Masnoon Khair

2b. Why does Fergusons anti-teleological argument about modernity and tradition
require the concept of localist and cosmopolitan styles?
The teleological argument refers back to the script of modernity, and how it follows a
universal and linear route and how every nation in the world should progress in the same
fashion. This script was applied in the case of several African countries as well. While at first,
the localist and cosmopolitan styles may seem as a divide between the rural or urban, or
the native vs modern, it breaks apart from the script because these styles or ways of
doing have adapted and negotiated a local context. In essence, there existed a duality, a
connecting between the two. An individual could be part townsfolk and part countryfolk
(Ferguson 1999: 89) depending on which identifier they needed to perform on the situation
and context involved. The two styles are deeply interconnected with each other, and the
intricate complexities and interplay breaks apart from the linear, teleological version of
modernity/urbanism that is put forward by classical theories of modernization.
Why does style refer to a performative rather than a normative notion of social
behavior, and why does it argue against the idea of culture as a way of thinking?
Style in this sense is performative because it refers to certain practices or acts that signify
difference between social categories (Ferguson, 1999:95). Borrowing from the ideas of Judith
Butler, Ferguson reaffirms that these styles are ways of performance in which people dress a
certain way, speak in a certain way to signify belonging to a certain group. This is done
through Bordieus concept of internalizing knowledge based on availability i.e upbringing,
environment, etc (Ferguson, 1999:95) and applying them as an actor in relation to certain
social categories. It moves away from ways of thinking in the sense that ways of thinking
undertones something that is natural, while styles and performance is always incorporated,
negotiated, and deployed as a strategy of survival between groups. All this becomes a way
of doing as well, in which actors act based on socio-political circumstances and
constraints, i.e mineworkers must choose between drinking in a bar or for a trip home
because of economic constraints (Ferguson 1999:100), underlying the active self-making
involved.
Ferguson says his adoption of style and performance changes how we think about
people class position how? He also says it changes how we think about classical
notions of meaning how? Can you explain why, using the critique of the assumed

homogeneity of culture discussed by Writing Culture #1 and Gupta and Ferguson

(1992)?
Notions of class are also challenged because it shifts away from the sensibilities and
values of what is considered the natural signifiers of class. As spaces are not naturally
discontinuous, but rather connected (Gupta & Ferguson, 1992), there is a large borrowing
between the two styles. The two styles intermingle in some ways and also oppose each other
in certain ways, making a complex amalgamation of class. Referring to Cohen (Ferguson,
1999: 97) Ferguson also asserts how meaning is interpreted differently on an individual
level, thus creating a diverse collection of norms, ideals and values. This again, breaks apart
from the homogeneity of culture, further signifying the multiplicity and contestations in a
single space. (Gupta & Ferguson, 1992).

References
James Ferguson (1999), Expectations of Modernity. Myths and meanings of urban life on the
Zambian Copperbelt (Berkeley: University of California Press).
Gupta, Akhil, and Ferguson, James, Culture: Space, Identity, and the Politics of Difference,
Cultural Anthropology 7/1 (1992): 6-23.