a

16
Fieldwork Yesterday and Today:
u
Tes Fefflïe Of A.Hthf9P°1°giS*S
\/0*-\GVVRI elvlg Î
"l¿*'*>“št€\/`
. ound _\/_o?\-lÎ7 Translated from the Italian 'by Janet Hoskins
_\¿\èiwo\f K' _ _,WW G {,.@\@ eåkä Social and cultural anthropology became a profession thanks to a dis-
tinctive form of practice: research carried out in exotic locations or “Field-
(_ ` U-3§\3`\/WC 'Ô-Ç kw worl<”`. At least until the end of the sixties anthropologists were, primar-
TV Ê ily and fundamentally, researchers who-unlil<e liistorians-creiited their
documentation directly , since they collected it from living human popu-
JF lations. ln this sense anthropology is--or was still not so very long ago--
Î_\«¿Î.Î'v*<>×c.)vw-¢«f\'lV5 lä Cx the history of the present.
._ \Á › i S ü et 133 VGM
\¿`1,\,`-§/_içlcvclä
Qavtedr Lovg.) According to the founding inyth of the anthropological profession, field-
~\ _¿)v~eš\/'Jî
worlt was invented in a solitary act ot heroism performed during the first
World war, by a man Who had been unable to tulfill his own dreams of
heroism in the trenches of liurope. The man concerned was in effect a
member of the Polish minor nobility, who was :it that tune without «a coun-
try, but seen as a citizen of the Austro-i*lungarian empire, which was then
in a state of war with Great Britain. This is where the noble subiect was
transfered in 1910, secluced by reading _l.G. l*`rar.er`s T/Je Golden Bot/ig/9.
At the outbreak of the First World \X/'ar he was in Australia, and citizen
of :in enemy empire. He was forbidden to leave until 11918, but on the
otel"1r hand he was left free to carry out his research in the neighboring re-
gion of Papua, which was governed at that time b_v the brother of the Hel-
lenist Gilbert Murray. At first the Polish gentleman turned his research to
the island of Mailti. Most of this work was done in the traditional style,
“from the vei*;iiida" of the house of a inissionary, where listless natives
were summoned to be interrogated.
But during a trip to the villages of the nearby coast ot Papua, the Pol-
ish exile was forced to spend several days in the home of the men of a na-
tive village anti, inspire of the discomfort and :1 certain disgust, he had an
intuition that this could be a new way of doing ethnography, which was
later to he called "participant observation". To understand another culture
fully, it was necessary to live among the people who practiced it--0bserv-
ing events and then asking about them, using this experience as the basis
 «, i
"t 1,- .*¿.;›g"¿
«` ' .Î
*'-
4.4,. 3
t 4,
`, vy-«.
384 Fragments from Forests and Libraries , , . 13;;-.it
.
Fieldwork ofYesterday and Today: The Future of Anthropologists 385
_«.,_.¿
. . .¿_at.,
.gt ¿, _.¿._§ãli.
i .›«
for more research. Collecting information using previously prepared ques- r 'Sii 3 fact that they had always known, but had passed over in silence because
tionnaires, based on preoccupations which were alien to the natives, would if-21
i W they conflicted with the idealized image of field research propragated by
t '*
create a mutilated and distorted image of their culture. Armed with this in- il the myth which legitimated it.
tuition, the nobleman returned to Melbourne where, between one fiancée _ 'Â * In this article, I will try to indicate briefly where we have come today with
.pi i
and another, he completed his report in the old style that had been re- '* ›
uw* fieldwork and what position it might later come to occupy in this post-
quested-The Natíz/es of Mailu. Six months later he left again for New v. 1,
fil* Malinowskian epoch. The thesis that I intend to put forth is very simple.
«.1 _
Guinea. On the way, he stopped “temporarily” in the Trobriand islands, l - `iL*`-
`à
mi'J Fieldwork is no longer the only organ of aiithropological knowledge. It
but he ended up staying there. On this island hich is now a sacred place .
ei'if *-t~ íè'rnainš`and should remain central. The teachings of Malinowski, once
¢
››
l'›..
to every anthropologist, the intuition that heiišathe first year was realized t i duly demythologized, can and should be incorporated in present ethno-
›«
in the first real research done in the field. Cultural anthropology was born graphic attitudes. Research in “the field” has changed less technically than
î*I... ,›
in the Trlobriands, and the hero who created it was named, as is Well '*;Î in the political, ethical and epistemological consciousness that accompa-
li
if*i
known, Bronislaw Malinowski. 4 » nies it. Today we do both something more and perhaps also something
.vi.i r.
Malinowski was not only a great student of mythology. He was also, 'ev- v _...,1
, i better than Malinwoski did, but we are especially more conscious of cer-
F i
idently, a great creator of myths. The story that I have just told has been tain aspects of our research-and of ourselves as researchers-which Ma-
used to seduce and persuade generations of anthropologists to repeat again rl
1 linwoski was not conscious of or did not want to recognize, except for oc-
in their own way the heroic acts of the foμnder-and in this Way field re- 'L casionally in his private diaries.
ã
search in the Malinowskian style has become the central activity of an- il
.qi To start, it would be useful to turn back to history--mainly from Stock-
` l
thropology. It is appropriate for this that the story I have just told is mytho.-, . . ....,../ i , Lv.
*r
1-*gt ing-to learn how field research was born, and what has been-apart from
ia t,
logical..¿f\ myth is not a false story: it_i§j1n_ÇffiçaÇiQus _on_ç_. But its efficacy I .
the elaboration of a fecund professional inyth-the real contribution of Ma-
-rf.. -r
1›-'1_,,.,.-
requires siifiplicatión, idealization, and also the definitive suppression of any- J . linowski to this type of research. The use of the term fieldwor/e originated
Y .
thing which would make this narrative a historiographic act-the de- .
À*.`_,ff with Alfred Haddon, who took it from the natural sciences, where it had been
scription of ambiguity, contradictions, shadows, uncertainties, precedents. mât
developed since the eighteenth century. The collection of speech, costumes
The stories told by historians are always more depressing than those told *>:.;,f~ and artifacts in loco seemed the natural extension of the collection in loco
«
'l
by mythographers (among whom we can naturally gount a great many l. of botanical, zoological or mineral samples. There is nothing surprising in
historians). History is, even more than philosophy, the bird of Minerva. And ill
the fact that the greatest precursers of ethnography-or at least of the style
v. 1
it is a big ugly bird which augurs ill, a predator which eats corpses andv .i ui: of life and the moral temperament of ethnography-were the naturalists of
mice. The recent demystification by history of the myth about the originl the nineteenth century. Two names from among many: that of the English-
,_
of fieldwork is precisely the symptom of the end of an epoch in anthro man Wallace, co-author of the theory of evolution, who spent eight years in
pology-the epoch of ethnographic optimism. , . Indonesia and New Guinea, in close and sympathetic Contact with the local
1,* ,
Malinowski himself has made a posthuinous contribution to this end. t 'v ` populations; and that of the Russian Miklucho-Maklay, perhaps the first
, *›*
The 1967 publication of his private diaries-written during the years that -È to react against the intrinsic colonial complicity of ethnographic research.
he was doing his research on Mailu and the Trobriands-provoked a storm Sii,x. . Some of these naturalists, like Baldwin Spencer, Franz Boas and H.
.*
of controversy. The heroic founder was found to be not so very heroic. In '».. 1
1
Kraemer, became full-time ethnographers. They are really the ones who
r
one revealing moment he described his own feelings for the natives as the imposed fieldwork in anthropology and adapted it to the requirements of
'i
Kurzian “exterminate the brutes”. The conflict between an optiinist ide- si the discipline. Boas and Kraemer, in particular, developed the method of
«
ology and a good conscience about his fieldwork (which required sympa- M*
«
collecting texts, a natural extension of their linguistic research and of the
i
thy, friendship, dialogue, reciprocity and a definitive equality) and the re- i collecting of artefacts for museographical uses. They transcribed indige-
ri
ality (antagonism, asymmetry of power, and a definitive inequality) of the nous texts or had them transcribed by others, but they also assigned cer-
9
>
colonial and postcolonial situation, and perhaps of every situation in which tain compositional themes to their informants: how to construct a house
A
ethnographic work is done, was opened up to discovery. What Malin- / , i or a canoe, how to conduct a ritual, cultivate a garden, and so forth. This
woski himself had created Malinowski now seemed to destroy. But in re Ê" 1' method is still used with some benefit. Ône exemplary, illustration is the thou-
ality Malinowski was revealed as the creator of a new genre, since the tf-¿.`l sands of pages of texts written by George Hunt, a Kwakiutl m_ixed blood,
,.~›,«-«-l›~l -~.~»~v-/-\lvn-l lan- lair* /li-vr-1-' lmwnyunl-ur qnfljrnfifilnfiiçfq fn rf.-aflppf fin 1-hp ° X ---l~ f- <~.-›\¢~ --~.-/-l 4-l~ «-_.--. fm.. 'I'.`,›,,.-,-. T),-M."
 í__yn
fu»
s ' ~
386 * Fragments from Forests and Libraries Fieldwork of Yesterday and Today: The Future of Anthropologists 387
The idea of field research and its methods was developed by the im-"
portant expedition to the Torres Straits (between Australia and New Guinea,
1888-89), organized by Haddon and sponsored by the University of Cam-
bridge. The expedition helped defined the new figure of the field anthro-
pologist as a scientific professional, whose task was to make an “inten-
sive study of a local area", according to the formula of Haddon. But still
the field anthropologists seemed to see his task as providing answers to,
the questions frarned by armchair anthropologists like Frazer. "l`he_ dialec-
tic between theory and investigation was not yet part of field research,
which was not seen as capable of modifying or abandoning the precon-
ceived categories imposcd by theoreticians. Ethnography took the form
of responding to questionaires. -
The image of the field anthropologist that emerged from the report of
the Torres Straits expedition was developed and codified by its most bril-
liant member, Rivers. In one chapter of the manual Notes and Queries in
Anthropology, published in 1912, Rivers affirmed that the first duty of
the researcher, in an “intensive study”, is to learn to use the language of
the people that he intends to study. This is because “language is the only
key at our disposition to understand correctly and completely the life and
thought of a people”. Rivers also conceptualized a* new method of his own
invention, the genealogical method, which in his opinion made it possible
to identify a large part of the social structure in primitive society. I-Ie ad-
vised against using questionnaires based on set questions (who do you
marry? what do you believe?) because these reflected the categories of the
researcher and not those of the person questioned. And he recommended
giving greater weight to information furnished spontaneously, and to con-
flicts between informants, which are often the best source of knowledge.
Finally, he conceptualized the direct observation of events and noted that
without sympathy and tact it was not possible to go very far in ethno-
\/graphic research.
In an article published the following year (1913), Rivers rejected the A young shaman entering into trance and dancing.
team research practiced by the expedition to the Torres Straits and con-
ceptualized instead a model of solitary research, both because the pres-
ence of many researchers could create confusion in the society studied, get to know all the members of the community that is being studied. For
and because the subject of research should be as indivisible as its object. these reasons Rivers recommended a long and uninterrupted period of re-
In effect, Rivers argued, where there are no specialized activities-eco- search-a year or more. And especially research carried out by profes-
nomic, technical, religious--there is no need for the corresponding schol- sional anthropologists, not by dil ttantes, “Sunday anthropologists”. These
ars to study them-economists, technologists, historians of religion-since people are not capable of stuwdîing cultural phenomena in an adequate
they would only separate artificially what was really inseparable in fact. Way, and they have other jobs (as administrators, missionaries, planters,
The task of ethnography is to understand these facts from an indigenous shopkeepers) which are incompatible with these studies, because they put
point of view, not an external one. The best pathway to this comprehen- them in conflict With the local population and their values.
sion is furnished by the local language. Mastering it takes time. A lot of time lt would seem thus that it was Rivers and not Malinowski, contrary to
** * * * * ~ -- . ._-....t..-..,.1t^ the ww*-b wlfiifh ie nrnnqcm'n=(l_ who firef invpnfed nnrl rl1enri7P(l fielfiwnrl:
 ,i
J''*'
*":.-L . .~ v
v
I .
388 * Fragments from Forests and Libraries , 1 ,i Fieldwork of Yesterday and Today: The Future of Anthropologists 389
- j* .
un
'np 1. *aî-
A Mv., "gil
ã.,..
._ .,_,,
-..-,.*- fi.-_.
as we know it today. Malinowski did not even invent most of the tech- 'š__Î.. l .. ä¿"Î.*`
The “constructive” activity-for Which separate notebooks can be
niques of field research, but he was instead the firs_t4_p_ers9p,_to apply them W _;¿›.«.~«§*. := på* used-has two principal components: the elaboration of charts and dia-
*,;* `l=,;_›'.§ .
seriously._His real originality lay elsewhereziïhaving theorized and prac- r.- -:*.*;* .
“r.,-.H -.L-›.i grams, and the writing, in the form of an extensive narrative, of reports
,..,ã.-
< 1 v
ticed the strict interdependence of theory and ethnography, of observa- «W ._ ._ and provisionary analyses of the data. Both of these components make it
.-~ :ar:
. :.!΢'_.¿Î1›'
tion and interpretation in the course offieldwor/2 itself. The Malinowskian possible to systematize information and so to discover unsuspected rela-
il 7*.Î:*'*› ¿ 1*
ethnographer was not a specialist in the collection of data which would sr-*›.*.*›,.' tions and gaps, which can help the research process to progress.
affífg
confirm or invalidate theories elaboratecl by others at their desks or in *V These precepts-spread through the works of Malinowski himself and
' :Ml 1 '.> ' .
› . .1 *'
their armchairs; nor was he a writer of reports, of the same standard as the L.,¿»=:=-.ã=,i- l his closest students-indicate the reasons for which field research is either
journalist or the traveler. He was instead an interpreter, who practiced a :_ .*.,al_1'-. pg long-term or does not exist. It is not only that it takes time to learn a lan-
conscious activity based on the constant dialectic between observation and * 'fi;`*.=°-f›i*›:š~`
tA =. <-in @.1 guage well and be able to communicate adequately. It is not only that it takes
` 1
what Malinowski called the “construction” or “theoretical plasn1ation”. 'î time to establish relations of trust, and possibly also of friendship, with-
To do this Malinowski mixed with the people, but also retreated period- *,=-*~:z**.f.*.› out which it is impossible to obtain adequate information. l3_ug_tin3gis_al,so
*v- .<1'f'.\›d .i'«
ically under his famous tent. I-Ie relished life With vigorous abandon, but .~f:?J'.::*_*›f -*:*
.-;¿. \_-. and especially needed to understand, analyze and organize all that has
also took his distance-intellectually and emotionally-from it at times. (He Î';*-'L Ê;:'*'* ibeen observed andiheard. Theoretically, it might be best if one could even
occasionally vented his frustrations with the Mailu and the Trobrianders “ leave the field after a year of research, make a preliminary analysis and
ly... ~ï.
* -* -Éfli
_ r
in a violent and picturesque way which has scandalized the devotees and vif the first draft of a monograph, and then return for another year after six
.=΢.§*f*I
hypocrits among the readers of his diary. If Malinowski had been a model .ix-** months or a year's absence. This is in fact what Malinowski did in the
t`*7*:¿'
nf. _ -.
..i¢»
of pure virtue he would never have managed to produce such good ethnog- *^»›î* course of his research in the Trobriands-although it was motivated mainly
~'*›-1 ›Z
raphy.) In sum, if field research consists in spending a very long time in a 1-,_ by personal and administrative reasons.
,i¿,_>.t'
community to collect empirical data, and in utilizing specific techniques V. Note that the dialectic described above is developed through the process
"Î1*ll`ïÎ'
zimlf.
to this purpose, then Malinowski did not invent it. But if it consists in a con- V l ››`- of writing. The principal activity of the ethnographer is to write, but this
fill*
.›.. ,
scious activity Which totally characterized by a dialectic between theory «¿f›..* Writing finds its ultimate justification in a particular type of observation-
lili?
-*ila
›.., ›.
and observation-an activity founded on the specificity of cultural an- . ,Fit “participant observation". As we have seen, Malinowski invented only
iii-iktu
thropology-then he is indeed the one who invented it. the name of this activity. But inventing the right name for a certain prac-
How can this dialectic between “observation” and “construction” be . 1.
't tice is often the main thing needed to bring it into existence. But it is very
., . R
translated into concrete acts? Richards may have been inspired by Mali- iq ` hard to explain clearly what participant observation consists of exactly.
J.
nowski's teachings when she recommended a week of analysis for each 1-*
rjrf et Part of the power of this expression lies in its vagueness. Today Monsieur
three weeks of collectíng material. Malinowski maintained that most de- Que:lior .autor Jourdain might well discover that he has been doing participant observa-
queriii;dizer
*.1 L
fects and gaps in ethnography came from putting off the organization and *ass .
ciência
com. 7,2. tion for years without realizing it. Participant observation is anthropol-
preliminary analysis of the research data until some future time. das massas? ogy”s version of science for the masses.
rw* "
During the three weeks of ethnographic immersion, it is best to avoid *~':. Cynicism aside, the idea of translating this practice into a few good
I,}`_ I
writing notes in different notebooks according to their supposed nature 'Î'.l*.` « recipes, which could be used by ordinary cooks, is however a good one.
1.-,;'i'
'ç.› ..
(this one in the economics notebook, that other one in the ritual notebook, '* F- For example, Malinowski said that the best way to get information on a
.1
and this one in the kinship notebook). Malinowski started out that way but al y à ritual was not to have it explained by a competent “informant”, but to par-
realized soon that this procedure was counterproductive. Not only did it -1-
t . .'
' ticipate directly in its execution. Questions should come afterwards, based
. 1*! -_;
. *~*. (.-
make it difficult to combine categories when they were shown to be erro- l`:ïÎ'lf' on the concrete events. This is not only because “native” thinking is concrete,
«.1»
neous or ethnocentric, but it dissected facts, which are always multivalent but also because the purpose of the ethnographer is not to investigate rit-
and complex, and broke the causal chain of events. Hence, the first and fun- Ã.-
Î,¿.,:.¢_% ual as a series of cookbook recipes (which is what would be obtained from
im.
damental precept was the keep an ethnographic diary, recording all the i I*`*ÊiÎ.
an informant who described it in the abstract), but as a series of events-
ÎL '- ,'21
events, impressions, interviews, observations, things that happen from day 1 ›
L.
and as something that would include in its description the “passions”, “mo-
v
to day. This diary will constitute and continue to constitute for the whole «¢ tives” and the “goals” of the actors and participants. It is precisely these
|`,
life of the researcher his primary point of reference, the final control for his 1
passions, motives and goals, and their essential and deepest ways of think-
1.. J.. 2. ,L « .~,»...-... hf .«/.-H -H-« J .-fu-i¢-/gli-pj»-uv ififnvnv-ni-flrinnc inn “flan v-\-~.§-i1vn,(- nain* 1-\£1v;n\11” \vl-\;~l-w :nl-ni-nf-0-rw'i \Ã-«iifl r\1\-/*lei
 90* Fragments from Forests and Libraries
'i
r"
fi But participant observation is not simply participating in an event as
'áhobserver. The ideal conditions for knowledge are present only when
T the ethnographer is personally involved in an event, directly or indirectly.
In this case, he will be able to understand it not only from the inside of
what is happening, but also he can ask his informants to consider him le-
f gitimate because of his taking part in the event, and so they will often an-
, swer him more accurately and completely because of this fact. The coin-
- cidence of practical interests and conceptual interests is rarely realized
r b e cause it requires that the ethnographer be integrated into the social life
5 of the community that he studies This form of integration happens more
often when the ethnographer is alone in the field, without collaboraters
j«f-.iv-_ a n d Without family, and is thus forced to find companions among the peo-
ple he or she is studying. The solitude of the Malinowskian ethnogra-
; pher--although we know from his personal diary that Malinowski did
l not practice this difficult precept completely, like many others--is thus a
É condition of participant observation, and not only the consequence of the
refusal of division of ethnographic labor-as Rivers had argued.
1 Finally, fieldwork of the Malinowskian type cannot be reduced to this
Î or other recipes provided by the master. Iris not a scientific method, but
ian art, and thus requires a certain savoir faire, a certain capacity to react
Îproductively to the experiences which are rendered possible in the situa-
.ti,on=of “the field". The field is not only a place to study and observe ob-
Îjectively, but also and especially a concrete realization which can only be
-.rationalized or controlled in a very limited way. To exploit it effectively,
tlëeanthropologist must be something of an artist and something of an
Î-ppportunist. This is the reason, in fact, that there exists a mystique of field-
.¢tk and that fieldwork is often considered-besides being, as Malinowski
* gid, “the magic of anthropology”-as the discipline's ritual of initiation.
fit, ly those who manage to pass through it successfully can be considered
Îï__ á*.'anthropologists”. This is not giving in to the mystique, but on the
3trary liberating oneself from the dangerous illusion that any research
v sejdtonhuman relations can be reduced to the application of method-
_,_-1me
gical recipes. Methodology has its own importance, but in the fiiial
gg iysisthe essence of field research lies in putting oneself in a situation in
,iQl1fexperiences-and the illuminations that come from them--can be-
, ,É “_ ¿possible.
çQidea that only field research can produce an adequate knowledge
` I, _ijural phenomena has certainly helped anthropology to become rec-
as a legitimate discipline, but it has also had other deleterious con-
. __ §c_eSfor the definition of itstobject. The first and obvious consequence
tianthropologyhas long been preoccupied with societies small enough
iqiåÎsimple" enough to be studied in the field by one person in a rela-
si W Liçbriefperiod. In other words, anthropology came to define itself as
Fieldwork of Yesterday and Today: The Future of Anthropologists 391
a sociology of the illiterate, those considered “primitive” or at the most
“semi-primitive” like peasants.
The second consequence has been the rejection of historical analysis.
This rejection was justified with two arguments, both of them very de-
batable. The first was that the societies that anthropology studies are
“cold”-that they resist history and are thus incapable of elaborating their
own historiography. Their narratives of the past are only remembered as
inyths-that is projections of present interests or invariant structures. The
second argument was that even when real and appropriate historical doc-
uments exist (for instance, the reports of administrators, travelers, and
missionaries), they cannot be used to resolve the problems that anthro-
pologists address. These documents might at best suggest an inferior form
of knowledge-inferior because it would be conjectural and depend on
whatever chance or interest happened to preserve. For anthropological
problems, only the data collected through fieldwork-it was said-could
provide an adequate response. In sum, the past was long excluded from
anthropology because, by definition, it was not possible to do fieldwork in
the past (one of the first efforts to do an historical anthropology is repre-
sented in Montaillou by Leroi Ladurie, whose implicit justification is the
supposed equivalence between the work of the inquisitors who furnished
his material and the fieldwork of anthropologists). This comes down to
an obvious sophism: The validity of interpretations comes to depend on. the
type of data that they call for-as if a certain type of data could guaran-
tee the validity of the interpretations, and as if it were possible to decide
a priori what this type Would be. A similar epistemology is in obvious con-
flict with the hermeneutic aspect implicitly recognized by Malinowski in
his own Fieldwork. A
The rejection of history, added to the relatively short period of time ac-
tually spent in the field, and the tendency to reify the heuristic principle
of the interconnection of all phenomena, led to a third deleterious conse-
quence: an analysis which was purely synchronic and exaggerated the in-
telligibility of the system as a type-whether this was of the functional,
structural-functional or Franco-structural brand. In effect all this ques-
tioning of intelligibility, which has dominated anthropology from the end
of the twenties to the sixties, can be seen as diverse theoretical reflections
on the absolute privilege accorded to fieldwork.
Another deleterious consequence of this privilege is the scarce attention
accorded to the regional or colonial contexts in which the village com-
munities that anthropologists preferred to study were found. Moreover, the
lack of attention paid to the regional context has at times been one of the
consequences of a desire to disregard the colonial situation, bracketing it
off. Often the colonial power was responsible for reducing the indigenous
societv to a mere collection of villages deefm-,tan nv am.«f..;.,.. N.. a,...
 Fieldwork of Yesterday and Tociiiy: The liiiturt-. ol' «*\nthi'opologis*
392. ' Fragments from Forests and Libraries
federations, relations of dependency or alliance at the regional level. The
result has been a situation without intermediaries: on one side the village
community, on the other the colonial state. The famous Oriental clespotism
might be better called colonial despotism. l
Igiioring the colonial situation, anthropologists then reified its "effects
to their own advantage. On the one hand, isolated village communities l
212,_., _., `'_î“r:1zt-4v:'.a`-_*=1.:zs~¢.-_ ›.-,=a+›.,«
became the primitive and the oi*igins which justified Field research; on the
other hand, colonialism came to be described as the new which had to be
bracketed aside rather than the cause of the (real or apparent) .process of
villagization. There was here a convergence of interests between a colo-
nialism that tried to hide or undervalue its transforrnative presence and
an anthropology that tried to justify its practice of intensive research, which l
Was necessarily very locnlized. To this convergence was then added the
theoretical notion of the segmentary society (derived, in turn, from the
mechanical society of Durkheim) which furnished a convenient frame. Nor
only was each village an autonoiiymous community and thus could be
'.`Z'
1:t.`*«:!z›-`^*~. ›~:-;.*ÿ:z.`_*:';-_:
studied separately, but it was also au instantiation, fundainentally identi- *`~>
cal to all others, of the structures in Force in a particular ethnic: or cultural -.0 ' , «
area. By studying a single village an anthropologist could thus i/Jso facto li
identify these structures. The' ethnic constituents or the cultural region be- 1 1' 1"
f V
il .- ,
came thus depoliticized, and reduced to a common application--on a cer- ly ' ' i
i tain stretch of space--of a single complex of cultural schemala.
9 4 " 5'
› Finally, between fieldwoirk anthropology in itself (that is, in the uni- › f MU:
i
versity empire the functionalist and structural-functionalist theories) and ('\ I 1
F
1 the coloníalism of metropolirain ministeirs on top there was not always-
and perhaps not even often--any voluntary political collusion, but there
was nevertheless a certain de facto collusion. Anthropologisirs and colo-
nial functionaries hared each other cordially, but managed to coexisi' fairly
conveniently in a world that they constructed together--often without
knowing it, isolated as they were by the artificial separation of "politics"
Several iiluimiiiis “rccviviiriμ the sew:icni".
and "knowledge". ,_
The model, which wc call for convenience the Malinowskiaii one, of who conio clown into rlieii' licatls.
an anthropology exclusively oi' predominantly centered on intensive :intl
initiatory fielclwork, has been cracl<cd by both internal and external processes in the *.1i'i*oga nt contrast between documents produced by the profes:
in the discipline which created it. The very success of anthropology as a clis- the documents pi'<.›<lucecl'with other pi*ojects--vvliose creclentials W
cipline has contributed to undermining some of the theses and pretensions fai*nilíai'ity or participatii›n. This new anthropology. now less su
which had made it possible. The multiplication of monographs based on “sciei*itilic" credentials, is less able ro oppose the iutrinsic non-s›
fieldwork has made evident the inevitably subjective and perspectival char- nature of a history forced to use those docuineiirs \vliicli chance o
"''. .vÎ..îμ
".zz~. \' »`-fo'-.`1-Z`-“«kî~;='.- 2." acter of ethnographic research. Scientistic ambitions which, in the Mali- lt-tests of past protagonists have made accessible.
nowskian project, coexisted ambiguously, but certainly imperialistically, with But there is more. The societies studied by the fouucling father
the hermeneutic conception of the relation between observation and in- nowslci included, have been studied again by their successors. Tl'
.¢.-ú.'v.«`_._.'Ç,.
terpretation, and between the vision of the anthropologist
_ . . and
, . the vision
. -~-«l|~› n~f»ri\-*irnrl r~l~mnor*c in rl-mer- «-r\r*iv=rie*.* l'u›lir*\'v*=(i tn l\f'i11('flI'\«'ll1lt°

394 - Fragments from Forests and Libraries
ducing change, or only subject to passive changes due to the crushing in-
.›~,*`_. ,-_._
fluence of the modern world, have been documented by the anthropîlo-
gists themselves. Ironically, anthropology, born with a deliberate anti- lisci
torical attitude, has had a history of its own, and this histoiyhas revea e
.ft
the historical character of its object as well as that of its subiect.
The theoretical premise of fieldworlt of the Malinowslcian type has also
been undermined by developments external to the discipline of anthi'o~
pology. Among these developments are, obviously, the end of traditional
colonialism, the birth of new states (often agents of a colonialism which is
called “assistance”), coiiflicts between these states and ethnic and religious
2.- f~¢.; . .-_V
communities, the triumph of capitalist economics in various regions of the
globe, and the almost universal cultural influence of the media (it is now
hard to find a tent or a hut without a radio, a television, a tape player and
often even a video tape player). _ depends finally on his or her use of certain literary devices. Ethnograp
The interconnection of all the societies on earth--and thus the impos-
sibility of studying them in isolation-has never been so evident, and this
evidence is now retrospectively communicated to the societies of the past,
. none of which has ever been found in the presupposed isolation of Mali-
_-:_-_:
._- -<-¿»¿_¿- ›_~-«_<
:gf nowskian anthropology. In this sense, the crisis of the anthropology of the
ill village, and the ethnic group, has its counterpart in the crisis of national
Iii history. In both cases, isolation from relevant influences has become some-
thing that has to be paid for, but perhaps mainly for ideological reasons,
which are often revealed as illusory or artificial.
The effects of these internal and externalproceisseslon the discipline
have been multiplied by the more general crisis of scientistic episteniology
si-; *.-;`:¢.-ac.
in academic culture. One of the earliest reflexes of this episternological cri-
.1 sis in anthropology was, in the fifties, the conversion of Evans-Pritchard,
i the student of Malinowski at the London School of Economics, to the idea,
influenced by Collingwood and later by Wittgenstein, of anthropological
»
activity as a “translation”. This idea made fieldworlc even more central
than it had been in functionalist and structural-ftinctionalist theory. ln ef-
i fect, to translate an esoteric culture into his own, the anthropologist had
ã
1
not only to master it practically lilie a language, but also live it in its extra-
linguistic presuppositions. And this is obviously impossible without the
type of direct and total apprenticeship offered by fieldwork.
The innovations of Eva_ns~Pritchard did not however modify the anti-
historical bias of the founding fathers, nor did they represent a new con-
sciousness of the concrete social conditions which made anthropological
activity possible and even less of the asyininetry of power implicit in the
very idea of translation. The translation concerned could in effect pnly go
in one direction: from their culture to ours and from ours to theirs. I`he su»
premacy of a certain language oi* group of languages, and of the mode cšf
thought which is innate in them, and their speakers, became almost iea -
Fieldworlc of Yesterday and Today: The Future of Aiithropologists 3!
firmecl by a form of anthropological activity which pretended (and in
certain sense was) to be subversive because it tried to take modes of thoug
different from the dominant one and made them intelligible to the don
nators.
The epistemology of Evans-Pritcharcl and of his followers remains moi
over objcctivist in type. Translation is implicitly guaraiitecd by a sing
transcendental subject, who is a subject supposed to be independent
any social, political or cultural position which might bc nttiiclied to his
her empirical hearer. ln recent years, this objectivism has been iinseat
by critics influenced by heirneneutic, lïioucauldian and deconstructiv
theories. These people have stressed the “ethnogi*aphers -.ire also writer
line, that the texts that they produce have a literary texture, and to a gre
extent, if not completely, a sense of reality which emerges from them ai
\/ rhetorical effect. The authority of the ethnograplier, like that of any authi
is a literary genre which can be compared to the irealist novel, with an i
visible and omniscient author.
The technique of the omniscient author is not innocuous--it is used
hide the ethnographer's position in the political and social context of i
search and thus the limited and perspectival character of this position. T
use of certain tenses (like the famous ethnographic present) and of cert:
*t pronotiris (like the third person plural to refer to the natives) in these Wi
trigs are among other devices which are loaded with political and ethii
implications. According to Fabian, these tools sysreiiiaticiilly distance t
ei'l'inologized from ethnology and their public and, through this, deny
the ethnologizetl the equality that was given to rhcm in the field--at le:
in speech. Concrete persons become homogenizccl in a generic “they” a
the shared time and space of these people and the etliiiogirapher--duri
the period when the iieldwo.rl< is taking place--becomes riegated in i
erernal present of the ethiiogifaphic narrative (“they do this", “they l
lieve that.. . ”). Fabian and other critics conclude that the moment of wi
ing, the real and complete ethnography, should be reconcilcd with their
ment of fieldwork. Fieldwork is, or should be, dialogical, but so too shoi
the final product-the ethnographic discourse.
It is not my intention, given the little space that remains, to discuss thi
theses. I will limit myself to a few observations. In principle, this atten
\ . to apply the methods of literaify criticisin and discourse analysis to i
\f texts procluced by ethnography is welcome. But if ctliiiog,*i*apliic activit)
reduced to mere literature, a simple fiction, it would become iinpossil
to draw a boundary between pure invention and competent activity. 'I
second observation is that one rhetoric is worth another. Or, to put it mt
clearly: One rhetoric is better than another only on the basis of consid
ntions of ci moral or political nature. But the point of view adopted
Ê-i.
i
›. 396 . Fragments from Forests ami Libraries Fieldwork of Yesterday and Today: The Future oi' .*\ntliropologists 397
.›
v
4
4
i these critics implies that moral and political values cannot be deduced in l
a cognitively valid manner. These values are in the ultimate instance cho*
sen arbitrarily, or for class interests, because of ethnic affiliation and so
forth. It is however impossible to maintain that certain values, and thus the
ethnography based on them, are better than others. Pinally, it should be oh-
served that textual strategies and fieldworlt theorized by these reformers
end in fact with zi denial of the presence of the author very similar to that. I
which they denonce among their predecessors.
As we have already noted, they argue that lieldwork should consist ex-
clusively or predominantly in dialogues between the ethnographer, his/her
interlocuters and the final product, the ethnography, should also be the
form of a dialogue. Let us suppose that ethnography consists simply in
transcribing dialogues which actually occurred. The efforts along these '
1 lines which have been completed up now are however rather uniiitelligi-
ble (see, for example, Dwyer 1982), because the authors víolate their prin-
cipal duty which is to render coi*nprehci'isible to the readers the speech
~
~
`i that they have recordecl. in reality, it is recorded only in the most exter-
nal and mechanical way if they do not add their interpetation. Let us sup~ 1
pose instead that the dialogue which appears in the ethnographic text is the Î A l
result of a selection and elaboration, chosen in order to make it more com- A line of slinmans dancing togethei* and and singing in ci›m|«|i~× pnlypimny,
prehensible. But then the autlior who makes the choices, who includes or
excludes, who explains, should not hide himself behind the text-as hc _ p _ _
or she does in trying to pass for *.1 simple nioiithpiece. Or else he may pre- heuristic vision. There can be no purely dialogical etliiiiitμuiphic practice and
tend that his text is the result of a collaboration with his interlocuters, as ln ml' @SC 3 C0nV@"5aÎÎ0n ls “Of “€C@55'~11`ÎlY 21 Ull11l0ë.U@-
1:.*;›-v:=.;~-¢>,..'_.»: _.*«,' if that were not excluded by the simple fact that the ethnography is writ- Wl1e"e have W€_C°*Î1e› ï0flaY~ With fÎf3l<ïlWUl`l<? A5 l hdd PHÎÖÎCUÎÖ, Wfi
i* ten in the language of ethiiogmpliy, not in that of the interlocutor. am IÎOÎ 1763113' 59 far “Om Mall““WSl<l- OUI' PUWÊTS Ul l`@C01`dÎUg› Ob-
is
But there is more. The supposed dialogue recorded by the etlinogra- 5_C"V'“5 and ï'5l<l“E'5 ¢lU@5Îl0“~*` l13\'¢` bem lflC*`@0-“md bl' ï¢'ClmlCfll Îl`lU0Vfl*
:.^. <«o;Ãn 2
pher is often and obviously only a dialogue in a manner of speaking. Snn~ t'°“**` like the mpc "ÊC°1'del`› the Vide” _C'<1“Wl`*ii CTC- BUY b€líCVÎUg V00
jek has noted sardonically that ii* is often ii pure and simple return to the m_UCh "l_th'Î5É` machlnefi (Wi W01'5°'› CU"l`"SΓt4 \Vlmï fl`1L`Y l'\fi'~'fi -fCC0l'd¢Cl
×-~L~='.-
ethnogmphy «On the Vel.am.|a›~_ WC 1] rc again in Mailu With a pml.0__Ma_ with dialoglcal anthropology or an ai'ithi'opology which would consist
f
linowski who summons informants to his own house. Once again ii' is onlyt/ Unly in being fh.e._m0uthp'eœ of the mmvcs* is un luuslolï' The funda'
i the use of a tape œcordcl. Which gives the Hlusion of a dialogue, But a ¿i_ \/ mental o_i'gan_oi iieldwork remains the brain, inimei'sioii iii events, and
i
v
( alogue written down is never simply a transcription-this is one of the “Ê S'ÎU*°1Ê19“S “1 Whlclï C°"_Y*1_În Wvfifilllïil fi`×iW1`ÎC“C@S C11" be Pl'0dUC€Cl-
i
lessons of these Very C,.¿t¿C5_'1**|,C et|,m,g,.ap},¿C œxn even it takes 8 dia]Og_._/ What divides I\/l_aliiiowsl<i from his colleagues and immediate succes-
ical form, is always constructed, based on * an interpi'etation.
| * 1 * * *tt ltn must ad-
and that SOÎÊ 15 'Êhe C0“SC10u5n€$5
subiective, of-the
character of the l.f'΢medl_ai2lY
knowledge that can5ltUaœd› but “Of
be obtained P1`0P¢1`lY
in the field.
dress an audience that reads the language in w nc i it is wri e And from this follows also the conviction that the author should not
._.'. -.*.: .*. -, shares with the ethnographer certain deeply based cultural premises. 'flic _ _ _ * _ _
.¢ 1 - *th this audimœ There is also, natmauy a hide ethnographic text, but himself the itin-
-i erarybehind
of his his
research, his choices and reveal
positions, to and
helpreveal
the reader to
._*;¿real and proper dia ogue is wi - * * . _ ,
›
v dialogue with the various people that the ethnographer meets in the field. evaluate the results.
But this dialogue presupposes a great many things which are not said and What divides us from l\/lalinowski is also an increased consciousness
not sayable--and these, by definition, it is not possible to learn through di- of the strong points and the limitations of fieldwork. One strong point of
*-›~««
old Malinowskian
alogue. The ethnographer must learn ' these with ' the *^«~«~ri»/nriwn ' this form of research is that it is not limited to the village, to the illiterate,
int'/\ 1
 :L,.
-* ~.*
398 - Fragments from Forests and Libraries Fieldwork of Yesterday and Today: The Future oi' Aiitliropologists
to the primitives. It can be carried out in any type of society, wherever Rosaldo, Renato. 'l 986. “From the Door of His Tunis: The Ficldworl<er and the
concrete persons meet, do something in common, react to events, and so lnquisitoi"` iii J. Clliffofd and Ci. i'\/liircus, cds. \X/ritifig (Iiflri/›'i'. lštzrkelcyz
on. Social life everywhere has aspects which can be studied ethnographi- Uiiiveifsiry ol Cïaliforiiia Press.
cally. But this research also has obvious limitations. It cannot make us Sanjelc, Roger i.-i;l. 1990. Fieldircmfs: 'I'/vi* Mtl/eirig of .›*'l1il/*Jniμii/i›_q1-. itli.ic;i: Cor
1:_J .Á`.- «›,<.,~-,. {¿- know many aspects of social life, and especially it cannot make us know
i, Ui'iivi*rsir_v Press.
-r
vf the past, and for this reason, it cannot give us a definitive key to under-
._2. Siriitinellii, (È. cil. 1975. Milaloui:*i›r›-/l'lacl'uv: New (}`u:'›1<1ii Î)mri.-s (1871-83).
.U standing processes which arc, which should be, the true and proper ob-
«I
M..idang.
.fi ject of anthropology. In sum, it seems to me that the future of anthropol-
,. ogy. should lie in a combination of fieldwork, a direct experience of the / _. Srocl<in;;, (}eoi*_i¿i' 1992. 'iI`/se l-}tlflizi›gr.1/J/1i*i*'.'. /\/ltigfirr ir/-id (Jr/Jui* l..»*sin›s in the H
-:*
V1
. - . . . . . . ›-'/ \- «
social and cultural fabric, and of historical researcli, which is inevitably\./ mry ofAiirkfi-i›;›<ili›gy. Madison; Liiiivt-i-siiy iii' \›t/ist-iiiisiii. * .›
based on dead documents. Let me then conclude with an old adage: “le
mort saisit le vif” {the dead sei:/.es the living), but add to it also its coun-
:Y».;. ....n'
, terpart: “le vif saisit le mort” lthe living seizes the deadl. The practice of
ii history and that of anthropology cannot he carried out separately, neither
n
one without the other.
References
i
Asad, Talal. 1986. “The Concept of Cultural 'lrzinslarioii in British Social
r
Anthropology” in J. Clifford and Ci. Marciis. cds. \X/riting Culture. Berkeley: «
University of California Press.
I- v -\llill
.
› Beiclelman, Thomas, cd. 1967. The 'l`r¢mslatio›i of Cultures. London: Allwood. il iA
u rl \JJ
f. *J
'I`. Clifford,_]ames and G. Marcus, eds. i986. Writing Clziltirrer Tha Poesís and Politics
of Anthropology Berkeley: University of California.
.*`.~ã~›*
ul Dwyer, Kevin. 1982. Moroccan Dialogues l?›altimore: John Hopkins Press.
"i
*Iii Fabian, Johannes. 1983. Time and the Other: How /\ritbropology Makes Its ()b~
îšš
gli ject. New York: Columbia University Press.
ii Gecrtz, Clifford. 1988. \X/orlas and Lii/es. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Malinowski, Broiiislaw. (1935) 1965. Coral (hirderzs and 'Their Magic. 2 vols. .
Bloomington: Indiana Uiiiversity Press.
Malinowski, Bronislaw. 'l 967. A Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term. New York:
›
Basic Books.
';._-.r*.~-.:,*-.9~-.»*«-._ .t ar.:
'›r`
li; Richards, Audrey. 1939. “The Development of Fic|dworl< Methods in Social ~ _ 'S '
.ij
Îii Anthropology” in F.C. Bzirtlcrt. cd. 'T'I›eSzudy i›f.S`oci`et3›. London.
Rlvei's,W.H.R. 1912. “General Account ou Method" in Notes and Queries in
Anthropology, Briiisli Association for the Advancement of Science.
CZ'
*Vi-›v',;Ll`_1¿_". 1
-x Rivers, \X/.H.R. 1913. “Report on Anrhropological Reserach outside America” in
i
Reports Upon the Present Conditions and on Future Needs of the Science of
Anrlrroholnifvwashiiiizton D.(Î.