauthority,
legitimacy,and power are constructedin texts do not
providean exhaustivemodel forthe ways in which they
are constructedin society. Culture and societyencompass texts; logically and empiricallythe latterare contained withinthe former.Nonetheless,texts(including
mythologies,rituals,performances,
etc.) are in some importantrespectsfreedofthematerialconditions(production, life and death, reproduction,competition with
othersocieties,the "world system,"etc.) thatconstrain
formsof social reproduction.So, too, is the native's or
actor's point of view in some respects "free" to misunderstandboththenatureofsocial reproductionand its
own encompassment within social reproduction.Indeed, ideology may be definedas the aspect of social
reproductionthat systematicallyand inescapably embodies and reproducessuch misunderstanding.22
This statementis a noteworthyexample of how postmodernismdelegitimatescontestin advance byeschewingorderwhile retainingforitselfthe rightto juxtapose,
suggest,"evoke" order.This amountsto a kindofdesire
forauthoritywithoutresponsibility.
Moreover,it seems
"totalizing"perspective
to me that the quotation reveals perhapsmore than it 22. This summaryofan unapologetically
on ideologyas a dimensionof social reproduction
is necessarily
intendsto regardingthe verypracticaladvantagesofthe assertiveand condensed.The academicliteratureon the topicis
stance forthose engagedin academic careers:"space" is vast,and,postmodemistcharacterizations
ofthe presentstateof
thereis no lack of synthesizing
createdforyoung scholars by rulingout the validityof such literaturenotwithstanding,
earlierscholarship(andthosewho practiceit); one is free and "totalizing"perspectivein it. The worksof Habermasand
have alreadybeen notedin this regard.For two useful
to experimentand to criticize,delegitimate,demystify, Bourdieu
summaries, see Thompson (I984) and Merquior (I979). Merquior's
deconstruct,explode, subvert,transgress,etc., any sort (I985) critiqueofFoucault,a postmodemist
heroifevertherewas
of "other,"real or fabricated,that suits one's purposes, one,parallelsin broadercontextsomeofthearguments
raisedhere.

SANGREN
Materialand logical constraintsexercisean inexorable

disciplineon structuresofsocial reproduction.One need
not declare allegiance to a specificmodel of the workingsoftheseconstraintsto admitthelogical necessityof
theirefficacy.23
Allow me to employa rhetoricaldevice
borrowedfromClifford(i986a:24) in this regardby reconstitutinghis invertednegation: To argue that the
materialand logical conditionsof social and culturalreproduction are the contexts in which authorityand
powerare also reproduceddoes not mean thatthe analysis of cultureand meaning devolves to a kind of scientisticreductionism.Neitherdoes it mean thattheworld
as understood"fromthe actor's (or analyst's) point of
view" can be disregarded.Moreover,"texts"-including
ethnographies,critiquesof ethnographies,and critiques
of critiquesof ethnographies-are importantarenas for
contestingauthority,legitimacy,and power. They are
not, however,the only arenas, nor are they ultimately
the logicallyand empiricallyencompassingones. If one
is to lay claim to making "our taken-for-granted
ways
recognizable as sociocultural constructions" (Fischer
i986:202), the ways in which such collectiverepresentations are reproducedin societymust be addressed.
Order-constructing
ideologies inevitablyasserta kind
of power. Yet this assertion of power is opaque or
masked to thosewho assertit because to recognizeorder
as an assertionis to undermineits "reality" and, thus,
its legitimacy.In otherwords,all ofour constructionsof
reality(inevitablyordered,whetherwe admit it or not)
manifestto some degreea kind of circularity;the order
we constructmust be asserted to inhere in something
otherthan our constructionof it. Tyler (i986) invokes
G6del's famous proofto the effectthat no system of
logic can prove its own postulates. Nonetheless, the
legitimacyof authorityand social institutionsrests on
the assumptionthat such proofis possible.
Recent deconstructiveimpulses in Westernacademic
circlesseem in partan attemptto escape this "paradox."
In my view, the insightsgeneratedby such attemptsare
most useful precisely in deconstructingideological
maskingin "others'" constructionsof order.However,
when the insightthat all orderingsare in a sense delusions is expandedto encompassthe "author/other"
relationship inescapably embodied in texts and science, a
conflationoflogical typesresultsand generatesthe kind
ofinfinitelyrecursiveself-referentiality-indeed,
a kind
of logical insanity-that characterizes so many selfconsciously"reflexive"writings.
But the "truths"embodiedin such deconstructiveinsightsare themselvesencompassedbythe largertruthof
social reality.Arguingthat social reality(as opposed to
our attempts to "represent" or "evoke" it) is an
ideologized delusion conflates the aggregate "unintendedconsequences" of individuals' social action (i.e.,
society) with the "actor's point of view." It also conflates society's necessarily ideologized and system-
ofEthnography
I 4I5
atically incorrectview of itselfwith the actual operations of social reproduction.

Logically and empirically,ideology is a "necessarily
and systematically"incorrectview of society because
the legitimacyof social institutionsand cultural constructionsof order(united dialecticallywithinthe process of social reproduction)depends upon denial of the
social and culturalgenesis of thatorder(SangrenI987a,
Merquior I979). Ideologyas a social phenomenonis not
reducibleto any actor's or aggregateof actors' point of
view; it is part of a dialectical process of material and
symbolicrelationsofsocial reproduction.It is necessary
to maintaina proximatelogical distinctionbetweenanalyst(author)and object (other,society)in orderto effect
any kind of demystification,
postmodernistdesires to
the contrarynotwithstanding.To imply otherwise is
both mystifying
in itselfand a shirkingof the responsibilitiesof authorship.
In lightofthe foregoingassertions,it seems to me that
a "paradox" in ethnographicwritingidentifiedby its
criticsis reallyno paradox at all. Accordingto Marcus
and Cushman (i982:45), forexample,thereis a
clash oftwo kinds ofrhetoricin any experimental
ethnography-thatwhich attemptsto close offan account neatlywith a satisfyingself-containedexplanation (whichis what readersexpectofanthropologyas
social science),and thatwhich leaves the worldobservedas open-ended,ambiguous,and in flux(which
mightbe disturbingto readers,but is in partthe goal
or point ofmany experiments).
Here, the levels of experienceand cultural and social

reproductionare opposed as thoughtheywere alternative theoriesat the same level of contrast.However,if
one adopts the point of view outlined above, this
"paradox" disappears. Individuals' perceptions of the
world are encompassed within the world,but they do
not exhaustthe worldwithinwhich individualslive. Of
course, individuals' perceptionsdo play an important
role in that encompassingworld's reproduction,but individuals' misunderstandingsof the operationsof that
largerworld (includingthe place of their own understandingwithinit) must be takeninto account as partof
the dialectical process that systematicallyreproduces
boththose misunderstandings
and the encompassingsocial/culturalworld.
None of the foregoingshould be taken to deny that
ethnographyparticipatesin the productionand reproduction of ideological mystification.Of course it does!
And in this respect,ethnographies,metaethnographies,
and critiques of metaethnographies,on the one hand,
and cosmologiesthatconstructorder-affirming
heavens,
order-questioning metaheavens, and encompassing
meta-metaheavens,on the other,are all freeto engagein
a kind of logical speculationthat can play an important
role in the social production and reproduction(and
offormsofpower,authority,and value.
transformation)
23. In his polemicagainstvariouseconomisticand materialistic
Adversaries
skilled
in the rhetoricof deconstruction,
material
notion
of
the
even Sahlins(I976) invokes
reductionisms,
philosophy,or cosmology(Westernor exotic) are probaon culturalforms.
constraints

4I6 | CURRENT
ANTHROPOLOGY
Volume 29, Number 3, June1988
bly capable of creatingnew meta-positionsthat subvert the individualthat entersthe postmodernistrhetoricas

the authorityof any logically constructedposition,in- a masked,hence, ideological assumption.
cludingthe position that all such meta-positionsare illusory.In this regard,texts,the politicsoflanguage,and
academic debates resemblea game of go on a conceptually infiniteand multidimensionalboard; no captured The Native's Point of View
"space" is ultimatelyimpregnable.
and Individualism
But society is not a text,academic debate, imagined
cosmology,or game of go, even thoughit encompasses In brief,the assertionthat totalizingtheoreticalstances
and produces them all and bears some logical resem- are scientistichinges on the erroneousassertion that
blances to them. If society were a text,then the post- conventionalethnography
claims to representexotic somodernistpolemic againsttotalizingrhetoricsmightbe cieties fromthe native's point of view. I suspect thatin
more convincing. But society and culture are self- this respect the critics are projectingtheirown legitireproducinginstitutionsand collective representations, mate desireto constructrepresentationsofnativeviewand it is the material and logical propertyof any self- points (note the association of postmodernistswith
reproducingsystem that it be systemic. This sys- areas ofanthropologicalinquirylike "ethnography
ofextemicnessis thusnot (or,at least,not only)a characteris- perience" [e.g.,Marcus and Fischeri986:62-63, 82] and
tic of the "totalizing" ambition of a power-desiring the "culture of emotions") and theirfrustration
at the
analyst but a condition of existence of the dialectical logical difficulty
ofclaimingto do so. One thus detectsa
process thatis society/culture.
Of course,the "system" kindoflove/haterelationshipwiththe endeavorin their
embodied in any ethnographictext may mystifysuch criticalwritings.
desireon the partof the text'sproducer(as Bakhtinand
Marcus and Cushman, for example, argue that "the
Cliffordassert),but this is a propertyoftexts,theirwrit- exclusion of individual charactersfromthe realist ethers,and the relationshipsbetweenthem,not of society/ nographyprobablyaccounts,morethan any othersingle
culture. In sum, texts and people may be freeto con- factor,for the dry, unreadable tone of such texts"
struct illogical, oxymoronic,and infinitelyregressive (i982:32), and in anotherpassage (P. 32) theyarguethat
epistemicutopias (and hells), and ideologiesmay be sys- "because of the overwhelmingconcern of early antematicallymystifying,
but societies are not.
thropologiststo establish cultureor society as a legitiConsequently,pointingout the "will to power" in the mate focus forinquiry,the existence of the individual
rhetoricof ethnography,as in Rosaldo's analysis of was usually suppressed in professional ethnographic
Evans-Pritchard's
Nuer,is a usefulexercisein the analy- writing.In his place was substituteda composite cresis ofWesternideology,but it does not in itselfdiminish ation, the normativerole model or national character."
the authorityofEvans-Pritchard's
totalizingportrayalof Yet they also criticize "the realist ethnographicacNuer life. To imply that it does is to conflate"logical count" forbeing "almost dogmaticallydedicatedto pretypes"in the broadsense arguedby GregoryBateson. In sentingmaterial as if it were, or faithfully
represented,
otherwords,ideologicalmaskingin the languageof eth- the point of view of its culturalsubjectsratherthan its
nographyis an aspect of an ethnographer'sculture; to own cultureof reference"(p. 34).
The identificationof "realist" ethnographywith the
discoverideologyin texts,however,does not mean that
the argumentsthey embody are incorrect.To delegiti- claim to representnative experience is unwarranted.
mate Evans-Pritchard's
portrayalsofthe Nuer,one must Bateson, chided forhis "scientism," would have been
still show not onlythathis ethnography
embodiesa will unlikelyto claim to representa native'spointofview in
to powerbut thathe was wrongabout Nuer cultureand his ethnographyof the Iatmul. PerhapsMargaretMead
society(we can neverlegitimatelyclaim access, as Clif- and BronislawMalinowski claimed to representnative
fordpointsout [I983:I30], to Nuer"experience").
views, but few "realist" ethnographerstoday would be
so naive. These passages also imply that "realist" ethIn making this argument,I am open to the chargeof nographiesinevitablyposit a "modal personality"or
"scientism" or "positivism" that,forexample, Marcus "national character"in lieu of real individuals.In this
(i986a:i92) levels at Bateson(i958[I9361) (particularlyregard,the "realist" ethnographyseems to be a fabmisplaced given Bateson's [I972] own more convincing ricationforrhetoricalpurposes.Marcus and Cushman's
polemic againstscientismin theintroductionto Steps to assertions regardingthe assumptions of "realist" ethan Ecology of Mind). But it seems to me thatBateson's nographycertainlydo not describe accuratelymany of
effortsat framinghis ethnographyin multiplecontexts the recentlypublished ethnographiesthatI have read.
while maintainingan explicit allegiance to scientific
The assertionthat "realist" ethnography
must relyon
totalizingare logicallymore robustas well as more re- such obviouslyproblematicassumptionsseems to stem
flexive than what Marcus (i985) offersas alternative. fromthe particularkind of anthropologyidentifiedby
Identifyingscientism with totalizing perspectivesin the criticsas "sophisticated."For example, Cliffordasethnographic
writingseriouslymisconstruesthegoals of sertsthat"sophisticated"anthropology,
followingin the
traditionalethnography
and stemsfroma profoundmis- footstepsof Dilthey, Ricoeur,and Geertz,is thatwhich
understandingof the relationshipbetween culture and views "culture as an assemblage of texts to be inter-

SANGREN
ofEthnography
and theAuthority
Rhetoric
I 4I7
preted"(i983:I30).
I havealreadyarguedthattheconfla- There appearto be as manyideologicalradicalsdoing

interpretive
anthropologyas thereare doingpoliticaltion of cultureand text is misleading.It is this conflaeconomystudies,and as manyconservativesand rotion that leads postmodernistcritics to assume that
manticson each side as well.
ethnographyis and ought to be representationof the
experienceof the other,even if such representationis These quotations are importantbecause they reveal
impossible.Since theyassume thatthis is what ethnog- what I believe are critical flaws in the agenda Marcus
raphyis and oughtto be, theyseem to attributethe same and Fischeradvocate.The bifurcationofculturalstudies
assumptionto "realist" ethnography.
frompolitical economybetraysa veryquestionableepisGeertz's influenceis abundantlyevident in this re- temology.Moreover,the bridgingof this gap in ethnogard.Many of the contributorsto WritingCulturehave graphicanalysis requiresthat synthesizingconceptual/
been his studentsor have publishedworksinfluencedby theoreticalargumentsbe developed, not that they be
his "interpretive"style.Marcus and Cushman's account abandonedin favorof "experimental"eclecticismofthe
(pp. 34-36) of the history of "realist" ethnography sort Marcus and Fischer applaud (see also Fischer
specificallyidentifiesGeertz as the initiatorof the shift i986:202). MarcusandFischer'sinvocation
ofBourdieu
of "sophisticates"to a view of ethnography
as "transla- seems to miss the importantpoint that much of his
tion." While he is also the objectofbothrespectful(Clif- work attemptsto develop such a synthesisof cultural
fordi983) and harsh(Crapanzano i986) criticism,all the analysis and attentionto political economy.Moreover,
postmodernistsseem to take forgrantedGeertz's posi- the observationthat some advocates of interpretiveaption that the ethnographicendeavoris to communicate proaches are political radicals deflectsattentionfrom
(evoke, translate,represent)a native's point of view. the possibilitythatthe approachitselfmay embodyand
"Paradox" is then identifiedby postmodernistswhen reproducea conservativeideology,whateverthe politethnographyconfrontsthe impossibility of this en- ical intentionsof the practitioner.
deavor,yetrefusesto accept the possibilitythat an ethIn this regard,thereis a markedsimilarityof logical
nographer'sown point ofview could encompassthe sys- structurebetween the privilegingof the subject in intemicorganizationofan exoticsociety,composedas it is terpretiveapproachesand thatof the "maximizingindiof many "others' "points of view.
vidual" in neoclassical economics: In economics,value
This logical difficultyis, once again, a consequence inheresin individualpreferences,
and societyand econof viewing culture as a text. According to Clifford omyare the aggregateconsequences ofindividuals'max(i986a:i5), " 'culture' is always relational,an inscrip- imizing those preferences.However, Marx's seminal
tion ofcommunicativeprocessesthatexist,historically, analysis of commodityfetishismin capitalist society/
between subjects in relations of power." This concep- culture demonstratedthat value inheres not in things
tionofcultureprivilegesthe subjectin its creation.That alone or in individualpreferencesbut in the dialectical
communicationbetween subjects in relationsof power process that links the reproductionof formsof social
is essentialforthe reproductionofcultureand societyis inequality and the productionand exchange of comclear; the implication that this is all that cultureis or modities. To achieve this insight,it was necessaryfor
that this is the best way to understandcultureis mis- Marx to constructa "totalizing"level ofanalysisand an
leading.Clifford'sdefinitionsuggeststhatsocietyis the authorialvoice in his text,but he would have been the
aggregation
ofsuch communications;thisis thebasis for last to denythe historicalor culturalcontingencyofhis
his claim that as faras culture,history,and societygo, own point of view.
thereare onlythepartialtruthsofeach subject'spointof
By the same token, "meaning" and "culture" are not
view.
merelythe negotiations"between" subjects in acts of
A corollaryof the privilegingof the subject in an- "communication"; such acts of communicationare inthropology-as-translation
approachesto culturalstudies evitablyembedded in encompassingsystemsof power
is that ethnographies'shortcomingsare viewed as tex- and meaning. These encompassingsystemsare related
tual,not theoreticalor conceptual.Forexample,Marcus dialecticallyin the process of social and culturalreproand Fischer(i986:86) arguethat"interpretive
anthropol- duction to the "experiences" of the subjects that they
ogy is valuable precisely because of the absence of a encompassand thatare necessaryin theirreproduction.
strongcommitmentto workingunderand towarda sinClifford'sdefinitionof culture(apparentlysharedimgle disciplinedand dominantparadigm.It is flexibleand plicitlywith Marcus, Fischer,Tyler,and othersto some
thus freeto experimentin a way thatpolitical-economy degree) privileges the subject over the social in this
studies, polemically polarized from the interpretive dialectic of cultural reproduction.Perceivedparadoxes
trend,are not." Further,
in the social scientific(scientistic?)need/desireto create
closed, fictionalized,textual "representations"of sociThe dilemma in anthropologybetweenliterature
ety, on the one hand, and the fact that subjects have
weak on culture,but strongon political-economy
differing
perspectiveson the world,on the other,are the
resultof collapsingthe dialectical relationbetween the
analysis,and one strongon culturalanalysis,but
weak on political economyis primarilya problemof
social reproductionof individual consciousness and
the social reproductionof society to the single level
representation
or textualconstructionratherthana
of "text" or "discourse."
difference
ofgood intentionor political conviction.

4I8 | CURRENT
ANTHROPOLOGY
Comparing postmodernistepistemological angst to The Social and CulturalReproduction

neoclassical economic theoryis thusmorethana rhetor- ofPostmodemism
ical attemptto discreditthe formerby association with
what is widelyregardedin intellectualcirclesas a trans- In orderto supportthe precedingassertions,it is necesparently ideological, scientistic, and (worst of all) saryto shiftfocus fromthe logic of argumentsin their
bourgeoisdiscipline;I believe it is not too farfetched
to own termsto considerationsof the conditionsof social
argue that postmodernismitself,despite all its claims reproductionofarguments-in otherwords,to the questo reflexivity,is a particular form of individualist, tion of why academic argumentssucceed and survive
bourgeoisideologythathas the social effectofreproduc- institutionally.
Two ofthe essays in WritingCulture,by
ingand legitimatingbourgeoisvalues in institutionslike Rabinow and Asad, come close to but stop shortofmakhumanistic scholarship in universities,whatever the ing the points I wish to address. Asad (i986:i55)
obpolitical leanings or intentionsof its advocates.
serves that "society is not a text that communicates
This assertionwill no doubt seem odd in lightof the itselfto the skilled reader.It is people who speak. And
factthatpostmodernismis so self-consciously"beyond" theultimatemeaningofwhat theysay does notresidein
ifnot anti-bourgeois.Yet this self-consciousnessis itself society-society is the cultural condition in which
based on what seems to me a fundamentalmisunder- speakersact and are acted upon." In contrastto Fischer,
standingof the natureof bourgeoisideology.Thompson Marcus,Tyler,and Clifford,
Asad unequivocallypositsa
notes that, in Castoriadis's view, "bourgeois coherencein societythatis independentof any particu(i984:27)
ideologyis structuredby a divisionbetween'ideas' and a lar readingof it.
supposed 'real'; the 'otherplace' of religiousand mythAsad also argues,althoughthis is not his main point,
ical conceptions is effaced,but the ideology refersto thatan importantproblemforethnography
is to convey
itselfonlyvia the transcendenceofideas." He goes on to the coherence of the contexts ("cultural conditions")
note some relevantshortcomingsin Castoriadis's con- within which people speak. In otherwords,if ethnogcept of the "social imaginary,"but what I wish to sug- raphy aspires to convey the contexts within which
gesthereis thatCastoriadis'sanalysisofbourgeoisideol- otherwiseunintelligibleactions and statementsmake
ogy,broadlycharacteristicof postmodernistwriting,is sense, the postmodernistobjectionthatit cannot repreitselfan ideologized readingof bourgeoisideologythat sent a totalizingrealityfromthe actor'spoint ofview is
has the effectof reproducingit.
beside thepoint;no such claim need be made. Of course,
It is not the dividebetweenideas and real thatcharac- some sortof "totalizing"in the sense ofdiscemingorder
terizesbourgeoismystification
but the idea thatthe real is necessaryto conveythe "coherence" of the "cultural
is exhaustedby individualexperience.Assertingthe for- conditions" within which actors' statements make
mer leads to the kind of phenomenological/existential sense, but such totalizingis definitelynot fromthe acrelativism characteristicof much of postmodernism tor's point of view-or at least not fromthat point of
with the effect that bourgeois individualism is view alone. It seems to me thatAsad is more cognizant
legitimatedby appropriatingthe authorityof its own of this differencethan many of his cocontributors.To
demystification.
take the presentessay as an example, my argumentis
A final observationis appropriatein this regard.I al- not an attemptto analyze the postmodernistposition
luded above to the mythologizedview of the recenthis- fromthe postmodernist'spoint of view; it attemptsintoryof social theoryand the ethnographicgenrethatis stead to see how thepostmodernistpointofview is conapparentespecially in the writingsof Clifford,Marcus, sistentwith the reproductionof the academic instituand Fischer.This mythologizedhistorytakesforgranted tions and values that produce and reproduce it and
a kind of "progress"ofideas, a sortofintellectualsocial which it, in turn,is instrumentalin reproducing-and,
Darwinism,thathas resultedin the currentascendance even more to the point,to show how the misrepresentaof postmodernism.Of course, the resonance between tions in the postmodernistposition are reproducedand
such a taken-for-granted
sociology of knowledge and successful within academia in part because they are
Western individualism is striking-once again, espe- misrepresentations.24
cially so in a discourseso self-consciouslyreflexive!
Both Asad and Rabinow touch brieflyupon this critiThe possibilitythatacademic social (again,as opposed cal issue. In asking "How is it that the approach
to textual) processes might systematicallyreproduce exemplifiedby Gellner's paper remains attractiveto so
and thatattentionto such many academics in spite of its being demonstrably
collectivemisrepresentations
processesis necessaryto a socially responsiblemetaeth- faulty?"Asad suggeststhat the social reproductionof
nographyis hardly noticed, even though writerslike
Fischer(i986:202,
2o8)
makemuchofpostmodernism's
itsproductions.Indeed,inpraisingsome
responsibilityfor
of his favorite"ethnic" literature,Fischerimplies that
anthropologyitselfoughtto employsome of the explicdeviceshe findsin it. But anthropology
is
itlymystifying
not (or not only)literature;its responsibilityis to avoid
the reproductionof ideological mystifications.
24. The idea that false consciousnessand ideologyare best explainedwithreference

to the ways "thesecreative,imaginary
activitiesserveto sustainsocial relationswhichare asymmetrical
withregardto theorganization
ofpower"(Thompsoni984:6) in an
encompassing
processofsocial reproduction
neednotlead to epistemologicalpessimism.Note,forexample,Habermas'sattempts
to
outlinethe conditionsofpossibilityofcommunicative
action.

SANGREN
formsof knowledge in anthropologyought to be addressed.He answershis question to the effectthatGellner's approachis popularbecause it is easy to learn,test,
and institutionalizeacademically. The question of the
reproductionof formsof anthropologicaltheorizingis
certainlymore institutionallycomplicatedthan Asad's
briefsuggestionsimply,yet he identifiesa more appropriateformof anthropologicalreflexivity
than the selfcongratulatory"reflexivity"valorized in a rhetorical
focuson the "situation"ofthefieldworker
as "translator
of experience"(e.g.,Marcus and Fischer i986:ii6).
Rabinow indicates even more preciselythe implications of focusingon academic institutionalcontextsfor
postmodernistclaims of "reflexivity."
He argues,forexample, that there is a need to ground the "floating
signifier"of postmodernismin the "relationsof repre-
sentationalformsand social practices"(i986:250).
In
criticizingGeertzand Clifford,
Rabinow notes thattheir
claims of "self-referentiality"
amount to little more
than devices forestablishinganotherkind of authorial
authority(p. 244). He also arguesthatthe real politicsin
anthropologicalwritingis to be found not in the fabrication of an authorial voice over a textually constituted"other" but in the politics of academia (p. 253):
Askingwhetherlonger,dispersive,multi-authored
textswould yield tenuremightseem petty.But those
are the dimensionsofpowerrelationsto which
Nietzsche exhortedus to be scrupulouslyattentive.
There can be no doubt ofthe existenceand influence
ofthis typeofpowerrelationin the productionof
texts.We owe these less glamorous,ifmoreimmediatelyconstraining,conditionsmore attention.
The taboo againstspecifyingthemis much greater
thanthe stricturesagainstdenouncingcolonialism;
an anthropologyofanthropologywould include them.
Rhetoric
and theAuthority
ofEthnography
I 4I9
and novelly structuredways" (i982:26). It may be true

thatdeconstructionand postmodernismhave yetto find
much institutionalacceptance in economics and political science departments,but forthose engagedin "culturalstudies" thereis littleprofessionalriskinvolved.In
fact,I suspectthatadoptinga radically"reflexive,"postmoderniststance has itselfbecome a kind of orthodoxy
or at least institutionallylegitimatein manyleadingdepartmentsnot only of literarycriticismbut also of anthropology.With Rabinow,I believe that consideration
of the reasonsforthis institutionalefficacyis necessary
to be able to claim "reflexivity"foranthropology.
I do not intendto producea detailedargumentin this
regardhere,but some speculationsare in order.25
I begin
fromthe assumptionthat the current"moment" of experimentaland postmodernethnography
is more than a
natural developmentof anthropologyconsequent upon
thefailuresofpreceding"paradigms."To explainits currentpopularityin academia, it is necessaryto consider,
to borrowa termfromevolutionarybiology,its fitness
benefits-what professionaladvantagespostmodernism
confersupon those who advocate it and how these advantagesare relatedto academic institutions.
Of course, these are topics that academics rigorously
confineto informalarenas (e.g., gossip),and, as I have
argued elsewhere (Sangrenn.d.a), there are some good
reasons forexcludingthem fromformaldiscourse.Yet
the professionaletiquette that preventsscholars from
pointingout in theirformalpublications the strategic
advantagesforacademic careersevidentin adoptingparticularargumentscontributesto the social reproduction
ofideologyin the guise ofscience. Many postmodernists
mightagreewith this observationas applicable to, say,
conventionaleconomics,sociobiology,or scientistically
quantitativeapproachesin sociology,26
butfewwould be
so reflexiveas to see a similardynamicat workin their
own more "sophisticated"circles.Afterall, deconstruction is in the business of demystifying;
it runs selfconsciouslycounterto the materialistprejudicesit supposes to be unconsciouslyengrainednot onlyin Western
culturein generalbut in the scientismthatis embedded
in practicallyall that precedesit; how can it be viewed
as ideologyif it eschews epistemology?In a word,postmodernismviews itself as counterideological.According to Marcus and Fischer (i986:141),
"Because of the
compellinghold on Westernthoughtof the importance
of politics, economics, and self-interestas the fundamental explanatoryframesforwhat happens in social
life, any effortto argue for the power of symbols,no
matterhow persuasively,is bound to be taken lightlyif
it does not seriouslyaddressor rephrasematerialistexplanations." This statementreveals a notion developed
In sum, a trulyreflexiveanthropologywould go farbeyond Clifford'stextualism,in which "now ethnography

encountersothersin relationto itself,while seeingitself
in the inas other"(i986a:23), by locatinganthropology
stitutionsof which texts are only a part. For all their
rhetoricof "transgression,""subversion,"and the "exploding"ofrealistcategoriesand conventions,fewpostmodernistshave been so reflexiveas to examine the institutionaladvantagesthattheirdecenterednessconfers.
To bringsuch advantages into explicit analysis is, as
Rabinow suggests,a much more subversive endeavor
than attacking"realist" conventionsin texts.
Several contributorsto WritingCultureallude briefly
to questionsoftenureand relatedinstitutionalconsiderations,implying,as in thepassage quoted fromRabinow
above, that postmodernismand experimentalethnographyare riskystancesforyoungacademics to assume. I 25. Bourdieu's(I977) generaltheoreticalperspective,
especiallyas
doubt this to be entirelythe case. Even advocates of he has appliedit to thestudyofFrencheducation,comesclosestto
(see Thompson's[i984:42-721
experimentalethnographylike Marcus and Cushman thekindofanalysisI am suggesting
summary).
both in de- 26. Forrelevantanalysisofideologyin economicssee McCloskey
note that "considerablerewardsare offered,
greeof publisherinterestand positive criticalresponse, (I985), Thurow(i983), Kuttner(I985); in biology,see Levinsand
to ethnographers
who couch theirworkin morepersonal Lewontin (i985).

420 1 CURRENT
ANTHROPOLOGY
Volume 29, Number 3, June 988
implicitlythroughoutthe discourse of postmodernist

ethnographyto the effectthat a positivist science of
symbolsis impossible. Culture must be understoodby
somethingotherthan what we Westernersconsiderscience. Science itselfis viewed as Westernideologyunaware of its own ideological nature.
Although their publications are filled with explicit
disavowals,I believe thatpostmodernistcriticsconfuse
science as criticaljudgmentwith science as revealedauthority.I also believe that theytake materialismas the
ideological, taken-for-granted
fundamentalof Western
scientism.As I argueabove, an even more fundamental
taken-for-granted
is the Westernnotion that the social
and culturalare explainable with referenceto subjects,
individuals,and "experience."In thislattersense,much
of postmodernthoughtis every bit as ideological and
Westernas the formsof scientism and materialismit
attemptsto subvert.
For example, few critics of ideology would disagree
that neoclassical economics and biology,forexample,
ofteninvoke science as authorityratherthan as a criterion forselectingamong competingexplanations.This
invocation of science as authorityand the correlative
assumption that currenttheoryor thinkingabsolutely
and finallydescribesthe world as it "reallyis" is scientism. Scientism is often accompanied by fetishizing
mechanisticor quantitativemethodologiesas in formal
economics or statistical sociology, but such methodologies in themselvesare not necessarilyscientistic.
However,invokingthe authorityof science as selection
criterionis not scientism.A veiled implicationof postmodernistadvocates is that all invocation of scientific
authorityis materialisticand scientistic,hence,ideological and at some level mystifying.
The foregoingargumentsattemptto specifywhat I see
as some ofthe shortcomingsofthisconflationofscience
and scientismin thewritingsofadvocatesofpostmodernism. Here I wish to draw attentionto the institutional
consequences of this conflation.The most importantof
these is that anthropologyis definedas a "humanistic"
as "opposed" to a "scientific" discipline.27Elsewhere
27. Marcus (i985:77),
for example, sees Bateson's (i958[i9361)
oftheIatmul,Naven,caughtin a bindbetween
classicethnography
hermeneuticand empiricistimpulses. He arguesthat Bateson
"During
oughtto have renouncedthelatterin favoroftheformer:
phasehe did not see thatdialoguewiththesubject,
his fieldwork
maskedor submerged
in his conceptionofdataas observedbehaviors,had in effectthe same statusas the kind of dialoguethat
Batesonprivilegedand raisedto a meta-level,thatis the higherorder,analyticdialogueabout the empiricalworldthathe conothermindsas thesourceofdevelopment
ductedwithsignificant
forhis own thought.IfBatesonhad seen discoursein thefieldas
connectedto all the otherformsofdiscoursein which
intimately
turn
he engaged,he mighthave slippedinto a fullhermeneutic
phase. He would then have learned
duringhis anthropological
lessonfromhis writingofNaven thanhe did.He
quitea different
of spokendiscoursein the
would have seen the transformation
textas a major
fieldintothewrittendiscourseoftheethnographic
problem."In contrastto Marcus,I believethatBatesonwas fully
in fabricating
a metalevelforhis analysis.Had he notdone
justified
so, he would have falleninto the epistemicconfusionso evident
or "textual"levelsofsoexistential,
whenthephenomenological,
cial existenceare takento exhaustsocial reality.
(Sangrenn.d.a) I have argued that the science/humanities contrastin Western culture,particularlyas it is

institutionalizedin academia, is ideologicallymystifying. By "mystifying"I mean that the epistemological
contrast between scientific and humanistic ways of
knowing masks a disguised value unaware of its own
historicaland culturalcontingency.It is a value because
therelationshipbetweenscience and humanitiesis hierarchical.
At a generallevel, "science" standsforall knowledge
and encompasses"humanities,"while at a lowerlevel of
symboliccontrast"science" and "humanities" are contrastivelyequal, encompassed within the higher-level
"science" as "knowledge." The ambivalenceevidentin
postmodernistattitudes toward the status of ethnographyas science can be seen as an unconscious conflation of these two levels and as evidence of the masked
natureofthe contrastas value in Westernideology.As a
contrastivecomplementary,science is consideredthe
domain ofthe incontestablyreal,the known,the knowable, whereas the humanitiesare the domain of the creativelychaotic,experiential,and ultimatelymysterious.
Science is essential, humanities a welcomed escape.
Withinthe university,science commandsa much larger
budget,the humanitiesare a kind ofluxuryofconspicuous consumption(althoughperhapsnecessaryforvalidation of class status). Science specifies;the humanities
evoke (e.g., Tyler i986). Of course, few practicing
humanistslike to thinkin these terms,but by accepting
thecategoricalbifurcation28
and thejob he/sheoccupies,
the humanist nonetheless contributesto the social reproductionof the valued contrast,no matterwhat his/
her opinion of the relative values of science and humanities.
Marcus, Fischer, Clifford,Cushman, and Tyler all
seem to me to manifestimplicitlya contrastbetween
ways of knowingin theirpolemics against"totalizing,"
"scientism," and "grand theorybuilding" that unconsciouslyreifiesthis humanities/sciencecontrast.Rejection of science as legitimatingvalue has the effectof
creatingand legitimatinga "space" forthe sortof logically and theoreticallyeclectic humanism touted by
postmodernists.
An ironic effectof eschewing anthropology'sselfdefinitionas a science is thus an indirectinstitutional
legitimationofthe kindsofscientismsthatpostmodernists findmost reprehensible.A kind of "nonscientific"
humanism (with its accompanyingacademic prestige,
power, and positions) is legitimatedby means of implicitlymarginalizinganthropology
and,moregenerally,
the studyof culture,symbols,and meaningwithinthe
institutionallyhegemonic orderingauthority,science.
In otherwords,the social and institutionaleffectof collapsing epistemological levels characteristicof post28. Indeed,many"humanists"activelydefendthebifurcation,
arguingthatanthropological
analysisof value is too "social scientific"to qualifyforfundingfromsourcesclaimedby thehumanities. The effectof this defenseof humanisticmethodologies
againstthoseofscienceis anotherwayin whichthehegemony
of
scientismitselfis institutionally
and culturally
reproduced.

SANGREN
ofEthnography
I42I
modernistpositions (i.e., society/experience,culture/ modernism is that in attacking scientism in various

discourse,etc.) and privilegingthe subject is to repro- "culturalstudies,"it enhances the legitimacyofthe sciduce in academic institutions the hegemony of the ence/humanitiescontrastand diminishesthelegitimacy
formsof nondialectical materialismsthat many postof effortsto findholistic (I still believe it appropriateto
modernistswould no doubt view as hopelesslyideolog- call them scientific)approachesto the studyof society
and culture.One must note withalarma potentialeffect
ical delusions.
Yet if Marcus and Fischer are correctthat various of this trend:in the name of antiscientismpostmodernformsof materialisticscientisms have a firmhold on ism may achieve a limited institutional hegemony
Westernthought,it remainsto explain how theirmore withinthe boundariesof humanitiesand social science
"humanistic"approachescan also succeed in academia. departments,but at the same time such departments
I have alreadyhintedat a partof the answerto this; the may come to be perceivedby the wider universityand
authorityof science itselfis definedideologicallyin op- societyas irrelevant.
By "limitedhegemony"I mean thatmanyof the posiposition to humanism. Crudely put, science itselfrequires a kind of contrastivebut dominatedother as a tive insightsof recentpostmodernistand, more widely,
The argumentthatculturalstud- cultural approaches in anthropologyare very effective
pointof self-reference.
ies are epistemologicallygroundedin somethingdiffer- rebuttalsto various nondialecticaland scientisticdeterent fromscience thus diminisheswhateverdemystify- minisms.Indeed,one ofthe attractionsofpostmodernist
ingthreattheymightpose forinstitutionallyentrenched argumentsfor anthropologistsis that they provide a
scientismsin the veryprocessby which theylegitimate powerfulrhetoricforunmaskingthe pretentiousclaims
of reductionisticacademics (particularlyin economics
theirown intellectualand institutionalrole.
is and biologybut also in sociologyand anthropology)
to be
Like Marcus and Fischer,I believe thatanthropology
and oughtto constitutea kind of reflexiveculturalcri- trulyscientificin contrastto those who studyculture
tique; unlike them,I believe that such a critiquemust and symbol. The postmodernistpoint that such atemanate from a holistic and explicit allegiance to titudesare themselveshistoricallyand culturallyparticscientificvalues. Otherwise,no matterwhat the disci- ularisticand contingentfabricationswould seem to enpline's explicit assertionsregardingits "other ways of hance more hermeneutic, interpretive approaches.
thehierar- Especially in anthropology,where crudelyideologized
knowing,"it will succeed onlyin reproducing
chicallyasymmetricalcontrastbetweenhumanitiesand interventionsof economic and biological reductionists
foundationsof continue to have widespreadappeal, any position that
sciences that is one of the mystifying
Westernindividualisticideology.
diminishes such stupiditieshas an immediate attracElsewhere I have compared the science/humanities tion. In other words, postmodernism'strenchantcricontrastin Westerncultureto the yin/yangcontrastin tique of such scientisticdelusion has obvious appeal for
China. In brief,yin stands to yangas disorderstands to those who would defend the efficacy(but not, a la
order;yet the contrastyin/yangis itselfa kind of order. Sahlins [I976], the "autonomy"-nothing in human soHence, order,yang,encompasses the contrastyin/yang. cietyis autonomous) of cultureand symbol.
ideological
At the most abstractlogical level, yang is hegemonic
By identifyingscience with transparently
and valued. Despite its consciousnessofitselfas a natu- and logically circularparadigmslike neoclassical ecois nomics, cultural materialism,and sociobiology,postralisticcosmology,the Chinese logic oforder/disorder
an arbitrarycultural construction,dialectically repro- modernism aligns itself unambiguously with those
ducedin theprocessofthereproductionofsocial institu- whose careers depend on the importance of cultural
tions and collective representations(Sangreni987a).
studies but also implies that the legitimacyof cultural
The relationshipbetween humanitiesand science (in studies is based on some authorityotherthan science.
Marcus's terms,the hermeneuticand the empirical)in Thus, one aspect of the institutionalsuccess of postand ideological-arbitrary modernistpositions is the legitimacyit promises hutheWest is similarlyarbitrary
in the sense thatit is socially reproduced;ideologicalin manists against the attacks of scientisticscholars who
the sense that we are largelyunconscious of the factof view cultural studies as "unscientific" and hence of
its social reproduction.The legitimacyof social institu- lower status than what theysee as "science."
In itself,however,this attractionwould hardlysuffice
tions,in particulartheacademic divisionofscience from
humanities, is sustained only by denying this arbi- to explain the recentpopularityof deconstructiveand
trariness
(e.g.,SangrenI987a, MerquiorI979, Thomp- postmodernistformsof criticismand analysis in culson i984). The logical paradox is similar to that em- tural studies. Antireductionistargumentshave been
bodied in Godel's proof(e.g., Tyler I986, Turner i984);
made since the beginningofinstitutionalizedanthropolno logical systemcan prove the veracityof its own as- ogy without eschewing science as the discipline's prisumptions.Yet, as noted above, social institutionsand maryvalue. An additionalfactorto which I have already
ways of thoughtrequirethe legitimationthat they are alluded is thatpostmodernistsfeel freeto mythologize,
"uniquely realistic."
criticize, and demystify"realist" argumentsas hopeOf course, one of the most importantinstitutional lessly limited by the historicaland culturalcontingencontextswithinwhich the valued contrasthumanities/ cies of theirproductionwhile at the same time refusing
sciences is reproducedis the universityand the wider to allow criticismof their own argumentson similar
academic establishment.The irony of much of post- grounds.The scholarcan have her/hiscake and eat it too.

4221 CURRENT
ANTHROPOLOGY
Institutionally,
althoughundoubtedlywith the best of
individualintentions,an importanteffectof this stance
is thatyoungcriticscan undercutthe authorityand prestige of established scholars (note the patricidal treatmentofGeertzin some ofthe essays in WritingCulture)
while appropriatingtheirbest insightsand at the same
time inoculate themselves against criticisms of the
same order.It would requirean empiricalstudyof the
career trajectoriesof anthropologistsand the relationship between these trajectoriesand the adoption of
postmoderniststances to demonstratedefinitivelythe
institutionalefficacyofpostmodernismas a careerstrategy.Nonetheless,I believe thatthe proliferation
ofpostmodernistpublications suggeststhe existence of some
competitivelysuccessfuldynamicofinstitutionalreproductionbased on criteriain additionto purelyintellectual considerations(note, for example, the impressive
numberofnew books in criticaltheorythatappearevery
year devoted to explication of writerslike Foucault,
Derrida, Lacan, et al.). Postmodernismmanifestsa robust institutionalefficacyin this regard,and academic
careers are clearly being very successfullypursued on
thewingsofa presumablyradicallytransgressive
and reflexivesystemof thought.
In sum, I believe that thereis a connectionbetween
the structureof the argumentsloosely glossed as "postmodernist"and the institutionalsuccess of those arguments as manifestedin scholars' careersand academic
publications.The natureof this connectionis no doubt
very complex but includes the advantages the postmodernistposition confersupon the young scholar by
providinga rhetoricof delegitimationof academic authorityfiguresand a masked legitimationofher/hisown
position.At the same time,the eschewal of "totalizing"
theoryallows the postmodernistthe luxuryof experifordefendmentingwithouttakingon theresponsibility
ing the logic of her/hisarguments.Most profoundly,
however,the privilegingofthe subjectin postmodernist
rhetoricreproduces a nondialectical, essentially phenomenologicalor existentialview ofthe worldthat,despite its claims to radical reflexivity,is in essence a
revivifiedformof bourgeoisindividualism.
text and to make an explicit argumentfor science as

ethnography'sauthorizingvalue.
My method in defendingscience as value has been,
broadly,ethnographicratherthan philosophical.It is in
this sense thatI claim the presentargumentto be more
reflexivethan those of postmodernists.Many of the argumentsin WritingCulture and Anthropologyas Cultural Critique, forexample, are instructiveless as introductions to the current or developing state of
ethnographyor anthropologicaltheorythan as documents manifestingthe ideological operations of anthropologywithinthe society of anthropologists.However,this social context-academic careers,publishing,
Hence, the
teaching,etc.-is forthemostpartignored.29
"reflexivity"claimed by postmodernismis a fundamentally nondialectical one, limited to the level of the anthropologicaltext or the text producedby the criticof
the anthropologicaltextand havingonly superficialreference to the social contexts in which such texts are
producedand reproducedand to the effectssuch textual
productionshave in producingand reproducingauthority among anthropologistscompeting for power and
prestige(not to mention positions and salaries) within
academic institutions.
In sum, as ethnographyof ethnography,
WritingCultureand Anthropologyas Cultural Critique are failures
because they do not locate collective representations
(texts)in the contextswithin which theyare produced
and which theyin tum are essential in reproducing.To
this tobegin to write an ethnographyof ethnography,
talizing, meta-, -yes!-scientific perspectiveis inescapable. To suggestthat it is not or that some "utopian
space" can be imaginedin which a liminal "communication" among cultures is possible is ultimately more
than a straightforward
allegiance to science
mystifying
as value (ratherthan authority),even thoughthis value
is a productof Westem culturalhistory.
In other words, although order-questioningheterodoxies like postmodemismpreventthe ossificationof
order-affirming
orthodoxies,they cannot claim to offer
institutionalizablealtematives to them. Wheneverorthodox orderingsare called into question-whether by
Taoist subversionof Confucianhierarchyor by deconstructionof Westem scientisms-a new, more encompassingorderingis implied.To suggestthe possibilityof
institutionalizinga kind of "decenteredness"can itself
Ethnographic
Authority,
Postmodernism,
be even more mystifying
than the positivisticdelusion
and Individualism
of absolute realityit undermines-more mystifying
because at least the appeal to scientificauthorityis exAny announcementof the demise of the authorityof plicit.Anyanalysis,includingthose embodiedin experitraditionalformsofknowledgeinevitablyamountsto an mentalethnographies,
thatreveals logical shortcomings
assertionof a rival authority.This is as true of my cri- in a conventionalapproachmust be reconciledto a reortique ofpostmodernismas it is ofpostmodernismitself.
Thus what I have attemptedto accomplish here is not
only to point out some of the logical flaws in the argu- 29. Marcus(i 986b)makesbriefmentionoftherelevanceofattenmentsof those who advocate a "new, experimentalmo- tionto the social contextof academicwriting,as do some ofthe
othercontributors
to WritingCulture.However,such considerament" in ethnographicwritingbut to turnthis critique tions
clearlytakea backseattothetextualemphasisofpostmoderninto a considerationof the ideological dimensionsofan- ism's criticalgaze. Foran argumentthataddressessome ofthese
thropologyin institutional(as opposed to textual) con- issues,see Graff(i983).

SANGREN
deringtheorythat encompasses such insights."Decenand

tered"or "polyphonic"authorityis self-authorizing
providesno explicitjustificationforthe possibilityofits
own replacement.The locus of authorityis thus obscured,but in myview it is in effecta call forfaithin the
intuitionof the analyst.
This is not to say that various formsof epistemological skepticismoughtto be entirelydeprivedof institutionallegitimacybut ratherthattheymust bytheirvery
nature remain peripheral or marginal, encompassed
within the wider allegiance to science as value. In the
case of "writingculture," considerationof the experience of fieldworkand the problematicsof ethnographic
rhetoricserves to widen the universeof our orderings,
but to claim their centralityto the ethnographicennarcissisticdecdeavor borderson self-congratulatory,
adence.
Such appeals succeed institutionallyless because of
their trenchant critiques of scientistic mystification
thanbecause at anotherlevel theyreinforcewhat might
be termedWestern"individualism.""Individualism"is
an admittedlyvague term,widely and disparatelyemployed in both public and intellectualdiscourse.However,thereis a broad,generalconsensusamongintellectuals thatWesternindividualismis somehow connected
to what Marx termed"commodityfetishism"in "freemarket"ideology;it is a value producedand reproduced
in dialecticalrelationwithWesternsocial and economic
(and academic!) institutions.
I wish to broaden "individualism" somewhathere to
include the privilegingof the subject or "experience"in
theoreticalconstructionsof reality.(Perhapsone could
coin the term "ethnoanthropology"to imply the cultural contingencyof such "theoreticalconstructionsof
culturalreality.")Thus, forexample,Marcus and Fischer
(i986:82) argue that the new experimentalethnography
is "the sensitiveregisterof changeat the level ofexperience, and it is this kind of understandingthat seems
criticalwhen the concepts of systemsperspectivesare
descriptivelyout of joint with the realityto which they
are meant to refer."
A similar privilegingof "experience" underliesMarcus and Fischer'scriticismof "systems" approachesfor
beingboringto studentreaders.They implythatbecause
Westernreaders find systems approaches difficultand
because such approachesdo not "resonate"withreaders'
experiences,such approaches must thereforebe misguided. They do not considerthe possibilitythat their
students may "relate" to ethnographiesthat employ
various"experiential"or fictionalized"dialogic" rhetorics because such rhetorics reinforcetheir students'
Westernpredispositionto "think" realityin terms of
individualexperience.In otherwords,the verysuccess
of some experimentalethnographiesmay be based on
Westtheir comfortingreificationof taken-for-granted
ern misperceptions.
In sum, the distaste Marcus and Fischer expressfor
systemsperspectivesis groundedless in theirintrinsic
logical or epistemological shortcomingsthan in their
Rhetoricand the Authorityof Ethnography| 423
lack of resonance with Western ideological individualism. The heady feelingthat one can conveythe "experience" of the exotic otherby such rhetoricaldevices
the "fieldworkexperience,"touted
as "foregrounding"
by Marcus and Fischer and by Clifford,among others,
seems to,me to suggest not that such techniques are
necessarily superior ways of communicating understandingof exotic cultures (or "experiences")but that
theymay merelyreinforceour own individualisticdelusions. Studentsmay well "relate" betterto "experientially" framedethnographies,but one should consider
carefullythe meaningof this resonance.Individual"experience" must be dialecticallyrelatedto its conditions
of production and reproductionin society. In short,
the privilegingof "experience" or the actor's point of
view reproducesa bourgeois,Western,individualistic
ideology.
In conclusion,allow me a widelyemployedrhetorical
the geniusofan overlooked
device-that ofresurrecting
scholar.(One advantageofthistechniqueis thatone can
claim the authorityof the departedscholarwithouttoo
much concernforfidelityto her/hisoriginalintentions;
anotheris that one conveys the impressionthat one's
colleagues have lacked sufficientinsightto understand
one's message even thoughit was available to them in
the overlooked works of the departedscholar.) I have
alreadynoted Marcus's conflationof scientismand science as value in his critiqueof GregoryBateson.What I
would like to suggesthere is that Bateson would have
in encompassingthe insightthat
foundlittle difficulty
individual experiencesof the world differwithina systemically conceived, self-reproducing,
immanent, encompassingorder.
For Bateson, a "sophisticated" understandingof the
complexityofcultureand humankind'splace in theuniverse as well as the limits of our understandingdid not
lead to abandonmentofexplicitcommitmentto science
as guidingvalue, nordid it lead him to invokescience as
"authority."Forall theirself-proclaimed
angstregarding
the moraland social responsibilitiesofethnography,
one
sees littleevidencethatpostmodernists
wish to abandon
the power,privileges,and salaries theyenjoy as part of
the academic establishment.In some ways Bateson's
rigorousfidelityto science (includinga rejectionof the
contrast between scientific and humanistic ways of
knowing) was much more subversive than currently
fashionable, "subversive" postmodernist stancesBatesonneverheld a permanentacademic positionuntil
the end of his career. In his relentlessand dialectical
systembuilding,Bateson saw experienceboth as creating social institutionsand as theirproductand viewed
social institutionsand individual experienceas dialectically and reproductivelyembeddedin cyberneticsystems of a still higherlogical type.
In the last analysis,then,the authorityof any ethnographicworkinheresin its abilityto establisha coherent
and encompassingorderingof what is known about an
exotic (or familiar)society or culture.Considerationof
rhetoricand textualconstructionsof authorityis a salu-

424
1 CURRENT
ANTHROPOLOGY
Volume 29, Number 3, June I988
taryreminderthat thereis much that an ethnographer Sangrenpointsout quite rightlythatit is the systemic
necessarilytakes forgrantedbecause ofher/hisown his- propertiesof social phenomena that justify the antoricaland culturalcontingency.The unmaskingofsuch thropologicalendeavour.Informants'insightsinto their
assumptions aids futureethnographersin fabricating own society are interesting,but generallythe interest
moreconvincingtexts.Yet the testofgood ethnography lies in the extentto which the informantgraspshis own
is still the selection criterionof science as value. To social environment.There are also otherissues, such as
implythatthereis an altemativeis perhapstheultimate the way in which an informant'saccount formsa conand the anthropolomystification.
Finally,ifethnography
aspiresto become scious strategyforself-presentation
a kindof"reflexive"culturalcriticism,as I believeit can gist's refutationofindigenousexplanations,which have
and should, it must honestlyand relentlesslylocate its an obviousplace in anthropologicaldiscourse.It mustbe
objectnot only in the textsit producesbut dialectically stressedthat interpretiveproceduresin themselvesare
in the social institutionsin which anthropologicalca- perfectlyjustifiable,but to leave interpretations
as ad
reersas well as textsare producedand reproduced.
hoc readingsofindividualsand situationswill mean givingup all ambitionto explain; if,however,we allow our
interpretationsto be guided by systemicthinking,we
have at least the possibilityof claiming some explanatoryforceforour musings.And again,to the extentthat
indigenousreflexionis what is desired,thereare many
other sorts of people who are equally well or better
qualified to put such texts on paper-journalists, authors,and perceptivetravellersgenerally.
Ethnography
is and always has been a productlinked
withepistemologicalproblems.In the end theunits (and
GORAN
AIJMER
words) we use for the presentationof events and epiInstituteforAdvanced Studies in Social Anthropology, sodes experiencedin the fieldare chosen by the ethnogUniversityof Gothenburg,VastraHamngatan 3,
rapherand forthe purposeofhis description;theyimply
4II I7 Goteborg,Sweden. i6 xii 87
a strategy.But thereis no alternative,as social lifepresents not clear-cutunits but endless series offuzzyemSangren's essay deserves attention in more than one beddings.Anthropologistshave learned to handle this
way. It addressesa numberof problemsconnectedwith situationby developingterminologiesand conceptsthat
the natureof anthropologyas a social science. Most of allow forflexibility,and theyhave come to accept that
them have been well known fora long time, but they an ethnographyas a corpus of data is always limited,
have been revitalisedby the efforts
ofthe postmodemist whereassocial lifeis essentiallyan infiniteset. Everyone
movement,apparentlybased at Rice University.To a who has worked in the field knows the limits of his
NorthwestemEuropeanreaderofa leaninggenerallyre- knowledge-and his readerswill know thathis authorferredto as social anthropology,
the debatethatemerges ity restson that limitation.This is, by the way, one of
here seems a veryAmericanone. The close relationship thereasonsthatthe "rereading"and "rewriting"ofother
betweenindividualpsychologyand anthropologyin the anthropologists'ethnographiesis such an interesting
UnitedStateshas no doubtpaved theway forthepresent task. Ethnographiescan oftenyield more information
attemptsto translateideas fromFrench literarycriti- than the ethnographerhimself has been able to recism into a text-consciousand reflexiveconcem that, trieve-and this is a true measure of his craft.Many
however,seems to have lost much of its flavourin the anthropologistswill today accommodatethis necessary
translation.Social anthropologyin Europe has on the limitationoftheirknowledgeofa foreignculturewithin
whole been fairlyreluctantto engage in mind reading theirnotion of explanationin that the latteris taken to
and exegesis of indigenousreflexion,and this is so for be a device foraccountingnot onlyforall the givendata
verygood reasons.Indigenousintrospectionmaybe very but forall possible data. New data can falsifyold explamisleading,and, in fact,linguisticallyretrievableinfor- nations.
mation is in the culturalcontextfairlysuperficial.
Oddly enough,at least some of the ethnographically
Anthropologistshave sought otherways to arriveat based monographsof the leadingproponentsof the "exunderstandingsof culture and cultures, and these perimental"ethnographyread verymuch like any conmethods are not necessarilypositivistic-unless "posi- ventionalanthropological
book.Marcus's (ig8ob) studyof
tivism" is beingused as a generaltermofabuse. On the the nobilityin Tonga, forinstance,is an excellentbook
most ofus are well aware thatwe guess about but certainlydoes not providethereaderwithanyparticcontrary,
societies, that our insightsare temporary,oftenexperi- ular experimentalinsight.It will be interestingto read
mental in character,and in the natureof suggestionsas the full-fledged
postmodernistmonographswhen they
to ways of "reading"a society.But most of us will also startappearing.Forerunnerssuch as the workof Dwyer
impute some sort of explanatoryforce to our sugges- (i982)-a transcriptofinterviewtapes-have been more
tions. This wish to explain may well be modest, but enigmaticthan illuminating.
neverthelessit will requirethe axiomaticbasis forsocial
With Sangren,I findmuch of the experimentalpostobservation,which is that social lifeis not random.
modemist writingof considerableinterest.I also share
Comments

SANGREN
his doubts. Unless such insightsas can be gained by

interpretive
and reflexiveprocedurescan be framedand
embeddedin systemicanalyses oflargechunksofsocial
materia, they can never become more than academic
decorations.Perhaps this is a time when anthropology
could make headway by looking inwards. Possibilities
are offeredby anthropologists'developingtheirown tradition in confidentconversationwith other academic
disciplines.Trendyeclectic borrowingwill not provide
an answerforthe future.
names), having occasional "Oedipal" brusheswith authorityfigures,and the like. Rabinow and Asad do
criticizeaspects of "postmodemism"but of course not
dismissivelyenough.In fact,Rabinow anticipatesmuch
of Sangren's critique (with the advantage that he
specifieswhich of the many contestingdefinitionsof
postmodernismhe relies on, FredricJameson'ssweeping
"cultureoflate capitalism").Rabinow calls foran analysis of the institutionalbases of disciplinary"success,"
an analysisthat Sangrenpromisesbut that,in his essay,
never gets much beyond innuendo about careerstrategies and vague yin/yanganalogies forthe currentrelationsofscience and the humanities.(I'm gratefulto Sangrenforhavingclearlyraisedthe latter,quite important,
JAMES CLIFFORD
set of concrete political and historical issues, but his
Historyof Consciousness, Universityof California,
defenseof "holistic," "scientific"approaches-yang enSantaCruz,Calif.95064, U.S.A. I7 XII 87
compassingyin again?-seems abstract,or at least utoThere is no way in the 8oo words allottedto me to an- pian, as stated here.) A developedpolitical sociologyof
swer specificallyall of Sangren's misrepresentations. anthropologicalinstitutionsand careerswould indeedbe
Limitingmyselfto WritingCulture,I can onlyurgeread- illuminating.Despite Sangren,nothingin WritingCulers to check some of the originalcontextsof his quota- turedenies this,and much encouragesit.
tions to see how he has consistentlycreateda rigid"poThe possibilitythat the book mightrepresentnot a
sition" forpurposesof attack.
position to be markedoffbut rathera series of debates
One briefpersonal objection conceming "Clifford's and evolving ideas entirelyescapes Sangren. All his
textualism": I am said to view culture as a text,suit- strategiesare of containment.In his firstparagraphthe
able for translation. Never mind that my introduc- disciplineof culturalanthropologyis portrayedin a detionto WritingCultureportrayscultureas an inventive, fensivestance, attacked fromwithout and within. Edhistoricallycontestedset of processesthat can neverbe ward Said serves as outsider,barbarianat the gatesadequately textualizedor that the essay oftencited by despite the fact that his book does not attack modern
Sangren,"On EthnographicAuthority,"turnson a criti- ethnography,as Sangrenasserts,but ratherinvokes it
cism of the culture-as-textparadigm.I do, of course, againsta moretextuallybased Orientalism.Meanwhile,
thinkthat the textual model yields importantareas of frominside the walls, the gang of fourmakes its bid
insightand blindness,and I am seriouslyinterestedin for institutional power, sapping the epistemological
textualform.But to label these concerns"textualism"is (moral?)foundationsof the city.This agonisticscenario
to gloss over all complicationsand countercurrents-a dominates Sangren'spolemic. It evades the possibility
that there are ideas and political/cultural/historical
generalfeatureof Sangren'spaper.
His critique is almost entirelydevoid of hermeneu- changes abroad that cannot be reduced to disciplinary
tical engagementwith its objects. Readers of Writing borderwars. If a reformulatedcultural science is to
Culture may recall that many of Sangren'spoints are emergefromSangren'sinvocationsof"science as value"
already clearly registeredthere. It is made perfectly it will have to wrestleconcretelywith poetics and policlear, forexample, that the book's claims to authority tics in new global circumstances.(Sangren'slong crican (and should)be questionedfromseveralstandpoints. tique is singularlydevoid of actual examples ofhow sciThe book encourages dissonance and debate about its ence, in his definition,finally resolves ethnographic
own crucial assumptions. Its introductionpoints out authoritydisputes.) Critical analysis, not exorcism,is
biases and problematicexclusions.How does thissquare needed. WritingCulture opens some lines forsuch an
with Sangren's picture of ambitious deconstructors analysis.
claiming a "hegemonic" viewpoint and "inoculating"
themselves against critique? Or is explicit self-limitation and openness to challenge another"sophisticated"
postmodemtrick?
MICHAEL
M. J. FISCHER
AND GEORGE
E. MARCUS,
Sangrenis less concernedwith WritingCulture than WITH STEPHEN A. TYLER
with a constructedposition, "postmodernistethnog- Rice University,
Houston,Tex.7725I, U.S.A.3 XII 87
raphy,"most clearly exemplifiedby fourwriters,Marcus, Fischer,Tyler,and myself.Of thisgangoffouronly In his tendentiousand muddled review of our recent
the firstthreeexplicitlyembracepostmodernism(occa- essays, Sangren says he intends to defend "the tradisionally in quite idiosyncraticways-for example, Ty- tional authorityof ethnography"("but not necessarily
ler's concernwith orality).Several of the otherauthors conventionalethnography")and a "particular,'totalizin the volume, barely mentioned by Sangren, float ing' theoretical stance." He does neither,apparently
aroundin an indistinctbut dangerouscloud of "fashion- forgetting
what he set out to do in his obsession with
able" ideas (indexed by shortlists of notoriousFrench academic power and status. The nearest he comes to

426 1 CURRENT
ANTHROPOLOGY
discussing anything labelled "totalizing" is EvansFinally,it mightbe usefulto point out to readersnew
Pritchard,whose work on the Nuer (ifnot that on Cy- to the discussions of which Anthropologyas Cultural
renaica) has been criticizedfor 30 years now for sup- Critique and WritingCulture are a part that a rather
pressingits largerpoliticaland historicalcontexts.Some wide range of positions and problemsis representedin
attemptat reconstructingMarxist,Parsonian,or other them which cannot be conflatedinto a single "postgrandtheorymighthave been in orderunderthisrubric, modem" anthropology-a termin any case which many
as in factwe advocate in our book (we do not say that of us use ironicallyor tentativelyto point to particular
grandtheorymust be abandonedbut ratherthatit needs issues or,alternatively,
to explorethe limitsofa particuupdating and reconstruction"from the [ethnographic] lar kind of argument.The ethics of writingis one such
bottom up" so as to take into account recenthistory, problem:avoidingpoeticallypowerfulhypostatizations
thatthis cannotbe done merelyon an abstracttheoreti- that may cause damage to the people being described,
cal level). Sangren'sarticleis repletewith such failures providingmechanisms forthe people to talk back and
and misreadings.
contest what is being disseminated about them, or
There is little sustained, contextualizedcriticismin providing sufficientlyrich informationand alternawithinthe
Sangren'spiece. Instead,we get mostlya patchworkof tive handles forcontestatoryinterpretations
out-of-context
quotations as opportunitiesforhis own text itself. Sangren fears and distrustsreflexivityin
rhetoricthatconjuresus, our diversecolleagues,and the ethnography,
especiallyits narcissisticturnin some rebroadspectrumof ongoingresearchand writingthatwe cent work, but he misses entirelythe diverseways in
documentas a clique, a conspiracyofmillenarians.And which reflexivitymay appear in ethnography-some
behind this is an unsavory,ad hominem chargeof bad self-consciousreflexivestrategyis a virtualnecessityin
faith,a totallyunsupportedsuggestionof schemingca- workthatis alive to its ethical contexts.Multiple readreeristswho wish merelyto advance themselves.Is this erships and uses of anthropologicalideas outside the
really what we want Rabinow's faircriticismthat the academy make such concerns with ethics, reflexivity,
criticsofethnography
have not examinedacademic poli- and the like farmore importantthan Sangren'smyopic
tics and institutionsclosely enough to come to?
concernswithpowerand authoritywithinanthropology
Sangren's misreadings (beginningon his firstpage, departments.
footnotei) of both the textshe cites and, by omission,
Above all, both Anthropologyas Cultural Critique
our ethnographies(e.g.,Fischer'sanalysisofthe compet- and WritingCulture are writtenas invitationsto opening discourses leading to the Iranian revolution is ness, diversity,and pleasure in cooperation.If Sangren
neitherindividual-centered
nor internalto texts,albeit feels threatenedand/orexcluded, it is verymuch selfintertextualand obviouslydependingon semiotic "tex- imposed.
tuality");his distortions(we do not argue for"humanSangrensays: "Make 'em see too, the powerofspeakism" against science: our subtitle says "human sci- ing of power is power2." Emc2 reminds us that the
ences"); and his conflations (of literal texts with dialogism Sangrenclaims foranthropologybeforepostsemiotictextuality,ofindividualtalk with dialogue and modernismis best exemplifiedby Oppenheimer'squotsocial discourses,etc.) are fartoo numerousto correctin ing fromthe Bhagavad Gita while watchingthe exploa shortcomment.Many ofhis substantive"objections" sion of the firstatom bomb in New Mexico, which also
are positionswe have advocated: forexample,we argue reminds us that postmodemism is not an "orderfor the same kind of "positivism" and science, for constructingideology" but the deconstructive,parodic,
sociological and historicalratherthanonlytextualanal- entropicdissolutionof power.
ysis, forfocus on dialogue across civilizations (ChinaFrance,India-Germany,Islam-Judaism),
forthe integration ofpolitical economic and culturalanalysis(it is not JONATHAN
FRIEDMAN
we who drew the divide he refersto between "Colum- InstituteofEthnologyand Anthropology,Universityof
bia" and "Chicago"). In addition,we happen also to be Copenhagen,FrederiksholmsKanal 4, I220
interestedin cultural variation of personhood,experi- Copenhagen
Ki, Denmark.22 XII 87
ence, agency,and psychodynamics.Sangrenis a most
peculiar anthropologistif he really insists that it is an This articlerepresentsthe beginningofthe extensionof
"impossibility" to communicate a native's point of thedebatebetweenmodernistsand post-modernists
into
view. As to his difficulties
in readingDerrida,we would the disciplineofanthropology.
In spiteofthemanygood
only point out that importantEast Asian scholars such pointsmade,thereis, I feel,an alarmingrepetitionofthe
as HarryHartoonianand David Pollack are makingcriti- kind of frontlineengagementthat virtuallyparalyzed
cal use of poststructuralist
insightsand that Sangren's the discussion in sociology and philosophy.While the
admission may be an index of the provincialismof an- sociological debate has centered around the political
thropologythat we think needs to be leftbehind. The implications of post-modernityin all of its aspects,
invocation of his own article on female deity cults in whethermoral or esthetic,and has explorednumerous
northemTaiwan is salutary,but it is presentedin the hypothesesfrompost-industrialismto the disorganizasatiricalstyle that we describedin our book as a weak tion of late capitalism in order either to criticize or
formof juxtaposition-we encouragehim to attempta to find new possibilities in the present era, the anstronger,less superficialmode of culturalcritique.
thropologicalconfrontationseems to have focussedex-

SANGREN
clusivelyon the disciplineof anthropologyitselfand on

its practitioners'careers (Rabinow). In the more developed sociological debate as well as in this emerginganthropologicalconflict,the tone is competitivelymoralistic. No one has, strangely,made a concertedeffortto
understandthe phenomenonat hand. Such an effortis
sorelyneeded.
As I have myselfpolemicized againstrecentdevelopments in anthropology(Friedman I987a, b), I find it
stimulatingto see the same kinds of criticismsbeing
made fromwhat appears to me to be a stronglymodernistposition.But Sangrenis afterthesepeople in a way
that I thinkmay prove to be unproductivein the long
run,even if I sympathizewith his reaction.He lets his
guarddown when claimingthatthe "widespreadretreat
fromtheoreticallycentralized and organized fields of
knowledge"can be contestedon the groundsthatBourdieu has had such an impact on anthropology.The statisticsofintellectualchangeare not as importanthereas
the fact that the post-moderntrend has caught onwhat else would drive him to such an attack?Almost
the entirearticleamounts to a massive attemptto demonstratethatthispost-modernanthropology
is reducible
to a power play, an attemptto usurp ethnographicor
anthropologicalauthorityin its entiretyfromthosewho
are claimed still to possess it. Sangrenappears to go so
faras to assertthatthe contentofthe critiqueof"ethnographicauthority"and the plea formultivocal ethnographic textualism is reducible to the subversion of
academic authorityand its replacement with a new
"higher"authorityequivalent to attackinga theoryby
way of subsumingit in a higherlogical type,thus the
appropriationofMarx by Marcus, of the materialby the
textual.The academic politicsinvolved,as Rabinowhas
so clearlystated,is, of course, an importantissue, but
the success of the contentof the post-modernposition
cannotbe accountedforin such terms.Therefore,
even if
it is truethatthis groupof "anti-scientific"anthropologistsuses devices thatappearto place its own positionat
thenextevolutionarystageofknowledgeand sophistication,thus defeatingits vulgarenemies by means of elitist, high-societyexclusionarytactics,we are still faced
with the problemof why it has worked.
Sangren'sexplanationforthe post-modernphenomenon is located in his interpretation
of its focus on individual experience,the anthropologyof the self. He argues thatpost-modernanthropology
is, in its content,no
more than a reproductionof bourgeois individualism.
While I would agree that the recent trend(or cycle) of
anthropologyin generalis towarda revivalof a concern
with the subject,the constitutionof the selfand experience, I fail to see that this is more a reflexof bourgeois
societythan the collectivistMarxistdevelopmentalism
thatreducedtheindividualto a bearerofsocial relations.
The latter,afterall, can similarlybe interpretedas a
mere abstractionof the capitalistaccumulationprocess
to the scale of universalhistory(FriedmanI976, I983).
Some of the keys to an understandingof the problem
can be foundin an importantinsightthat is not developed by Sangren,that true dialogics is not an intratex-
tual but an intertextualphenomenon.Its reductionto

the formeris an expressionof the collapse of a public
sphereof discussion and an ensuant attemptto encompass the voice of the otherwithinone's own. Cliffordis,
of course, clearlyaware of this problem.But neitheris
interestedin theactual dissolutionofthe scientificcommunitythat is its condition(Douglas I985), since both
are in the moralbusiness oftryingto determinethe best
The factthat the othernow
way of doing ethnography.
speaks and criticizesthe anthropologisthas, of course,
forcedthe issue of dialogics. And it is clearlythe case
that the single dialogic textmay expressthe attemptto
recaptureand thus neutralize,once more, the relation
betweenus and them by assumingthat the anthropologist can representthe other'svoice.
The core of the problemhereis not thata new elite is
tryingto establish itself but that it has now become
possibleand imperativeforsome to attacktheveryfoundations of scientificknowledge,includingethnographic
knowledge, as a structureof power. This possibility
is partiallyrecognizedby Cliffordand Marcus and vehemently denied by Sangren. The crisis of Western
of the world system,the
hegemony,the fragmentation
apparentshiftofcentersofcapital accumulationthatare
at presentunderway have, I suggest,led to a dissolution
of the self-evidentmodernismof the past (I987, I988).
As anthropologyoccupies that locus between us and
them,producingdiscourse that definesthem as it does
ourselves,the dissolutionofethnographicauthority,the
concern with the ethnographicact, the combined culturalization and relativizationof the world not only
among a small group of American anthropologistsbut
even in England (OveringI985) and, in a different
way,
in France(LyotardI979,
Todorovi982, Favret-Saada
are a real expressionof the currentconditionof

Westernidentity.The post-modernizationof the West,
not just in intellectualtermsbut in termsofthe ethnicization ofWesternEuropeand America,the proliferation
of new cults, urban Indians, and national roots, is a
unified process of world systemic fragmentationthat
must be understood.Sangren,by taking up the moral
combat,may findhimselfstrugglingagainst the windmill ratherthan the wind.
I977)
IAN
JARVIE
DepartmentofPhilosophy,York University,Toronto,
Ont., Canada M3JIP3. I 7 XII 87
Like Sangren,I am both intriguedand appalled by postmodernism.He concentrateson explainingwhyit is appalling.Herewithsome furtherremarksto this end and
some thoughtsas to why it is intriguing.
Sangren'smain sociological argumentis thatthe millenarian rhetoricof the post-moderncritics of the authorityof anthropologicaltextsreveals thattheiraim is
to be a successor regime.The ages and statuses of the
post-modernistssuggestthe limits of theirradicalism.
Geertz, obviously, and also Marcus, Clifford,and
Rabinow are already established. Established and ten-

428
1 CURRENT
ANTHROPOLOGY
uredscholarswho attackthe ancestorsarefeigningradicalism; what theyare trulyabout is rebellion,a bid for

the spoils of the currentsystem,not forits overthrow.
Who getswhat spoils and how? Studentfollowing,collegial sympathy,and hence the rewardsofreadershipand
research money are the what. As for the how, what
could bettersuit a bureaucratizedacademe controlledby
the regimeofpaperthan the "deep" insightthatwhat is
on paper does not representthe world but is the world,
so to studythe world all one needs to do is studythe
paper, the texts,the processes of theirproductionand
reproductionand the functionsserved by theirhidden
have producedthe ultistructures?The post-modernists
mate argumentforarmchairanthropology.
Meanwhile, insteadofthe hardtaskmasterof science,
professorsand studentscan learn fromtheircolleagues
in thehumanitiesabout literarydevices,authorialpoint
of view, and so on, and toy with the plausible idea that
literaturein generalhas thingsto teach one ofits forms,
agreeablecolThis makes anthropologists
anthropology.
leagues and allies against science and reason.
The millenarianrhetoric,it thenfollows,may be read
as no more than a formof expressioncommon among
thosewho thinkthattheyhave seen the truthand it has
set themfree(froman enslavementto scientism).True,
theirevangelisingcan be offensive,as in the disrespect
shown to ancestors,but, afterall, Malinowski and Raddid the same sortofthing.There was, howcliffe-Brown
the academic cargocult of
ever,an importantdifference:
offereda method of
Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown
procedureand the promiseofgettingnearerto the truth
(JarvieI964), whereas post-modernismoffersnavelgazing (study of texts) and equivocation about truth.
Were post-moderniststo claim that "one cultural account is as good as any other" they would have vindicated traditionalethnography.Hence the disavowal.
do
Yet Sangrenrightlynotes thatsome post-modernists
in facthold this doctrine,hence the equivocation.
What Sangrenseems to find intriguingis that postmodernistanthropologistshave discoveredthemselves
as a tribe,one with careers,institutions,and even a cultureand at the centerthe institutionof language.This
a social grouplike any other,and
makes anthropologists
one ripe for study. Sangren concentrateson careers,
whereas post-modernistsconcentrateon the writingof
texts.Both accounts of anthropologicalcultureare partial. There are otherinstitutions,and theuse oflanguage
in these institutionsis by no means confinedto writing.
Little is said about the dialogic aspects of talk in the
field,nevermind talk in the classroom,the lecture,and
the Santa Fe seminarthatgave birthto WritingCulture.
Such diverseformsof talk may have diversefunctions
and a rangeof possible relationsto writing.Some talk,
some writing,some institutionsaim to seek the truth;
some anthropologistsalso.
Whyis it intriguingto view anthropologistsas a society,a culture,a tribe?Why is the sociologyof institutions of which we ourselvesare membersso titillating?
The answeris to hand in social anthropology:it demystifiesour own practicesby assimilatingthemto those of
others.This parallels the titillationof the anthropological studyof the exotic in general,which confrontsus
with what seems utterlyotherand demystifiesand assimilates it to the understandableand, eventually,the
quite unremarkable.
Sangrenis rightto assimilatethisanthropologicalprocess to what we call the scientific,namely,the extracting of explanatoryorderfromthe previouslydisordered,
diverse,or seeminglyunique. Here lies anothersourceof
both the intriguingand the appalling aspects of postmodernism:It displays hostilityto previous orderings,
which are identifiedwith science; yet it itselfoffersan
ordering,a making sense, and is thus claiming to be
science. Such is the authorityof science in
higher-order
our culture that it is subjected repeatedlyto attempts
simultaneouslyto debunk it and to transcendit. The
debunking proceeds by reducing it to a crude Aunt
Sally-say, "positivism" or "scientism"-which can
easily be knocked down. But then it is necessaryto put
in its place some claim or insightthat goes beyondit,
thatreaches a deeperformofunderstandingor ordering.
What is the appeal of this process? Such unmasking
to thereader,who
and transcendenceis greatlyflattering
is immediatelyelected to the ranks of the no longer
bamboozled. "Once youreyes were ... opened you saw
instances everywhere:the worldwas full of
confirming
verifications.... Whateverhappenedalways confirmed
it. Thus its truth appeared manifest . . ." (Popper
debunkingof
I963:35). In oppositionto post-modernist
ethnographicauthoritySangrendefendsthe authorityof
as science. Certainlythisis consistentwith
ethnography
the academic culturefromwhich anthropologysprings
and to which its ethnographictextsreturn.Insofaras the
have exposed authoritarianelementsin
post-modernists
theirworkis to be commended.
traditionalanthropology
Neithera reassertionofthistraditionalauthoritynorthe
authorityof a new successor regime strikesme as an
improvement.The best resultwould be substitutionof
a non-authoritarianunderstandingof science and its
claims. But apparentlyneither Sangren nor the postmodernistshave heard that some philosophershave
epistemologyand
triedto constructa non-authoritarian
philosophyof science' (see PopperI959, I963, I972;
Bartleyi962; AlbertI985; HattiangadiI978-79;

for an application to anthropology,JarvieI964,
I984,
and,
I972,
I986).
epistemolTwo benefitsof such a non-authoritarian

ogyshould be mentioned.The firstis thatit can be used
to combat the historicism (Popper ig5o:passim) that
passes forthoughtin so much currentwriting.Historicism permits academics to write and speak of themselves as beingin "subjects" thatstudy"fields"to which
are attributed "trends," "convergences," "waves,"
"-isms," "moments," "ideology," "post"-thises and
-thats,and the like. Verifiablebut not falsifiable,such
i. Perhapstheycannotbe blamed,since a conspiracyof silence
viz.,Rorty,
Popperandhis workamongthefashionable,
surrounds
Derrida,et al.

SANGREN
historicisttropespermeateWritingCultureand deserve
exposure. The second benefitis that the aims of anthropologycan be statedwithoutrelyingon inductivist
images such as those of describingor representing"the
it
experienceofthe other"(or ofoneself).Anthropology,
bears saying once more, is not general curiosityabout
exotics (includingourselves seen as exotics) the main
methodologicalproblemofwhich is thenhow we are to
conductthe study,description,representation,
satisfaction of this curiosity.That is not worthtenure,publication,students,time,or researchmoney; it is hobbyism.
Anthropology
is, rather,a continuoustraditionofdebate
aroundcertainproblemsconcerninghumankind.These
problemsare historicallystructured,forthe debate has
been pursuedcontinuouslysince the Pre-Socratics.The
debate was initiated because its participantsthought
thatwe mightmake some progresswith theproblems
getnearerto the truth-or, ifyou prefer,
eliminatesome
of our worsterrors.
MARYON
MC DONALD
GroveHouse, BuryRd., Stapleford,Cambridge

CB2 5BP, U.K. i2 I 88
Sangren'scritique of a critique is welcome, althoughI

am not sure that eitherhe or those whom he criticises
are eitheras radicalor as novel as theymightbe. Some of
thetermsoftheirargumentsare redolentofolderdiscussions whose ghostswe oughtby now to have laid. Anyone who can still stack up politics and economics, on
the one hand,forexample (ifonlyas "background"),and
then talk of something else called the "symbolic,"
"semiotic,"and so on, on the otherhand,is hardlyleadingus intonew territory.
Sangrenis rightto pointout,in
his own way, that the work of some self-styledpostmodernists is riddled with "comforting,"taken-forgrantedassumptions and reificationsof a kind which
they ought,instead, to be inspectingwith all the selfthat"post-modern
announcedsensitivityand reflexivity
ethnography"might properlybe expected to muster.
However,Sangren'sown paper implies dualities-there
is somethingcalled "society," for example, alongside
somethingelse called "culture"-which easily evoke
and confirmthe same categories and divides which
those whom he criticisesappear,in spite ofthemselves,
to accept and reify.Much ofthe excitementofthewhole
if
discussion-its rhetoricand authority,
post-modernist
you like-seems to reside in recensionsof these enduring constructionsof the world,and I cannothelp having
a naggingsense of dejia vu about it all.
It is not simplythat many of the authorsmost commonly cited-Lacan, Foucault, and Derrida are among
those whom Sangrenpicks out-were already feeding
into anthropology's"crisis," in Britainat least, in the
late I970S and that much of what now passes forpostmodernismfeels alreadyold-hat.Some anthropologists
mightrecall what happened to structuralism.Many in
anthropologyfoundin structuralismmerelya means to
studythe excitingephemerathatfunctionalismhad ren-
deredsecondary.Otherswho, in like manner,thoughtit

was all to do with metaphorand poetics,literatureand
texts,appropriatedstructuralismforliterarycriticism,
where it duly took refugeand where the embarrassing
partyhas continuedformanyyears.In theprocess,some
and of
ofthe most far-reaching
insightsofstructuralism,
its mentors(notablySaussure),have been continuallyin
dangerof being lost. It would be a greatpity if the inor everysightsof post-structuralism,
post-modernism,
thingthathas come since were similarlyto be swamped
within the verystructurestheywere tryingto hold up
forexamination.It is not, therefore,
veryhelpfulto approachpost-modernism,
whetherto vaunt it or to criticise it, froma standpointladen with distinctionsof the
social and the cultural,say,or ofsocietyand ideology,or
of the politico-economicand the semiotic, and so on.
Such ideas are of ethnographic,ratherthan analytical,
interest.Self-proclaimedpost-moderniststend to place
great emphasis on ethnographicunderstanding.There
seems, however,to be little ethnographicconcernwith
thesourcesoftheirown appeal or thatofthosetheycite.
Sangrenrightlyurges a closer examinationof the postmodernists'own careersand a greaterawarenessofwho
and what has the "authorityto definethe fashionable."
He mightprofitablyreformulatehis criticaldiscussion
of the science/humanitiescouplet to demand a greater
ethnographicinterestin both the self-diminutionand
the titillationof"culturalstudies,"callingforan examination of the enduringstructureswithinwhich a focus
on "culture," however glossed (symbolic,semiotic, or
whatever),has the capacityto generateexcitementand
withinwhich, should it fail to understandand address
the sources of its own appeal, it mighteasily disappear
again(cf.MarcusandFischerI986:
I4I,
citedbySangren,
on thispoint).We shouldperhapsask ofpost-modernism

a greaterethnographicand reflexiveunderstandingof
the relatedprocessby which Frenchwritershave gained
theirattractionin an Anglo-Americanworld,by which
French texts are readily renderedobscure or poetic in
their English translation,and by which a serious rethinkingof the FrenchLeft(e.g.,LyotardI979) and various versionsof its obituarymighteasily be transposed
into so many exercisesin lit. crit.or into yetmore emguests.
barrassingpartieswith new, post-modernist
PAUL
RABINOW
DepartmentofAnthropology,Universityof California,
Berkeley,
Calif.94720, U.S.A.3 XII 87
Amidst Sangren's grapeshot polemic-surely deconstructionand postmodernismare not the same thing,it
would be nice to have an occasional sustainedargument
(e.g.,againstRorty)ratherthana high-handeddismissal,
what
the issue at hand is ethnography
not anthropology,
constitutesphilosophicbases todaysurelyis more than
the pietyof invokingthem,etc.-there is one on which
Sangrenand Marcus and Fisherwould agree: thatdrawing an overly sharp line between science and the
humanities is a dangerous game. In addition to the

430
1 CURRENT
ANTHROPOLOGY
pointsraised by Sangren,one mightadd thatsuch a dis- decadence,positivism,and assertiveness,to name but a

tinctionleaves no roomforthe social sciences. The cur- few.We know thatrelativismbringsout the religiousin
it seems, bringsout the venom.
rentadministrationin Washingtonhas pursueda policy people. Reflexivity,
What are the key sources of anxietyhere?The major
with strong reverberationsthroughoutthe American
seems to want to deuniversitysystemof encouraging"hard" science, espe- fearis Loss of Method: reflexivity
cially if the presumedtechnologicalpayoffis military, prive anthropologistsof the traditionalmeans forproand "soft" humanities to shore up our "traditional ducingnews. Readersask how theyare to proceedonce
values." The response to Alan Bloom's The Closing of the foundationsof ethnographicworkhave been underthe American Mind is perhapsless astonishingin this mined.A second,relatedfearis Loss of Object: reflexivcontext.Moneyforthe StrategicDefenseInitiativeflows ists seem to proscribethe Otheras a legitimatetargetfor
Readers take reflexivity
as tantamountto
freelyhere in California;the numberof new healthily ethnography.
funded humanities centers in recent years (Stanford, the injunction that we write about Self rather than
Berkeley,Irvine,and so on) is equallyworthyofnote.Do Other.Hence the popularjibe thatby thisroutewe "end
I need to underlinethatI am of course not equatingthe up onlybeingable to say thingsabout ourselves."These
fearsalso manifestthemselvesin effortsto dismiss the
two?
My point in quoting Bourdieu was preciselyto link reflexivemove as non-serious.Hence the rashofcurrent
these new discourses to their more immediate condi- jokes ("What's the differencebetween the Mafia and a
tions in the contemporaryacademy. The momentary deconstructionist?-A deconstructionistmakes you an
visibilityand success (relativeindeed) of a few (all of offeryou can't understand")and allegationsofobscurity,
whom were hired fortheirprevious ethnographicand mystification,
and use of jargon.Such moves are exemtheoretical work, completely neglected by Sangren) plaryinstances of "boundarywork": in virtueof their
should not mask the factthat these voices representan non-seriousness,it is said,reflexivists
shouldnotbe coninfinitesimally
small currentin anthropology
(poststruc- sideredpropermembersof the game.
turalistsare probablynumericallyfewerthan forestry Is thereany justificationforthese fears?The point of
is not to recommendan alternativetargetbut
anthropologists,not to mention forensic anthropolo- reflexivity
gists).Nor should theirrelativevisibilitymask the fact to question the conventionsand technologiesof reprethat youngeror less well-knownpractitionersof these sentationwith(in)which we operate.The fearofreflexfledglingartsare not faringso well (thebacklash against ivityarisesbecause it threatensa key articleofthe modfeministsand minoritiesof all stripesat the National ernist credo, that acts of representationare directed
Endowmentfor the Humanities has not been lost on towards(or stem from)some pre-existentexternalities.
many deans and facultyMoral Majoritists).Recent ad- But anybodyfamiliarwith the large literaturein the
ministrativereversalsofappointmentson bothEast and sociologyofscientificknowledgewill know how out-ofWest Coasts at prestigiousinstitutionsthat the unin- touch this realist epistemologyis (foran introduction,
formedmightidentifyas hotbedsofpostmodernismrec- see Collins I985, Knorr-Cetinaand Mulkay I983, Woolommend a more precise sociological approach to our gar I988a). They will have seen, oftenin excruciating
currentsituation than the one Sangrenadopts. Finally, detail, how even in the very citadel of representation
forall the grumpyremarksabout others'lack of social scientistsartfullyconstructtheirexternalworlds.Simireflexivity,
Sangrenremains strangelysilent about his larly,anyonefamiliarwith this literaturewill know the
own position. Merquior, whom Sangren lauds for his irrelevanceforrepresentationalpracticeofvague guidestraight-arrow
thinking,receivedhis postgraduatetrain- lines like "allegiance to science as value."
in Paris as a spokesmanforand
ing in poststructuralism
Advocatesand opponentsofreflexivity
differ
as to the
employeeoftheBrazilianmilitary.Merquioris perfectly range of phenomena which should be subjected to the
clear about whom and what he represents:no "shifti- relativistgaze. The more traditionalapproachinvolves
ness" there.
the selectiveapplicationofculturalrelativismto certain
The workin WritingCultureis theproductofyearsof limited domains of others' activities; in this usage,
discussion and debate among friends.Scientificdebate "reflexivity"
is byand largea methodiccorrective.Thus,
does not implyagreement;it does implycivility,accep- benignintrospectionand fieldworkconfessionsare entance of difference,
imagination,and risk taking.If the couragedas a means of "improving"ethnographicrepresentation. By contrast, a more thoroughgoingand
disciplinehas ethics,surelyit lies there.
encompassingpursuit of relativismis part of an epistemologicalagenda.Insteadofmerelyironicisingthebeliefs and practices of others,the aim is to address the
STEVE WOOLGAR
more generalissue of representationas it characterises
DepartmentofHuman Sciences, Brunel University,
all practice;here,"reflexivity"means interrogating
and
Uxbridge,Middlesex UB8 3PH, U.K. 7 I 88
seekingalternativesto realistepistemology.
Even a newcomer to "cultural studies" can safelysurSangrenis perhapscorrectto note a sense in which the
mise that the vitriolof reactionsof "reflexivity"arises programmaticclaims of Cliffordand Marcus are "unbecause somewhere a raw nerve has been touched: in reflexive";he is also rightthatrelativistallegationsare
of the reflexiveoutrageare equally applicable to the criticsthemselves(the "probSangren'spiece, perpetrators
associated with hubris,self-congratulation,
narcissistic lems" of "tu quoque" argumentsare exploredin depth

SANGREN
Rhetoricand the Authorityof EthnographyI 43I
its currentpopularity.He sees in the rhetoricof postthem

modemism a seductionof its readersby flattering
withthepromiseofentryinto thecommunityofthe "no
longerbamboozled." Postmodernismis not alone in employingsuch persuasions; so too do stronglymodernist
and totalizingcritiquesofideologymorein line withmy
own theoreticalleanings. Perhaps more particularto
postmodemismis what Jarviesees as its congenialityto
colleagues in the humanities,especiallycriticaltheory.
underthe postOf course,I agree. "Interdisciplinarity"
to depictions
modemistagenda assimilatesethnography
of cultures (or of others' experiences)read and interregardingethpretedas textsand reflections(reflexivity)
nographicpractices to questions of textual representation. This notionjustifiesthe widespreadapplicationof
literarycriticalmethods (includingdeconstruction,the
discoveryofgenrein cultureand of epistemein history,
and the reflexiveanalysisofgenreand rhetoricin ethnographicwriting)to ethnography.Because ethnography
is thus by definitionengagedin the same hermeneutic
is less
endeavoras textual criticism,interdisciplinarity
an exchange of critical insights than an identityof
methods;hence, the congeniality.
In this regard,postmodernismin anthropologyseems
to amount at least in partto a continuationofthe interpretivistor culturalistposition againstwhich Friedman
cul(I987b) directshis own polemic. Prepostmodernist
however,still inethnography,
turalistor interpretivist
vokes realist epistemologyand contendswith competfashion.
ingtheoreticalperspectivesin modernist/realist
As I do, both Friedmanand Jarviesee in postmodernism
a kind of altemative orderinghostile to previousorderings-a characterizationthatFischer,Marcus,and Tyler
explicitlydeny.
Clifford'sand Friedman'sreactionsto postmodernism
make an interestingcontrast. Both argue that postmodemismin intellectualcirclesis linkedto globalhistoricalprocessesand thatits success cannot(at least not
primarily)be understoodin termsof academic politics
and institutions.For Friedman(I987b), however,postmodernismis a symptomofthe collapse ofthe scientific
community,itselflinked to the breakdownof modem
capitalistcivilization.It is an aspect ofthe commodificaP. STEVEN
SANGREN
tion of knowledge (I like Habermas's notion of "inner
Ithaca,N.Y.,U.S.A.27 I 88
colonization of the life world" better)that cannot be
in its own termsin academic instituAijmer does not see the discussions surroundingpost- resistedeffectively
modernismin American anthropologyas threatening tionsbut must await political changeat the global level.
thesediscussions(ifnot postmodernismper
and wonderswhat all the fuss is about. He notes, quite ForClifford,
appropriately,that many postmodemistinsights (e.g., se) seem to be less the symptomsof a culturalor episthe provisional,located nature of our interpretations, temological disease than the basis fora possible cure.
even textual reflexivity)are well within the doxa of My speculations regardingwhat McDonald terms the
modernistor realist practices. He also findsa discon- ethnographicsources ofpostmodernism'sappeal in acatinuityin proponents'descriptionsof experimentaleth- demic culture and institutionsimbue this debate with
nographyand theirown more conventionalbooks and less global significanceand dignity.Nonetheless,thatan
ofglobal proportions
hintsthatskepticismregardingpostmodernistpromises allegedinstitutionalfragmentation
to revitalize modernistethnographyand theoryis the (Marx and Engels were already making similar claims
appropriateattitudeuntil there is some evidence that morethana centuryago) is historicallyand functionally
of
linked to (expressedin?) a postmodernfragmentation
such promisescan be fulfilled.
Jarvietakes, as I do, a less benign view of postmod- knowledgestrikesme as implausible.This is not to deny
emism and offerssome suggestionsofhis own regarding the existenceof some kind of totalizingor systemicorbyAshmoreI985). But in orderto assess the significance
of these observationswe need a much broadergraspof
the differentsenses and implications of varieties of
(see Watson I987, Woolgar I988b).
reflexivity
It is no use gesturingto the importanceof analysis at
the institutionallevel, as if this were somehow politimoreradical,forit is the convencally moresignificant,
tionsofrealismwhich supportthese"institutions."Sangrenmakes the common mistake of supposingthat the
argumentabout textualityapplies only (or mostly) to
writtendocuments(mere texts),as if otherentities(institutions,science, values) somehow enjoyed a principled immunityfromculturalrelativism.
The reflexiveargumenthas to be taken seriously,because the epistemological implications pose a major
challengeto existingconceptionsof researchand scholin emphasis-in social studarship.Despite differences
ies of science, for example, writershave been rather
more self-consciousabout attemptsto programmaticise
the reflexiveturnas a movement(AshmoreI985, Mulkay I985, Woolgarand Ashmore I988)-the appearance
of reflexivityin anthropologyis just a part of a wider,
moregeneralintellectualconcernwhich transcendsdisciplinaryboundaries.
The fearofreflexivity
exhibitedin vitriolicdefencesof
(the sacred cow of) realism usefullydemonstratesthe
degree of entrenchmentinvolved, but this should not
Attention
detractfromthe task of exploringreflexivity.
should be devotedto becomingclearerabout the variety
and significanceofreflexivity,
to exploringa wide range
ofpracticesand ways of "beingreflexive,"ofinterrogatas we engagein it; to explicatingand
ing representation
assessing the constraintsof a whole range of conventional practicesof representationas we use them,from
textualorganisationin generalrightdown to the eightlimit of this comment.
hundred-word
Reply

432 1 CURRENT
ANTHROPOLOGY
VolUMe29, Number 3, JuneI988
dering within which academic institutions and the

formsof knowledge they contributeto producingand
reproducing(and which contributeto reproducingthem)
is linked to encompassing(perhapseven global) institutions and processes.But assertingwhat strikesme as a
superficialsimilarityin the arguable fragmentation
of
worldcapitalism,on the one hand,and an allegedbreakdown of modernistepistemology,on the other,would
hardlyqualifyas a totalizinganalysis or justifyeither
Friedman's or Clifford'shistoricizing(in the sense to
which Jarvieobjects) of postmodernism.PerhapsFriedman developssuch an analysisin thearticleto which his
commentrefers(I988), unfortunately
unavailable to me
priorto the deadline for this reply.In any case, such
global processes would surelybe mediated by the immediate institutionalcontext of academia. Friedman's
more generalpoint,echoed by McDonald, thatlittle efforthas been made to develop a sociologicalunderstanding of the success of postmodernstances is well taken
and seems to me to be in keepingwith the spiritof my
own critique.
In this regard,Friedman'sassertion(seeminglymore
in sympathywith Marcus's characterizationsof postmodernism)that "it has now become possible and imperative for some to attack the very foundationsof
scientificknowledge,includingethnographicknowledge
as a structureofpower," seems to be at some odds with
his defenseof"the discourseofprivilegedobjectivity"as
"the only thingwe have that allows a potentialchange
ofperspectiveon realityindependentof the marketand
the state" (I987b:I66). I can make sense ofthisapparent
contradictiononly by assumingthatby "foundationsof
scientificknowledge" Friedmanmeans somethingdifferentfrommy "science as value" (more akin to his
"discourse of privilegedobjectivity,"which, recalling
Habermas, "supplies the necessary conditions for 'rational' communication"[I987b: I67]). Ifby "foundations
of scientificknowledge"Friedmanmeans institutionalized structuresof authoritythat reproduceformsof social inequality in the name of science, I would deny
neither the possibility nor the moral imperative (for
some) of resistance.But as he notes, such resistance(at
least among intellectuals)would rely preciselyon the
discourse of privilegedobjectivity,which would thus
also requiredefending;hence, my defense.
Woolgaris correctthat polemics like mine manifest
anxieties, but they are not the ones he specifies.My
concernis not a fearofloss ofmethodor ofloss ofobject;
it is rathertheloss ofFriedman's"discourseofprivileged
objectivity,"the premise(whetheracknowledgedor denied) upon which both modernistand postmodernist
communicationsdepend. The polemic is thus not an
instanceof"boundarywork" or,as Clifford
putsit,exorcism; rather,it is a defense of a value that, however
vaguely defined and imperfectly institutionalized,
makes it possible to hope that our own "contests for
meaning"mightalso be meaningful(eitherscientifically
or politically)contests-something more than the "embarrassingparties" to which McDonald refers.
In this regard,Woolgar engages in some boundary
workofhis own. Contraryto his characterizations,

realist epistemology(ifI am a representativeof it) does not
deny that scientists constructtheir worlds; neitheris
realist epistemologynecessarily antireflexiveor antirelativist.In spite of my attemptsto be clear on these
pointsin my essay,Woolgar'sreadingof it suggestsone
of the reasons debates between modems and postmoderns so quickly reach an impasse. In this regard
allow me to employ a metaphorwidely invokedby advocates of postmodernismto the effectthat the movement/moment
can be viewed as a therapeuticprocessin
modernism'sself-transformation
and growth.The impasse arises when the realist/modernist
protests that
she/he does not sufferfrom the symptomsthe postmodernistclaims to perceive;the loudertheprotest,the
more the analyst's diagnosis of delusion is confirmed.
Postmodernshave theirown ways of being dismissive.
My objectionsare ratherto postmodernistcharacterizations of reflexivityand relativism as though they
were, as Woolgar puts it, alternativesto realist epistemology.(I assume that some advocates of postmodernismwould disagreewith Woolgar on this point.) In
thesame vein,I do not believe thatmyarticlemakes the
mistakeof supposingthat "the argumentabout textualityapplies only (ormostly)to writtendocuments";were
such the case I would have less to dispute.The thrustof
my argumentin this regardis preciselyto contest the
idea that culturesand societies (or,heedingMcDonald,
cultural-cum-socialprocesses) are usefully viewed as
textsto be interpreted.
Like Woolgar,I thinkthatreflexivityregardingpractices is in principlea good thing,a
way to improveourpractices.Moreover,such reflexivity
is entirelyin keepingwith realistepistemologyifI am a
realist.Whatmy essay disputesis the idea thatour practices (and,hence,our reflexivity)
are problemsofliterary
genreand representation;in otherwords,if anthropology is to be reflexive,let it be anthropologicallyreflexive.
Clifforddiscovers in my arguments an agonistic
scenario(i.e., "the gangoffour")rhetoricallydesignedto
constructa strawman. Of course, this discoveryparallels my own account ofthe agonistichistoryofthe crisis
in modernismemployedby its critics.To arguethatmy
use of genre ironically recapitulates postmodernistic
dramas or that my attemptsto deconstructits rhetoric
parody such deconstructionsin general would be (to
some degree)ex post facto defenses,apparentlylegitimate in postmodernistic
interpretive
practicesbut carrying little weight in analysis groundedin "realist epistemology."In any case, the virtuesof (and virtuosityin)
irony,parody,and contextualplay in ethnographicwriting and criticismare overrated.(Must I point out the
oxymoronicironyinternalto the precedingsentence?)
By the same token,Clifford'sdiscoveryofparablein my
text and my discoveryof millennial mythologyin the
textsI criticizesuggestthat such discoveriesof literary
form,genre, and constructionsof authorityare more
usefully understood with reference to competition
amongintellectuals(andI am not absentingmyselfhere)
than as central to ethnographicpractice or even to

SANGREN
ofEthnography
1433
reflexivity.
Postmodemshave a rightto be annoyed(as strategiesthatfocuson the act ofethnographicconstructheyclearlyare) by such parodying,but it seems to be a tion or that invoke others' (always selected) voices do
techniquemorecentralto theirown methodthanto that not make ethnographyany less the author's construcof the modemism that some of theirarguments,criti- tion.They do make such constructionsmoredifficult
to
cisms, and "experiments" parodically underminebut contest,however,because totalizingcoherenceis explicavoid confronting.
itlyabandoned.Can such textsreallyclaim greaterethClearlyI have not convincedmy adversariesthat the ical virtueon thisbasis? I am clearlynot constructing
an
values they outline for ethnography(e.g., blurring argumentagainst ethical and political reflection,but
genres,contextualplay,polyvocality,rigorouspartiality, there is nothinginherentlymore pluralisticor ethical
avoidingtotalizing,etc.) are antitheticalto "science as about the newly touted experimentalgenres. Despite
value." I surmisethatthe seriouschargethatI misrepre- their claims to pluralistic theoreticaltolerance,postsent their argumentsconvergesmost significantlyon modemistsseem to me to asserttheirown truthsevery
this issue. In additionto the argumentsadduced in my bit as absolutelyas do the totalizers.
essay, it may be useful to elaboratewhy I believe "toSurelyin all of this thereis power and desire.In the
talizing"is essential not only as the goal ofsome recon- notion of "science as value" the desire for(or will to)
structionfromthe "ethnographicgroundup" (an unpower is explicit and legitimatedin roughlythe terms
likelyscenariogiventhe ways ethnographers
are trained outlinedabove. The ways this value is piously invoked
and constructtheirdata informedby consciouslyor un- by practitionerswhose own psychodynamicsmay reconsciously totalizingtheories or agendas) but also in press less collectively legitimate desires, on the one
ourethnographic
productionsthemselves.The "science- hand, and by social institutionsthat reproduceother
as-value" criterion"piously invoked" in my essay, the values (e.g., with effectsof domination),on the other,
essential taken-for-granted
ofrealistand modemisteth- warrantscrutinyand perhapsexposure."The discourse
nographicwritingand anthropologicaldebate,intrinsic- of privilegedobjectivity"providesthe means to accomally assumes thatthe argument,theory,or ethnography plish this in an effectively
reflexiveway. In the face of
that most coherentlyand logically orders the widest the social, textual,and philosophical uses of postmodrange of phenomena is (always provisionally)the best. ernist discourse, what then is one to conclude from
Such totalizing(as in Friedman'scall forunderstanding an assertion like "postmodemism is not an 'orderthe "unifiedprocess of world systemicfragmentation") constructingideology' but the deconstructive,parodic,
must encompass contradictionswithin its own con- entropicdissolutionofpower,"exceptperhapsthatpoststructed order. As Friedman points out (i987b:i67), modemism does not exist in any socially, philosophmetaphysicalassumptionsmay be necessaryforthis en- ically,or anthropologically
meaningfulsense,least ofall
terprise(e.g.,regardingthe existenceand coherenceof a where it is explicitlyinvoked?
world independentof our constructionsor interpretations ofit),but these assumptionsare what make it possible. Totalizing is importantin ethnography
because it
opens ratherthan closes the possibilityfordebate. It is
pluralistic in the sense that it assumes a "space" in
which would-be competitorscan fashion more com- ALBERT, HANS. I985. Treatise on critical reason. Princeton:
Princeton
University
Press.[ij]
prehensiveand elegant totalizations (the criterionfor
ASAD, TALAL. I986. "The conceptofculturaltranslation
in Britlegitimatepersuasiveness in modemist epistemology), ish social anthropology,"
in Writing
culture.EditedbyJames
but it also providesthe rationalebywhichrelativelyless
Clifford
andGeorgeE. Marcus,pp. 141-64. Berkeley:Univercomprehensiveand coherenttheoriescan be contested
sityofCalifomiaPress.
I985. A question of reflexivity:Wrightand (over time) rejected.The intertextuality
to which ASHMORE, MALCOLM.
ingthesociologyofscientific
knowledge.D.Phil thesis,UniverFriedmanrefersis groundedin these assumptions,imsityofYork,York,U.K. [sw]
plyingthatthefundamentalobjectiveofacademic ethics BARTLEY, WILLIAM WARREN,
III. i962. The retreatto commitis to insure the implementationof these assumptions
ment.New York:Knopf.
(byno means takenforgranted)in academic institutions BATESON, GREGORY. I958 [1936]. 2d edition. Naven: A survey
oftheproblemssuggestedbya compositepictureoftheculture
and discourse.
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University
Press.
ple voices,fractured
realities,and antipathyto totalizing
. 1972. Stepsto an ecologyofmind.New York:Ballantine
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Books.
premisesofour discourse.Fischer,Marcus,and Tylerare BOON, JAMES A. I98 2. Other tribes,otherscribes: Symbolic anin thecomparativestudyofcultures,
relihistories,
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. I986a. "Introduction: Partial truths,"in Writingculture.
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Edited by JamesCliffordand George E. Marcus, pp. I-26. Berke(eitherby the people it describes or by other ethnogley:University
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. I986b. "On ethnographic
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Errata
The last sentence (p. 657) should read: "It is regretta* Ives Goddardpoints out the followingprinter'serrors
ble that the publishingof Greenberg'sword sets will
in his review of Greenberg'sbook in the December
give the impressionthat this work has been comI987 issue:
pleted,when in factit was not even begun."
The second sentencein the firstparagraph(p. 656)
Algonkian*-ne0k-and NorthemIroquoian *-netshshould read: "This technique excludes historicallin(p. 657) should have initial hyphens.
leads to no religuisticanalysis and, not surprisingly,
For Chehallis (p. 657) read Chehalis.
able conclusions about linguistichistory."
Prizes
* The I988 Wellcome Medal and ?2oo will be awarded
fora recentbody of publishedwork that makes, as a
whole, a significantcontributionto the development
of researchin anthropologyas applied to medical problems. It will be awardedby the Council of the Royal
AnthropologicalInstituteon the recommendationof a
Medal Committee.Personsmay apply or be nominated. Bibliographicreferencesshould be supplied.
Submissionsmay be made in any language,but those
in languagesotherthan Englishmust be accompanied
by an adequate summaryin English.Preferenceis usu-
ally given to candidatesat an earlystage in theircareers.No personmay receive the Medal on more than
one occasion. Previousawards have been made to John
Janzenand GilbertLewis in 1978, to ArthurKleinman
in I980, to Alan Harwood in i982, to JaniceReid in
I984, and to FrancisZimmermannin I986. Full rules
are available on request.Applicationsand nominations
must be sent by June2o, I988, to the Director'sSecretary,Royal AnthropologicalInstitute,50 FitzroySt.,
London WiP sHS, England.


Rethoric and The Authority of Ethnography - Steven Sangren

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Rhetoric and the Authority of Ethnography: "Postmodernism" and the Social Reproduction of

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2743456 .

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CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Volume 29, Number 3, JuneI988

Few anthropologistsor other professionalsengaged in

ratherthanin textsalone)can dispelsomeofthe"paradoxes"left

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Volume 29, Number 3, June I988

no significant"dialogic" recognitionof the contributionsof

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Rhetoricand theAuthorityof Ethnography| 407

tion that even thoughtexts cannot be trulydialogic or

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Volume 29, Number 3, JuneI988

sociologywould pose forthe basic claims made by proponentsofpostmodernethnography.

Millennial Rhetoricand the Locus

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the vanguard,of course (see, e.g., the turnof phrase in

Rhetoricand the Authorityof Ethnography1409

turn to the high ground of "reality" if we have first

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Volume 29, Number 3, fune I988

is highlycontestableand can be seen as anotherformof decay, initiation,"decentered" chaos, and retum-are

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to beingepistemologiesor not) are inevitablytumed toward legitimatingotherordersand authorities.Because

Rhetoricand the Authorityof EthnographyI 4II

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Volume 29, Number 3, fune I988

Culturemaybe takenas evidenceofthisphenomenonsuch authoritydoes not seriouslythreatenotherways of

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characteristicsor ideals of postmodern ethnography

Other Rhetoricsof Power

mystifiesits own logical flaws and will to power (see

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Volume 29, Number 3, JuneI988

concrete"applied to the efforts

withoutbearingresponsibilityfordefendingone's positions; and an openlyacknowledgedfreedomto engagein

Social Reproductionand "Texts"

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Materialand logical constraintsexercisean inexorable

atically incorrectview of itselfwith the actual operations of social reproduction.

Here, the levels of experienceand cultural and social

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Volume 29, Number 3, June1988

bly capable of creatingnew meta-positionsthat subvert the individualthat entersthe postmodernistrhetoricas

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I havealreadyarguedthattheconfla- There appearto be as manyideologicalradicalsdoing

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Volume 29, Number 3, JuneI988

Comparing postmodernistepistemological angst to The Social and CulturalReproduction

24. The idea that false consciousnessand ideologyare best explainedwithreference

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sentationalformsand social practices"(i986:250).

and novelly structuredways" (i982:26). It may be true

In sum, a trulyreflexiveanthropologywould go farbeyond Clifford'stextualism,in which "now ethnography

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Volume 29, Number 3, June 988

implicitlythroughoutthe discourse of postmodernist

for example, sees Bateson's (i958[i9361)

(Sangrenn.d.a) I have argued that the science/humanities contrastin Western culture,particularlyas it is

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modernistpositions (i.e., society/experience,culture/ modernism is that in attacking scientism in various

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