An Anthropologist Looks at Biology Author(s): Tim Ingold Source: Man, New Series, Vol. 25, No. 2 (Jun.

, 1990), pp. 208-229 Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2804561 Accessed: 17/08/2010 13:58
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AN ANTHROPOLOGIST

LOOKS AT BIOLOGY*

TIM INGOLD

University Manchester of

for of Thls articlesetsout the foundations an adequate integration anthropology withinthe wider field of biology. In the discourse of social anthropology,the concept of 'biology' is commonly matched to one side of an opposition between humamtyand nature,settingup persons and organismsas mutually exclusive objects of study.In biology itself, however, the establishedneo-Darwinian synthesis virtually elimnates the organism as a real entity,and the extension of this paradigm to incorporate 'cultural inheritance'likewise elimnates the person. An alternative biology is proposed thattakesthe organismas its starting point, and thatcomprehendsthe social life of persons as an aspect of organic lifein general. whose focusis on processes Thus an anthropology ofpersonsis encompassedwithina biology oforganisms ratherthan events,replacingthe 'population thinking'of Darwinian evolutionarybiology with a logic of relationships.

is Biology is thescience oflivingorganisms; anthropology thescience oflivingpeople. In thisarticleI want to propose thatanthropology-includingwhat passesas 'social' withinthe domain of biology. But do not or 'cultural'in orientation-fallsentirely I jump to conclusions.I am not a belated convertto sociobiology. To the contrary, arguethatin sociobiology,an impoverished biologythathaslosttouchwiththereality of organisms meets an equally impoverished social science thatleaves no conceptual space forreal people. It is most unfortunate thatthe termsof the dialogue between should have been thuspre-empted.I intendto show that biology and anthropology central the mainproblemsin current anthropological theory, concerning generation, of in tenance and transformation structures the processof social life,have theirexact in solutiondemandsan approachthattakesus far parallels biology,butthattheir beyond neo-Darwinianorthodoxy. place ofthekindof 'populationthinking' In theprevailing is of (Mayr1982: 45-7) that thehallmark Darwinianbiologyitis necessary substitute to a kind of 'relationships which locates the organismor person as a creative thinking', describe a process of agent within a total field of relationswhose transformations evolution. I am offering, then,the prospectof a new synthesis between biology and but social or cultural anthropology, no more thana prospect,since much theoretical a workremains be done. I am also issuing challenge, theincorporation human to for of social lifeinto a unifiedtheoryof organicevolution will requirenothingless than a withinbiology itselfThere are signsthatsuch a shift alreadytaking is paradigm-shift place1, yet it seems that in the oppositional context of its confrontation with the neo-Darwinismis destinedto take a laststand.So much is at stake. humanities, I shall proceed as follows. First,I shall show how 'biology' has been construed withinthe discourseof anthropology its through assimilation one side of an ancient to dichotomybetween humanityand nature. I go on to describehow the notion of
*Curl Lecture 1989 (Thlisarticlewas accepted forpublication and processedby the previous editor.) Man (N.S.) 25, 208-29

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withinthe discipline which it has givenitsname, and whose scope to biologyhas fared is definedby the distinctive of properties living things.I argue thatthe triumphof from modem biology, neo-Darwinismheraldedthefinal disappearance oftheorganism and in the third partof the articleI shallpropose an alternative biology thattakesthe organismas itspoint of departure. Turningfromorganiclifein generalto social life in particular, show thatneo-Darwinian sociobiologyleaves us withouta theoryof I I the person.In recapturing personsforanthropology follow the same approachas in my recapturing organisms biology. I conclude by bringing anthropology of for the of thatis at once post-Darwinian personswithinthe compass of a biology of organisms and yetharksback to an earlierera when the modernseparation between the sciences of mind and naturehad yet to be established. as Biology human nature There is a tensionat the heartof westernthought, one thathas been withus formany fromthe world of nature,and centuries, between the thesisof humanity's separation thecounter-thesis humankind that exists alongsideother life-forms an uninterrupted on continuumor chain of being. Each has been generatedin responseto the challenge of the other: thus claims to human uniqueness, of man's absolute ascendancyand dominationover nature,are counteredby assertions the fellowshipand interdeof pendence of all living beings. The disciplineof biology is constituted within this and nature, dialogue,bounded on the one side by the oppositionbetween humanity and on the otherside by the oppositionbetween living and non-livingthings.The first theseoppositions,of course, underwrites established of the divisionof academic labourbetweennatural scienceand thosedisciplines collectively knownas the'humaniof ties', the formerclassicallyconcerned with the composition and structures the and manifestations the human spirit. is of with the forms It physicalworld, the latter in terms thisoppositionthat of of mosthumanists think biology:forthem, is precisely it and civilisation, not.But the is what the studyof language and thought,of history in of of originsof biology in factlie in the counter-current,assertions the continuity and nature,or recastit as one of lifethatdissolvedthe boundarybetween humanity than kind,yet only by invokinga thoroughgoing distinction between degree rather to this to livingand non-living things. Earlyattempts attribute distinction thepresence or absence of some non-material, vitalforcenaturally compromisedbiology's claim to scientific status. have continuedto frame their By andlarge,humanists conceptionsofbiologywithin a preconceivedview of the unique natureof our species. Indeed, the term'biology' for has simplybeen substituted the much more venerableconcept of human nature, its But withoutappreciably altering significance2. as accounts of human naturevary, so do the corresponding notionsof biology. I want to distinguish foursuch accounts, all of which are frequently be foundin the literature social and cultural to of anthrois between the contrary pology. The first couched in termsof a cardinaldistinction The second appeals to the eighteenth-century conditionsof humanity and animality. ofthe'psychic The third on doctrine ofmankind'. focuses theopposition between unity theindividualand society, forces distinction, a withintheindividual, whilstthefourth All between innate and acquired characteristics. four accounts are linked by the common assumptionsthat humans are unique in the animal kingdom, that their but identified uniquenessliesin a sharedessenceonce known as 'spirit' now commonly

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with the 'capacityfor culture',and that this capacityhas enabled its possessorsto the of transcend forces thematerial worldwithinwhich all otherbeingsare enmeshed. Now to assert thathumansare unique is not, in itself, remotely objectionable.For one could say the same of any otheranimalkind. Elephantsforexample are unique; so are beavers.Yet we are inclinedto thinkof elephants and beaversas 'mere animals', whereas to be human-we say-is to be more thanjust an animal or 'just another unique species' (Foley 1987: 274). We like to pictureourselvesas animalsplus. And theplusfactor turns ofcourseto be thatcommon essence,the'capacity culture', out for whose diverse manifestations furnish anthropology withitssubjectmatter3. According to thisview of humansas animalsplus, we are all constitutionally divided creatures, conditionofanimality themoralconditionofhumanity. split betweenthephysical and Moreover, if human uniquenesslies preciselyin the partof us thatfallsoutside the material world ofnature, thento view humanbeingsin nature, partsof thematerial as world, is to focusnot so much on species-specific differences on those features as by which humansare indistinguishable fromother animals.Hence we reach the paradoxical resultthatwhereas elephantnaturecomprisescharacteristics morphology of and behaviour peculiar to elephants,and beaver nature characteristics peculiar to beavers,humannature-on thisaccount-appears to comprisecharacteristics are that notpeculiarto humans,but are rather common to elephants, beavers,and any other species you care to name. In short,the human being is represented as a specific not manifestation animality, of but as the manifestation a specifichuman essence of animalsubstrate. superimposed upon a generalised I believe thattheprimary reference the term'biology', in much anthropological of is literature, to some such notion of genericanimality, up by its opposition to a set as notionofculture theessenceofhumanity. Culture,however,is revealedas diversity, whereasthe capacity cultureis supposed to depend on certaingeneralproperties for of mentalfunctioning. This leadsto a second and equallyprevalent view ofhumannature, by which it is equated with putativepsychicuniversals. Whatever humans have in common is accordingly attributed biology,whereastheirdifferences attributed to are to culture.Thus biologybecomes, in thisview, a quest forthe bottomline or 'lowest common denominator' humanity of (Eisenberg1978: 171), something thatcould only be directly observed-ratherthaninferred through comparative study-among humans livingat or nearthe absolutezero of cultural A development. good deal of thepopular interest directedtowardscontemporary populationsof huntersand gatherers be can put down to the (wholly mistaken)notion thattheyare living exemplarsof a proa totypical humanity, childhood of man fromwhich the restof us have grown up. I have so far outlined two closely connected senses of human nature,and of and as a universalbaseline for cultural 'biology': as a generalisedanimal substrate of connotations uniformity which standin stark development.Both carry contrast to the emphasisin modernbiological science on inter-and intra-species The variability. thirdsense I wish to adduce is a by-productof the notion of societyor cultureas a a thathas a lifeof itsown over and above the lives of superorganism, collectiveentity itsindividualconstituents. have consideredthe history thisnotion elsewhere,and I of cannot go into it now (see Ingold 1986: 223-41). Sufficeto say that the effect of to of transferring everything pertaining the mutualinvolvement humansubjectsto an external,superorganicdomain of 'society' is to leave the individualorganismas a sealed bundle of innatedispositions, given in advance of any relations hermetically it

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may form with other individuals. Durkheim As in wrote a classic individual statement, human closedto eachother' organisms 'bynature, are, (1960 [1914]:337)4.Biology, according thisconception, a scienceof livingthings to is its thattreats objectsas preconstituted, self-contained systems. Anthropologists frequently appealto this view ofbiology making claim, does Sahlins, it leavesa void to be filled a in as the that by science culture of fail is suchanastringent (1976:16).Whatthey torealise that biology couldnotbegin provide adequate to an account thelife any of of let organisms, alone humanones.For lifeitself that are depends upon thefact organisms notclosedbut opensystems. In contrast the superorganicism Durkheim to of and its social anthropological derivatives, mainstream cultural has anthropology tended take viewthat to the culture, in ideal although substance rather material, itsultimate inside than has locus individuals' rather coming them heads than to from exterior an source society. in Thusthehuman is organismconstrued a culture-beare-r, which opposition as within the between nature and culture assimilated one between hereditary traditional to is the and components ofindividual endowment. former nowadays are knownas genes, latter The the used to be calledcultural traits. thento theconceptof biology? Whathappens Human we beings, aretold,'arebothbiological cultural and and organisms', their behaviour is a product 'cultural biological of and influences' (Boyd & Richerson 1985: 281; Durham1979: 42). Biology, here,has ceasedto have anyspecific reference the to at and organism all,andisidentified, with A purely simply, itsgenes. biological account isonethat deals with exclusively genetic opposedcultural as to causes effects. and Applied tonon-cultural organisms, a biology such couldbe no more, no less, and than theory a determinism. construction This ofgenetic resonates ofbiology strongly a dominant with in trend modem biological science. istherefore It that scarcely surprising within biology istypically constructeda theory cultural anthropology as of determinism inwhich itself, thetrait substitutes thegeneas a unitof account. return this for merely I to point below. Darwinism the and modern synthesis at of in Arriving their various of conceptions biology terms an overriding opposition between and social cultural and asI haveshown, humanity nature, anthropologists have, matched domainof biological the to inquiry the residueof commonanimality, behavioural innate or endowment is left that when universals, dispositions genetic 'sociocultural'peeledaway. whenLamarck invented is everything Yet apparently first theconcept biology, 1802,hisintention entirely of in was different. to signal It was a fundamental contrast between as living non-living and things objects a contrast ofstudy, that of launched thematerial into hinged uponthepostulation a vital substance force, oforganisms absent from but which their inorganic advance matter, impelled temporal In far defined the alongthescaleofnature. other 'from topdown', words, from being to theexclusion humanity, of was defined 'from bottom the biology up', including as of humanity thehighest order theliving state. The coining a term doesnot,ofcourse, of suffice create science. Mayrhas to a As there inLamarck's no biological was and schemes observed, day science, theambitious that andhiscontemporaries he presented for werebut'prospectuses a to-be-created at timean assortment moreor less of biology'(Mayr1982: 108). Thereexisted that of were separate enterprises,whichthemost important medicine (including anatomy

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andphysiology) natural and and The establishment history (including botany zoology). had ofbiology of As proper, Mayrargues, to awaittheunification these fields. one of of themost eloquent architects thegrand evolutionary synthesis twentieth-century of inclined locatetheorigins biological to of is in biology, Mayr predictably science the that in intellectual ferment accompanied publication, 1859,ofDarwin's the workon
The originofspecies. The importance thiswork,as regards unification biology, of the of

layin itsdemonstration thestructures processes that and studied anatomists by and were the of one physiologists themselves precipitates an evolutionary history, that Darwinso accurately characterised 'descent as withmodification', guidedby the universal mechanism variation of under natural selection. It was not,however, theremarkable just powerofDarwin's in theory integrating of previously disparate fields inquiry made a scienceout of biology. that The only alternative Lamarckian to had been a Cartesian previous vitalism of conception the as which dissolved distinction the organism a mechanical automaton, between and life non-life thus and of of deprived biology theautonomy itssubject matter. choice, The had a life of then, beenbetween science that-viewing astheworking a mechanismwasnotparticularly and that-infused vitalist biological, a biology by metaphysics-was notparticularly scientific. Darwinian offered resolution thisdilemma a to in theory an of of forms which with furnishing account theevolution organic largely dispensed whilst a vitalistic between and non-living notions, retaining basicdistinction living all states. to havetwoessential distinguishing and According thetheory, living things The are suchthat individual everexactly no is is properties. first that they variable, likeanother. secondis that The are the of they capableoftransmitting components Givenpopulations entities of variability through reproduction. sharing thesetwo within finite a natural will selection inevitably properties, multiplying environment, in derivative of the occur,resulting a third, property living things-ostensibly most that withdesign. striking-namely eachis endowed in Darwinwasunsure aboutthesource heritable of variability populations, though that he thought it couldbe induced environmental neverdoubting that by change, characteristics be inherited. refutation this could The of viewbyWeismann, acquired in thefinal has decadesof thelastcentury, had an influence almost profound as as Darwinian itself of science. Weismann theory upontheconstitutionmodern biological introduced notion every the that is into which called he living thing divided twoparts, and The all thegerm the plasm thesomatoplasm. germ plasm, heritable contains part, theinstructions to the the which necessary assemble organism, somatoplasm, responds to has contact with passively itscommands. Onlythesomatoplasm, however, direct theenvironment. germ are Since and relation plasm somatoplasm linked a one-way by of causaldetermination, induced in modifications thelatter cannot environmentally be translated changes theformer. inheritance characteristics into in of The acquired its the of by an organism during own life-history, through impact environmental a logical is in and experience,therefore impossibility. Developments genetics molecular the to confirmation ofWeismann's biology during present century appear offer striking The traced thechromosomes thecellnucleus, to in has theory. germ plasm, initially been identified with a biochemical nucleotide substance, DNA, whose specific of blocks the which form building the sequences unilaterally trigger assembly proteins of successively the In structures to, and including, wholeorganism. higher-level up

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modernterminology, Weismann's 'germplasm' has become the genotype,whilsthis 'somatoplasm'has become the phenotype. The dichotomybetween genotypeand phenotype,coupled with the categorical of has a denialofanyreverse influence phenotypeon genotype, established conceptual To basisforthe completeseparation ontogenyfromphylogeny. studythe developof ment of organisms(epigenesis) is regarded as quite different from studyingtheir evolution. Developmental biologists,it is said, are concerned only with proximate frompreformed causation,with unravelling the chain of commands that translates Evolutionary biologists, conby geneticprogrammes manifest to phenotypiceffects. trast, claim to be concerned with ultimate causation,thatis with the genesis of the programmesthemselves.Something more than an academic division of labour is maybe referred impliedhere,sinceitis supposedthatallthefeatures livingorganisms of to selectionon their geneticconstituents. back,in thefinal analysis, theactionofnatural the of These constituents, genes, are believed to provide a complete specification for of developmental possibilities. ultimate The explanation theorigination novelforms lie circumstances variationand selection,in so far of musttherefore in the historical as they affectthe composition of the genotype,and not in the propertiesof the thatintervenes expression. epigenetic system betweenthegenotypeand itsphenotypic it (1972: 87). Epigenesis,as Monod has declared,'is not a creation, is a revelation' I do not now intendto dwell on the history genetics,on how Mendel's laws, of when first seemed to refuteDarwin's gradualist view of evolutionary rediscovered, were eventually change, and on how the Darwinian and Mendelian perspectives of Fisher's theory ofpopulationgenetconjoined through construction a mathematical biology,whose ics. It is sufficient note thatthe 'modernsynthesis' evolutionary to of Mendelian adventwas proclaimedbyJulianHuxley in 1942, effectively incorporated and Weismann'sbarrier particulate heredity between phenotypeand genotypeinto a undernatural selection.With the estabaccount of organicadaptation comprehensive ofthis knownas neo-Darwinism, natural selection lishment synthesis, nowadaysusually lost its statusas a theoryand has come to assume that of an axiomatic framework of constitutive biological science itselfA biological approach to natural phenomena is taken to meanan approach couched in termsof the neo-Darwinian explanatory It of thatthetruth paradigm. is commonlyasserted, biologists eminenceand repute, by of naturalselection is now proven beyond any shadow of doubt, and thatwe can of to of confidently expect the future biology to consistof footnotes The origin species. have become increasingly and doctrinaire, Over the yearsthese assertions strident as the thesisthatDarwin modestlyproposed to account foradaptive modification has been elevated into a total, all-embracingexplanationfor the phenomena of life5. Alternatives thatcannot be accommodatedwithinthe neo-Darwinian paradigmare and to ofwhatDawkins consigned, alongwithcreationism othernonsense, thewastebin (1986: 287) calls 'doomed rivals'. The biology organisms of assuranceof the zealot, Dawkins affirms 'Darwinian theoryis that With the arrogant in principlecapable of explaininglife.No othertheorythathas ever been suggested life' (1986: 288). I wish to argue,to the contrary, is in principlecapable of explaining feature neo-Darwinismis thatit offers account of adaptive of thatthe moststriking an an of us modification is not, in anysense, explanation life6.Indeed, it presents with that

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as have effectively the odd spectacleof a biology fromwhich organisms, real entities, disappeared(Goodwin 1984: 221). There can, of course,be no adaptivemodification withoutorganicforms be modified;thusan adequate evolutionary to of organicforms a biology mustbe cbncerned,in the first place, to construct theoryof howorganisms it would be no mere adjunctto Darwinism.For one thing, arepossible. Such a theory must begin with the process and propertiesof epigenesis,thus inverting the neoof Darwinian prioritisation ultimate over proximate causation. 'Surely the most about evolutionis first tryto discoverwhat sort to effective way to make predictions is of changes a given epigeneticsystem capable of producing,and only then to ask which are likelyto be selected' (Ho & Saunders 1982: 345). For anotherthing,it the range of formsthat organisms can take, both should be capable of generating in and between the recognisably distinct withina life-cycle the course of epigenesis, and classesthatgivelivingnaturetheappearanceofa logicalsystem thereby underwrite as over the projectof taxonomy.Evolution has thento be understood an exploration, of time,ofthetransformative potentials a totalgenerative system (Webster& Goodwin 'the has 1982: 46). As Ho andSaunders correctly state, phenomenonthat to be explained in evolutionisthat ofthetransmutation ofform' (1979:575). Neo-Darwinism,however, and can only conceive of evolutionin termsof changesin the distribution frequency ofgenes. thatDarwinian biology lacks a theoryof the organismmightseem My assertion on thatit rests certaindistinguishing perverse, givenmy earlierobservation properties of the livingstate.Let me recallwhat theseproperties are. First, everylivingthingis fromitspredecessors and successors, a unique historical distinct and entity, absolutely fromthe environment otherthings of with which it coexists.The uniquenessof the 'is of Montalentistates, themostimportant characteristic life, one which the individual, more substantially differentiates livingfromnon-livingthings, physicsfrombiology' is (1974: 11). Secondly,what givesthe individualitsunique identity a non-recurrent combination of particulateunits of heredity(genes), which are transmitted with occasional copyingerrors fromancestorsto progenywithina population. Thus the differences between individualsare combinatonial (Medawar 1957: 134). Thirdly,the encode a programme whose outputconsists manifest of structures that genes together have adaptivefunctions, such thatlivingthingsappear to be endowed with design. thesestructures, the which the individual Fourthly, constituting phenotype,through withitsexternal have no direct, interacts reverse effects thegenotypic on environment, instructions theirassembly.Consequentlythe 'selectivepressure'exertedby the for environment formof a bias in favourof the reproduction better of takesthe indirect of the adaptedvariants, increasing representation theirgenes in future generations. Now considerwhat thislistof properties leaves out. The mostobvious omissionis the simple factthatorganisms grow.To be sure,Darwinismassumesan ontogenetic containedin the genotypeis 'writtenout' in the processby which the information formof the adaptivecharacters the phenotype.But it has nothingto say about this of process.Indeed in supposingthatthe conjunctionof genotypeplus phenotypeyields an exhaustive account of theindividuallivingthing, conceptualspace is left the no for complex physiologicalrelationsthatintervenebetween the one and the other.Yet thisfieldof relations, rather thanitsgenotypic inputsand phenotypicoutputs,correto Moreoveritisto thegenerative spondsprecisely whatwe calltheorganism. properties of thisfieldthatthe term'life' essentially refers. mystical vitalistic No or connotations

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infused It are intendedhere.Lifeis not something separately into inertmatter. is rather a name for whatis goingon in the generativefieldwithinwhich organic formsare are located and 'held in place'. Thus lifeis not 'in' organisms, organisms 'in' life. but Taking thisview of the living organismas our starting point, what implications follow?There are threesets of implications thatI should like to draw out. The first of have to do withthe relative priority processesover events.The second concernthe The thirddeal with the question natureof an orderthatis foundedon relationships. and between organisms theirenvironments. ofhow we are to understand interface the event the a In Darwinian theory, appearanceof everyorganism represents singular of traits. in a history things,marked by a novel configuration fixed hereditary of Individuals,fromthispoint of view, are events (Ingold 1986: 105), and each exists a to upon external onlyto be itself, express preformed project,albeitin waysconditional The lifeof the organism lived out in an extendedpresent, is circumstances. wrapped It of thanbecoming, of up in theinstant theeventit represents. is a matter beingrather rather than creative.Our alternative to or to recallMonod's terms, is revelatory it is view the organism not as an individualentity as the embodimentof a life-process but has 'existsonlyso far it evolves as (Ingold 1986: 153). 'Organic life',as Cassirer written, in time.It is not a thing a process-a never-resting but stream events...The organism of In is neverlocatedin a singleinstant. itslifethethreemodes oftime-the past,present and future-form a whole which cannot be splitinto individual elements' (1944: 49-50). Bergsonlikewisemaintainedthatthe livingbeing should not be regardedas is an object,forit is rather thingthatendures.Itspast,in itsentirety, prolongedinto 'a of itspresent'(1911: 16). Movement,then,is oftheessence,whereasthestability form and bringit to lifeby is derived.We do not start with the organism a given entity as insteadwithlifeas setting in motion,as one would a clockworkmachine.We start it a movement which progressively builds itselfinto emergentstructures. short, In to to contrary Darwinismbut withdue acknowledgement D'Arcy Thompson (1917), it of growthis not merelyrevelatory, is the generation form. thattheyare not sequentially To recognisethatorganisms growis also to appreciate construct machine7.The Darwina from as 'puttogether' pre-existent parts, one might is ian metaphorforepigenesisas an assembly, withthe genes as instructions, therefore quite misleading.In the machine, as Bohm explains,'each part is formed....indeof with the otherpartsonly through some kind of and interacts pendently the others, external contact'(1980: 173). But thiscannotbe said of the livingorganism, which in such thatthe form each parttakesshape in continuousrelationto all the otherparts, ofthepartenfolds entire of the that system relationships have made it whatit is. Bohm orderin which everything, is refers thiskind of relational to ultimately, enfoldedinto as theimplicate by contrast theexplicate to whicheverything orderin everything else, order, is closed to everyother,lying'only in its own particular region of space (and time) and outsidetheregions belongingto otherthings' (1980: 177). Thus theorderinherent in the organism implicate.Goodwin refers thissame, self-organising is to of property as thelivingstateby meansofthenotionofthe 'morphogenetic field',defined 'a spatial domain in which everyparthas a statedetermined the stateof neighbouring parts by structure' so thatthe whole has a specificrelational (Goodwin 1984: 228-9). It is by of that they can both reproduceand virtueof the fieldproperties living organisms the in or repairthemselves case of disturbance damage. Since each partenfolds whole

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an movement unfolding, reconstitute whole of to it is possible, through inverse the the from part. the between internal ofthewholeorganism goes also Whatgoesfor relations parts the and forms for relations the between organism itsenvironment. comeinto Organic of with because a perpetual beingandaremaintained interchange their environments, of 1982: 343). Life, Goodwinremarks, 'livedat as is notin spite it (Ho & Saunders are whereforms generated' is the interface, (1988: 107). Whatis giveninitially a field which forms as bounded continuous generative within emerge discernible, entities. can in to But sincean 'environment' onlybe recognised relation an organism whose that itis-since,inother it the environment words, isthe figure constitutes ground-the is of of of of process formation theorganismalsotheprocess formationitsenvironment. as 'has As JohnDewey recognised long ago as 1898, the environment gone on the to with organism', we areinclined seeitas 'something which developing along yet hadbeenthere from start that] wholeproblem beenfor organism the [so the has the to accommodate to that ofgiven itself set surroundings' (1976:284; see Costall1985: 39). Itisprecisely latter this viewoftheenvironment is entailed theDarwinian that in as 'To the of conception evolution a process ofadaptation. make metaphor ofadaptation or niches must exist before work', Lewontin points out,'environmentsecological the the that is organisms fillthem'(1983: 280). Thus in neo-Darwinism environment as the is independently specified a setofconstraints, organism independently specified is as a setofgenes, that so developmentviewedas thecombined ofthese external effect of this we bothorganism and internal causes. Reversing order reasoning, arguethat from continuous a of andenvironment emerge process development. the Moreover, them notone ofexternal is contact between and interface between separate mutually for within organism is theentire the itself of exclusive domains, enfolded history its environmental relations. I hopeI havemadeitclear neo-Darwinism not, indeed and why does cannot explain Let three life. me briefly recapitulate majorreasons. deals in It that First, isa process, neo-Darvinism only events. is true these life yet events, of oververy to compounded many generations, theappearance gradual give change, whichneo-Darwinism Darwinhimself has giventhename (though not,initially, ) But evolution not life-process. a IndeedWeismann's 'evolution'. this is barrier, sepadrives wedgebetween a evolution life. and from Monod rating ontogeny phylogeny, is quiteexplicit 'For modemtheory', writes, he 'evolutionnot property is a aboutthis: ofliving beings, it stems since the from very ofthe mechanism imperfections conserving ofthis which indeed constitutes unique their privilege' (1972:113).Theimport remark, of of is whatis 'passedon' madein thecontext a critique Bergsonian vitalism, that is of from to of of generation generation living beings nota current lifebutbundles it of and bundles that genes, that is becausethecomposition these gradually changes life evolution occurs. Thusneo-Darwinism evolution putting in brackets. explains by the deals in Secondly, order life implicate, neo-Darwinism only termsthe of is yet of explicate of as order. is aboveall evident itsconception theindividual an exclusive This in and whosespecificitygivennotbyitsposition a widersystem is in self-contained entity ofrelations bythecombination genetic but of traits whichit may, principle, into in of be decomposed. severing, every at the By juncture, innerconnectedness things, at of neo-Darwinism arrives a definition evolution is strictly that statistical-namely, over in of in change genefrequencies time populations individuals.

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and cuts across boundary the between Thirdly,life organism environment, neo-Daryetfor it winism is nottheorganism-environment that Rather the environment relationship evolves. is posited as a set of exogenous factorsthat undergo theirown changes,for quite independentreasons,to which organismsadapt throughthe mechanismof natural selection. In other words, evolution is a matterof organisms'changingto 'track' environmental conditions whose changesnecessarily outsideof evolution(Odlinglie Smee 1988: 75). As an antidoteto neo-Darwinism,I want to prescribean approach to evolution of thatis firmly To groundedin the properties livingorganisms. achieve this, have we to replace the prevailingstatistical conception of the evolutionaryprocess with a evolutionis to be redefined thetemporal as topologicalone. Accordingly, modulation of a total relationalfield. The role of endogenous and exogenous factors, gene of is productsand independentenvironmental stimuli, then to 'select', out of the set of possible modulationsof the field,those formsthatactuallyappear. To give you an fromellipseto hyperbola, be generated can analogy,all the conic sections, a from basic quadraticequation by changingthe parameter values. But the latterdo not on their own dictatethe formof the curve,since one mustalso know the equation. Likewise, genes do not on theirown dictatethe formof an organism, since one mustalso know theproperties thegenerative of field(Goodwin 1984: 236). Genes enableus to account for some of the differences between individualorganisms, they do not enable us to account forthe unitythatlinksthemas transforms one another.The greaterrorof of modern geneticsis to assume thatorganisms exhaustedby theirdifferences. are For of everyqualityin respectof which theindividuals a populationare observedto vary, thegeneticist withthegene, and thenimaginesthat positsa substantive trait, identified the organism can be constituted the sum of itsgenes-a trickwhich, as Weiss has by vestsgenes with exclusive 'responsibility' organisation for and noted, automatically order(Weiss 1969: 35). But organisation, I have shown,is a property organisms, as of not of genes; the latter the but theydo not determine it. qualify expression, Neo-Darvinism theevolution culture and of The nextstagein my argument to show thatwhat appliesto lifein generalapplies, is more specifically, social to life.Just lifeis excluded fromneo-Darwinianbiology,so as also, I submit,is social life excluded fromneo-Darwinian sociobiology. Launched under the grandiosebanner of a 'new synthesis', sociobiology was definedby E.O. of the biological basisof all social behavior'. Wilson (1980: 4) as 'the systematic study That assumes,of course,thatall social behaviourhas a biological basis.My concernis not to disputethisassumption, to discoverwhat it means. The vigorouspopular but debateabout theapplicability sociobiologicalanalyses our own specieshas turned of to up everyone of the different meaningsof thebiologicalthatI outlinedin thefirst part of thisarticle.Thus forsome, showinghow human social behaviourhas a biological the basismeans demonstrating existenceof a common substrate thatequallyunderlies thesocial behaviourof otheranimals.For others means demonstrating existence it the of universals human behaviour,revealingthe originalconditionof mankindin the of of stateof nature.For othersagain,it means the attribution behaviourto the intrinsic ofindividuals rather thanthe extrinsic of dispositions impositions society.And finally, there are those who equate biology with the hereditary component of individual to As tradition. behaviour,as opposed to the componentattributed acquired cultural

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of rests an accountof human on we haveseen,each of thesesenses thebiological that the of and of nature longantedates advent biological science, indeedtheconcept itself. biology in with has Although itsencounter thehumanities, sociobiology beendrawn-by an bothadvocates opponents-into essentially and its pre-biological discourse, project was originally conceived continues be practised and to within conceptual the frameworkfurnished the 'modemsynthesis' neo-Darwinian of by evolutionary theory. of the basis social behaviour for Studying biological means, practitioners, investigating itsevolution variation under natural through selection8. Such an investigation must abouttheproperties living therefore upon thesameassumptions rest of that things Darwinian and constitute mechanism natural the of underwrite biology, that selection is itselfThus it is supposed that behaviour, morphology, theoutput a prolike of of andthat variant the elements this in thedifferent gramme, programme-appearing individuals a population uniquely of in different combinations-are across replicable generations. is supposed, It too, that behaviour consequences replication, has for in otherwordsthatvariations behaviour in withthe differential maybe correlated in of elements. Acrepresentation,future generations, their underlying programme aim ones cordingly, sociobiologists to showthat particular behaviours, including that at first seemrather with to and glance unpromising regard thesurvival reproduction in of theindividuals tendto increase representation, the within the concerned, fact of that To that population, theelements giveriseto them. demonstrate a behaviour hasthis effect sufficientaccount itsevolution natural is to for selection. by I haveso far avoidedattaching specific a labelto theconstituent of elements the behavioural In of programme. earlyformulations sociobiology theywere simply assumed be genes-E.O. Wilsonhimself to that would argued a biologised sociology haveto be built in sense'(1980:4). upon'evolutionary explanations thetrue genetic reviewer refers thegeneas 'theofficial ofsociobiology' Wilson to unit One recent (P.J. of 1987: 181); nevertheless to social manyadvocates a biological approach human behaviour havestrenuously deniedthecharge genetic of a charge that determinism, hasbeendescribed one ofthemost'wickedly as untruths pervasive' aboutthenature ofsociobiological can explanation (Dunbar1987a: 179)9.The denial, however, take twoforms. is to pointoutthat least humans, at for do One genes notprescribe specific the behaviours underwrite extraordinary but of that phenotypic plasticity thespecies of is evident thegreat in whilst diversity life-strategies, at thesametime a furnishing set that towards adoption strategies the of generalised ofpreferences biasindividuals that their The enhance fitness. other toargue although evolution is that reproductive the of behaviour natural of selection the by requires existence replicable programme should genes.For theword'natural' natural be in selection the replicators qualifies
of on process selection,not the units which it operates,and takesits meaningfromits or it does not,in fact, elements, whatHull (1981: 33) callsreplicators, requirethatthese

of to selection variants theprocess intentional in of opposition theartificial design. As replicators, aredistinguished their and genes by locus,in thechromosomes, by their mode oftransmission,theprocess meiosis. it is possible in of But to particular kind replicator at one of whoselocusis thebrain, whosemode and envisage least other ofinter-generational transmission or another is one form sociallearning-ranging of from imitation unintentionally the of modelled behaviour formal deliberate to and tuition. Various names havebeenproposed this for replicator, as'meme'(Dawkins such

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1976: 206) and 'culturgen' (Lumsden & Wilson 1981: 7). Nothing new is being are for unitofclassic neologisms thattime-worn suggested here,fortheseterms merely Thus the sum total of memes or culturgens diffusionist ethnology,the culture-trait. its current a populationata giventimeis saidto comprise 'culture',theideal analogue in systems may evolve of the gene-pool. The recognition thatboth geneticand cultural concurrently, througha Darwinian processof 'blind-variation-and-selective-retention' (Campbell 1975: 1105), has given rise to a number of theoriesof so-called to 'gene-culture co-evolution',which attempt model what happenswhen both kinds as of replicator-geneticand cultural-are usingthe same host organisms vehiclesfor The crucial difference theirown propagation1O. between these theoriesand more as of conventionally sociobiological ones is thattheytreatculturalsystems analogues rather thanas aspectsof their expression. Culture,in other geneticsystems phenotypic effects. words,is placed on the side of the replicators, on the side of theirmanifest not In one of the more sophisticated versionsof coevolutionarytheory,Boyd and Richerson (1985) show thatbehaviourthatis optimalforgeneticreplication may be and viceversa, thatthe predicted so sub-optimalforthe replicationof culturaltraits, traits behaviouraloutcome of a coevolutionary processin which geneticand cultural compete to controlthe individuals theyinhabitwill be a compromisein between the two optima. I do not intendto elaborateon thistheory, but I do want to make two of inheritance' pointsabout it. First, althoughtheincorporation whatis called 'cultural into a general evolutionary scheme requirescertainamendmentsto orthodox neoDarwinian models,Boyd and Richerson remainfirmly committedto the Darwinian paradigm, claimingto offer nothingless than'a Darwinian theoryof the evolutionof cultural organisms' (1985: 2). And so long as adherenceto theparadigmis takento be the distinguishing featureof a biological approach, it follows that theirsis no less intoaccount.In theseterms, cultural evolution, natural by 'biological'fortaking culture are selection,is biological evolution (Cloak 1977: 52). Secondly,individuals stillseen fromgeneticinstructions, then from as products which are assembled,if not entirely In all instructions. principle, you need to know in orderto predict genetic pluscultural the phenotypeof a culturalorganismis the genotype,the analogous 'culture-type' of The and consisting learning-transmitted information, the stateof the environment. of and environmental causes. phenotypeis the effect genetic,cultural It will surely agreedthata dual inheritance be model, ofthekindproposedbyBoyd and Richerson,neutralises objection commonlylevelled againstsociobiologyby the human scientists, thatit failsto take into account the substantial component of behaviouralencodingthat, humans,is transmitted in But non-genetically. does thattake us any further of of towardsan understanding social life?If cultureconsists learningtransmitted locatedin thebrainsofindividuals and capable ofinfluencing information, theirbehaviour, then as Boyd and Richerson recognise,'the relationship between cultureand behaviouris similar the relationship to between genotypeand phenotype for in non-cultural organisms'(1985: 36). There is no lack of precedents thisview in the literature cultural of anthropology-as long ago as 1949, Kluckhohnwas insisting on the distinction between cultureas a pattern covertrules,acquiredby individuals of of and behaviour as manifest practices(1949: 32). The throughthe filter history, distinction of course, formally is, analogous to Saussure's (1959) classic dichotomy between languageand speaking,and to itsmanyderivatives anthropological in structuralism. But does the couple culture-behaviour the void thatis leftin an account fill

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the I ofthehuman being thecouplegenotype-phenotype? by Regarding latter,have it of that argued that excludes entire the field relations intervenes between genetic inputs phenotypic and outputs, this that field corresponds what calltheorganism, to we life of andthat organic can onlybe understood terms itsself-organising in properties. I now wishto argue, alongprecisely samelines, the that coupling culture the of and behaviour leavesno spaceforthecomplex psychological relations processes and that intervene between one and theother, the that field relations this of corresponds to and it of what callconsciousness, that is only terms theself-organising we in properties ofconsciousness we canreach understandingthestructures transformathat an of and of tions sociallife. Theanthropology of persons I define seatof consciousness, locus of intentional the the agency, theperson. as In I of as speaking persons am notconcerned, was Mauss(1979),withvariation the in of It of cultural constructionthemoral that subject. is thereality theperson I am after, do Radcliffe-Brownequating in notitsrepresentation. however, I follow Nor, perof with state social a of and the sonhood being separate from, transcending, state organic itwill that in existence. Radcliffe-Brown, be recalled, argued thehuman being living is is an and The individual 'a biological society 'twothings', individual a person. human a number molecules of in of organism,collection a vast organized a complex structure, within as there and actions which, longasitpersists, occur physiological psychological 1952: andreactions, and processes changes' (Radcliffe-Brown 193-4).Thisconception of is oftheorganism, theorganised as embodiment a life-process,virtually own. our But Radcliffe-Brown wrong linking to a conception theindividual a was in it of as boundedisolate, and self-contained, givenindependently in advanceof itsexternal I havealready is relations11. shownthatevery organism an open system, generated a field the with For within relational thatcutsacross interface itsenvironment. the human that includes nexus the ofrelations other with humans. developing organism, field It is thisnexusof socialrelations constitutes or heras a person. that him Thus the a of is to of an more process becoming person integral theprocess becoming organism; it thathas to do withthe development of specifically is thatpartof the process consciousness. human The is but being, then, nottwo things one; notan individual As is anda person, quitesimply, organism. theperson anaspect theorganism, an of but, so sociallife an aspect organic in general. that is of life In sense mayindeedbe said it to havea biological basis. that field By sociallifeI meantheprocesses aregoingon in therelational within life which comeinto and Therecannot social without be persons being endure. persons, the to there be no persons can without sociallife. using term In but,equally, 'person' I refer theconscious to of assumed persons all to subject socialrelations,haveso far This is a questionable as there a is be human. assumption, however, I do not think than the of clear point, morein phylogeny in ontogeny, any marking first appearance I now enter intothedebate the of conscious awareness. cannot concerning question in I occasions awareness non-human animals, though havedoneso on other (Ingold whenI use theterm it be to 1988).Suffice saythat 'person' here, should interpreted as applicable, notin anysenseexclusive, humanity. mainpointis that to the but My has of does socialanthropology it,entail the acquisition personhood not,as orthodox of humanessenceupon an undifferentiated superimposition a specifically organic

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substrate. the contrary, argue thatpersonhood takesshape gradually To I withinthe developing humanorganisml2. is thusfundamentally It mistaken regard to development as a processof socialisation, theimprinting an exterior as of structure social relations of onto the 'raw material'of organically preformed individuals.For everyhuman infant comes into the world alreadysituated withina fieldof social relations, and becoming a personis a matter gathering of those relations into the structures consciousness. of Through thisenfoldment social relations consciousness, of in the person emergesas an autonomous agentwith his or her own identity, readyto forgenew relations out of which, in turn,new persons will come into being. Thus the true directionof development,as Vygotsky constantly emphasised, 'not fromthe individualto the is socialized,but fromthe social to the individual'(1962: 20). If social lifepresumesthe existenceof persons,then clearlyany account of social evolutionmuststart out froma theoryof how personsare possible. In otherwords, we requirea theory sociality. sociality refer the generative of I By to of properties the relational fieldwithinwhich personsare situated.I want to make it absolutelyclear thatsociality not a trait is builtinto thehumanbiogramor itscultural equivalent(contra Maxwell 1984: 135). It is not a pre-programmed of property discrete individuals; nor, however,does it residein the forceof the collectivity opposed individualnatures. as to We should resist the temptation assume thatsocialitynecessarily to makes reference to thedynamics whether thesebe conceived as mereaggregates ofindividuals ofgroups, or as higher-levelentitieswith emergentpropertiesof their own (Gordon 1987: 217-19). Rather, as I have argued elsewhere,'sociality is the definitive qualityof of relationships' (Ingold 1989: 498-9), foundedin the mutualentailment consciousness and intersubjectivity. When we use wordssuchas power, trust, hierarchy, community, and of in reciprocity exchange,it is to features sociality, thissense,thatwe refer. And in thestudy social evolution, areprimarily of we concernedwiththeprocesses whereby thesefeatures ariseand are transformed. short, In social evolutionshould be regarded as an exploration, over time,of the generative of potentials sociality. So long as we remainconfinedto the conceptualstraitjacket genes,cultureand of behaviour,such an approach to social evolutionis inconceivable.Transmutations of social formcould only be understoodas the outcome of changesin the frequency of particular withinpopulationsof individuals.That is to genetic and culturalvariants say,we would be bound to view social evolutionas a phylogenetic process.Darwinism, as we have seen,insists thestrict on of from the segregation phylogeny ontogeny, latter but underspecific havingto do not with the evolutionof sociality withitsrealisation environmental conditions.In our view, however, social evolution consists precisely of in transformations the totalrelational fieldwithinwhich the developmentof every human subject proceeds. Hence it is simplynot possible to separatethe study of developmentfromthe studyof evolution. Forjust as the genesisof organicformlies in theself-organising ofthegenerative field that potentials intervenes betweengenotype and phenotype,so also the genesisof social formlies in transformative potentialsof the field,constitutive personsas intentional of between genes agents,thatintervenes or cultureand manifest social behaviour.This is an argument assigning persons for to role in the originationof social order,ratherthan relegating an active them to the statusof passivevehiclesforthe replicationof a designwritten into the materials of or heredity tradition13.

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It remains me to setout theimplications theview ofpersonhoodand sociality for of in thatI have just presented.Developing my argument parallelto what I had to say about thenatureoflivingorganisms, shallfirst I consider whatit meansto regard earlier the personas the embodimentof a process;secondlyI shallshow how the relational I orderof social lifeis an implicateone, and finally shallexamine the developmentof the interface between personsand theirenvironments. Recall that for neo-Darwinism, every individual comes into being as a unique traits that combination hereditary of makingup a programme itlivesto execute.When, in the executionof thisprogramme, individualcommunicates co-operateswith the or Social lifeis accordingly seen to the conspecifics, biologistspeaksof social interaction. of in mutualcontact. consistin the aggregate interactions among individuals frequent are In Taken together, theseindividuals said to make up a society14. our view, to the of but social lifeis not a pattern interactions an unfolding relationships. of contrary, and relationships critical.It has been most is The distinction between interactions a involvesa series drawnbyHinde, who arguesthat 'relationship ofinteractions carefully over time between two individualsknown to each other' (1987: 24). Thus every in builds upon a previoushistory involvementbetween of interaction a relationship the individualsconcerned,and will in turnhave a bearingon how theyreactto one A is an another thefuture. relationship, in then, neither eventnora simpleconcatenation time' (1987: ofevents, in Hinde's words,'a processin continuouscreationthrough but is into itsconstituent interactions to drainit of thevery 38). To dissolvea relationship of current sociality thatbindsthemas momentsof a process,and thatis of itsessence. The creativeunfolding a relationship, of however,is also a becoming of the persons joined by it. As the embodimentsof relationships, personsexist and persistonly so long as theyare activelyheld withinthe movementof social life.Hence we do not and generatesocial posit individualsin advance as ready-made, functioning entities, lifebyimagining undertheimpulsionoftheir themto associateand to interact separate with social life,as a progressive natures.We rather start 'buildingup' of relationships into the structures consciousness. of This 'buildingup', as we have seen, is equivalent to the generation persons. of Taking thisview of the primacyof process,the connexion between relationships and consciousnesscan best be characterised the metaphorof enfolding and unby and unfoldsin social relations'(Ingold folding:'Consciousnessenfoldssocial relations 1986: 207). In otherwords,sociality shouldbe understoodas theinherent, generative field.Recall my earlier allusionto the concept of themorphodynamicof a relational is geneticfield,definedas a domain in which each partof the livingorganism given thisconcept into the termsof by its relationswith neighbouring parts.To translate our current discussion, morphogenesis may be replacedby the genesisof social form, and parts persons.Then each person,developingin continuouscontactwith other by with those others.In personsin the social field,is constituted his or her relations by with everyotherpart; likewise in social organiclife,everypart enfoldsits relations with everyotherperson.A phrasethat life,everyperson enfoldshis or her relations uses to describea Melanesian conception captures Strathern what I have in perfectly mind: persons,she writes,'contain a generalizedsociality within' (1988: 13)15. The same analogyholdsin the comparisonof organicreproduction with the reproduction of social form. Justas in the organismthe whole can be reconstituted an inverse by enfolded in the unfoldingfromthe part, so in social life the relationalstructures

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their of in consciousness theperson be reconstituted may through unfolding purposive, of as socialaction.However,thisconception sociality, thedynamic potential an of is to viewin whichsocialityimplicate order, entirely foreign theneo-Darwinian as rendered 'group-living' example, Alexander 1974: 326) is commonly (for by of a of each merely resultant the associative proclivities discrete individuals, inde'wired for oraltruistic andinteracting pendently up' co-operative behaviour, through an external contact leavestheir basicnatures unaffected. for that Society, thesociois biologist, an explicate order. of we the In How, then, should regard environment thehuman subject? theold with ofthe was days nature/nurture nature identified a setofinternal, debate, hereditary environmental influences behaviour, on nurture witha set of external, influences. on the Depending whichsideofthedebate you took,either one or theother of set Modern the influences supposed prevail. was to dismiss debate, that biologists claiming is of innate environmental behaviour thecombined and product both factors, though in proportions arevariable empirically that and difficult determine. although to But it has the in thedebate beendeclared obsolete, terms which wasconducted obstinately and are Genes(or cultural as persist. traits) environment still posited independently and exogenous determinants behaviour. of Yet everyitemof given,endogenous is of and as is behaviour part aninteraction, every interaction,we haveseen, embedded in theevolution a relationship. formation theperson, thisevolution, of The of in is theformation an environment thatperson, of for whose existence a necessarily as bounded or the that the subject 'selfpresupposes 'othemess' constitutes environment. can as Thustheenvironment be no more regarded thesumofexogenous preconditions thancan theperson regarded thesumofendogenous be as Behaviour nota traits. is effect exogenous endogenous of causes. it a in simple and Rather, discloses moment a continuous of within relational a whose outcomethe is process development field, ofpersonhood environment. and mutual complementarity Let me summarise argument presenting three reasons my by whya sociobiology terms sociallife, evenifamplified the couchedin neo-Darwinian cannot explain by of as inheritance in withthe recognition culture an analogous system working parallel in of sociallifeis a process, genetic system. First, consisting the creative unfolding of Yet and deals relationships thebecoming persons. neo-Darwinism onlyin events ofbehavioural of interaction individuals. the among pre-constituted Secondly, order social isimplicate, for life is conceivable anexplicate as yet neo-Darwinism, society only order. sociallife involves evolution a relational that the of field subsumes Thirdly, the interface between human the and Yet subject hisor herenvironment. forneo-Darsociallifeis seenas a resultant internal of or and winism, (genetic cultural) external factors. (environmental) I To remedy deficiencies theneo-Darwinian the of that paradigm,recommend we viewsocial notinstatistical life as of number interactions of terms, theoutcome a large but terms the ofa discrete as unfolding total among individuals, intopological generative field(Ingold1986: 244-5). I haveused theterm to to 'sociality' refer thedynamic of to theseproperties standto properties thisfield.Returning an earlier analogy, and information equation asan to parameter transmitted stands its genetically culturally or variation be expected induceevolutionary values. Genetic cultural to modumay of are lations the socialfield, thisis not to say thatsocialforms in anysense but or determined. enables to accountformostof the us Culture genetically culturally

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but they are linked under transformation the differences between social forms, by propertiesof sociality.Traditional culturalanthropology, however, has falleninto in the are precisely same erroras modem genetics, supposingthatforms exhaustedby Just theirdifferences. like the 'gene', the 'trait'is a trickconcept thatconverts aspects or or qualitiesofhumanconductintosubstantive Thus itis supposed parts components. that humanindividuals, endowed byinheritance withbundlesofgenes,andbytradition have all theyneed to assemble organisedsocial life. with bundles of culturaltraits, fromthe truth.The genesis of social order lies in those Nothing could be further that domains of consciousnessand intersubjectivity are simplybracketedoffby the of partition the human being into genes,cultureand behaviour. a Towards logic relationships of If I could sum up the principalburden of my argument, would be as follows:an it of withinthe wider fieldof biology requiresthat adequate integration anthropology the study of persons be subsumed under the study of organisms.However, the dominant neo-Darwinian paradigm in evolutionarybiology has no place for the likewisetraditional cultural has organism; anthropology no place fortheperson.Indeed between thesetwo paradigms, in both the for thereis more thana passingsimilarity individualappears as no more than a vehicle for the replicationof traits, whether whose patterning the contingent is outcome ofhistorical geneticor cultural, processes of variation and selection.This similarity been conducive to the construction has of models of gene-culture varioussynthetic coevolution,which requiresome modificaneo-Darwinianprinciples. tion of,but no radicaldeparture On the otherhand, from, definedthe person as its object of study, social anthropology explicitly has but only itself in opposition a biology of organisms, to by setting up therebydrivinga wedge it into two mutually exclusiveparts-the into the human being, splitting irrevocably the has a one individual, othersocial. The result been to perpetuate separation between humanityand nature that has had fateful consequences in the historyof western The mosturgent taskforcontemporary is civilisation. anthropology to overcome this and to re-embedthe human subjectwithinthe continuumof organiclife. separation, The approachI have sketchedout here is one thatattempts do just that.I have to shown how a theoryof personscan be encompassedwithina more generaltheoryof withoutcompromising role of human agencyor denyingthe essential the organisms, a of creativity social life.This creativity, magnified thousandfold the work of the by is to consciousness, but a specificaspectof the universalcapacityof organisms act, in of a certainsense,as the originators theirown development.It has been said that,in ' fromwithinthe veryworld in which he is a history, man makeshimself', creating But man (or woman) is an organism,and organismsgenerallymake participant. of themselves, creatingas theydo a history life. To arriveat thisconception of the organism, however,we need a new biology,or shouldI sayan old one?-for itsholistic are worldview.It mustbe a biologythatasserts aspirations redolentofa pre-Darwinian of theprimacy processes of over events, relationships over entities, ofdevelopment and one anotheras specific over structure. Organism and person do not then confront of and of as configurations matter mind,'two sorts independent substances', Whitehead put it, 'each qualifiedby their appropriatepassions' (1938: 178). Both are rather embodimentsof the total movement of becoming that Whitehead so memorably describedas a 'creativeadvance into novelty'(1929: 314).

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Let me conclude by recalling Samuel Butler'scelebrated thatthe chicken aphorism is onlyan egg'sway ofmakinganotheregg. To this, sociobiologyclaimsto have added a new twist.'The organism',E.O. Wilson declares,'is only DNA's way of making more DNA' (1980: 3). By the same token a human being, as a culture-bearing organism, mightbe regardedas a trait's Justsuch a view way of makingmore traits. has been suggestedin all seriousness Cloak, in what could at best be describedas by the sneeze theory culture.In the same way thatthe successful of cold virusis one that propagatesitself causingthe sufferer sneeze, selectionwill favourtraits by to (Cloak callsthem'instructions') cause theircarriers behave in a mannerthatwill ensure that to thattheyare copied into the heads of as manyotherpeople as possible (Cloak 1975: 172). For Wilson, organismsare literally 'manufactured' theirgenes, for Cloak by people are literally 'slaves' of theircultural the instructions. These visionsof gene-machines and culture-infected zombies are the nightmares a scientific of imagination tormented itsprofound senseofalienation from realworld.We stand desperate the by in need ofa sciencethat, recollectthethemeofEdmund Leach's 1967 Reith Lectures, to would 'only that connect...'; would recognisethat'it is not thebitsand pieces thatmatter but the evolvingsystem a whole' (Leach 1967: 78). Only withsuch a science anas thropology, biology,call it what you will-can we begin to graspthe implications of our participation the world and the fullmeasureof our responsibility what goes in for on in it.But to realisea science of thiskindwe mustrejectthelogic ofbitsand pieces, ofabstracted and in entities, instal itssteada logic relationships. of and persons Organisms are not the effects molecularand neuronalcauses,of genes and traits, instances of but of the unfolding a totalrelational of field.They are formed fromrelationships, which in theiractivities theycreateanew. Samuel Butlerwas right after forthereis more all, to an egg than a bundle of genes. When all is said and done, are not organisms and personsbut relationships' ways of makingfurther relationships?

NOTES As always,many of my ideas have crystaltised the course of discussionswith undergraduate in students at the Universityof Manchester, and I should like to thank them all, especially Lorna Matheson and Janella Sllhtoe. Robin Dunbar and I shall always disagree,but I am indebted to him for his lucid and cntical observations.Mary Douglas rightly warned me againstconfusingthe ideas of Durkheim with their in subsequent misrepresentation social anthropology.I have benefitedfromthe encouragementand cnticism of Bnan Goodwin, Mae-Wan Ho, Deborah Gordon, John Peel, Vernon Reynolds and Marilyn none of whom, however, bears any responsibility the final product. I am grateful the Strathern, for to Royal AnthropologicalInstitute invitingme to presentthe Curl Lecture, and to the School of Orienfor tal and AfricanStudies, Universityof London, for hostingit. The presentversion is only slightly altered fromthe onginal text of the lecture. See especiallythe recent collections edited by Ho and Saunders (1984), Pollard (1984) and Ho and Fox (1988). An important,earlier collection that points in a slmilardirection is edited by Koestler and Smythies(1969). Haraway (1976) reviews the work of some major forerunners. 2 Notice how, in this substitution, science has come to stand for its subject matter.We are quite the accustomed to thlnkingof human beings as the sites of an interactionbetween 'biology' and 'culture'. We are also used to regardinganthropologyas the science of culture. But most of us, I suspect,would baulk at the idea of seeing humans as the productsof 'nature' and 'anthropology'! 3 Biologists are as susceptibleto thlsway of thinkingabout humans and animals as are anthropologists. Mayr, for example, declares that it would be 'simple-minded and dangerous to treat man simply as a biological creature,that is, as if he were nothlngbut an animal...Man is a umque species, in that a large amount of cultural "inheritance" has been added to biological inhentance' (1982: 81-2). Notice the and the notion of cultureas a factoraddedto biology. equation, here, between biology and animality,

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4In fairness Durkheim, I should emphasise that thisview of orgamc closure was a corollaryrather to than a premissof hls theoryof society, which was set up in explicit opposition to the utilitarianism of social theonsts,notablyHerbertSpencer (cf. Durkheim 1982 [1895]). contemporary 5Darwin, of course, was not a Darwinist, let alone a neo-Darwinist, and it is perfectly possible to accord a role to variation under natural selection in the evolutionarymodificationof species without being committedto everytenet of the neo-Darwinian credo. The latteris characterised the claim that by natural selection is not only necessarybut also sufficient account for the evolution of life (Maynard to Smith 1969). 6 In fact,Dawkins immediatelymoves to qualifyhis assertion:'I must specifywhat it means to "explain life". There are, of course, many propertiesof living thingsthat we could list, and some of them mightbe explicable by rival theones... There is one particularpropertyof living things,however, that I want to single out as explicable onlyby Darwinian selection. This propertyis ... adaptive complexity' (1986: 288). Notice the duplicity in this argument. We are given no reason why an explanation of adaptive complexityshould be tantamount an explanationof life. If living thingshave otherproperties, to explicable by other theories, then the latter have no less a claim to be explanations of life than the Darwinian theory. 7As Haraway (1976: 196) has nghtlyobserved, in drawing the distinctionbetween machine and organism one should be sensitiveto the changing meanings of mechanism. Where once the prototypical machine was the clock, it is now the computer. Drawing on the metaphorsof programme,code and neo-Darwinian biology has been able to presenta mechanisticaccount of many of the properties system, between organismsand machines, of living thingswhich, in the past, had been taken to mark the contrast and whose explanation had entailed recourse to notions of vitalism.At the same time, contemporary mechanisticworld view. The physicsis at last becoming emancipated fromthe shackles of its formerly the continuities rather paradoxical resultis thatpresentadvocates of a philosophyof organismtend to stress between inanimateand animate worlds, or between physicsand biology. For them, in than the contrasts a sense, the entire cosmos is an orgarnsm(Goodwin 1988: 108). Meanwhile, it is the mechamnsts who hold fastto the distinctiveness living thingsand to the disciplnaryautonomy of biology. of 8 Thus in a recent review, Harpending et al. define human sociobiology as 'the study of human behavior based on a Darwinian paradigm',claimingmoreover thatthe 'basis of human sociobiology, as of all biology, population genetics and evolutionarytheory' (Harpending et al. 1987: 127, 129, my emis phases). 9 Sociobiology-watchersmightbe forgivenforbelieving thatthereis some confusionwithin the ranks of the soclobiologiststhemselvesabout the statusof the gene. The remarks thatI cite here by PJ. Wilson and Dunbar appear in reviews of two recent books on human and pnmate sociobiology, in the same issue of Man wherein another reviewer-of a book by Dunbar himself-praises hlm forbeing 'a "sociobiologist" who is not reallya "sociobiologist"' (Sussman 1987: 179)! Elsewhere, Dunbar has elaborated on his objections to genetic determinism:'Sociobiology is concerned centrallywith the consequences of behaviour in termsof gene propagationand it is a serious mistaketo assume thatthis necessarily implies anythingabout the genetic control of ontogeny or ... of behaviour itself (1987b: 167). I findthis objection incoherent.To show thatsuch-and-sucha behaviour has consequences forreproductivefitness, and hence for genetic replication,is to make a purely descriptivestatement.To convert the descriptioninto an explanation, for the evolution of the behaviour in question by natural selection, Darwinian logic requiresus to suppose thatthe replicatedelements('genes') are among the causes of which the behaviour is an (albeit indirect) effect.In other words, behaviour must not only be of consequence for genetic replication,it mustalso be a consequence ofreplicatedgenes. If it is not, naturalselectionwill not work. 10 Apart from the work of Boyd and Richerson cited below, see for example Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman (1981), Durham (1979), Lumsden and Wilson (1981) and Pulliam (1983). 11 Radcliffe-Brownconsistently compared the processes of organic life and social life, the latterconof sistingof 'an immense multitudeof actions and interactions human beings' (1952: 4, 178-9). But just as his view of organic closure led him to separate the life of the individual human orgamsm from its social lifewith otherhumans,so also the life of the person was assumed to be wholly confinedwithlnthe bounds of society,likewise conceived as a self-contained, closed system. 12 One consequence of the classical separationof person and organismis thatthe development of the latteris seen to be situatedwithin a domain of 'biological' relationswhich is excluded fromthe wider domain of 'social' relationswherein the human being, once formedorganically, acquires his or her status as a person. This rationale underlies attemptsto isolate 'the family' as a human biological universal, constituted relationssimilarin kind to those found amongst non-human animals. The line thatwestby

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em thought and sn draws between thus itsideological has roots theopposition 'family' 'society' between and nature humanity. 13 Thereis a formal between neo-Darwinian the of from and parallel segregation ontogeny phylogeny theSaussunan of from segregation synchrony diachrony 1959: 80-1). Both ruleout anycon(Saussure of and in or sideration therelation between agency structure historical evolutionary processes Gid(see dens1979:7-8). 14 For examples biological of of definitions society along theselines,see Dobzhansky (1962: 58), Altmann (1965: 519) andE.O. Wilson(1980:7). Thesearereviewed Ingold(1986: 241-3,275). by 15 It is important emphasise theview proposed to that hereis quitecontrary thatexpressed the to in familiar of formula Durkheimian 'the sociology, whole does not equal the sumof itsparts'(see Durkhelm1982 [1895]:128). Sinceevery within itself relational the structure thewhole,they of partenfolds arenotdivisions a kindthat of a couldbe added to of order. togetheryield totality a higher
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Un anthropologue considere la biologie

Resume Cet articlepresenteles fondements pour une integration adequate de l'anthropologleau sein du domaine plus vaste de la biologie. Dans le discours de l'anthropologie sociale, le concept de 'biologie' est ordinalrement associ6 a un c6te d'une opposition entrehumanite et nature,etablissant personneset des des organismescomme des objets d'etude mutuellementexclusifs.Dans la biologie meme, n6anmoins, la synthese&tablie n6o-Darwinienne elimine virtuellement l'organisme comme une entite reelle, et l'extension de ce pragmatisme incorporer'T'heitage culturel' elimine pareillementla personne. Une a biologie alternative proposee qui prend l'organismecomme point de depart,et qui comprendla vie est sociale des personnes comme un aspect de la vie organique en general. Ainsi une anthropologie des est personnesest contenue au sein d'une biologie des organismesdont l'int6r8t sur les processusplutot que sur les evenements,rempla,ant la 'pensee en termes de population' de la biologle Darwinienne evolutionniste une loglque des rapports. par