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The cultural
Original
dimensions of
global change
An anthropological approach
Edited by Lourdes Arizpe
Culture and Development Series
UNESCO Publishing
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) document. WARNING! Spelling errors might subsist. In order to access
The authors are responsible for the choice and the presentation of the facts con-
tained in this book and for the opinions expressed therein, which are not necessarily
those of UNESCO and do not commit the Organization. The designations em-
ployed and the presentation of material throughout this book do not imply the ex-
pression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO concerning the legal
status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the
delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.
Published in 1996 by the United Nations Educational,

Scientific and Cultural Organization
7, place de Fontenoy, 75352 Paris 07 SP
Printed by Imprimerie des Presses Universitaires de France, 41100 Vendme
ISBN 92-3 -103238-0
UNESCO 1996
Preface
In his essay in the present volume, author Michael Redclift states: The
problem with our discourse about the environment and development
is that it meets the criteria of yesterday. That such a crucial debate
should be so locked into the past for the great majority of people
while at the same time humankind goes hurtling into the future
points to the urgent need at the very least to completely overhaul our
terms of reference.
This collection of essays conveys some recent thinking on the part
of thirteen anthropologists and ethnologists, and boldly proposes a
change of perspective to explore the boundaries of the new global con-
text that the world is now entering at precipitate speed. A number of
questions arise in this connection, not least of which is the challenge of
assuming a quantum leap in our understanding of what is at stake in
the current interchange of cultures around the world, not to speak of
what lies ahead.
The editor of this study, Lourdes Arizpe, who is Assistant Director-
General for Culture at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization, contributes to the debate and concludes that
this type of exchange places a vital instrument in the hands of human-
kind as it enters a new era of technology and of cultural and social plu-
ralism.
Contents
Abbreviations 9
Introduction Lourdes Arizpe 11
1 Global cultural diversity in a full world economy,

Fredrik Barth 19
2 Global perspectives in anthropology: problems

and prospects, Eric R. Wolf 31
3 Ethnicity: what chance global ethics?, Roberto Cardoso

de Oliveira 45
4 Is the West the mirror or the mirage of the evolution

of humankind?, Maurice Godelier 63
5 Living with ethnicity: the need for a new paradigm,

David Maybury-Lewis 77
6 Scale and interaction in cultural processes: towards

an anthropological perspective of global change,
Lourdes Arizpe 89
7 Social field and cultural constellations: reflections

on some aspects of globalization, Karl-Eric Knutsson 109
8 Women and industrialization in the Caribbean:

a comparative analysis of the global feminization
of labour, Helen I. Safa 135
9 Nationalities in post-Soviet global changes,

Valery A. Tishkov 155
10 In our image: the environment and society

as global discourse, Michael Redclift 179
11 The electronic Trojan horse: television in the globalization
of paramodern cultures, Philip Carl Salzman 197
12 The ethnography of development: an African
anthropologists vision of the development process,
Paul Nchoji Nkwi 217
13 Anthropology and global science: a multidisciplinary

perspective, Paul T. Baker 245
Contributors 257
8
Abbreviations
AAF-SAP African Alternative Framework for the Structural Adjust-

ment Programme
AIDS Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome
ALA Associaco Latino-Americna de Antropologa
CBI Caribbean Basic Initiative
CELADE Centro Latinoamericano de Demografa
CFC Chlorofluorocarbon
CIPAF Centro de Investigatin para la Accin Femenina
CNN Cable News Network
CTC Confederation of Cuban Workers
ECLAC Economic Commission for Latin America and the Carib-
bean
FAC Fends dAide et de Cooperation
FAO Food and Agriculture Organization
FLACSO Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales
FMC Federation of Cuban Women
FSU Former Soviet Union
FUNAI National Foundation for Indians
GAIT General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
GDP Gross domestic product
GNP Gross national product
HIV Human immunodeficiency virus
IBP International Biological Programme
ICAES International Congress of Anthropological and Ethno-
logical Sciences
ICSU International Council of Scientific Unions
IMF International Monetary Fund
9
ISSC International Social Science Council

IUAES International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological
Sciences
IUCN International Union for Conservation of Nature
LDCs Least-developed countries
MAB UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Programme
NAS National Academy of Sciences
NGO Non-governmental organization
NIDDM Non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus
Royal Anthropological Institute
SAP Structural Adjustment Programme
UMNO The Alliance Party in Malaysia
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
UNEP United Nations Environment Programme
UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Or-
ganization
USAID United States Agency for International Development
WWF World Wildlife Fund
10
Introduction
Lourdes Arizpe
Culture will undoubtedly be one of the major issues of sustainability,

development and governance in the twenty-first century. This is be-
cause it: provides the building blocks of identity and ethnic allegiance;
moulds attitudes to work, saving and consumption; underlies political
behaviour; and most important of all, builds the values that can drive
collective action for a sustainable future in the new global context.
Already scientists, national and international institutions and non-
governmental organizations all over the world are taking up this chal-
lenge. Anthropologists have a special stake in providing knowledge
and proposals in this field which, as Eric Wolf states in his chapter, has
always been present in their area of research. Yet the perspective must
now be different, as is the language. Instead of comparative studies in
a world converging on the nation-state, we now face a world of micro-
nationalities and macroregional markets; instead of thinking that cul-
tures shall eventually merge, we envisage a pluricultural and
multipolar world; yet this new world is emerging from a new web of
communications and information technology. To put it simply, the
parameters for thinking about the world have changed. In this new
global context, we have to rethink our understanding of culture and
development.
The first seven chapters by Fredrik Barth, Eric Wolf, Roberto Car-
doso de Oliveira, Maurice Godelier, David Maybury-Lewis, Lourdes
Arizpe and Karl-Eric Knutsson, respectively, provide a general
perspective of present-day issues in cultural analysis in the new global
setting. The five chapters that follow deal with specific aspects of
culture and development in different regions: gender in the Caribbean,
by Helen Safa; ethnicity in Eastern Europe, by Valery Tishkov;
11
The cultural dimensions of global change
environment in Canada, by Michael Redclift; television in the Me-

diterranean, by Philip Carl Salzman, and development in Africa, by
Paul Nchoji Nkwi. Finally, Paul Baker examines the role of multidis-
ciplinarity and international research programmes in the co-operation
between the social and the natural sciences in a global setting.
UNESCO and the International Union of Anthropological and
Ethnological Sciences (IUAES) are jointly presenting these papers
which were delivered at the plenary session of the thirteenth Inter-
national Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sci-
ences (ICAES) in Mexico City in August 1993. The central theme of
that ICAES was The Cultural and Biological Dimensions of Global
Change.
In the opening chapter, Fredrik Barth states that cultural diversity
represents a precious form of capital or resource, comparable to bio-
diversity. He argues that there is now a need for a critique of the con-
ceptualization of development in the terms posited by a full world
condition. All the more so because the transformation of the organi-
zation of production and technology in the South has resulted in what
at one time were merely cultural differences increasingly becoming dif-
ferences in wealth and poverty. He explains that in our present-day
world, industrial activity has passed a fateful threshold of scale in re-
lation to the global ecosystem whereby, among other things, sink
functions start failing because of the overloading of ecosystem pro-
cesses. There is a qualitative shift then from an empty world condition,
with new sources to exploit, to a full world condition. Thus, Barth con-
cludes, development models must incorporate this new knowledge
through a holistic cultural approach that provides a greater awareness
of contemporary cultural diversity, away from a homogenizing, unilin-
ear, ethnocentric vision. Also needed are new institutions that will fa-
cilitate rational individual and collective decisions in a full world
condition and a human morality that can guide such decisions in such
a way as to secure a future for life on earth. He ends by stating that it
is imperative to find effective ways of enhancing the integrity of other
cultural lifestyles in this global context.
This process of globalization, Eric Wolf states, has led to an inten-
sified surge in translational migration, a worldwide outpouring of
commodities across national boundaries and a vast increase in the
density and intensity of worldwide communications. To meet this chal-
lenge, Wolf argues that we must re-examine our central concept of cul-
ture, among other things by analysing how culture shapes peoples
12
Introduction
observations and perceptions of society and nature, and expand the

scale and scope of an anthropological understanding of todays world.
With so much of present-day cultural learning dependent on situation
and context, he wonders how people are coping with cultural co-
herence. One way is by constructing identities, repertories of cultural
understandings that have become more varied in response to enhanced
social and geographical mobility and the new forms and processes of
production. At present, he concludes, each ethnic group may have its
characteristic just cause, phrased in its particular portfolio of cultural
signifier. An anthropological perspective must locate that just cause
in the context in which identity-makers and -seekers respond and in
which they have to operate.
For Roberto Cardoso de Oliveira ethnicity is a privileged realm
for empirical observation of moral and ethical factors: in his chapter
he discusses the morality of acts carried out by national governments,
which have to be interpreted in the light of a global code of ethics. He
reminds us of Melville Herskovitss statement on human rights, en-
shrining extreme cultural relativism, which had been submitted to the
United Nations. Ralph Beals reacted by countering that although ex-
treme cultural relativism seeks to deter ethnocentrism, in circum-
stances where political systems deny citizens the right to representation
or seek to comfort weaker people, this would in fact lead to the accept-
ance of ethnocentrism. Cordoso de Oliveira goes on to say that Her-
skovitss thinking trapped him in his own contradictions and states
that almost half a century later, we need ask whether we have come
any closer to resolving this contradiction. He warns that the concept
of culture alone will not suffice to state properly the morality issue: as
philosopher Ernst Tugendhal has said: It is unacceptable to deem
something right and good because it was established by custom, with-
out proving it to be right and good. A way out of this dilemma, ac-
cording to Cardoso de Oliveira, is to distinguish between culture and
norms. Finally, he recognizes the humanistic and political difficulties
that need to be overcome in relation to a code of ethics of responsibility
which would apply worldwide, for example, in advocating the preser-
vation of particular indigenous norms such as the Tapirap infanticide
practice, which violates universal ethics according to which infanticide
is thought, from a universal standpoint, to be a crime against human
rights. These universal moral rules are enshrined in conventions pro-
claimed by international organizations like the United Nations. They
cannot be ignored, he emphasizes, not least because, in the end, they
13
vindicate the indigenist discourse when it comes to defending the right

to survival (and this is increasingly the case) of indigenous peoples or
of the environment in which they and all of us live.
For some people globalization is seen as a risk because it may mean
further Westernization. Aptly, Maurice Godelier, in his chapter, asks
whether the West is the mirror or the mirage of the evolution of hu-
mankind. He traces the process of Westernization of the world
through three periods in the course of which Western Europe and the
United States became the permanent centre of the continuous expan-
sion of the market economy which has had differential effects on tribal
and ethnic communities around the world. He makes a distinction,
however, between tribal societies such as those of New Guinea, which
may belong to the same ethnic community yet make war on one an-
other, and the European type of ethnic group in which political sover-
eignty belongs to the state. In the latter case, the same ethnic group can
belong to several states while being dominant in one and dominated in
another. Such differences interact with the diversification of the pro-
cess of globalization, which today is being expanded not only by the
West but also by the Far East as Japan and the four tigers expand
their economies while preserving their Asian values. At present, he ar-
gues, many people think that the West should not be imitated at all, or
imitated only partially and in a very selective way. We should under-
stand these acts of resistance, this will to preserve or rekindle ones
own cultural identity. Interestingly, Godelier states that the defence of
traditional patterns of thought and behaviour, or those considered to
be such, can only be achieved paradoxically through the integration of
the communities that exist within global structures which, at the same
time, undermine their existence. In such a context, anthropology has
an important role to play in uncovering hidden violence in intercultu-
ral relations and within each culture. It must make this violence visible
so that it can eventually be contained and suppressed, and thus lead
towards peace.
In his chapter, Living with Ethnicity: The Need for a New Para-
digm, David Maybury-Lewis stresses the need to rethink ethnicity in
the framework of the nation-state. He points out that anthropology
has established that ethnicity is neither primordial nor circumstantial,
but rather a combination of both. Parallel with this, political scientists
have been reassessing their original optimism about the potential of
nation-states to erase ethnic attachments. The author proceeds to ana-
lyse several cases. Western European nations, he explains, do not con-
14
Introduction
form to the civic conception of the uniform state, but are more fre-
quently defined in terms of manipulable symbolic systems of inclusion
and exclusion. In contrast, he states, American countries that had
large indigenous populations were set up as exclusionary states in
which Indians were, in practice, denied full citizenship. He goes on to
give examples from Africa and Asia. Most importantly, he calls atten-
tion to the potential for political manipulation of ethnicity in all but a
few homogeneous states, adding that such manipulation may also be
international. Maybury-Lewis concludes by stating that a new ap-
proach is obviously called for which would seek to deal with ethnicity
by devising social and political systems that can accommodate it.
The scale and complexity of present-day cultural and social phe-
nomena, Lourdes Arizpe points out, call for a new understanding of
the interactions between cultures, nation-states, regional markets and
emerging global information and communication systems. Cultural
thresholds are being crossed as migrations, demographic changes, eth-
nic claims and interpretations of global cultural processes change the
reference domains in which people define their identities and beha-
viour patterns. For this task, she proposes, we need to gee-reference
cultural data, develop more accurate translational data sets and deal
with the new globality as a new locality. Arizpe uses fieldwork data
from the Lacandn rain-forest in southern Mexico to show how local
people are quickly reorganizing their perception of the relationship be-
tween their locality, now drawing attention because of rapid defor-
estation, and the new globality in which they interpret the interests of
other communities and countries. A new anthropological approach to
culture in a global setting, she suggests, is needed for guidance in estab-
lishing national and international development policies in this new
context.
Karl-Eric Knutsson brings peoples reality to the discussion by
describing how the world is moving into the hills of the Tamang people
in rural Nepal: he analyses one particularly horrifying way in which
the global market is expanding, made explicit in the title of the first sec-
tion of his chapter, Selling Ones Daughter to Buy a TV: Global Con-
sumerisms Latest Frontier. He targets the problem directly by stating
that the income-generating potential of the sex market has few, if any,
rivals at the village level. . . . The brutalization of relationships among
families . . . aggravates gender disparity and gender in feriority. Faced
with such realities, he argues that a new perspective must link ethno-
graphic analysis with reflections on globalization. Yet, he states, the
15
really new issue is not that the world is becoming one, but that it is
at least for some considerable time to come becoming many, oper-
ating increasingly on a global scale. How can we analyse these new
realities? The author quotes a provocative statement by J. Wallerstein
in which he claims that culture is a non-subject, invented for us by
nineteenth-century social science. . . . Emphasizing culture in order
to counterbalance the emphases others have put on the economy or
the polity does not solve the problem. . . . So I fall back on using the
existing conceptual language in order to communicate. But I assert
that I am in search of [a] better [term]. To overcome this problem,
Knutsson proposes the concept of cultural constellation to describe
images, idioms and expressions of meaning that tend to coincide with
social gravity fields.
Changes in the role of women and in gender relations are high on
the agenda of culture, development and globalization. One of their
most visible effects has been the feminization of labour in the global
economy, here analysed in Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Dominican Re-
public by Helen Safa. Her data show some weakening of the occupa-
tional segregation by gender as growing numbers of women enter the
professions, clerical positions and the public sector. Are there cultural
changes stemming from this increase in womens labour participation?
Safa found that earning a wage indeed gave women greater autonomy,
thereby leading to greater negotiating power in the household; this,
however, did not extend to the workplace or the state level which are
still regarded as the preserve of men.
Another of the main issues in culture and development, as is widely
acknowledged, is ethnicity. This has emerged with particular bellig-
erence in Eastern Europe. Recent events in post-Communist countries
have exposed a quite common tendency, Valery Tishkov writes,
which is. . . in the midst of deep social change and radical reform, [to]
develop an ethnic content in a highly manifest form. He goes on to
examine how ethnicity is constructed and reconstructed by certain
verbal actions that reflect contemporary conditions: among them,
power relations between social groups and those interpretative
meanings that people give to these conditions. Acknowledging the
long and extremely painful injustices committed in the past against
ethnic groups in the former USSR, he goes onto describe the attempts
at reconstructing ethnic allegiances in Russia and the northern Cau-
casus, taking into account the role of the intelligentsia and the struc-
ture of power relations. The most difficult problem, Tishkov stresses,
16
Introduction
is that Russian political borders do not correspond to ethnic boun-

daries, and so he concludes that choosing a formula for a plural so-
ciety is the way to a new understanding of the Russian state.
Environment is, of course, another present-day issue in culture and
development, and perhaps one that encompasses all others in terms of
its effects. Yet, as Michael Redclift contends in his paper, The problem
with our discourse about the environment and development is that it
meets the criteria of yesterday. Because, he argues, the global dis-
course about the fate of the planet was initiated in the North [but] sus-
tainable development is a global project. It is a one-sided global
discourse from which we are trying to wrench benefits without exam-
ining the processes that require global agreement. In his chapter he
examines three examples, two from the contemporary United King-
dom, and one of an early emigrant to Canada in the 1840s, that show
that all assessments of the environment are informed by special com-
mitments that pursue specific social goals. Importantly, in analysing
development models and the global nemesis, Redclift makes the point
that economists cannot value what the environment is worth: merely
its value in monetary terms. He goes on to cite an example to show that
the value of the environment for men, and especially for women, in
forest communities goes beyond its value in monetary terms. This cul-
tural dimension of environmental issues must therefore be incorpor-
ated into development models.
For many people, globalizations most visible effect is the expan-
sion of television. From highland Sardinia to the Sahel and to Rajas-
than, television is creating, if not a global village, certainly a global
reworking of local cultural visions. This is Philip Carl Salzmans view
of the electronic Trojan horse. By analysing the cultural impact of
television through ethnographic examples from Italy, Egypt and
Sudan, and his own fieldwork data from Sardinia, he identifies five
major trends: (a) elites are bypassed in the flow of information;
(b) consumption is adopted as an appropriate orientation; (c) urban,
metropolitan and cosmopolitan models are legitimated for living and
working; (d) establishment scientific and state ideologies are authori-
tatively advocated, and (e) certain languages, dialects, concepts and
terms become privileged. Salzman concludes that television radically
if selectively expands the terms of reference from which local viewers
may choose, and the vividness of its offerings stimulates the creative
reconstruction of societies and selves. Some findings, however, show
that small, local communities may visualize themselves as being
17
victimized by the arrival of television, while larger communities may

react by adapting and exploiting the outside resources.
All the issues singled out above converge in the problem of taking
culture into account in development models. For Paul Nchoji Nkwi,
culture is to a people as the heart is to the body, and the problem with
development in Africa is that indigenous cultural values have been
abandoned in favour of imported Western models which local people
can neither afford nor reproduce. He examines African history from
pre-colonial times to the present to describe the enormous constraints
and problems that Africans have had to face in the development pro-
cess. Nkwis position is that in Africa, the success of development pro-
grammes in food production and delivery, in health care, in housing,
and in education depends more and more on sensitivity to ethnic
diversity, to intracultural variation, and even to the culture of modern
bureaucracies. These issues can only be approached from a multidisci-
plinary angle.
Multidisciplinarity is, indeed, the only way forward, as Paul Baker
argues in his paper describing how research confined within discipli-
nary lines has broken down over the last twenty years. No individual
researcher can now command the breadth of knowledge required even
to formulate a research approach to coping with the problems of glo-
bal change or the consequences of the cultural panmixia that are
rapidly occurring. He describes the International Biological Pro-
gramme set up by ICSU in the 1960s and UNESCOs Man and the
Biosphere Programme that show the advantages of high-quality tech-
nical and background information as a guide to actions. The Andean
Project at the University of Cuzco, Peru, and the Tokelau Project in
the South Pacific are examples of successful multidisciplinary projects
that lend support to Bakers conclusion that the cultural sciences must
join with other social and biological sciences in co-operative endeav-
ours if there is to be any real success in facing the challenges of under-
standing and coping with global change.
In a world in which rapid global change is creating uncertainty, it
is vital to open spaces for debate and to disseminate new findings such
as those included in this book. We hope that the readers of this volume
will then carry forward actions to build a sustainable future in a full
world condition.
18
C HAPTER 1
Global cultural diversity
in a full world economy
Fredrik Barth
The term globalization is often used to evoke any and every one of
a wide range of current trends in the world. It will be more helpful
if we use it to mark those changes that entail real paradigm shifts,
signaling the need to develop new concepts and theories to under-
stand events that are under way. One such shift is in the parameters
of global economics, with enormous implications for anthropologi-
cal thinking.
Briefly, an urgent need to shift from single-purpose to multiple-
consequence rationality in our economic thought arises from the fact
that industrial productive activity has passed a fateful threshold of
scale in relation to the global ecosystem. Economists Goodland
et al. (1991: 17) have diagramed it (see Fig. 1). In this repre-
sentation, the (now swiftly growing) economic subsystem is depicted
as having two interfaces with the encompassing global ecosystem,
namely through the ecosystems source function and its sink func-
tion respectively.
An empty world economy

In what Goodland et al. call an empty world economy, such as we
have known until recently, certain basic assumptions about the inter-
relationships within this total system have seemed both plausible and
workable. First, the ecosystems source functions have been treated as
infinitely expandable and capable of fulfilling the economic subsys-
tems needs for energy and resources. Wherever local energy or natural
resources have fallen short either because they were exhausted or
19
).
Global cultural diversity in a 'full world economy
because of the growth of the scale of the economy they could be sup-
plemented by drawing on energy or resources elsewhere in an empty
world. A major impetus to the growth of imperialism and the world
system arises from these activities of locating and exploiting new
sources. Equally significantly, the development of technology has ex-
panded the exploitable energy and natural resource base, allowing fur-
ther growth, particularly during the hectic industrialization of the
present century.
The other interface between the economic subsystem and the en-
compassing ecosystem is represented by the sink functions. Every pro-
ductive economic activity generates what the producers regard as
waste and transforms other forms of energy into heat. These effects are
diffused and thrown away; in the global ecosystem, waste has been nat-
urally recycled and thereby removed, while heat has been dissipated
and lost through radiation.
Under conditions of an empty world economy, there have always
been new supplies or resources to discover, and only very localized and
temporary congestions of heat and waste to contend with, which have
appeared to be without global consequences. The crucial point is that
in such an empty world, it has seemed both sensible and possible to ig-
nore most of the wide range of direct material consequences of produc-
tive activity as being quite irrelevant to the economy and to operate
narrowly with an economics focused on commodity production, and
energy and resource costs. Thus, in the economy as it has been institu-
tionalized in the modern world system, it is only these two classes of
consequences, together with the variable of demand, that are reflected
in the market prices of commodities. We might say that if a set of pro-
ductive activities has the material consequences c1, C2, c3. . . cn, it is
only c1 (the commodity produced) and c2 (the resources consumed in
the production) that are considered relevant to economics, while the
1. I am focusing entirely on the material consequences that affect environment

and the human habitat, not on the extensive set of consequences for chang-
ing lifestyles, values, self-conceptions, and culture in general that the
massive delivery of commodities also has. I do this so as to be able to con-
centrate on the environmental issues themselves already very complex
that may be less familiar to most anthropologists. The other questions are,
at least in part, discussed in other chapters in this book (e.g. Knutsson,
Wolf). But ultimately, the two ranges of issues become so closely intercon-
nected that they will need to be addressed within some kind of encompas-
sing perspective.
21
number of other consequences c3cn are disregarded and could be ig-

nored in that they indeed could be expected to disappear through eco-
systemic dissipation and recycling.
A full world economy

With the growth in the scale of human population, agriculture, and es-
pecially industrial activity during the present century, the economic
subsystem has grown swiftly while the global ecosystem remains finite
or even marginally reduced in scale. Consequent strains on global
source functions have been acknowledged in the industrial world for
quite some time and were effectively depicted in the study The Limits of
Growth (Meadows et al., 1972). Goodland et al. (1991) place special
emphasis on the finite, renewable resource represented by the product
of terrestrial photosynthesis. Citing Vitousek et al. (1986), they judge
the current economy to have reached a level where it appropriates 40
per cent of the biomass produced by solar radiation. With one more
doubling of the human population, currently expected to occur within
about thirty-five years, this would bring us to an ecologically patently
unsustainable rate of 80 per cent biomass appropriation by the
year 2020. No doubt, somewhere on this scale, a qualitative shift takes
place from an empty world, with new sources to exploit, to a full world
condition, where ecosystem depletion must result from any further
growth in the rate of biomass appropriation.
However, sink functions are currently regarded as being even more
critical. The global ecosystems dissipating and recycling capacities
have probably already been significantly overstepped in a number of
different ways. The spectre of global warming through the greenhouse
effects of C02 wastes and other atmospheric pollution; the dangers of
ozone-shield depletion from CFC wastes; the increasing rate of oceanic
pollution; the environmental hazards of accumulating nuclear waste
these and other similar processes are becoming increasingly apparent.
Common to them all is a threshold structure, where the waste resulting
from industrial production reaches a level where it exceeds the ecosys-
tems recycling capacity and consequently builds up in the environ-
ment, reaching levels where specific, pernicious effects set in. All arise
from the consequences, in the range I have denoted with c3cn, of
human productive activities. For the purposes of the argument I am
developing in this chapter, specific disagreements among scientists as
22
to precisely what point may have been reached at the present moment
in any particular such course under or past the threshold are of sec-
ondary import; the point is their common structure and their entail-
ment of a paradigm shift to a full world condition.
This is the general and crucial point. With the growth of an econ-
omic subsystem within a finite ecosystem, an increasing number of
thresholds will be passed where sink functions start to fail because of
the overloading of ecosystem processes, which in the empty world
economy affected the dissipation and recycling of waste. In conse-
quence, entirely unsought and unwanted habitat changes result from
activities aimed narrowly at commodity production. Some of this
damage even acts to reduce the ecosystems self-cleansing capacity fur-
ther, thereby exacerbating a vicious circle of deterioration.
The mystification caused by commodity prices

Under such full world conditions, we are forced to draw a startling
conclusion, that is, the price that any particular commodity will bring
in the market as currently organized will no longer be a measure of the
utility of that product to consumers. Let me elaborate. In a monetized
modern market, continued pressure of demand for a commodity at a
certain price will generate a decision (on the supply side of the system)
to produce more of that commodity. This institutional form of the
market may thus be seen as an organization for collective decision-
making, which empowers consumers to participate forcefully in mak-
ing the decisions in regard to productive activities. But consumers
make these decisions without systematic information or reference to
the particulars of productive activities that are involved, or to the ma-
terial consequences (c3-cn) of these activities other than the commodity
that is produced and its price.
In an empty world economy, as I have argued, these latter could be
regarded as the only material consequences of relevance, since the
other material consequences of the productive activity, such as waste,
would have no effect on human welfare if they simply disappeared
2. Thus, for example, any concern they may have with regard to the conditions
of labour, the protection of local environmental reserves, or the observation
of rights in patents or property, must be conveyed by institutional means
other than markets and prices, largely through special legislation.
23
through ecosystem recycling and dissipation. In a full world, on the

other hand, this is no longer true. These other material consequences
do not disappear: consumers are buying a whole package of material
consequences along with the commodity, many items of which cru-
cially and negatively affect the consumers welfare but where the con-
nection between the decision and these consequences remains invisible
to them. The index of the commoditys price effectively mystifies this
connection. Consumers make a decision as to whether to purchase by
balancing the cost of the commodity against the expected utility of that
commodity to them. But through the same act of purchase, they are
also casting their vote in another, collective decision-making process,
causing the whole range of other consequences of the productive activ-
ity to ensue. And these will no longer be recycled and dissipated. They
remain as definitive consequences of a decision made on the basis of
other, much narrower, considerations. Consumers in a full world
economy are thus being misled by the commoditys price to launch ac-
tivities of production, the consequences of which are entirely unjudged
by them, and in part probably are contrary to their own utilities.
The Polluter pays principle

Within the framework of the industrial worlds cultural assumptions,
and the market as at present instituted, enlightened environmentalists,
economists and politicians are struggling to overcome this mystifica-
tion by instituting a system of surcharges and tines on the corporations
engaged in productive activities that cause pollution, so that these
disutilities will be made visible, ultimately, in each commoditys price.
This will allow or force consumers to take a broader range of conse-
quences into account as they make their consumer choices and cast
their votes for alternative production activities. There is no doubt that
this can provide an effective means of influencing productive activities
and limiting particular environmental hazards within the framework
of existing institutions. As a general solution to the structural failure of
modern economic institutions in a full world, on the other hand, I
would characterize the remedy as a frivolous gimmick. Its effectiveness
depends entirely on three quite unsustainable assumptions: first, per-
fect knowledge: that all the consequences of every productive activity,
and their ramifying effects through the global ecosystem, are known
and indeed knowable; second, an adequate administration to calibrate
24
and allocate environmental surcharges on all productive activities: this

would require a bureaucracy that would completely dwarf the socialist
planning and price-setting institutions that half the world is now scrap-
ping because of their impracticability; and, third, the political will, and
power, of global government to implement in the face of: (a) the
prisoners dilemma constraint, that the fragile coalitions presently
forged by the state regimes of the world are such as to make the pursuit
of ideally optimal policies suicidal if there is bad faith, as one must ex-
pect there to be; and (b) the power relations as presently constituted,
which will enable multinational corporations, and various financial
and banking institutions with narrower interests than the optimization
of human welfare, to effectively block the imposition of surcharges that
they find inconvenient.
Something far more fundamental is needed: new institutions that
will facilitate rational individual and collective decisions in a full world
condition and a human morality that can guide such decisions in such
a way as to secure a future for life on earth.
Where does anthropology come in?

There are two reasons why anthropologists need to consider these ur-
gent issues with particular attention: first, the questions raised have
widely ramifying implications, requiring a more holistic view of all of
social organization, culture, the morality of actions and choices, and
alternative visions of the good life; and, second, even the most com-
mitted environmentalists, economists and writers seem innocent of the
facts of contemporary global cultural diversity and work from a ho-
mogenizing and unilinear, ethnocentric vision. Thus they are neither
able to look after the interests of the whole of the population of this
earth nor apprised of the fuller range of options that are available for
the future. Anthropologists seem to be alone in their realization that
3
Homo sapiens is behaviorally polymorphic as a species and it is
3. We as anthropologists know this from a synergy of so many kinds of infor-

mation the ethnographic diversity of humn food habits, -shelters, mating
and nurturing relations, and group structures; a multicentric view of culture
history; and familiarity with a diversity of ecological adaptations, among
others. Other social scientists at best envisage slightly unequal rates of as-
cent to a modem (read: Western) condition of the world.
25
basically changes and options in human behaviour that we are speak-

ing about; moreover, that cultural variation is not just the legacy of a
tribal past, but also in continual creation through the normal pro-
cesses of human life. I appeal to colleagues for a commitment to repre-
sent and utilize the insights that human lives are therefore less
transitive and comparable across the world than most of the environ-
mentalist discourse assumes; that conceptions of human futures are al-
ways culturally and historically situated, and must struggle to
transcend these limitations; and that global cultural diversity repre-
sents a precious form of capital or resource, comparable to biodiver-
sity.
The very institutions that are currently failing to cope with the full
world situation are also in the process of destroying cultural capital
and the human lives that are based on it, and there are much more
powerful bases than mere moral relativism to resist this destruction.
Some activities and cultural orientations are quite clearly globally far
more pernicious than others, and solutions to the full world crisis must
be sought by analysing and revealing the connections and alternatives
in as wide a range of human lifestyles as possible. Thus, I am sugges-
ting: (a) that we need to recast our sensibilities and moralities so that
they may be more adequate to the enigmas of a full world condition,
and (b) that we should better activate our knowledge of social organi-
zation and its behavioral entailments and start using it to cope with
the substantive problems of the full world crisis. We shall need both
new institutions and a new morality.
A more adequate transcultural morality

Observe how certain strategic parameters in the relations of human
populations embracing different cultural perspectives have been
changed in this new global situation of a full world. Resource re-
plenishment in an empty world focused on exploration, appropria-
tion and control (i.e. it was a spur to the imperialism we so
routinely condemn and the neo-colonialism we deplore). But im-
perialism is not the issue today, most certainly not the one we must
struggle to identify and unmask. In the emerging paradigm of a full
world economy, attention is shifting from sources to sinks. But these
are very differently distributed. Sources are specifically located in
particular places around the world. Sinks are often openly accessible
26
Global cultural diversity in a full world economy
functions that diffuse globally - through the atmosphere, oceans and

global heating or they can be bought into, for depositing concen-
trated dangerous waste.
The emerging strategies of domination today do not require im-
perial conquest or even neo-colonial control: they will depend on re-
taining the commodities and diffusing the other consequences of
production so that they may spread with winds and currents over the
weak and the poor, who receive no benefits but a lions share of dis-
utilities, given their numbers. There will also be great scope for high-
technology gimmicks that give local protection against noxious
consequences where the benefits are being consumed, and none where
these consequences are being diffused. Thus the habitats and lives of
others can be destroyed without imperialism and without neo-colonial
infiltration. Most of what goes on can be discreetly removed from po-
litical view by being embedded in market processes or masked by a tac-
tical focusing of the global environmental discourse. We need incisive
ideas, and ideals to unmask such forms of domination. Otherwise, the
economically advanced, post-industrial worlds billions can choose
commodities on the basis of their misleading price tags, with limited
awareness of the costs that are largely being sent elsewhere, imposed
on others who live differently. Anthropologists should work to articu-
late an understanding of these processes and a morality that addresses
these global inequities in a more adequate way than do the outworn
ideologies of the empty world era.
The contradictions inherent

in Third World development efforts
We also need a critique of the conceptualizations of development in
the new terms set by a full world condition. The efforts to promote
greater equity through development aid, done in the name of empty
world morality to make the commodities of technical and industrial
production available also to the poor populations of the world, need to
be reassessed. Simple humanitarian criteria remain fully valid, but may
no longer be adequate to distinguish benign from harmful efforts. Me-
dicines, schoolbooks and transport facilities probably transform life-
styles that are less destructive in a full world into ones that are more
destructive even more quickly than do Levis and Coca-Cola. There-
fore, still reasoning within the narrow purview of material welfare: if
27
development efforts are to be judged in terms of all their material

consequences in a global environment and for a global human popula-
tion, they certainly cannot be promoted simply because they contrib-
ute to growth in the gross regional product of an underdeveloped
region.
This harks back to familiar anthropological positions, arguing in
defence of other lifestyles; but it brings a further urgency and an addi-
tional set of grounds for the argument. Over the last few decades there
has been an enormous surge of interest in Third World populations to
obtain the commodities of industrial production, and there have been
deep structural changes made in the mode of production in the South,
transforming its organization and its technology increasingly in con-
formity with that of the North. Both these trends have been promoted
and abetted through aid and development. But the result has been that
what were once cultural differences have increasingly become dif-
ferences in wealth and poverty; and efforts, driven by an entirely ad-
mirable solidarity, to close this growing gap of inequity are thereby
directed in ways that draw more populations ever more actively into
those very activities of production and consumption that are most per-
nicious in a full world. The always secondary, and now well-nigh ab-
sent discourse on alternative development and appropriate
technological scenarios could be radically strengthened by being inte-
grated into this emerging paradigm of global ecological stress and full
world economics. It is imperative that anthropologists find effective,
practical ways to enhance the integrity of other lifestyles to resist these
trends and re-create the force of modes of production and visions of the
good life that are more benign in their consequences in a full world.
Addressing the issues at home

The larger part of the task, though, is using what can be gained by
anthropological analysis (comparative or otherwise) to influence
thought, debate and action in the core areas of economic growth and
global habitat destruction. Surely, there must be insights to extract
and construct from an anthropological perspective which could help
expose the vicious trends, reconstruct the ideas and organizations that
drive them, and fashion alternative visions of what human life can be.
To succeed, we need to combine the strengths of our tradition of fine-
grained micro-research bringing out the realities of human lives with
28
new skills in the analysis of global comparisons and trends; and we

need to engage policy-makers and the public in our concerns. In the
present format, I have been purposely tentative and general as to what
the required insights may be, beyond pointing the readers attention in
certain directions. I have done this because we each need to make the
most original and creative efforts possible, on the broadest possible
front, to mobilize anthropology to address and influence the course of
the debate on these extremely urgent issues.
References
GOODLAND, R.; DALY, H.; EL SERAFY, S.; VON DROSTE, B. (eds.). 1991.
Environmentally Sustainable Economic Development: Building on
Brundtland. Paris, UNESCO.
M EADOWS, D.; RANDERS, J.; BARENS, W. W. 1972. The Limits of Growth.
New York, Universe Books.
VITOUSEK , P. M.; EHRLICH, P. R.; EHRLICH, A. H.; MATSON, P. A. 1986.
Human Appropriation of the Products of Photosynthesis. Bioscience
34 (6): 368-73.
WORLD COMMISSION ON ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT . 1987. Our
Common Future (The Brundtland Report). Oxford, Oxford University
Press.
29
C H A P T E R 2
Global perspectives in anthropology:
problems and prospects
Eric R. Wolf
At present, it is important to explore the possibilities of an anthropo-

logy that aims at understanding the processes drawing societies and
cultures into global relationships. Yet we should not deceive ourselves
into thinking that we are about to discover something wholly new
this view of our task has always been implicit in the definition of an-
thropology as the comparative study of humankind. We have had
predecessors in our endeavors. We need to learn from them what has
led into dead ends, and what has proved productive and might serve us
now.
On this theme, we should remember the legacy of Angel Palerrn
(1974, 1976, 1977) who believed firmly in anthropology as an ongoing
and cumulative search for the right questions and usable answers. In
that spirit, I want to sketch out the ways in which past endeavors can
contribute to our present tasks.
Histories of our discipline usually represent the course of anthro-
pology as unfolding in three stages: initial evolutionary theories were
supplanted by diffusionism, and diffusionism then yielded to the
critique of the functionalists. In my own perspective, these approaches
are not mutually exclusive, but complementary. This is especially the
case when we examine their relevance for a global anthropology, and I
shall try to indicate why this should be so.
Let us remember that evolutionary perspectives assumed a unity of
humankind and a unitary career for humanity that bound ancestors
past and contemporary to their ever-improving descendants. The
evolution of human culture was envisaged as a linear movement
through successive stages or topological thresholds leading from sim-
plicity to complexity in the human relation to nature, in the relations
31
of human beings to each other, and in the operations of humankind.

Each particular society and culture was treated as an independent
example of cultural attainment and slotted into its appropriate posi-
tion on the ladder of progress. This procedure is no longer acceptable.
At the same time, we can still make productive use, in the context of a
global anthropology, of the perspectives opened up by the evolution-
ists on the evolution of energy-using systems and on the development
of organizational complexity, provided we strip off the wrapping of
Victorian moralizing about reason and progress in which these theo-
ries were originally packaged.
The diffusionists who followed criticized this conception of a linear
route from ancestral brutishness to civilization. They cast doubts upon
the method of assigning present-day culture-bearing populations to
the appropriate rungs on the ladder of progress. They invoked, in-
stead, the phenomena of contact and interaction between the various
cultures past and present. Like the evolutionists, they postulated a
common humanity but visualized it as built up by multiple cultures
out of reciprocal cultural donations. Note that many diffusionists did
not reject evolutionary perspectives as such but made evolution condi-
tional upon the accumulation and recombination of culture elements
acquired in the course of interaction.
The term multilineal evolution, first introduced into anthropol-
ogy by Robert Lowie, incorporates this realization. Evolutionary pro-
cesses, leading to increased control of energy or producing more
complex organization, came to be understood as outcomes of interac-
tive relationships in culture areas and interaction spheres, and not as
independent achievements by isolated societies with wholly self-en-
closed cultures. Our present-day efforts at conceiving a global anthro-
pology can build on these maligned ancestors in their understanding of
culture-making in interactions particularized in time and space. Cul-
tures are shaped by contexts, react to them, incorporate these reac-
tions, and carry these effects forward to the encounter of new
interactive contexts. Even instances of evolutionary advance or trans-
formation must be understood as outcomes of interaction, and not as
idiosyncratic breakthroughs.
If diffusionism arose as a critical response to linear evolutionary
schemata, functionalism unfolded in a critique of diffusionism. The
functionalists objected to what they called conjectural history based
on the geographical distribution of culture traits. Since they thought
that doing history was impossible, their solution was to focus instead
32
Global perspectives in anthropology: problems and prospects
on existing societies and cultures as integrated systems answering to

human needs. We owe the functionalists a debt for teaching us how to
ascertain and analyse functional relationships, but we no longer share
their distrust of history. We can now do history through the disci-
plined use of both documentary and oral testimony and learn a great
deal about how the peoples of the world were drawn into more exten-
sive relations with one another. We can also distance ourselves from
their view of each society and culture as a quasi-organism in which all
elements were held in a tight functional embrace. For us today, view-
ing human arrangements in the upheavals caused by global processes,
integration should always be demonstrated before it can be assumed.
Yet we have also learned that only in the rarest instances do inter-
action spheres occur in isolation from others. Generally, narrower
spheres of interaction connect with wider spheres, and macrospheres
with superspheres, and an adequate understanding must come to
terms with these connections. This point was raised more than sixty
years ago when anthropologists extended their participant observa-
tion and interviewing to hamlets, villages and towns in complex mod-
ern societies. In Mexico, Robert Redfield first explored the relation
between the folk in Tepoztlan with the city, embodied for him in La
Capital. He then went beyond this simple dualism to consider (Red-
field, 1955) more differentiated arrangements of communities within
communities, of wholes within wholes. And he sought, finally, to deal
with entire civilizations, especially with their distinctive cultural sys-
tems of communication, In this attempt he manifested evolutionary
ideas in seeing a successive incorporation of older and smaller wholes
into new levels of integration (Redtield, 1942), ideas that also guided
Julian Steward (1950).
These approaches taught us a lot, but also proved limiting. These
limitations can be traced, I think, to the very way in which the social
sciences initially defined themselves. They postulated a realm of the so-
cial sui generis and ascribed to social interaction an essential dynamic
of its own. This prompted them to treat social units homesteads, vil-
lages, towns, regions and nations - as bounded social entities defined
mainly by their internal sociality, each unit producing a distinctive so-
cial universe of its own. Society could then be visualized all too easily
as an edifice built up through the addition of such units as building
blocks. And each culture was treated similarly, as a domain of custom
with its own dynamic, carried by these distinctive social units. What
the functionalists emphasized was that social interaction and custom
33
may have formal aspects, but they have functions to perform in the ser-
vice of psychobiological needs or of social structural requirements. Yet
this mode of analysis still grounded its inquiry in the study of social in-
teraction as such.
We may ask, however, whether references to needs and structures
are self-evident or self-explanatory, or whether needs and structures do
not have to be explained themselves. We can make this point by con-
sidering the work of Julian Steward. Steward had developed a mode of
study he called cultural ecology, which sought explanations in the in-
teraction of groups of culture-bearers with particular microenviron-
ment.
When he launched his study of Puerto Rico in the late 1940s, how-
ever, Steward found himself confronted by a new, additional problem
that raised questions about the relation of local or regional ecosystems
to the processes generated by a transformative capitalism. Detailing
how the people of Puerto Rico drew energy from their particular habi-
tats could not of itself make it apparent that the production of various
crops might be facilitated by the island environment, but was not dic-
tated by that environment (Steward, 1956). The particular choice of
crops was governed by the operations of the capitalist market, under
the political aegis of the United States, a much wider, non-local dy-
namic.
To understand systems like that of Puerto Rico, cultural ecology
needed to come to grips with the notion that among humans certain
strategic social relations intervene between the environment and its oc-
cupants. These are what Marx called the social relations of produc-
tion, the relations that control the mobilization and deployment of
labour in societys transformation of nature. Marx argued that these
relations generate forces that do not stop at the confines of particular
social scenarios, but reach through and beyond them. The Marxists
also argued that since these modes of control had not existed for all
times, but had a history, historical inquiry could produce an under-
standing of their development. The vicissitudes of contemporary
politics now threaten to submerge these insights, but a global anthro-
pology would neglect them at its peril.
This lesson was brought home to anthropology in the late 1950s
when social scientists especially in Latin America began to address
the issue of power differentials between entire societies, regions and
communities, and of the people within them. This questioning initially
took the form of dependency theory, which tried to address the
34
asymmetry in markets and power between metropolitan powers

and LDCs (least-developed countries). This attention to asymmetries
in power and exchange developed in conscious contrast to theories
then current about the processes of modernization.
Andr Gunder Frank was one of the first to take note of the endur-
ing hierarchical and asymmetrical positioning of different coeval world
regions in the global system. Frank (1966) also posed the question
only seemingly paradoxical of what lay behind the development of
underdevelopment in a world where everyone was supposed to be de-
veloping. Many of us came to realize that answering the question
called for history, but of a new kind one oriented more towards the
comprehension of political economic structures and less towards the
elucidation of an event.
The modernization theories, against which the dependistas and
Frank deployed their arguments, are best understood as a revival of
unilineal evolutionism. The theories, in fact, came in two variants: one
Western and capitalist; the other Eastern and socialist. Both versions
took Western European development from feudalism to capitalism as
the guiding scheme in the interpretation of history. They differed in
that the Western variant saw capitalism as the end stage of develop-
ment, while the Eastern model projected a transcendence of capitalism
through the building of socialism in one country (Stalin). Both per-
spectives, however, embraced the notion that development depended
on the liquidation of traditional ascriptive organization forms. Both
sought change through industrialization and large-scale organization.
Both saw development as the repetition in some form of the European
success story.
The two variants appeared in complementary and hostile distribu-
tion, each variant disregarding the salient focus of the other as both
versions became more orthodox under the imperatives of political
competition. The Western variant emphasized individual choice-mak-
ing and mobility. It postulated an unlimited horizon of human needs,
to be satisfied through the market. It traced social differentiation, in-
cluding stratification, to choice-making and risk-taking in markets,
but disregarded issues of class structure and class hegemony in the
state. The Eastern variant emphasized issues of class and class domina-
tion over the state. It saw the range of needs as limited and controllable
through social and political sanction. It advocated industrialization
and large-scale organizations, but paid little attention to the social dif-
ferentiation and mobility that would go with them. Defining politics
35
only in terms of class, it also downplayed the possibility of competitive

politics among the developing interest groups.
Both variants also suffered from their simplified and rigid interpre-
tations of history. The Western variant neglected the four long cen-
turies of turmoil produced by state-making and market differentiation
that intervened between the traditional society of fourteenth-century
feudalism and the advent of industrialism. It also excluded from its vi-
sion the predatory relations of Europe with other continents. The
Eastern variant, on the other hand, oversimplified the course of devel-
opment through its vision of a linear evolutionary movement from feu-
dalism to capitalism and on to socialism, and thus disregarded the
complex interactions and pathways of change in all three Worlds,
First, Second and Third.
Attempts in the 1960s to expand the limits of anthropology to in-
clude issues of political economy and questions of history posed a
major challenge to the discipline. It had been forged in participant ob-
servation among specifiable populations in demarcated localities.
Now anthropologists encountered a universe of reference of much
greater historical depth and much wider geographical scale. The return
of evolutionary perspectives was one symptom of this challenge, as an-
thropologists were now called upon to explicate the so-called Third
World, the part of the world in which anthropologists had accumu-
lated special expertise. But they were also supposed to connect their
local understandings with theories of modernization of the socialist
transition; this proved difficult for people trained in a highly localocen-
tric methodology.
Just as anthropology was presented with this new challenge, how-
ever, it also underwent a major change from within the discipline. This
was due initially to the advent of French structuralism. Anthropology
had always been influenced by linguistics, but French structuralism
granted primacy to the special linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure as
the guiding model for the study of culture. The hallmark of that lin-
guistics was that it treated language as a system of signs whose ability
to produce meaning was dependent on their mutual relation to each
other, and not to any objects in the world outside language.
French anthropological structuralism applied this idea to the com-
prehension of culture as a system of interdependent signs. The world
furnishes elements out of which the mind constructs these systems, but
it determines neither how these systems are organized internally, nor
the ways they impart meaning to the world. Thus, structuralism
36
reversed understandings that had permitted explanations of the world

through reference to its materiality. Both ecology and social organiza-
tion were now seen as mapped in the mind before human action could
be deployed in the world. Although Levi-Strauss (1966) formally ac-
knowledged the indisputable primacy of the infrastructure, the logic
of this linguistic turn excluded any casuality outside the grip of the
cultural system of signs. In this grammatological perspective on cul-
ture, there could be no immaculate perception, as Sahlins (1985: 147)
put it.
Thus, just when the discipline was called upon to expand its scale
and scope to include more of what was going on in the world, many
anthropologists retreated once again into the study of particular cul-
tures, this time understood not as functionally integrated quasi-organ-
isms but as independent and totalizing systems of signifier. Each
culture was now to be studied as a set of texts, rendered through a dis-
tinctive system of mental representations. Ironically, this coincided
with a time of an intensified surge in translational migration, a world-
wide outpouring of commodities across national boundaries, and a
vast increase in the density and intensity of worldwide communication.
Ironically, also, anthropologists opted for a route into linguistics
that emphasized closed and static grammatological systems, rather
than taking their inspiration from an ethnography of speaking that de-
veloped at the same time. This emphasis on language in social action
which owes much to Malinowskis (1935) work on language as
played out in particular social contexts has meanwhile grown into a
dynamic field that studies discourse as a part of understanding the
work of culture in social life.
Faced with such a detour in the development of our discipline, we
must re-examine our intellectual tool-kit, most especially our central
concept of culture. This entails several kinds of questioning. First, we
must confront the logical impasse we have created for ourselves by vis-
ualizing a mind so totally determined by culture that it cannot per-
ceive, observe or experiment with anything in nature or in society that
is beyond the limits of the sign system. Given that model of mind, there
would have been no cumulative history anywhere in the world. Sec-
ond, we must escape the grammatological trap by heeding theoreti-
cally sophisticated critiques of the total arbitrariness of sign systems
(see Friedrich, 1979). Third, we should question the idea of each cul-
ture as a separate master system of signifiers, when it is historically evi-
dent that cultures have always borrowed from each other, and when
37
our ethnographic evidence demonstrates constantly how boundary-

making is continuously challenged and upset in the ongoing interac-
tion between cultures.
Let me focus on this last issue. I want to emphasize especially that
culture is a variable and distributive phenomenon, rather than homo-
geneous and unitary. Whatever their shortcomings, the diffusionists
insisted on this and demonstrated ethnographically the frequency of
cultural transfers across group boundaries, creating connections of
convergent understandings between groups even when they sometimes
fight and at other times marry. Such ongoing transculturation, as
Fernando Ortiz called it, produces not uniformity but heterogeneity
and differentiation.
It is also clear that these repertoires of cultural forms and under-
standings are not the same for all categories of people within a group.
They differ by gender, for men, women and berdaches; they differ by
age and age set; by occupational role, knowledge and skill; by rank
and class. This poses the question of what holds all these variant reper-
toires together. Participants in common social interaction need not
share all or even most common understandings interaction can go
forward on the basis of only a few, commonly understood criteria that
define the frames of interaction (Wallace, 1961), as when patients inter-
act with doctors in a medical clinic, or Cambodian gardeners deal with
home-owners in a California suburb.
Furthermore, there is variability in response to behaviour settings
and contexts. Quite some time ago some anthropologists spoke of the
biculturation (Polgar, 1960) of North American Indian children,
their socialization in two cultures, one white and acquired in the con-
text of school, government offices, and work; the other Indian and
learned in the context of home. We must entertain the idea that people
learn more than one culture and that they can draw on these different
cultural repertoires when confronted with different situations.
This kind of contextual learning and cultural acquisition has ex-
panded, first with ruralurban migration, and then with the vast in-
crease in the movement of people across national boundaries and
entire continents. People come to combine cultural understandings
learned in one cultural setting as children with other understandings
acquired in the course of work experience or from listening to the ubiq-
uitous TV. Julio de la Fuente (1948) described the spread of what he
called Mexican pocho culture, to denote the cultural repertoires of so-
cially and geographically mobile Mexicans in the United StatesMex-
38
ico border zone; more recently Ulf Hannerz (1987) has spoken of the
cultural creolization in the world, drawing the term creole from the
simplified and composite languages that grew up to facilitate cross-cul-
tural communication within the advancing world system of the recent
centuries.
Today we are all pocho or creoles, though we must ask what that
really means. Raised in a tradition in which all elements of a culture
were thought of as tightly interrelated, either functionally or structu-
rally, we anthropologists are ill-prepared for situations in which
cultural repertoires appear to be put together contextually, like tinker
toys and unlike any embodied forms of a unitary vision. We are all
heirs to ways of thinking about cultures, especially those of the so-
called primitive world, as totalities or organisms in which all aspects
dovetailed or were embedded in each other and were given compre-
hensive meaning through a common sign-system dramatized in myth
and ritual. Maybe even the classical anthropological cultures on
which we cut our eye-teeth were never like this, but were rather held
together by organizing processes of power, control and influence that
promised support in exchange for conformity and threatened loss of
that support for non-performance.
If so much of present-day cultural learning depends upon situation
and context, how do the resulting assemblages acquire an organized
coherence? One way in which this issue is being raised in anthropology
today is through the concern with identity, whether identity be defined
as that of the person, of an ethnic group, or of an entire nation. But
identities are not given, they are made. If definitions of identity involve
characterizations of attributes and a drawing of boundaries around the
units so defined in contrast to other units, this must have a causal con-
text. Moreover, we know that the search for identity varies histori-
cally, intensifying or slackening over time. Thus, there was a major rise
in the demand for identity with the advent of the nation-state and the
collateral development of nationalism, which hoped to create a unified
and identifiable people out of diverse populations with identities of
their own. Now the demand for identities has risen once again, pre-
cisely as people are responding to changes in the social division of la-
bour, in their relation to governments, in reaction to new modes of
communication, and as their cultural repertoires are becoming more
heterogeneous.
These repertoires of cultural understanding and practices do not
easily fit any traditional notion of culture as an integrated set of forms
39
and meanings. People amass repertoires in the course of their lives, as

they move from one structural context to another. One might call these
sets of understandings and practices cultural portfolios. People who
have learned them acquire with them also the ability to deploy contex-
tually relevant knowledge in managing their behaviour in pertinent
situations. Such portfolios are carried by individuals, but they are ac-
tivated socially, both in the sense that they are shared with others
within specific contexts, and in the sense that the contexts themselves
define or impede access to networks of social relationships.
With enhanced social and geographical mobility and intensified
communication, the portfolios so developed have not only become
more varied, in response to the multiplication of contexts that evoke
them, but the contexts themselves are no longer learned and defined
primarily in one-to-one personal and local interactions. Interaction is
now threaded through with impersonal and only briefly tangential en-
counters in the arenas of markets, media and power-wielding institu-
tions.
But characterizing the problem in such general terms is, I fear, not
yet enough. We need to be able to relate the contexts of social interac-
tion to the structural forces that generate them and define their func-
tions. For example, we need to grasp what happens as capitalist modes
of production and distribution, and the politics that go with them,
reach into different areas of the globe. We are witnessing the develop-
ment of new forms and processes of production that use the new infor-
mation technology, explore new sources of energy, benefit from new
and more flexible methods of financing, and employ new routes and
systems of distribution to move their products (Rothstein and Blim,
1992). These new forms compete with the concentrated factory com-
plexes of earlier large-scale industrialization. They take roots in new
geographically dispersed locations and recapitulate on an organiza-
tionally higher plane the putting-out systems of industrialization be-
fore industrialization, this time by combining features of factory
production with those of the artisan workshop. Old core areas are de-
industrialized, and previously marginal areas are drawn into capitalist
accumulation.
Socially, this has led to the mobilization and recruitment of new
kinds of labour as well as to the formation of new strata of labour re-
cruiters, technical supervisory personnel, service trades and financial
mediators. Concentrated forms of production, in which centralized
management marshals large numbers of people, are being replaced by
40
more dispersed and temporary organizational forms. In these new en-

terprises, functions are now often carried out by teams that recruit on
the basis of kinship, friendship or local acquaintance, but draw their
more casual workers from the expanding pools of immigrant labour.
Capitalist relations thus expand, even as their productive base
becomes more spread out, decentralized and variegated.
The rise of such new forms of flexible capitalism may, simulta-
neously and paradoxically, enhance appeals to a seemingly primordial
ethnic solidarity, while at the same time mobilizing human resources
for action in an intensifying capitalism. More segmented social and
cultural scenarios will also give rise to new local or regional politics,
opposed to the demands of centralized governments that tax and
spend the resources that people in the home domain want to retain for
their own purposes.
This is, of course, where we cannot advance the cause of a global
anthropology without breaking out of the dilemma created for us by
the grammatological option in the linguistic turn. We need to find a
way of conceiving of culture that allows us to deal with the realities of
a political economy in which diverse and changing social and cultural
arrangements are brought into ever new connections with each other.
These arrangements have causes and create new settings of power and
production. People experience these as both constraints and oppor-
tunities, and they shape these experiences into portfolios that meet the
challenges of shifting scenarios. In the process, they also encounter
classifications and identities that are forced on them or assigned to
them; they incorporate or contest these impositions; and they create
new definitions of who they are or who they have become as a result of
their travails. Thus, the construction of identities, too, needs to be vis-
ualized in the relevant contexts of power and economy, if we see our
mission as trying to explain the world, and not merely to furnish exotic
entertainment.
The human mind may indeed operate by defining contrasts and
seeking out analogies, but these signifier also have work to do: they
classify people and establish categories of inclusion and exclusion,
equality and hierarchy, command or followership. They are, however,
neither self-evident nor self-reinforcing; they require social consensus
or opprobrium, persuasion or force to guarantee their stability and ef-
fectiveness.
Even Lvi-Strauss (1966: 234-5) recognized explicitly that societies
needed effective procedures to limit possibly cumulative social
41
antagonisms. When Hawaiian women swarmed onto the deck of Cap-

tain Cooks ship to traffic with English sailors, they were discouraged
from continuing, not so much by a play of signifier in their minds as
by the arrival of a chief in his war canoe. At the same time, while it is
surely the case that in the past cultural portfolios in particular local
settings were communicated primarily through local channels and
sanctioned by local authorities, expansion of the scale of power and
communication has nearly everywhere brought in outside agents and
agitators regional, national and international whose influence ri-
vals and often outpaces the scope and competence of local claimants to
power.
If nations are now diversifying or disintegrating into ethnic groups,
surely similar questions can be asked about the identities so formed.
Each ethnic group may have its characteristic just cause, phrased in its
particular portfolio of cultural signifier. But it is incumbent upon us
to locate this just cause in the power scenarios and productive modes
to which identity-makers and identity-seekers respond and in which
they must operate. I believe that we have the intellectual resources and
instrumentalities in anthropology to comprehend what is going on in
the world, both on the level of global processes and in more restricted
domains. We know a lot, but we need to know a lot more. There is
work for many hands to do.
References
DE LA FUENTE, J. 1948. Cambios Socioculturales en Mxico. Acta Antro-
polgica (Mexico City) 3 (4).
F RANK, A. G. 1966. The Development of Underdevelopment. Monthly
Review (New York) 8 (4): 17-31.
FRIEDRICH, P. 1979. The Symbol and its Relative Non-Arbitrariness. In:
A. S. Dil (ed.), Language, Context and the Imagination: Essays by Paul
Friedrich, 161, Stanford, Stanford University Press.
HANNERZ, U. 1987, The World in Creolization. Africa (London) 57 (4):
546-59.
LVI-STRAUSS , C. 1966. The Savage Mind. London, Weidenfeld & Nicol-
son.
MALINOWSKI, B. 1935. Coral Gardens and their Magic. Vol. 2, Part 4: An
Ethnographic Theory of Language and Some Practical Corollaries. New
York, American Book Company.
PALERM, A. 1974, 1976, 1977. Historia de la Etnologa. Mexico City, SEP-
INAH (3 vols.).
42
POLGAR, S. 1960. Biculturation of Mesquakie Teenage Boys. American

Anthropologist (Menasha, Wis.) 62 (2): 217-35.
REDFIELD , R. 1942. Introduction to Levels of Integration in Biological and
Social Systems. In: J. Cattell (cd.), Biological Symposia, Vol. 18. Lan-
caster, Pa, Jacques Cattell Press.
. 1955. The Little Community: Viewpoints for the Study of a Human
Whole. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
ROTHSTEIN , F.; BLIM, M. (eds.). 1992. Anthropology and the Global Fac-
tory: Studies in the New Industrialization in the Late Twentieth Cen-
tury. New York, Bergin & Garvey.
SAHLINS , M. D. 1985. Islands of History. Chicago, University of Chicago
Press.
STEWARD, J. H. 1950. Area Research: Theory and Practice. Bulletin 63,
New York, Social Science Research Council.
1956. The People of Puerto Rico. Urbana, University of Illinois
Press.
WALLACE, A. F. C. 1961. Culture and Personality. New York, Random
House.
43
C H A P T E R 3
Ethnicity: what chance global ethics?
Roberto Cardoso de Oliveira
In this essay, I shall discuss morality as a subject amenable to anthropo-

logical study. I shall do this by exploring in turn two avenues. First, I
shall attempt to explain the concept of morality in a manner consonant
with interdisciplinary inquiry and, second, to show that the concept can
be profitably used in empirical anthropological research. Both avenues
should lead us to the same point of arrival, namely a debate on the possi-
bility of global ethics. What prompts me to address such a wide-ranging
issue is the very breadth of the theme of the session on Society, Evolu-
tion and Globalization. Although the focus of this chapter will be on
ethnicity as a privileged realm for the empirical observation of moral
and ethical factors, this, I feel, need not restrict the scope of the ideas I
plan to develop. I hope they will be of interest not only to ethnologists
and specialists of Indian cultures, but to the social sciences community
at large. Indeed the revival of ethnic groups all over the world in the sec-
ond half of the twentieth century also raises new issues. They have often
been framed in political or economic terms which undeniably gives
them a higher profile. In this submission, I intend to examine them in
ethical terms in an attempt to see how ethnicity relates to the morality of
acts carried out or covered by national governments. This should en-
able me to interpret these acts in the light of a global code of ethics which
is an unusual perspective in anthropology.
Morality as an anthropological issue

Morality is a popular subject of study in philosophy but far less so
in anthropology. It appears that anthropologists would rather pass
45
moral matters over to those (possibly philosophers) who are keener

to address them. Anthropologists may be wary of their studies tak-
ing an unexpected turn down a blind alley. I am referring mainly to
value issues and hence to value judgments, for these are inherent in
morality and prove very threatening to those (and above all to an-
thropologists) who have been trained to eschew prejudice in all its
forms. However, the fight against ethnocentrism, though generous
and scientifically sound, should not prevent us from taking up the
morality challenge with the tools of our discipline rather than view-
ing it as an important matter for others to work on. Lastly, how can
we judge the acts of individual members of another society directed
by values specific to their culture? Clearly, this is not the role of the
anthropologist but rather of judges, moralists and, notably, of ordi-
nary men and women going about their daily business. They are
compelled to judge each and every act they and others perform in
order to guide their own conduct. The anthropologist in his work
will seek only the meaning of a moral factor, with a view to gaining
a better understanding, greater clarification for himself, his readers
and his students. With this in mind I feel it is important to return to
the issue of morality, which predated our discipline, as a subject
amenable to anthropological research.
Let me point out that I shall not touch upon the ethics of the an-
thropologist as a scientist nor as a citizen, as this subject is often dis-
cussed in our professional community. Furthermore, it is a different
issue and, although very topical these days, has no place here. I intend
to treat moral factors as objects of research and reflection in terms of
morality and hence as a powerful concept able to shed light on social
life events which we have all failed partially or totally to consider. I
shall attempt to demonstrate this as follows.
It is strange to find that, although the concept of morality was
present from the beginning of anthropology, it seems to have been
precluded as one of the conditions, possibly the main one, upon
which our discipline was predicated. Let us go back to its French
origins (just for the purpose of illustrating my point). Lucien
Lvy-Bruhl, a philosopher with an anthropological vocation, first
studied sociology (but moved on to anthropology). He reflected on
morality with particular emphasis on responsibility but then
eliminated it from his metaphysical assumptions when he turned
his attention to the theoretical reconstruction of mentalities
(primitive and European) with a view to creating a real social
46
science. To Lvy-Bruhl (1884) the moral order could no longer be

seen in deontological, normative terms but rather as subject-matter
for a science of customs, in other words, for anthropology. He ex-
perienced this as personal advancement from his position as a phi-
losopher to that of a savant or, as we would say today, a scientist or
a research worker. However, ironically, the disappearance of mo-
rality as a subject for philosophical study has led to its almost
complete demise in anthropological work. It would be fair to use a
cliche and say that we threw the baby out with the bathwater. At
least that is what transpires when we review anthropological
literature in search of information on morality, and yet it is one of
the core values of any culture because it is a component of any
society.
Other modern writers whose works are already anthropological
classics, like Raymond Firth (1964) or Louis Dumont (1966, 1983)
tackled value in literate societies and non-literate societies without
even touching upon morality. They appeared to be more concerned
with more general axiological issues like how value fits into religious
and ideological contexts and avoided any attempt to examine it in
terms of morality. Having mentioned those two anthropologists, I
should bring Melville Herskovits (1948) into the picture. He was
doubtless the strongest advocate of cultural relativism and his State-
ment on Human Rights apparently shows he was one of the few to
address this matter. Furthermore, at the well-known International
Symposium on Anthropology held in the United States in 1951,
under the auspices of the Wenner-Gren Foundation, David Bidney
(1954), analysing value, stated that Herskovitss work was far from
free of ambiguities. I shall return to Herskovits later to examine
briefly the relationship between relativism and morality. In the
meantime, we shall continue to explore the thinking of some authors
whose findings bring us close sometimes unintentionally to the
realm of morality inasmuch as their work legitimates consideration
of value judgments.
In a more interdisciplinary vein, the contribution of another clas-
sic anthropologist, Clyde Kluckholn, also deserves mention: the an-
thology Toward a General Theory of Action and in particular his
1. I develop these ideas in my essay (Cardoso de Oliveira, 1991), which offers

an interpretation of the work.
47
Parsonian essay Values and Value-orientations in the Theory of Ac-

tion (Kluckholn et al., 1962). However Kluckholn did not examine
morality but confined himself to treating evaluation procedures
(statements of value) as a single whole he called the dimension of
content, where moral values are conflated with aesthetic and cogni-
tive values (Kluckholn et al., 1962: 413). Obviously modern anthro-
pology bibliography is extensive and no attempt can be made here
to cover it all, let alone the occasional references to our subject in
monographs on individual cultures or ethnic groups, even if I were
competent to do so.
Let us now return to the issue of morality and relativism. Her-
skovits submitted his above-mentioned work, in 1947, on behalf of the
American Anthropological Association to the United Nations Com-
mission on Human Rights. Consequently, it was a highly practical text
he sought to base on the theory of cultural relativism of which he was
the chief proponent at that time. After establishing a number of basic
assumptions like: (a) the close link between individual differences and
cultural differences means respect for one implies respect for the other;
(b) the statement that the respect for cultural differences is validated by
the scientific fact that no qualitative evaluation technique exists; and
(c) the assertion that models and values are only relative to the culture
from which they derive. Herskovits stuck to his theory in connection
with the Declaration of Human Rights, namely that which is upheld as
a human right in one society may be considered antisocial in another
society (Herskovits, 1947). Obviously this was based on models of free-
dom and justice which, although universal per se, may vary in content
from one culture to another. Such cultural relativists, as Beals notes,
are so afraid of ethnocentrism, of intolerance creeping in, that they are
willing, at least in theory, to tolerate any violation of their cultural
models by other societies, claiming that, regardless of the conse-
quences this might have for others, they would still be consonant with
the principle of the relativity of values. Such an extreme position,
which pushes cultural relativism to its limits, reveals Herskovitss con-
tradictions. Beals points out that Herskovits had to admit, in circum-
stances where political systems deny citizens the right to representation
or seek to conquer weaker peoples, that these acts reflect negative
universal values and that in deeming them unacceptable we would not
be guilty of ethnocentrism. How can these two apparently contradic-
tory positions be reconciled?
Herskovitss outdated and liberal thinking coloured his belief
48
that the liberal state is entitled to assert its rights in practice and
even go as far as mobilizing its citizens in defence of them. Neverthe-
less, we must accept that he also recognized values that transcend
individual cultures and for which reason should be enshrined in the
Declaration of Human Rights and hence be universally valid. The
fact that Herskovits failed to look more deeply into this highly ethi-
cal issue trapped him in his own contradictions. It is as if anthropol-
ogy, as an independent discipline, has been unable to research
thoroughly the issue using its own resources, irrespective of Her-
skovitss ideological position. Almost half a century later, we need
ask whether we have come any closer to resolving this contradiction
(or other similar ones). I think the best approach is to draw on
other disciplines especially philosophy. I shall not try to address
philosophical matters like the final justification (Letzbegrndung) of
moral standards or the meaning of the rationality/irrationality an-
tithesis of moral norms from a scientific standpoint. This also means
avoiding the naturalist fallacy, in other words, not confusing em-
pirical propositions about what is with moral propositions about
what ought to be. These issues, though important, like so many
others associated with philosophical inquiry, must not deflect us
from the substantive matter under investigation. I contend that, al-
though borrowing from a related discipline, I can in anthropological
terms demonstrate that morality is not an irreducible phenomenon.
On two occasions (Cardoso de Oliveira, 1990a, 1990b), I have
already resorted to the traditional critical hermeneutics treatment of
morality as exemplified by authors like Karl-Otto Apel and Jrgen
Habermas. Although there are differences in their approaches, they
are not relevant to the matter I intend to address. To simplify, I
shall use Habermass expression discursive ethics to describe
roughly the line of reasoning I shall adopt, at least initially. I shall
merely set forth a number of concepts which, for the purposes of this
discussion, I consider central to discursive ethics. But first it must be
clear that any attempt to reduce anything to discursive ethics would
be a gross oversimplification, since the whole theory is in a flux and
is fraught with controversy. For the time being, let us see what we
can usefully derive from a work like the anthology entitled The
Communicative Ethics Controversy (Benhabib and Dallmayr, 1990)
published in the United States, with contributions from both Apel
and Habermas as well as their critics. Firstly, it is essential for us,
as anthropologists, to distinguish between custom (conventions),
49
Sittlichkeit in German, as distinct from morality, Moralitt (or good

acts based on principles to be identified by anthropologists through
appropriate ethnography). This leads us to a second concept, dia-
logic ethics, which are concerned with democratically established
standards within a community of communication and argumenta-
tion (Apelian concepts par excellence). It amounts to replacing the
CartesianKantian I think with we argue. Thirdly, the concept
that humankind is endowed with communicative competence (in
keeping with Habermass theory), which exposes it inexorably to the
dialogic mode. This group of concepts I think suffice to devise an
approach to morality and a new way to place it firmly within the
realm of anthropology. Reference to these concepts in what follows
will help clarify them further.
I think that the major contribution of discursive ethics to restat-
ing the issue of morality in anthropological terms was to move
away from the traditional axiological analysis, in other words away
from relativism as the incontrovertible ideology in anthropology
(not without some malice). It introduced the sound relativist con-
cept that values can only be understood in specific cultural contexts
although this problem could also be examined in the light of the
above set of concepts. This means, as I plan to demonstrate, that the
concept of culture alone will not suffice to state properly the mo-
rality issue. On the contrary, to a degree it has served to obscure the
anthropologists view. It follows that my first distinction is between
culture, meaning custom, and norms. This implies that that which is
already part of tradition or custom cannot necessarily be taken as
normative. This, I believe, is a crucial point. As I see it, anthropol-
ogy now needs to loosen the Gordian knot and so rid us of the con-
tradiction discussed above. The philosopher Ernst Tugendhat comes
to our aid when he says that it is unacceptable to deem something
right and good because it was established by custom, without prov-
ing it to be right and good. He sees this as not only going against
the modern conception of philosophy but also against the concep-
tion of philosophy since Socrates: a radical attitude of the reason,
Rechenschaft (Tugendhat, 1988). This does not mean however and
we must make matters clear so as to avoid misunderstandings that
moral values cannot be embedded in customs (this is common in
general terms and even more so in simpler cultures). It could be
claimed, as Simmel proposed, that there exists a continuum between
the morality pole and the legality pole with custom standing be-
50
tween the two (cf. Simmel, 1950: 100).2 The interlacing dynamics of
this continuum, the very fact that custom oscillates between two
poles, demonstrates that these three societal dimensions not only
can be, but must be, considered distinct from one another. Thus we
can establish the difference pointed out between custom and mo-
rality and identify reason as an essential operator in the latter.
Therefore we can apply this distinction in our consideration of mor-
ality in our field of study.
Ethnicity, ethics and morality

The object of my research for decades now, where indigenous peoples
are concerned, has been interethnic relations in national contexts, that
is, where political domination of the state is in the hands of one ethnic
group. This means that ethnically different peoples living in a society
ruled by a single ethnic group are social (and ethnic) minorities regard-
less of their relative numbers. It is true to say that native South Ameri-
can ethnic groups are guests in their own territories, territories
historically occupied by colonial forces. Here we have a situation that
truly exemplifies ethnicity. Abner Cohen (1974: xi) thought that eth-
nicity is essentially the form interaction takes between cultural groups
that operate in common social contexts. That definition, it will be
noted, makes the concept not only applicable to indigenous ethnic
groups, rather it extends it to other cultural or ethnic groups whose
destinies are in the hands of the ruling nation-state and who have no
voice, especially in decision-making, At this point we could ask how
the singular cultural values that inform the behaviour of these groups
compare with the so-called national, intentionally hegemonic values,
put abroad by the state. It is clear that great tensions are generated, es-
pecially when the clash is between moral values. It could be said that
there is overlapping here. Ethnicity overlaps with the domain of ethics
2. It is noteworthy that Simmel was careful to draw a distinction between the

law and morality. He disagreed with the view that morality, custom and
law develop as accretions on a germinal condition (within an original nor-
mative unit). He thought that this germinal state is perpetuated in what we
call custom and that custom represents a phase of non-differentiation from
which, in different directions, emerge two forms, law and morality (Simmel,
1950: 99).
51
and morality combined. In our branch, we obscured this by giving

preference to the culture concept.
In this connection, some considerations on ethics as a concept may
light the way for our inquiries. As a preliminary, we should make a dis-
tinction from the concept of morality, though for practical everyday
purposes it would be purely analytical. Morality is concerned with
what is equally good for all, while ethics has to do with something dif-
ferent. It involves a need for self-clarification or for clarification of
who we are and who we would like to be (Habermas, 1993) so that we
naturally know what our obligations and duties are. This means that
while morality involves good living in the sense of a good and upright
life in everyday terms, ethics elevates duty to the noblest of human
values and, hence, of social beings. To think of ethics in terms of duty
and, along with it, responsibility to use Habermass language is to
think of them as the realm where concrete habits of life inhere duties
but that the latter are so intimately bound up with the former that they
lose their normative force (Habermas, 1989). Is this a purely philo-
sophical problem or can anthropologists address it in the course of
their empirical research?
In my view, interethnic systems provide an excellent example of
how issues like morality and ethics are phenomena amenable to de-
scription and interpretation. I shall try to illustrate my point with a
number of instances, observed by myself or others, where these phe-
nomena have been identified. These are values that, in fact, extend out-
side their respective cultural systems when affected by a critical
situation (i.e. a crisis). Does not ethnological literature show that in-
terethnic systems (one could qualify them as interethnic friction) en-
demically experience crisis situations? Thus, there are many such
situations. I should like to pick one out because it exemplifies the clash
between different values and the practical decisions that can ensue.
I recorded this case when visiting the Tapirap Indians with
Charles Wagley. It had to do with the practice of infanticide and there-
action of Catholic nuns living in the village. We were faced with a
head-on clash between Western (or Christian) values and tribal values
especially as regards the meaning of life. The Tapirap Indians, who
live in the river valley of the same name, had established the practice of
eliminating the fourth offspring. This was a bid to keep the population
down and ensure survival, as the ecosystem could sustain no more
than 1,000 individuals. Oddly enough, they had discovered (from cen-
turies of experience) that, in order to keep the population at a stable
52
level, a couple could have no more than three children. Once the prac-
tice had become established, it was going to be difficult to eradicate
even after a dramatic fall in population which at the time we were con-
ducting the fieldwork stood at a mere fifty-four individuals! In the end,
the missionaries, thanks to a few initiatives of which there are various
recorded versions persuaded the indigenous group to abandon in fan-
ticide,3 Communicative interaction of a very positive kind was brought
to bear within the local interethnic system made up of the missionaries
and the Indians and bearing the hallmark of democratic sociability.
Wagley and I observed a genuine community of communication (as I
now interpret what I then saw) between the two groups. None of the
usual repressive and authoritarian mechanisms associated with
missionaries was in evidence. It is true to say that the Little Sisters of
Jesus Mission was directly responsible for skilfully putting forward
pertinent arguments in favour of doing away with infanticide. Whether
or not this was fully achieved is irrelevant. Wagley has his doubts. He
claimed not to be at all sure whether there were more cases of infan-
ticide after the nuns persuaded the Tapirap to break the rules con-
cerning family size. He preferred to doubt that infanticide had
completely disappeared despite the fact that the nuns kept a careful
watch over pregnant women (Wagley, 1977). Although missionary in-
tervention upon deliverance may not have been totally effective, this
does not detract from its ethical meaning (from the nuns point of view
they had fulfilled their duty to preserve life). Nor does it diminish its
moral sense (to eliminate from the indigenous culture a habit which the
sisters felt jeopardized a good and upright existence. They attached the
highest value to the individual, while the Tapirap clearly placed the
community above all other values). Two moralities amenable to ex-
change through persuasive dialogue, in other words, by dint of rea-
soned argument.
In analysing this event, we have an opportunity both to explore
a clash of moral values (the relative value of an individual life to the
3. There are at least two versions of these inducements; one I took down
in 1957 (Cardoso de Oliveira, 1959: 10) and another by Cecilia Roxo Wa-
gley, collected in 1965 (Wagley, 1977: 136, n. 64). Granted there are a few
discrepancies between them, but they both confirm the part played by the
missionaries in eliminating Tapirap infanticide through dialogue. Is it then
fair to say that we have at work here something akin to an ethical discourse
or quasi-discourse? Perhaps we shall be able to verify this later.
53
Tapirap Indians compared to its overriding value to the missionaries)

and a creative approach to negotiated solutions between com-
munities with different beliefs. We have, thus, two positions that can be
merged through interethnic dialogue to form a single community of
communication, and, in some instances at least, can act as a com-
munity of argumentation. However, interethnic dialogue is not always
conducted along such argumentative and democratic lines. All
workers have field experience of this.
In most cases, there is no dialogue whatsoever between the mem-
bers of two ethnic groups coming into contact. Just to give an example,
I shall describe a second interethnic relationship; this time between the
Tkma of the upper reaches of the Solinoes River and an official from
the former Brazilian Department for the Protection of Indians. It has
to do with the reaction of this official to a breach of tribal rules govern-
ing marriage of which he was ignorant. His view (the outsiders in this
context) was that there was nothing immoral about a man marrying
his stepdaughter. Here is the story as it appeared in my book, O Indio
e o Mundo dos Brancos (Cardoso de Oliveira, 1981: 656):
A man belonging to the Jaguar clan fell in love with his stepdaughter,
the daughter of a man belonging to the Aui clan. In other words they
were both members of the same moiety (exogamic norms). The mar-
riage was forbidden by the Tkna community for whom it repre-
sented incest and was thus totally immoral in their eyes. Despite this
the couple, backed up by the Ticunas Indigenous Station official, per-
sisted. He said there is nothing wrong in a marriage between a man
and his stepdaughter since they are not related. Thus we have a re-
sounding clash between two conceptions of kinship, the Tkna and
the Western ranged on opposite semantic sides, The upshot was an
elopement and no possible return to the community or any other
Tkna place for the incestuous couple. Today they are, or were, part
of the underclass living in the suburbs of Benjamin Constant.
Clearly this second case illustrates an absence of a community of com-
munication, a prerequisite for dialogue, I should point out, moreover,
that the officials of the Department for the Protection of Indians
(alongside whom I worked during my research) had a no-discussion
policy with the Indians under their jurisdiction. As they were cock-sure
of their convictions, their sole purpose was to give orders or guidance
to lead their Indians towards civilization. I remember the hours I
spent talking to these officials and later to those from FUNAI (Na-
tional Foundation for Indians) trying to convince them of the adverse
consequences of their ethnocentric attitudes. It so happens that such
54
value divergences can have far more serious consequences and affect
not only individuals but the whole population. Unfortunately, there
are always numerous examples in casework; many will spring to the
readers mind.
Let me go back to the work of religious missions (Catholic and
Protestant) with indigenous peoples aimed at having them behave ac-
cording to the principles of Christian morality. The case of the Salesian
Mission and the Borro Indians illustrates my earlier argument. The
Salesians forced the Borro to get rid of their communal houses for
fear that these were conducive to the sin of incest. The missionaries
thus revealed their inability to understand that the Indians would
never violate clan incest rules. This reversal of tribal culture interfered
with the circular organization of their villages and hence their symbolic
parameters of social organization and their cosmology. The Christian
morality that permeated missionary policy no doubt prevented the
missionaries from learning about a different, equally good and up-
right, lifestyle from the Borro. The poetic ethnography of Levi-
Strauss (1955) illustrates the moral content of this lifestyle. He warns:
The Borro society has a lesson for the moralist. He must listen to in-
digenous informants. As they did with me, they described the dance
representation in which each moiety of the village is compelled to live
and breathe through the other moiety, each for the other. They ex-
change their women, goods and services with fervent mutual care, their
sons and daughters intermarry, and they bury one anothers dead,
each moiety reassuring the other that life is eternal, the world secure
and society just. To confirm these truths and support their beliefs, their
sages drew up a magnificent cosmology. They had integrated it into
the planning of their villages and the design of their houses.
All that the monks achieved was to destroy their way of life and bring
about the breakdown of Borro society.
It would not be hard to cite dozens of cases that testify to intereth-
nic confrontation where moral assumptions and ethnic duties have
done untold damage, sometimes with the best of intentions. The short-
sighted way in which the Salesians changed the Borro cultural order,
thinking that they were doing their duty, marks the limits of the reli-
gious missionary mode of action. Nowadays, they are considered
ultra-conservative. True, the Catholic Church in Latin America, en-
couraged by liberation theology, is eager to change its style and draw
on very different ethics, and hence a different conception of duty as is
now evident in CIMI. It is clear that the lines of demarcation have
55
changed as regards ethics on one hand and morality on the other. A

changing situation to which anthropologists should be attentive. How-
ever, I do not wish to overburden this essay with cases and examples
that are already familiar. I simply wish to state that the higher profile
of moral issues in interethnic friction is due to the direct comparison
that can be made between different value systems. This in no way ex-
cludes the value of research into morality together with ethics in cultu-
ral systems that have little contact with others. This also holds because
an anthropologist, in working on the ethnography of any type of
people, will necessarily make comparisons. Fieldworkers observe and
compare in terms of their own outlook for, as we well know, there is no
neutral position. Although before moving onto final considerations, I
must once again stress that moral and ethical concepts always become
more tangible when observed in interethnic systems. This is indubit-
ably because these concepts are in their most critical state when they
express a clash between systems.
Are global ethics conceivable?

Very briefly, I would like to make a few more comments to introduce
my tentative conclusions on the viability of a global code of ethics, a
matter on which discussion is only just beginning. I shall begin by
saying that morality, as a megaconcept (to use Geertzs ironic ex-
pression) will get us mired in philosophy. However, if we address its
empirical manifestations as anthropologists should, and as we have
tried to do with our three examples (the Tapirap, the Tkna and the
Borro Indians) - morality takes on a very special meaning. As an ab-
stract concept or a definition, as Mauss wrote, we require the concept
to identify the phenomena we are attempting to describe or rather in-
scribe ethnographically. Otherwise how can we find it through empiri-
cal research if we do not know what we are looking for?
At the beginning of this chapter, it was posited that not everything
that is a part of tradition or culture can (or should) be used as a standard
or criterion for judging what is good and right. That statement demon-
strates that culture as a concept obscures a dimension of life in society
that is difficult and rarely comes under ethnographic scrutiny. Simi-
larly, the Geertzian sophisticated view of culture as a semiotic concept
does not appear to serve our purposes. Here is where the work referred
to above on discursive ethics can offer some illumination. At least it en-
56
ables me to put native discourse first (not at all new in anthropological

research) and attempt to pick out what Habermas would call fragments
of reason. Without ethnocentrism or any reservations about identify-
ing examples of irrationality in native discourse (to be clear not only
native, not only Indian), I think the so-called fragments of reason are
nothing other than the practice of argument observable within com-
munities of communication. Such communities of communication are
found in different social or ethnic groups and more especially where
there is contact between groups. When we focus on the latter, we find
that morality in an interethnic context is a two-way system. In terms of
the examples we used, moral judgments were formed by the outsiders
camp, the missionaries about the Tapirap, the official about the
Tkna and the Salesians about the Borro. While in the first, and
moreover only, case, rational argument prevailed because of the insight
displayed (irrespective of the accompanying emotions), in the others,
apparently no attempt was made to enter into a dialogue that might be
seen as flowing from discursive ethics.
Let us return to the Tapirap case. I cannot say whether the argu-
ments the Little Sisters of Jesus put to me on the immorality of infan-
ticide were the same ones used on the Indians to persuade them to give
up the custom. We can but imagine the hundred and one inducements
they deployed to convince them. Possibly, some or all of those put to
me were amongst them. It is still important to examine the ethical
stance they took in seeking to persuade, rather than coerce, the Indians
to abandon a traditional custom. The Tapirap, for their part, were
moved by at least one of the arguments which struck me when I dis-
cussed the matter with them namely that any death would hasten the
complete destruction of the village since there were so few inhabitants
left. The Tapirap agreed and told us that the nuns had also raised this
point (and, I assume, probably convinced them). At least in this case,
it is fair to say that the first moves were made (stemming from the
missionaries ethics) towards creating a community of communication
and argumentation able to resolve a cultural clash through persuasion.
This takes us on to a few concluding thoughts. The first relates to the
alleged incommensurability of moral systems. In this regard, using the
concept of culture with its inherent relativism, anthropologists have
naturally come to accept culture and its moral framework as incom-
mensurable. But if we accept the consistency of the argument adduced
at the beginning of this chapter whereby custom or tradition should be
distinguished from morality on the grounds that the latter is necessarily
57
governed by rules that are open to rational argument, it follows that

moral judgments can always be negotiated within communities of
communication as proposed by discursive ethics. And when these com-
munities of communication comprise at least two ethnic groups coming
together as the ethnographic cases discussed illustrated we see how
the practice of reason (which is certainly not confined to Western cul-
ture) can emerge naturally. This occurs if the groups involved operate in
dialogic mode and show a willingness to accept the strongest argument
concerning the moral judgments adduced discursively. This openness
to the strongest argument is only possible, in the end, because the op-
posing groups are not totally impervious to reason. They are mutually
permeable as indicated in the theory of fusion of horizons (Horizont-
verschmelzung). Provided the ethnic groups concerned are willing to
enter into a dialogue, in practice, they are already committed to a
possible agreement. An agreement firstly on the rules governing the dia-
logue which of itself renders interethnic communication viable and sec-
ondly on the moral judgments in discussion which would actualize a
community of argumentation as advocated by discursive ethics.
My second consideration which equally underscores the impor-
tance of discursive ethics to the anthropological approach, relates to
cases where instead of an ethnographical meeting of minds a real clash
occurs with no possibility of the desired merging of systems. Sometime
ago I compared notes on ethics and anthropology with one of the bet-
ter Brazilian social scientists, the essayist, Sergio Paulo Rouanet.4 In
an article, more directed to cognitive issues concerning subjects em-
bedded in diverse cultures, Rouanet (1990) states that although he
rules out any blurring of boundaries between social groups whose
values are totally opposed (he was referring to apartheid in South Af-
rica) a dialogic relationship can produce good results in terms of
understanding the system. His focus, in the article, was on interaction
difficulties between the anthropologist and the natives (in this instance
the Afrikaners, the White racists inhabiting that country) and not be-
tween the latter and the repressed Black population. Thus, in a sense,
we have a further illustration similar to the Tapirap, Tkna and Bo-
4. In our dialogue (Cardoso de Oliveira, 1990a; Rouanet, 1990) we both

agreed, in principle, on the theoretical and practical soundness of discursive
ethics in anthropology. Rouanet developed his ideas in detail and coined
the expression communicative anthropologist to describe those of us who
in our ethnographic work adhere to the canons of argumentative ethics.
58
rro cases but from another continent. However, what should be

noted is that for the research worker per se, rigorously examining the
cognitive element of the moral values of any ethnic group or any inter-
ethnic system, what must come first, in terms of ethics, is to make
moral values tangible to ethnographic investigation, And, to return to
Habermass proposal on the ethics of discourse, we would agree with
Rouanet that it would be better to talk about quasi-discourse when
we allude to the outcome of intercultural communication. This applies
equally well to communication between the anthropologist and those
he is investigating and between ethnic groups in contact. Likewise, I
should like to stress that, regardless of the theoretical position adopted
by the anthropologist in his work on morality in any ethnic group or
interethnic system, it is an area that should command much more at-
tention in future ethnographic and even indigenous studies.
My last point has to do with the indigenists point of view. I have
covered this subject twice already (Cardoso de Oliveira, 1990a, 1990b),
and I think it is relevant to raise it again in this context. I want specifi-
cally to deal with morality in relation to interethnic systems and the
role of the nation-state, with reference to H. Groenewalds proposal
(cited by Apel, 1985), whereby one can distinguish between three social
areas where moral and, obviously, sociopolitical values come into
play. He calls these areas spheres and ranks them in three tiers: micro,
meso and macro. Moral norms of a special nature, which are always
observable in very intimate relations (e.g. those governing sex life), be-
long to the microsphere. Vital human interests and the moral norms
that go with them take on a universal dimension (e.g. those governing
human rights). The relativist canon readily produces sound arguments
for the inviolability of the moral values contained in microspheric
norms. Yet, when it comes to the microsphere, the anthropologist
does not find it nearly so uncomplicated to advocate the preservation
of particular indigenous norms like Tapirap infanticide practices.
These customs violate universal ethics according to which infanticide
is judged from a universal standpoint to be a crime against human
rights. These universal moral rules are enshrined in conventions pro-
claimed by international organizations like the United Nations. They
cannot be ignored for various reasons, not least because, in the end,
they vindicate the indigenist discourse when it comes to defending the
right to survival (and this is increasingly the case) of indigenous
peoples or of the environment in which they and all of us live. I confess
there are hermeneutic and also political difficulties to be overcome in
59
relation to a code of ethics of responsibility which would apply world-

wide. In this connection, I should like to return to a very topical case,
which I read in a document on the International Conference on
Human Rights recently held in Vienna. It had to do with the almost in-
superable obstacles the drafting committee encountered in framing the
Declaration on Human Rights. They eventually resorted to an
interesting politico-hermeneutic procedure which the Plenary of the
conference also subsequently adopted.
It is precisely in attempting to actualize the ethics of responsibility
that major difficulties will be encountered in implementing public
policies by those nation-states who seek to be bound by the morality of
their acts. This places us firmly in the mesosphere, namely, according
to Groenewald, in the realm of national politics. These are guided by
what have become known as reasons of state generally deemed to be
neutral! We have for decades witnessed the toll apartheid took in the
name of reasons of state. In Brazil, the governments reluctance to
meet indigenous demands and the unreserved support it gives to the
influential business community have meant the annihilation of ethnic
groups which history will have to count. The singular Brazilian place
in the indigenist discourse, which claims to be ethical, will invariably
be in the mesosphere. A place where the particular moral values of the
microsphere, inherent in indigenous groups, can be measured against
the universal values of the microsphere as enshrined in the Charter of
Human Rights. It is only when the ethics of responsibility are brought
to bear in the mesosphere, which strictly speaking should encompass
not only nation-states but each and every one of us, that there will be
any chance of morality one day becoming the foundation of public in-
digenist policies. It would then become much more than a mere object
of research and reflection.
References
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damentos de la tica. La Transformacin de la Filosofia 2. Madrid,
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BENHABIB, S.; DALLMAYR , F. (eds.). 1990. The Communicative Ethics Con-
troversy. Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press.
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CARDOSO DE OLIVEIRA, R. 1959. A Situao Atual dos Tapirap. Boletim

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61
C H A P T E R 4
Is the West the mirror or the mirage
of the evolution of humankind?
Reelections on the process of Westernization of the world
and its links with the development of anthropology
Maurice Godelier
The present chapter is intended to present the development of human

societies from a global viewpoint. While we can observe any aspect of
reality from a global or partial point of view, a global approach would
seem to be particularly appropriate if, in the reality we experience and
seek to analyse, there are global processes affecting the development of
most human societies and, consequently, the destiny of billions of
human beings. Such processes indeed exist. I need only mention the in-
creasingly rapid growth in the world population and the dramatic ef-
fects on certain ecosystems of contemporary, predatory forms of
exploitation of natural resources. There is one particular process to
which those I have just mentioned seem directly or indirectly linked,
one that is therefore central and to which the development and pos-
sibly the future destiny of our discipline too are closely linked, that is,
social anthropology, the ethnological sciences.
This central, global process is twofold: it is the expansion of West-
ern influence throughout the world, and the gradual Westernization of
the world under the influence of the West. This process, which began
before 1492, gained tremendous impetus with the discovery and con-
quest of the Americas by the European powers. Since then, the West
has unceasingly extended its influence throughout the world and, even
though the West has had to renounce its colonies, the process of world-
wide Westernization has continued uninterrupted.
Social anthropology, or ethnology as it was called in the past, owes
its origin and destiny to this continued expansion of the West. It was
born of the need that some European countries felt to study more
closely two very different forms of reality. On the one hand, there were
the ways of life and thinking of the peoples of Africa, Asia and
63
pre-Columbian America, which Europe was discovering and gradually

subjecting to its trade, religion or merely the rule of the sword as it con-
quered their territories. Wherever they had to govern, trade and evan-
gelize, soldiers, missionaries and administrators had sooner or later to
learn the languages, most of which were unwritten, and to acquaint
themselves with exotic customs if only to eradicate them.
On the other hand, in Europe itself, at least from the sixteenth cen-
tury onwards, the gradual formation of nation-states meant that a
number of individuals took to the roads with the task of making an in-
ventory of the customs of the Basques, Slovenes, Wallachians, etc., for
a variety of reasons which were usually connected with conflicting
rights, bringing into conflict local communities or ethnic groups and
the powers that dominated them, such as the nobility of low or high
rank and the representatives of states and churches.
Ethnographical practice, whether it be that of the early pioneers or
that of todays professionals, has always been defined, first and fore-
most, as recourse to a method, participatory observation, that is to
say, prolonged contact for observers, almost always of foreign origin,
with the community they were studying.
And in view of the two series of contexts in which it developed in
Europe, ethnography was always pursued within a context of in-
equality of status between observer and observed, an inequality that
often expressed a relationship of domination existing between the so-
ciety or social group of the observer and the society or social group of
the observed. This backdrop of domination continues to weigh on an-
thropology and is even what increasingly condemns it in the eyes of
many peoples who, since their independence, now claim to be the sub-
ject of sociological rather than ethnological studies.
But does this condemn anthropology to having never been and
never to be anything more than a set of more or less erudite repre-
sentations that dominant societies have entertained of the societies
they dominated, representations that, in point of fact, legitimate such
domination? Is anthropology, by its origins, condemned to legitimize
nationalistic or imperialistic ventures? That is a constant risk but,
nevertheless, anthropology was able to establish itself as a scientific
discipline that largely avoids manipulation by ethnic, nationalistic or
imperialistic interests, to which it is constantly exposed. Proof of this,
as we shall see, is to be found in the work of Lewis Henry Morgan, the
nineteenth-century American ethnologist and founder of scientific an-
thropology. This contradictory work, on the one hand, gave ethnology
64
Is the West the mirror or the mirage of the evolution of humankind?
its scientific core by refocusing its analyses and concepts away from
certain dominant representations in the West, while, on the other
hand, it led to the construction in Ancient Society (1877) of a specula-
tive vision of the history of humankind that is portrayed as having
travelled down a long road from primitive savagery and barbarity to
ultimate civilization (Morgan, 1963). This view, naturally, first estab-
lished itself in Western Europe, and subsequently in Anglo-Saxon, re-
publican and democratic America. Once again, Europe and North
America operated as the mirror and yardstick of the development of
humankind. Be that as it may, we shall come back later to the nature
of the break made by Morgan, which enables him to give a partially
scientific status to anthropology.
Let us first go back to this central, global and twofold process
which, on the one hand, is reflected by the worldwide expansion of the
West and, on the other hand, by the gradual Westernization of the rest
of the world under the direct or indirect influence of the West.
This global process, which had begun before 1492, was both con-
tinuous and discontinuous, diverse and similar and, as it went on for
five centuries, it inevitably changed in form and in effect according to
the times and according to the countries that at some time or other
were at the forefront of the West (England, France, Holland and
Spain) and according to the societies ruled by this process. What is
fundamental, however, is the fact that the transformations so induced
became gradually irreversible, both for the West and for the rest of the
world. Roughly speaking, three distinct eras can be identified in the
gradual formation of the capitalist West.
The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were the prelude, the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries the early stages and, from the mid-nine-
teenth century onwards, in some countries, the system had already
begun to blossom. Western Europe and the United States of America
became the permanent centres of the continuous expansion of this type
of economy and society and, in relation to this centre, the rest of the
world became divided into several peripheries which were, to varying
degrees, remote from the centre and subordinated to it. The initial pe-
riphery of the West was within Europe itself, namely Central and East-
ern Europe. The other peripheries were firstly those peoples that the
West had directly colonized, but a distinction must be made between the
colonies that were populated by the Europeans and those that they were
content with subjecting to their rule without actually populating them.
It is quite clear that the effects could not be the same on tribal
65
societies of Africa and New Guinea, which had never been integrated
within a pre-colonial state or on societies, whether tribal or not, which
were already an integral part of multi-ethnic states such as the Aztec or
Inca empires. In Europe, tribal society had already disappeared long
before, except perhaps for a few vestiges still to be found in Albania or in
the Caucasus. What had not disappeared, however, were ethnic groups.
Nevertheless, it should be borne in mind that an ethnic group in New
Guinea is not quite the same thing as an ethnic group in Europe.
However, before analysing the Westernization of the world, we must
provide ourselves with a definition of what the West is today. What are
the fundamental components which, when linked and combined in the
West, may be dissociated and recombined with other forms of social
and cultural reality in other parts of the world? In my view, the West, as
in the case of any form of society, is a mixture of what is real and what
is imaginary, of facts and standards and of material products and ways
of thinking that now makeup a formidable field of activity which, at the
same time, has powers of attraction over other societies. This energy is
drawn from four different sources and focuses around four different
axes, four institutional systems, each of which possesses its own logic,
values and symbols. Today, the West is a combination of:
1. The market economy, though not any sort of market economy, but
rather an economy based on the capitalist system that presupposes
the private ownership of the means of production and money;
which is driven by the transformation of money into capital and
has, as its aim, the enhancement of such capital, that is to say, the
accumulation of profit. All this is achieved through competition be-
tween producers and between consumers.
2. Industrialized mass production of producer and consumer goods,
means of communication and of destruction. This mass production
presupposes the continuous application to industry of the dis-
coveries of the natural sciences and information sciences.
3. Parliamentary democracy combined with a multiparty system.
4. Lastly, the ideology of human rights, as the case may be, has re-
placed or supplemented Christianity. Up until the end of the nine-
teenth century, the countries of the West, namely Europe and
North America, claimed to have provided civilization with the
true religion, that of Christ. Today, Christianity is no longer an
affair of state for those countries and the charter that they now
share is that of human rights which also serves as a reference for
that of the United Nations.
66
The Westernization of the world may therefore now be defined as the

expansion beyond the West of one or another or of all of these four
components. Such expansion has often been imposed but it is also in-
creasingly the result of change that a particular section of the popula-
tions of non-Western societies have actually wanted.
Obviously, the present-day worldwide Westernization process has
little to do with what occurred in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen-
turies. In those times, Europe was governed by more or less absolutist
monarchies rather than parliamentary democracies. There was no in-
dustrial production, based on the large-scale use of machines and
wage-earning labour, but traditional factories or merely craft indus-
tries. Furthermore, the ideology of human rights was not to emerge
until the eighteenth century and the French Revolution. In their settle-
ments in America, the Europeans established either White egalitarian
communities in North America, where the Indian population had been
gradually eliminated, or colonial societies in which the indigenous
populations, through the action of the Whites, came to be subjected to
relations of personal or collective servitude, as in the countries of Cen-
tral or South America. At the same time, Central and Eastern Europe,
under the effects of trade and urbanization in England, France, Ger-
many and Holland, experienced social change which seemed to go
against the current. In Eastern Prussia and Poland, there was what
German historians referred to as the development of secondary serf-
dom, while in the Wallachian provinces of present-day Romania, indi-
vidual serfdom of the peasantry appeared for the first time.
Accordingly, during the initial stages of Western expansion, there
was no evidence yet of any peripheral capitalism on the fringes of a Eu-
rope that was becoming increasingly capitalistic. Today, however, we
have witnessed how, after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, Eastern Eu-
rope wishes to acquire, as quickly as possible, the structures of the
capitalistic market economy, as well as the political structures of par-
liamentary democracy.
Nevertheless, if we are to take account of the period at which in-
itial contact was established between Western and non-Western so-
cieties, it is just as important to take into consideration what
non-Western societies actually were before such contact. These
could quite easily consist of a small tribe in Oceania or Amazonia
or, conversely, a subcontinent like India under the eighteenth-cen-
tury rajas or Imperial China in the days of the Opium Wars. While
India may temporarily have lost its political sovereignty at the
67
hands of the British, it never lost its profound cultural identity

founded on the caste system.
A new phenomenon today is that Westernization of the world has
also become an Oriental factor: Japan and the four tigers were among
the first to develop the market economy in the Far East, together with
hi-tech and certain forms of parliamentary democracy. Whenever the
seven richest countries of the world meet, six of them are from the West
and the seventh is Japan. Japan has never been a Western colony and
has deliberately eliminated the conversion of its population to Chris-
tianity undertaken by European missionaries.
I propose to refer to a few examples to illustrate certain aspects of
the various forms of worldwide Westernization. As mentioned above,
one of these forms has been the continuous expansion of the market
and mercantile production. It has also been the monetarization of the
economy and, over and beyond, that of social interaction. Gradually,
many aspects of social life have begun to require money in order to
operate and expand. Bridal dowries have undergone tremendous infla-
tion in some countries, but the effects of the monetarization of social
relations have not been strictly one-way. In New Guinea, for example,
people are now buying pigs from industrial farms in order to make gifts
of them within the context of traditional competitive exchanges be-
tween tribes. Goods have come to be used as gifts at the same time as
gifts have become goods. Even sacred objects that were used in initia-
tion rituals and could on no account be traded, in view of the fact that
they guaranteed the continuity of a particular power or status within a
society, are now bought and sold by tribes.
Let us now look at the large-scale introduction of techniques and
products imported from the Western or Eastern capitalist indus-
trialized countries. At the beginning of this century, before the tribes in
the hinterland of New Guinea were even aware of the existence of Eu-
ropeans, European products had already been introduced into their
societies, such as axes and other field tools, produced in factories at
Solingen and Sheffield. Before they had even set eyes on a white per-
son, these tribes had begun to increase their traditional production
and trade in order to acquire steel tools from those tribes who were in
contact with the Europeans. Before even being colonized by Great Bri-
tain or Germany, they had therefore begun to depend partly on Eu-
rope, in material and economic terms, in order to pursue their
traditional activities of agriculture or war. While, at the time, these
tribes could still use their own currency and bartering objects for trade,
68
once they had been colonized, they had increasingly to pay for what
they wanted in Western currency.
Lastly, and this is perhaps the aspect of Westernization that is most
difficult to analyse, it would seem that a non-Western society could be
considered as virtually Westernized once, not content with giving itself
a parliamentary regime, it referred openly to the Declaration of
Human Rights as a universal standard which it strove to apply. It
should be remembered, so that there may be no ambiguity or contra-
diction in what I have to say, that the Declaration of Human Rights in
Europe was the fruit of a gigantic struggle against serfdom and servi-
tude under the earlier feudal regimes, and that it constituted an im-
mense popular victory whereby people could think, act and express
themselves without being arrested by the royal police and imprisoned.
The Declaration of Human Rights will undoubtedly continue for a
long time to exercise a liberating influence on the world. However, as
in the case of any abstract text, the Declaration maybe used in another
historical context with quite different intentions.
It will be recalled that this declaration, born as it was in the West,
did not limit itself to demanding similar political rights for all citizens
of a given state. It also asserted, in abstract terms, that any individual,
regardless of sex or social status, should enjoy in society rights equal to
those of others, namely the right to think, speak and act freely.
The Declaration of Human Rights may therefore be seen as the ul-
timate standard that all societies worldwide have to implement in
order to ensure that their citizens enjoy development and freedom.
Consequently, it serves to some extent as a definition of the true na-
ture of man and of what in the nature of man transcends all cultural
and historical differences.
Therein lies a definition that must be adhered to in the name of pro-
gress and can serve to measure the degree of progress achieved in
various cultures and societies on a global human scale. At the top of
this scale, it will hardly be surprising to find the peoples of the West,
who were the authors of the Declaration of Human Rights. The true
nature of man is therefore likely to play the same part as that of the
former obligation imposed on all peoples of the earth to recognize
Christianity as the true religion.
By this political use of the Declaration of Human Rights, the West
appears once again as the mirror in which is reflected and whereby is
measured the degree of development of all societies that make up hu-
mankind.
69
However, it is the actual development of the West that led religion

to become an individual matter comparable to other cultural customs.
Whereas in the early days of Western colonial expansion, Christianity
was a matter of state and doctrine to be exported and imposed, today,
and this constitutes a break with the past, the West would seem to have
only one aim, namely to encourage recognition and implementation of
human rights throughout the world. The West even goes so far as
promising those societies that would follow this path to provide them,
in exchange, with its financial aid, technology and military protection.
The most spectacular example of this is the aid that has been promised
to post-Communist Russia in recent years.
All this would seem to suggest that the West is a relatively coherent
combination of material and immaterial reality, standards, values,
symbols, techniques, products and social relationships, an ensemble
that is aware of being different from anything done or being done else-
where, different and superior, in short, which regularly sees itself as a
model to be imitated or imposed. We should not regret the fact, how-
ever, that for many human beings in the world, the West should in no
way be imitated, or at least only partly and selectively. Others believe
the West should be fought against and eliminated from the minds of
the people. No great effort is required to discover the existence of
multiple forms and acts of resistance against the West.
Few people can fail to understand such acts of resistance and such
a desire to preserve or to regain cultural identity. Those who are so in-
volved constantly remind us that humankind has only achieved its de-
velopment through recognizing its differences and therefore the
homogenization of patterns of behaviour and thinking within a single
framework will only jeopardize the future. This should not, however,
conceal from us the fact that practically no society in the world today
can develop without incorporating something that comes from the
West, whether it be tools, weapons, techniques, ideas or social rela-
tionships. Even those village or ethnic communities that strive to de-
fend their identity can only do so by allowing hundreds of their
members to leave in search of their own means of existence in the
broad society that encompasses and dominates them. The defence of
traditional patterns of thought and behaviour, or those considered to
be such, can only be achieved paradoxically through the integration of
the communities that exist within global structures, which at the same
time undermine their existence. This explains why too many of the so-
called archaic or primitive structures are no more than fake repre-
70
sensations, embedded in global processes where they take on a new

meaning. In any case, we can only resist by abandoning something of
ourselves.
I believe that this global view of the historical process of Western
expansion and Westernization of the world provides the framework in
which social anthropology can be nurtured and can develop and
achieve its vocation.
To illustrate this, may I return to the work of Lewis Henry Morgan
and show how, paradoxically enough, professional anthropology, de-
vised in the West, only established itself as a scientific discipline pre-
cisely by undertaking a fundamental refocusing in relation to Western
thought processes. It moved from the practice of participatory obser-
vation conducted by all manner of agents to becoming finally a scien-
tific discipline when, with Morgan and others, a break was made with
the ethnography of missionaries, travelers and soldiers. What exactly
was that break?
The break began when Morgan discovered relations of kinship
among the Seneca Indians that displayed their own logic, which was
quite different from anything to be found in European systems. In in-
stances where Europeans used different terms to distinguish between
the father and the fathers brothers, whom they called uncles, the In-
dians made no distinction and referred to all such men with the same
term that Morgan chose to translate as father. He also discovered
among the Iroquois Indians that local exogamous groups were com-
posed according to a principle of affiliation quite different from that
used in Europe, whereby descent depended exclusively on women and
which he referred to as matrilinear. He had therefore discovered that
relations of kinship, principles of descent and rules governing residence
tend to establish a system. He therefore took it upon himself to com-
pare some ten or more other Indian societies in North America who,
at the time, already lived within the confines of reserves isolated from
the world of White men but ready to stimulate the curiosity of the
scientist. The diversity of the terminological structures he discovered
gave Morgan the idea of undertaking a survey on kinship on a world-
wide scale.
More than a thousand questionnaires were sent to missionaries
and colonial administrators and, thanks to their replies, a man found
himself, for the first time in history, in possession of the vastest quan-
tity of information ever available on relations of kinship within hu-
mankind. By analysing the replies to his questionnaire, Morgan
71
became aware of the fact that the immense empirical diversity of the
terminologies of kinship represented as many variations in a limited
number of fundamental types of organization of the terminology of
kinship, contemporary types which, after Murdock, we have called
Hawaiian, Eskimo, Dravidian, and so forth. These discoveries
were of fundamental importance as they enabled a number of hypo-
theses to be put forward, namely that relations of kinship form the
basis of a system, that the empirical diversity of such relations can be
reduced to a number of major types and that change affecting relations
of kinship is not completely the result of coincidence but displays cer-
tain patterns of regularity.
At the time, in view of the manner in which science was popularly
perceived, it was thought that, subsequently, something amounting to
laws would be discovered beneath these patterns of regularity, similar
to the laws that govern nature itself.
It is clear that the break with the ethnography of missionaries was
the result of a refocusing of ethnological analysis in relation to the
thought patterns and social reality of the West.
After Morgan, Western systems of kinship, of a cognitive type,
could no longer be seen as other than particular cases of the human ex-
perience of kinship, forms of kinship with their own logic, which ad-
mittedly distinguished them from others that were more exotic but in
which a specific logic had also to be recognized. After Morgan, it was
now possible to ask the question as to what a father is. What is pater-
nity in societies in which individuals use the term father to designate
a whole range of men who may even belong to generations younger
than their own? Furthermore, it was also possible to ask whether the
European concept of consanguinity, the idea that an individual
shares the blood of his father and his mother, had a universal meaning.
This is certainly not the case in many matrilinear societies in which a
mans sperm is considered to play no part in the conception of a child.
Let us turn again to Morgan who, after having given ethnology a
new purpose, new methods and initial scientific results, then endeav-
oured to use what he had discovered to construct in his Ancient Society
a speculative vision of the evolution of humankind in which the latter
was observed moving through the phases of savagery, barbarism and
civilization, leaving traces at each stage of some of the types of kinship
that he had highlighted in his previous work, Systems of Consanguinity
and Affinity of the Human Family (1853). Once again, the West became
the mirror and measure of the development of humankind.
72
The lesson and moral of this story are therefore quite clear. An-
thropology can only exist and develop as a scientific discipline by
methodically moving off-centre not only in relation to the West but
also in relation to all standard cultural environments to which anthro-
pologists belong by birth or education. The theoretical analysis of cul-
tures also belongs of course to a particular culture. It is, however, a
culture induced by scientific practice subjected to criteria and methods
of verification and which pursues objectives that have nothing to do
with the criteria and objectives of spontaneous cultural environments
embedded in the functioning of historical societies.
As an illustration, let us take the example of myths. Not so long
ago, a theory was put forward in the West according to which society
can be reduced to a game with three players: the market, the state and
the individual, while religion, art and other aspects of culture can be
seen as expressions of private domains, whether or not shared by indi-
viduals and the exercise of which is guaranteed by human rights. More
recently, another theory attempted to reduce this triad to a dyad. The
idea was put forward quite seriously that a further step could be taken
and that all collective responsibilities assumed by the state could be
privatized. Society would be no more than the sum of individuals com-
peting with each other in a vast market of goods and services in order
to satisfy their needs and desires. Naturally, this vision was based, as
the previous one, on the idea that was never brought into question
whereby all needs and all the means of satisfying them can be measured
in terms of money. It also presupposed even more fundamentally that
everything in the social domain could be the subject of trade.
It is not too difficult to see that such theories are merely myths
and mirages, as not everything can be the subject of trade in the social
domain, nor can social relationships be reduced to the sum of con-
tracts negotiated and agreements entered into between individuals.
Such representations of society and the individual are myths
which, as such, reveal something of the social order in the West and
capture in an illusory way the aspirations that stem from the depths of
that order. Consequently, these theories operate not only as myths but
also as mirages.
According to this utilitarian vision, the individual has become a
being without any particular cultural content, sexless, an abstract
operator possessing the illusory power of buying and selling all his re-
lationships with others both within the market and within the state ac-
cording to the principle of what he understands his interests to be. It is
73
obvious that such a representation does not correspond to reality and

that this gap in relation to what is real is what actually makes it oper-
ate as an ideological norm within that reality. Like any other ideologi-
cal norm, it may therefore be subjected to anthropological and
sociological analysis.
Finally, it would seem that, in the West, we are experiencing the
combined effects of twofold disenchantment with the world, to borrow
Max Webers expression. In the nineteenth century, the world had
become disenchanted with religion, which became a private matter.
Politics took over as the major institution for collective integration.
Subsequently, at the beginning of this century, the Bolshevik Revolu-
tion nurtured the hope of the construction of a better world made for
humankind by humankind and without reference to God. Within the
space of a few decades, instead of a Utopia, socialism proved to be an
instrument of terror and a totally inefficient social system. Has this
doubly disenchanted world already reached the end of history, as some
like to predict?
Has it brought the definitive proof that history, that is to say, the
irreversible succession of various forms of society, has no particular
meaning? What the successful transitions to capitalism and abortive
ones to socialism have taught us is that two aspects of social life, econ-
omic relationships and political relationships, constitute the strongest
forces that bring about not only change in society but changes of so-
ciety. It would also seem that these relationships tend to maintain be-
tween them a number of genuine structural affinities, such as the
market economy with a parliament and a planned economy with the
dictatorship of a single party. This is probably what will remain of a
recognized and universal nature in the thinking of Marx.
As in all the social sciences, anthropology today can only renounce
the illusion that one aspect of social life would constitute the general
and sole foundation of all other aspects of social life. Whether this
foundation may be economic for some people or religious for others as
is sometimes asserted with regard to India, or political, as has been
said as regards ancient Greece, none of these theories provides a
universal key to reality.
In the combined use of the social sciences which are all necessary
for analysing society, anthropology provides something unique. It
strives by method to observe what people do and what people say
about their own social relationships and therefore themselves. Regard-
less of the tendency among many anthropologists to condense such in-
74
formation put forward and such observed behaviour into pre-estab-

lished interpretations, anthropology does have the means of contra-
dicting and limiting such ethnocentrism. The means is to extend more
methodically the refocusing of anthropological analysis in relation to
the cultural presuppositions of anthropologists and to endeavour to
trace the historical lineage of such presuppositions.
The reader will have understood that I believe that anthropology is
not a discipline in decline and that it is not in the throes of a general
crisis, even if many anthropologists actually are. It can be expected to
play an indispensable role for some considerable time yet. For, if the
significance of humankind is not concentrated within a single part of it-
self, all societies will continue to have a meaning, even if some continue
to deny any meaning to all other societies but their own.
It is precisely within this context that anthropologists, more than
any other professionals, can detect manifestations of violence not only
ideological but also social and material within intercultural relation-
ships, just as much as those within each particular culture. Admittedly,
their profession does not predestine them to hold great positions of
authority, such as those that would enable them to act directly on so-
ciety as a whole, but they are entrusted with certain responsibilities be-
cause they are able to bring to public attention certain forms of
violence that are not commonly recognized or which some people it
takes all sorts to make up a society endeavour intentionally to con-
ceal. Each of us knows that violence must appear sometimes as such
for some people to decide to act in order to contain it and possibly sup-
press it completely. Experience also teaches us that when violence in
social relationships and in thinking begins to be contained or sus-
pended, possibilities in terms of thinking and action, hitherto im-
possible, come into existence.
Reference
MORGAN, L. H. 1963. Ancient Society, or Researches in the Lines of Human
Progress from Savagery through Barbarism to Civilization (1877).
Ed. by Eleanor Burke Leacock. (Reprint of 1877 edition.) Cleve-
land/New York, World Publishing Co.
75
C H A P T E R 5
Living with ethnicity:
the need for a new paradigm
David Maybury-Lewis
The Cold War is over. As little as a decade ago, the prospect of an end
to the nuclear stand-off between the superpowers would have occa-
sioned a combination of disbelief and rejoicing. Now that it has ac-
tually happened, it seems to have generated remarkably little
excitement. Even in Germany, where a kind of mass euphoria accom-
panied the tearing-down of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of the
country, the mood now seems to be one of sour disappointment and
dissatisfaction.
Much of this present anxiety stems, it seems, from a general feeling
that, although the world may not be on the brink of nuclear annihila-
tion, it remains a chaotic, violent and now not even predictable place.
It is as if we have awoken from the nuclear nightmare to find our worst
fears realized in terms of ethnic conflict and internecine warfare. The
dreadful happenings in the former Yugoslavia are only one example
among many of ethnic strife. The prevalence and savagery of these con-
flicts are being taken in the West to confirm our conventional wisdom
that ethnicity is a pernicious element in human affairs which sensible
people and rational states should try to abolish, or at least to mini-
mize.
The Enlightenment tradition of Western political thought empha-
sizes the state as the rational and progressive matrix of human social or-
ganization. In fact Rousseau argued in The Social Contract that the
state should represent the general will of the people who, in an egalitar-
ian society, deal as equals with the state that represents them. Since
Rousseaus time, Western political thought has tended to focus on this
civic conception of the state as the most desirable form of social or-
ganization, especially when it was thought of as the vehicle for a single
77
nation, thus uncomplicated by ethnic divisions. In this view, ethnicity

and ethnic attachments undermine the modern nation-state, for they
are sectarian and exclusionary.z Ethnicity was thus considered archaic
or perhaps, in Marxist terms, false consciousness an illusionary ideol-
ogy masking the realities of class. Either way it was bound to disappear,
overtaken by modernization or by the emergence of classless societies.3
These Western theories, both in their Marxist and non-Marxist ver-
sions, have not proved to be good predictors. Modernization has not
rendered ethnic attachments obsolete. On the contrary, they seem to be
enjoying anew lease of life. The globalization of the world economy, the
internationalization of its processes and institutions, of the banks, busi-
nesses and even the jobs on which we all depend, appear to go together
with sharpened feelings of nationalism and intensified ethnic conflicts.
The current anxiety expressed by Western politicians and the press
is therefore quite understandable. The bankruptcy of our traditional
theories of ethnicity has left us with few and unattractive political op-
tions. When it could reliably be argued that ethnicity was bound to dis-
appear, it made a certain kind of sense to ignore it or to suppress it. Now
these arguments have proved hollow, and the world has woken up to the
fact that ignoring or denying ethnicity will not work. It is now clear that
the Enlightenment ideal of the liberal state, so powerfully championed
by the French and American revolutions is not the wave of the future,
the expectable culmination of modernization.4 Instead it is an idea that
was painfully and fitfully realized in certain European countries and
their overseas offshoots, and even in those retribalization might beset-
ting in, or so their newspapers seem to fears Meanwhile, the rest of the
1. See Kamenka, 1973; Cobban, 1969.

2. See Worsley, 1984.
3. The former Soviet Union presented a curious anomaly in this respect. Ac-
cording to its official Communist theory, ethnicity was bound to disappear
as the new Soviet individual overcame the last remnants of false conscious-
ness; yet the Soviet Union itself was officially composed of republics that
were ethnically defined.
4. See Enloe (1973), for an extended argument to this effect, and Young (1993)
for a survey of the growing awareness among political scientists of the
shortcomings of previous theorizing about ethnicity and the state.
5. The press on both sides of the Atlantic is full of references to retribalization
in the modern world. The issue was discussed at some length in the Econo-
mist of 29 June 1991. It was also discussed in Arthur Schlesingers book,
The Disuniting of America.
78
Living with ethnicity: the need for a new paradigm
world was never effectively detribalized. So it is now feared that Bal-

kanization, with its frightening connotations of endless divisiveness
and conflict, is not an aberration, confined to certain areas of the globe,
but the normal state of affairs, to be expected everywhere.
This gloomy scenario is however as misguided as was the previous
optimism about the inevitable disappearance of ethnicity. Why then is
such a crucial aspect of human affairs so persistently misunderstood?
The answer, I suggest, lies in a tendency to jump to premature conclu-
sions about the nature of ethnicity, the nature and needs of the nation-
state, and the presumed incompatibility between them. It was assumed
that we knew what ethnicity was and that it would inevitably lead to
divisiveness, tribalism and, in extreme cases, separatism. Yet anthro-
pologists have argued for years that the cultural content of ethnicity is
not uniform. It is minimally a feeling of solidarity, akin to kinship, felt
by members of a group towards each other. Yet it can be derived from
any one of a number of factors, or from combinations of those factors.
Ethnicity maybe based on the physical characteristics of a group, skin
colour being the most usual but not the only one used as a marker. It
may be based on language, religion or custom. It maybe based on his-
tory, on a shared perception of a common past, often replete with
memories of injustice, that differentiates a group from others living
close by. It may be a sentiment ascribed to a group rather than felt by
it, at least initially.
The American Indians are the classic example of this kind of eth-
nicity. At the time of the invasion of the Americas by Europeans, these
peoples, like the peoples of Europe itself, were divided into a multi-
plicity of separate groups. It was the invaders who dubbed them all In-
dians, following Christopher Columbuss famous confusion. Since
then each American nation has systematically lumped its indigenous
inhabitants together as Indians, has developed policies for its In-
dians and so on, with the result that the indigenous peoples them-
selves have often been constrained to act together as Indians in order
to defend their own interests.6
It is equally critical to note that these various ethnicities are not
always salient. They may lie dormant, to be activated and even re-
activated under particular circumstances. The study of these circum-
6. See, for example, the essays in Urban and Scherzer, 1991; especially May-
bury-Lewis, On Becoming Indian in Lowland South America.
79
stances, on a case-by-case basis, is thus critical. Anthropologists

have been doing this for a long time, as Gellner points out in a
special issue of The Times Literary Supplement. 7 For years
anthropologists have been analysing situations of ethnic pluralism
and conflict from all over the world and, in the process reconstruct-
ing ethnicity as we would now say. This reconstruction has pro-
ceeded systematically at least since Fredrik Barth edited a significant
collection of papers entitled Ethnic Groups and Boundaries in 1969.
We have long since established that ethnicity is neither primordial
nor circumstantial, but a combination of both. It is a latent quality,
possessed by all human beings (since humans live in social groups)
and it is circumstantially activated.8 It is, as Joan Vincent (1974) so
aptly summed it up, a mask of confrontation.
While anthropologists were rethinking ethnicity by analysing cul-
tural variables and linking them to political action, political scientists
and other social theorists were beginning to rethink their ideas about
the state and its needs. Crawford Young describes in The Rising Tide of
Cultural Pluralism9 how the theoretical confidence in nation-states that
marked the literature of the 1960s gave way to the apprehensions and
theoretical rethinking that mark the 1990s. The turning-point came in
the 1970s. Enloe published her revisionist analysis Ethnic Conflict and
Political Development in 1973. Donald Horowitzs rethinking was be-
ginning to appear in the shorter works that foreshadowed his Ethnic
Groups in Conflict (1985). Meanwhile Youngs own major study, The
Politics of Cultural Pluralism (1976), still (as he ruefully points out in
his later work) evinced the optimism about the nation-state that he
was soon to repudiate.
The simultaneous rethinking of both ethnicity and the state puts us
now in a much better position to understand and assess the current
wave of ethnic violence that seems to be engulfing the world. Let us
consider some examples.
Western Europe gave birth to the modern idea of the state, but it is
clear by now that the states of this part of the world have not realized
7. See the special issue of The Times Literary Supplement (16 July 1993) con-
taining Gellners article on the future of social anthropology.
8. This point was made over and over again in the essays in Maybury-Lewis,
1984a; see especially Despres, 1984, and Maybury-Lewis, 1984b.
9. See especially his introductory paper, The Dialectics of Cultural Pluralism:
Concept and Reality.
80
the hopes of the rationalists writing at the time of the French Revolu-
tion. They hoped that the states of the future would be informed by
liberal values and that in them citizens would interact on an equal foot-
ing, regardless of ethnic identity. In Peter Worsleys (1984) terms this
was the uniform mode of the state and it is still the ideal in much of the
world. More common, however, is the hegemonic mode, in which only
one ethnic identity is acknowledged as legitimate for the state. The
state is thus taken to correspond with a nation, possessing a singular
ethnic identity. Those who do not, or may not, subscribe to this iden-
tity become second-class citizens. West Europeans have all along been
aware of their difficult struggles to co-ordinate states with nations 10
and they have now realized that they still have to deal with this unfin-
ished business. Their nations do not conform to the civic conception of
the uniform state, but are more frequently defined in terms of manipul-
able symbolic systems of inclusion and exclusion. The spectre of ethnic
cleansing haunts the continent, not only in Bosnia and other parts of
Eastern Europe, where it is carried out in its most brutal forms, but
elsewhere. Anxiety over outsiders, discrimination and even violence
against them is widespread, although such violence has received most
attention in Germany and France, where the outsiders attacked have
often been fellow-citizens.
The Americas have by contrast been historically the classic region
of melting-pot societies.People of all nationalities were encouraged
to emigrate to the American republics and were even permitted to re-
tain their ethnic attachments to their own kind after doing so, pro-
vided that these ethnicities were clearly understood to be secondary to
the dominant culture of the state to which they had come. The major
exceptions were the Indians, who had always been there, and Blacks
who had been brought there against their will. Both these categories
were historically excluded from citizenship at the same time as system-
atic efforts were made to destroy their sense of ethnic identity. Later
they were urged to abandon their ethnicity and to merge into the main-
stream, even though most of them met rejection and discrimination
when they tried to.
Those American countries that had large indigenous populations
10. On this question, see Anderson, 1983; Gellner, 1983; Seton-Watson, 1977;
Smith, 1971, 1981; and especially Hobsbawm, 1990.
11. My argument in these paragraphs on the Americas has been published in
extended form in Maybury-Lewis, 1993.
81
routinely excluded them from full citizenship. Even when in-

digenous peoples were formally granted citizenship, they were in
practice denied the benefits of it. In such exclusionary states the idea of
accepting indigenous peoples as ethnic groups, possessing rights to
land and the maintenance of their own cultures, was unthinkable
because it ran counter to the basic premise on which their societies
were based, namely of a Hispanicized lite governing an indigenous
underclass.
In this context, as in so many others, Mexico stands out as an ex-
ception. It has a large indigenous population, which only recently be-
came a minority and is still a substantial one. Its official policy after the
Reform Laws of the mid-nineteenth century was to break up in-
digenous communities and eradicate indigenous cultures, with the ex-
pectation that the Indians themselves would blend into the mestizo
culture of the country. After the revolution of 1910-20 and particularly
after the presidency of Lzaro Crdenas in the 1930s, the country pur-
sued a policy of indigenismo. Officially, this meant that the state would
guarantee indigenous lands and indigenous cultures while simulta-
neously helping the Indians to abandon them and merge gradually
with the mainstream. In 1993 there was ostensibly another change of
direction. In that year Mexico adopted a new constitution under the
terms of which it formally became a multi-ethnic society. It is still
unclear what the practical effects of this constitutional change will
be.12Nevertheless, Mexico has made efforts to bring its indigenous
populations into the national life which distinguish it from other
states.
Countries such as Brazil and the United States with relatively small
and scattered indigenous populations have on the other hand been in-
clusionary states. They see themselves as melting-pot societies. In-
digenous peoples were at first excluded from the melting-pot, but have
for some time been urged to melt into it. In these countries, indigenous
demands for local autonomy and the right to maintain their own cul-
tures are fought because they challenge the melting-pot ideal. The bit-
ter irony confronting indigenous peoples is that if they are numerous,
12. Especially since, as I edit this paper in the aftermath of the Zapatista up-
rising in the state of Chiapas in January 1994, the government negotiators
with the rebels seem unwilling to concede to them the local autonomy for
indigenous groups that they are demanding.
82
then their demands are too threatening to be met. If they are not so
numerous, their demands can safely be ignored.
So it was thought in Canada, where indigenous demands to be rec-
ognized as distinct societies within the Canadian Federation were rou-
tinely ignored. The policy however was one of the factors that
destroyed the Conservative administration of Prime Minister Mulro-
ney. He had succeeded in drafting a new constitution for Canada,
which he hoped would go some way to healing the rift between Eng-
lish-speaking Canadians and the French-speaking population of Que-
bec. The new constitution, recognizing Quebec as a distinct society
within Canada, having its own laws and customs, had to be ratified by
all the provincial legislatures before it became law. All the legislatures
save two had ratified it, but the constitution finally failed in the legisla-
ture of Manitoba, where a provincial member of parliament, an
Ojibwa-Cree Indian by the name of Elijah Harper, used the parliamen-
tary procedures of the house to prevent ratification. He refused to vote
for a constitution granting the Province of Quebec special status
within Canada as a distinct society, when similar requests from Ca-
nadas indigenous peoples had never been taken seriously.
In spite of this somewhat depressing summary of the treatment of in-
digenous rights in the Americas, this region of the world is currently
considered to be somewhat fortunate compared with continents such as
Africa and Asia. Gurr (1993) points out that there is less ethnic violence
in the Americas than in Africa and Asia, and Horowitz (1985) suggests
that this is because many countries of Africa and Asia are still struggling
with their post-colonial heritage. In this connection it is worth stressing
that the Americas were colonized at the very beginning of European ex-
pansion. Colonialism in the Americas is the oldest of the European co-
lonialism and, from the point of view of American Indians, it is one that
still continues. The history of European and later post-European rule in
the Americas has been punctuated by constant conflict between the in-
digenous inhabitants and the invaders. If we are to compare levels of
ethnic conflict in the Americas with those in other colonized continents,
then the longer time span would need to be taken into account.
It is certainly true however that the recently decolonized areas of
Africa and Asia are particularly subject to ethnic conflict at present.13
13. Horowitz (1985) focuses on severely divided societies in these continents

and in the Caribbean, which I have not dealt with in this discussion.
83
African states have been considered notoriously artificial colonial con-

structs. Horowitz (1985: 75-6) challenges this, arguing that the artifi-
ciality of colonial boundaries has been greatly exaggerated. The
colonial powers, he points out, did take ethnic boundaries into ac-
count when delimiting their territories and made efforts not to divide
ethnic groups, though this was sometimes done. More significant is the
fact that, in Africa at least, the indigenous polities were much smaller
than the colonial territories in which they found themselves. The colo-
nialists broadened the scale on which these indigenous groups now
had to operate. Since post-colonial states have staunchly defended
these colonial borders of their domains, it follows that they have
necessarily included more than one and sometimes a large number of
ethnic groups that had little in common with each other apart from
their experience of colonialism. Nevertheless, African political leaders
have systematically insisted on the integrity and viability of these in-
herited states and attacked expressions of substatal ethnicity as di-
visive. The result was predictable. Either there has been competition
between powerful ethnic groups for control of the state, or the state has
been effectively taken over and run hegemonically by the repre-
sentatives of one ethnic group. Either way the potential for ethnic con-
flict has been considerable.
In Asia the most dramatic examples of ethnic conflict at this mo-
ment come from India. Yet India has been one of the two great ex-
periments in ethnic coexistence on that continent the other being
Indonesia. Independent India tried to follow the Enlightenment
model. Its first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, insisted that
India should be a modern, secular, liberal state. Such a state would
refuse special recognition to, or accommodation of, ethnic groups.
Instead it would provide the best tolerant and non-sectarian frame-
work within which Indias ethnic groups, most importantly those
which defined themselves by their religion, could coexist peacefully.
Indias traditional syncretism enabled the system to work for a
while, but it is now under strain and some say it is breaking down,
as conflicts between Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs threaten to tear the
country apart. There are some lessons to be learned from these
tragic events. First, they underscore the indeterminate nature of
ethnic differences. They may not seem significant for long periods of
time and then be activated to the point of conflict. In many parts of
India, groups that have contentedly worshiped at the same
shrine are now pitted against each other and demanding exclusiv-
84
ity.14 Second, India demonstrates once again that the liberal state is
vulnerable to ethnic conflict, if it either ignores or suppresses eth-
nicity. Third, India shows yet again the fearful consequences that
ensue once ethnicity becomes politicized.
The potential for the political manipulation of ethnicity is present
in all but a very few homogeneous states. In a country such as India,
huge, diverse and with millennial traditions of cleavage as well as ac-
commodation, the potential is an ever-present danger, waiting only for
the right circumstances when unscrupulous politicians would seek to
inflame ethnic animosities for their own advantage.
Such manipulation may also be international. States have always
tried to exploit the internal dissensions of their enemies. After the de-
feat of the multi-ethnic Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires in the
First World War, a patchwork of new states was created in Europe
and the Near East. The boundaries of these states were drawn to grant
self-determination to the ethnic majorities within them. Since the new
states also inevitably contained other ethnic groups, the status and le-
gitimacy of the minorities became an issue, which the Nazis exploited
quite cynically in preparation for the Second World War. Now, with
globalization proceeding rapidly, everything from business to employ-
ment, from politics to ethnicity is more and more affected by interna-
tional forces. The international manipulation of ethnicity by
co-religionists, terrorists and governments is becoming the rule rather
than the exception. Tambiah (1986) has written about this in a reflec-
tion on his own ravaged country of origin, Sri Lanka.
In this connection, the contrast between Malaysia and Sri Lanka is
instructive. Both of them are bipolar states. In Malaysia the Chinese
and the Malays comprise the two major ethnic blocs, as do the Sin-
halese and the Tamils in Sri Lanka. Horowitz describes15 how a com-
bination of chance events and careful political management
enabled UMNO, the Alliance party in Malaysia, to appeal successfully
to a multi-ethnic constituency, cutting across the major cleavage in
Malaysia. In Sri Lanka, by contrast, different circumstances and differ-
ent ethnic arrangements made it advantageous for politicians to run on
14. Professor Loki Madan has commented at length in Indian newspapers on

the aftermath of Ayodhya. A good analysis of those events can also be
found in Bayly, 1993.
15. See Horowitz, 1985, Chapter 10.
85
ethnic platforms and so effectively to polarize a country that was al-

ready divided.
The lessons from this brief survey of ethnic divisiveness around the
world should now be clear. Ethnicity is an inherent component in
human affairs which will not vanish if it is ignored. It is also exceed-
ingly difficult to suppress. The panic of the pundits that I referred to
earlier in this chapter is not so much caused by their perception that
ethnicity is rife in the world it always has been but rather by their
realization that their previous theories about how to deal with it have
been found wanting. A new approach is obviously called for which
would seek to deal with ethnicity by devising social and political sys-
tems that can accommodate it.
There is no simple and certainly no single arrangement that will re-
solve ethnic conflicts worldwide. We need, then, to deepen our under-
standing of the possibilities of, and impediments to, systems that are
federal or pluralist, to systems that offer inducements to multi-ethnic
parties as opposed to those that encourage ethnic voting. This kind of
understanding will only come from more extensive and systematic
case-by-case studies of the social aspects of ethnicity, such as anthro-
pologists are now engaged in. At the same time it is vital that political
and social theorists extend their investigations of those political ar-
rangements that promote ethnic harmony (or at least coexistence) and
those that do not. Such a programme depends however on whether the
die-hard defenders of the liberal state are able to overcome their dis-
taste for any system that deliberately accommodates ethnicity, The de-
velopment of theory regarding multi-ethnic states is a necessary step if
we hope to change the thinking of the general public in the West. Ac-
cording to the conventional wisdom, ethnicity is pernicious and a
cause of endless dispute, therefore it should be suppressed or, alterna-
tively, the state should be cleansed of its ethnics. Yet our investiga-
tions show that it is not ethnicity of itself that is the problem, but rather
the ways in which people deal (or do not deal) with it and try to sup-
press it. Only if we succeed in developing a theory of ethnicity that can
become a powerful new paradigm can we hope to alter the conven-
tional wisdom and bring about changes in the repressive practices that
we all abhor. It seems to me that work on the construction of this para-
digm is the most important task that faces social theorists in general
and anthropologists in particular.
86
References
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Spread of Nationalism. London, Verso Editions.
BARTH, F. (cd.). 1969. Ethnic Groups and Boundaries. Boston, Little Brown.
BAYLY , S. 1993. History and the Fundamentalists: India after the Ayodhya
Crisis. Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 46 (7): 7-
26.
COBBAN, A. 1969. The Nation State and National Self-Determination. New
York, Thomas Crowell.
DESPRES, L. 1984. Ethnicity: What Data and Theory Portend for Plural
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cieties. Washington, D. C., American Ethnological Society.
ENLOE, C. 1973. Ethnic Conflict and Political Development. Boston, Little
Brown.
GELLNER, E. 1983. Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca, Cornell University
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1993. What Do we Do Now? Social Anthropology and its New Glo-
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stitute of Peace.
HOBSBAWM , E. J. 1990. Nations and Nationalism since 1780. Cambridge,
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HOROWITZ , D. 1975. Ethnic Identity. In: N. Glazer and D. Moyni-
han (eds.), Ethnicity: Theory and Experience. Cambridge, Mass., Har-
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. 1985. Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Berkeley, University of California
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KAMENKA, E. 1973. Nationalism: The Nature and Evolution of an Idea.
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MAYBURY-LEWIS, D. (ed.). 1984a. The Prospects for Plural Societies.
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1984b. Introduction: Alternatives to Extinction. The Prospects
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1984c. Living in Leviathan. The Prospects for Plural Societies.
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America. Austin, University of Texas Press.
1993. A New World Dilemma: The Indian Question in the
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SCHLESINGER JR, A. 1991. The Disuniting of America. New York,
W. W. Norton.
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Press.
SMITH, A. 1971. Theories of Nationalism. New York, Harper Torchbooks.
.1981. The Ethnic Revival. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
TAMBIAH, S. 1986. Sri Lanka: Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of
Democracy. Chicago, Chicago University Press.
URBAN, G.; SCHERZER , J. (eds.). 1991. Nation-states and Indians in Latin
America. Austin, University of Texas Press.
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Lewis (cd.), The Prospects for Plural Societies. Washington, D. C.,
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88
C H A P T E R 6
Scale and interaction

in cultural processes:
towards an anthropological
perspective of global change
Lourdes Arizpe
The cultural and social phenomena we are witnessing at the end of

the twentieth century are unprecedented in human history for three
different reasons: first, because of the number of people involved;
second, because they are new, that is, the cumulative effects of
human actions leading to global warming and ozone depletion, the
nearly universal acceptance of human rights; and, third, because of
the levels of complexity they involve. Interestingly, for the very first
time in human history, science will be present during a major civi-
lizational change let us hope it will make a difference - and for the
better.
This new setting also signals the end of: (a) an implicit tenet of infi-
niteness of terrestrial space and of biodiversity in many cultures;
(b) the idea of the empty world economy as Fredrik Barth and others
have called it, and (c) the concept of autarchic, self-contained cultures
or nation-states. Anthropology must rise to the challenge of analysing
and interpreting cultural and human interactions in this new global
setting. While anthropologists have been rapidly developing new ways
of dealing with problems of interpretations of interpretations, and of
writing ethnographies in a borderless world, they have given less atten-
tion to understanding the interactions between cultures, nation-states,
regional markets and an emerging global information and communi-
cation system.
For this task, a patchwork anthropology juxtaposing circum-
scribed ethnographic knowledge to produce a composite picture of
the national or regional level will not serve to explain the new glo-
bality. Should anthropology try to analyse this new globality? In
my view it must do so: firstly, because the new globality is, in fact,
89
a new locality as I hope to show in this chapter with the aid of an

example drawn from fieldwork, and secondly, because its mandate
has always covered the whole of humankind. It has been argued that
all anthropological interpretations were couched in the Western cul-
tural idiom, with the results serving as a comment on the cultural
mores of the West. In fact, this is one of the reasons why anthropol-
ogy has been so one-sided towards the people it was studying: it has
never taken back to them ethnographies of Western cultures, which
would have allowed a reciprocal enrichment leading to a more
textured understanding of all cultures in the world. In this sense,
until very recently, anthropology has conducted a dialogue of West-
ern culture with itself, through its extended knowledge of other
cultures.
Even so, anthropology has played an essential role in advocating
cultural liberation, human rights and social tolerance values which
necessarily underlie prospects of a peaceful coexistence of peoples and
cultures in a global setting. If by global we mean concern for all the
inhabitants of the world, then anthropology, surely, has always been a
global science in principle if not in practice. Thus, if anthropology is
to focus on the new, or renewed interdependence of cultures, all the
more reason for it explicitly to draw up a theoretical and a field agenda
for an anthropology of global change.
At present, natural scientists are using the term global change to
refer only to geo-bio-physical phenomena which will affect all the in-
habitants of the world. However, the Human Dimensions of Global
Environmental Change Programme of the International Social
Science Council (ISSC) has pointed out that in fact global change en-
compasses both geo-bio-physical and human phenomena. Therefore,
in this chapter, I shall refer to global change or globalization alike as
the process driven by human actions that is creating greater interde-
pendence of peoples around the globe, and this in reference to environ-
mental as well as social phenomena.
Is it only a global perspective in anthropology that needs to be con-
structed, or must the discipline rebuild its theoretical assumptions and
methods to cope with this new global setting? In my view, it is this sec-
ond task that should be given full attention in shaping anthropology as
a twenty-first-century scientific discipline. Hitherto, since the 1960s,
anthropology has been examining an expanding range of cultures as
it intrudes increasingly into urban and industrial contexts. It now has
such a diversity of research topics that there are those who wonder if a
90
Scale and interaction in cultural processes:

towards an anthropological perspective of global change
unitary anthropology still exists or if it has dissolved into hybrid

fields. i
Yet no new theoretical scheme to contain these expanded intel-
lectual, topical and gee-political issues has been developed. On the
contrary, as Eric Wolf states in the present volume, just when an-
thropology . . . was called upon to expand its scale and scope to
include more of what was going on in the world, many anthropol-
ogists retreated once again into the study of particular cultures . .
as independent and totalizing systems of signifier. The inclusion of
more of what is going on in the world to my mind entails refram-
ing the wealth of data and analytical instruments that anthropology
has bequeathed to us in the form of a new theoretical mandate.
Given that the disciplinary demarcations of social science grew out
of seventeenth-century Cartesian scientific rationalism and its associ-
ated cosmopolitical scheme, it seems to me that the whole architecture
of social science is on course to change in the next decades. According
to Stephen Toulmin, attempts to go beyond general, linear, abstract
theory towards more pluralistic and time-bounded schemes have long
been waiting in the wings of twentieth-century science.2 In fact, he be-
lieves that ethnography, as a more holistic and particularistic method,
can lead the way to overcome the static, homogenizing nature of Car-
tesian science.
Anthropology, then, will not be changing alone: Paul Baker is
right therefore in echoing the call for greater multidisciplinarity in an-
thropological research. This seems especially necessary in the field of
global change, since collaboration with natural scientists is becoming
essential.
1. C. Reynoso, Antropologa: perspectives para despus de su muerte [An-

thropology: Perspectives after its Death]. In Antropolgicas, Vol. 7 (Mexico
City), July 1993: 514. Originally published in Publicar en Antropologa y
Ciencias Sociales, Buenos Aires, Colegio de Antroplogos, 1993. See also
the reply to his arguments by Eric Wolf, Fredrik Barth, Paul Baker, Paul
Nchoji Nkwi, Jaime Litvak and others in Antropolgicas, Vol. 8, Septem-
ber 1994: 5-15.
2. S. Toulmin, Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity. Chicago,
University of Chicago Press, 1992.
91
Rethinking an anthropological perspective

Recently, the natural sciences have been using the term global change
to encompass new kinds of phenomena. In the words of
M. G. K. Menon, President of the International Council of Scientific
Unions (ICSU):
Humankind has no doubt been altering the environment in the process
of living and development for at least two million years, but during
most of this time, human influence on the environment has been local
in scale and small in magnitude. It is only over the last half a century
that humankind has developed the ability to alter the environment on
a global 3scale, and not just in terms of local effects such as pollu-
tion. . . . Global change [he goes on to say] involves . . interactive
physical, chemical and biological processes that regulate the earth sys-
tem, the unique environment that it provides for life, the changes that
are occurring in this system and the manner in which they are in-
fluenced by human actions.
In economic, political and cultural phenomena as well, globalization is
indeed changing the interactions of different social groups around the
world.
As mentioned previously, anthropology maybe considered the first
social science that provided a global perspective in the sense that its
observations were originally directed towards arriving at the univer-
sals of the human experience. In practice, however, this was distorted
by West/non-West, civilized/primitive categorizations. Anthropology
was also the first science to attempt to deal with problems of scale,
since in its early stages it tried to explain both the general trends of
human civilization and the structures and organization of small com-
munities. Cultural ecology and centreperiphery theory, among other
schools of thought, tried to deal with the embeddedness of cultures in
different magnitudes of social organization. Finally, the essential theo-
retical concerns in anthropology focused on the interaction between
diverse cultures.
Yet a hidden assumption for such early studies was the view, undis-
puted until recently, that nation-states were the ultimate form of social
organization and would eventually consolidate even in multicultural
regions of the South. Needless to say, this view is now highly conten-
3. M. G. K. Menon, Opening address, Global Change, ICSU, Paris, Report

No. 71, 1989: 60.
4. Ibid.
92
tious, and the cohabitation of different cultures within a national

boundary is no longer believed to be an inevitable process. Ironically,
this gives anthropology a specific advantage over other social sciences
in that its method is the most appropriate one for dealing with multiple
cultures. Yet anthropology has been practically absent from the debate
on the current cultural and ethnic conflicts in nation-states.
Although anthropology was never comfortable at the scale of na-
tional cultures, at present it is even less well-equipped to tackle the re-
gional scale of intercultural phenomena. The latter are on the rise as a
result of the creation of regional communities such as the European
Union, and of regional trade agreements such as Nafta, Mercosur,
APEC and others.
Interestingly, after decades of disavowing the role played by culture
in the modern world, it is now being brought back into the mainstream
discussion of development, as shown by the creation by UNESCO of
the World Commission on Culture and Development,5 and of interna-
tional affairs, and by Samuel Huntingtons predictions of a clash of
world cultures.6 Anthropology, therefore, must take up the challenge of
dealing with macro-level cultural units, all the more so because there is
a new phenomenon in the making, in other words a global information
and communication system leading to calls for a new global ethics.
Towards a global ethics?

There is already talk around the world, at the local community level as
well as in international government conferences, of a global nation, a
world parliament, a world government and a global civil society.
People have been quoted as speaking of my country, our planet, or of
being a citizen of the world. Surely this is a fascinating phenomenon
for anthropology to study. It is not new in the sense that Western hu-
manism or Hindu universalist or so many other cultures and religions
have always considered human beings as part of humanity as a whole.
But it is new in the sense that it speaks of purposefully creating world
5. Headed by Javier Prez de Cu11ar, its members are Claude Ake, Yoro Fall,
Kurt Furgler, Celso Furtado, Niki Goulandris, Mahbub ul Haq, Elisabeth
Jelin, Angeline Kamba, Ole-Henrik Magga, Nikita Mikhalkov, Chic Na-
kane, LeilaTakla, Elie Wiesel and the author of this chapter, Lourdes Arizpe.
6. S. Huntington, The Clash of Cultures, Foreign Affairs, March 1993.
93
institutions, be it a parliament, a government or a civil society, which

will bind all humans in common endeavors and in global rights and
responsibilities.
Caution, however, is in order. In the past few decades anthropol-
ogists have acquired a heightened sense of the mirage, as Maurice
Godelier calls it in the present volume, of Western ideas posing as hu-
manitys ideas. Globality may be, as some have already hastened to
warn, a new way to rehegemonize an interdependent world, However,
there are some ideas which it may not be too farfetched to say are be-
ginning to be accepted as universal ideals. One of these is human rights
although some cultures such as Islam regard it as an individualistic
concept while yet others, such as the ideals of democracy and of gen-
der equity, may be moving in this direction.
At the same time, in the real world there is a multidirectional inter-
mingling of Western and non-Western cultures. The best example is
the mixed use being made in many countries of allopathic, homoeopa-
thic, Chinese and diverse traditional herbal medicines. In the realm of
painting, theatre and music, most especially, the amalgam of culturally
diverse forms of representation, symbolism and performance is becom-
ing standard practice.
The big question is whether enhanced world communication and
information technologies will further the creation of truly universal
ethical norms and institutions on a global scale, or whether they will be
used short-sightedly only to further the aims of given countries or
groups, mostly through the control of the circulation of information
and technology. According to cybernauts, this is no longer possible.
Cultural thresholds
In the mass media it has become commonplace to refer to the Microelec-
tronic Revolution, the Third Wave or the New Age to establish a tech-
nological and social boundary that divides our present era.
Anthropology should ask whether this is an expected fin-de-sicle phe-
nomenon or whether a new civilizational era is beginning. We know of
the intricacies of periodization and of the term civilization, so I suggest
we begin, more modestly, by asking about the nature and direction of
certain cultural and social thresholds that have been observed.
Population thresholds certainly have implications for the human
cultural future. Other than the magic of the psychologically resonant
94
figure of 5 billion inhabitants on the earths surface, the population

curve shows a significant threshold. This is the very slight downward
trend evident since the 1980s and which reflects the momentous cultural
change of the human demographic transition. It is, indeed, a cultural
transition since it implies a conscious decision by parents and institu-
tions to curb population growth, and it is well known that a key factor
in this process is the education and expectations that women may have.
Anthropologists, however, having worked on the fringes of deserts,
in inaccessible mountain valleys and in the slums of metropolitan cities,
know of the irregular distribution of the population around the world.
Hence it is becoming essential to gee-reference the distribution of popu-
lation, since very little can be gleaned from national population statistics
if the regional concentration or dispersal of the populations is not ana-
lysed. Needless to say, the geographic spread and mobility of the world
population will be a crucial factor in altering the global cultural map.
Added to that, imbalances in the geographic distribution of natural
resources and of increasing resource depletion and pollution are crea-
ting environmental refugees. Economic inequalities (i.e. imbalances),
that continue to grow in the geopolitical distribution of human-made
capital have fuelled the flow of economic refugees. If to these we add the
traditional political refugees, we can readily understand that migration
rates are at historically unprecedented levelsthe closest parallel would
have to be the forced migration of enslaved African peoples. The United
Nations High Commission for Refugees, in fact, has called it the refugee
explosion which topped 18 million people in the world between 1976
and 1990.7 As compared to the European outmigration of 52 million
people between 1848 and 1912, today it is estimated that 70 million
people, mostly from developing countries, are working, legally or il-
legally, in other countries. Over one million people emigrate perma-
nently to other countries and close to that number seek asylum each
year.8 Interestingly, Mexico heads the list of emigration in the world,
with an estimated 6 million Mexicans having migrated to the United
States in the last three decades, while Colombia follows with over 1 mil-
lion emigrants representing between 9 and 12.5 per cent of its labour
force.9 The United States heads the list of countries of immigration,
7. Cited in UNFPA, Population Report 1993, p. 20, New York, UNFPA,

1993.
8. Ibid., p. 19.
9. Ibid.
95
having received 7.3 million legal and 2.7 million illegal immigrants. Be-
tween 1980 and 1992, Western Europe as a whole received some 15 mil-
lion immigrants, while the Persian Gulf States received 5.1 million. 10
A significant feature of such migratory flows is that the amount of
remittances sent back home by migrants, estimated at $66 billion
in 1989, is higher than the total amount of international development
aid for that year (i.e. $46 billion). Since so many of the migrants come
from low-income, rural, many times indigenous communities, such
economic flows also alter any economic analysis carried out in tradi-
tional anthropological community research.
All forecasts indicate that such international migratory flows, pre-
dominantly South to North, and South to South are set to increase in
the near future. Boat people are no longer a feature of Asia alone, but
of the Caribbean and the Mediterranean as well. Needless to say, in
cultural terms, such massive population shifts, coupled with the expan-
sion of the mass media and telecommunications, will completely alter
cultural patterns, behaviour and generational forms of cultural trans-
mission. They are also leading to new phenomena such as that of the
traveling cultures in the Pacific.
For some time now, internal migrations have also been shattering
traditional cultural maps. A United Nations estimate based on census
data of the 1960s and 1970s shows that 33 per cent of the rural popula-
tion increase in Africa and Asia and 58 per cent in Latin America were
lost to migration or to reclassification of rural settlements as urban
ones. Although in absolute numbers the rural population is still the
majority on a global scale, the trends towards the year 2025 indicate
that most of the population will be living in urban settings by then.
Again, this unprecedented geographical mobility of Homo sapiens
in such numbers marks a threshold in history which anthropologists
cannot ignore, especially given the centrality of culture in ethnic and
nationalistic conflicts, and the unequal development accompanying
emigration in the region of origin and the xenophobia attitudes accom-
panying it at the receiving end.
Given these historical thresholds, I would contend that, if we are to
continue to use the analytical tool of culture, we must recognize atheo-
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12 Ibid., p. 16.
96
retical divide in anthropology, stemming from the unprecedented mi-

gratory flows and interculturality of the end of the century, which
together initiate an era in which the central processes will be those of
transhumant cultures and neo-culturesnew syncretic cultures, most of
them urban. Given that this will in my view be the most important area
of research in anthropology in the next century, the main theoretical
focus of anthropology must be on the dynamics of interculturality at dif-
ferent levels of magnitude: local, national, regional and global.
Cultural maps in a global setting

One of the first questions that has to be answered is whether cultural
interactions are different today from what they were a few decades ago.
In other words, are the differences fundamental or is it just a question
of scale, that is, of a greater number of peoples being involved in
cultural interactions?
To begin to answer, we need to know how many cultures exist in the
world today. The first attempt, of course, to draw up a map of world cul-
tures was the pioneering project of the Human Relations Area File.
Others are the Soviet Ethnography Institutes
14
Atlas Narodov Mira
and Robert Spencers Ethno-Atlas. In a recently published Atlas of
World Cultures, David Price points out that the greatest problem to
overcome in the construction of the atlas was the variable of time. His
atlas locates the region of a cultural group at a period when a specific
reference to it was made in the ethnographic literature. Hence, he ex-
plains that the cultural or ethnic groups identified in the atlas are
simply some of the groups that have been identified in the extant body of
ethnographic data.15 There does not seem to be any other way, at pres-
ent, to create such an atlas. In many countries population statistics do
not specify ethnic or cultural traits. In fact, such issues may be conten-
tious and so lead to situations where the indigenous population is
13. The original Atlas Narodov Mira was published in 1964 in Moscow. An
English translation was published in 1965 by V. G. Telberg, New York,
Telberg.
14. R. Spencer and E. Johnson, Atlas for Anthropology. New York, William
Brown, 1960.
15. D. Price, Atlas of World Cultures: A Geographical Guide to Ethnographic
Literature, p. 8, London, Sage Publications, 1990.
97
systematically underrepresented in the census, as in Guatemala, or

where a decision has been taken not to ask religious affiliation in the
census to avert religious conflicts, as in Nigeria.
Other problems in drawing up cultural maps are well known in the
anthropological literature: establishing discrete cultural units is one;
deciding if a given cult-unit or ethnolinguistic unit is a major unit or
a subset of another unit is another; and the most recent problem, a
proliferation of names, as the new name that the cultural group gives
itself is added to the name by which it was known in the ethnographic
literature and the name(s) given to it by outsiders.16 The Mohawk
(man-eaters), for example, now understandably prefer their own name
Kaniengehaga (people of the place of flint), and the Northern Arctic
peoples that of Inuit.
To understand the dynamics of such cultures in a moving land-
scape of peoples, again we need to gee-reference ethnographic data. All
the more so because, outside anthropological research, such data are
rarely available. Statistical data, especially, are problematic because
they are mostly provided by national censuses: national cultural cat-
egorizations in so many cases are not only meaningless but actually
disruptive of ethnocultural groups.
It is worth mentioning that the problem of creating accurate trans-
national data sets is on the agenda of practically all social sciences and it
is one of the main concerns of the Human Dimensions of Global Envi-
ronmental Change Programme of the ISSC. In one of the latters recent
publications, John Clarke, a demographer, pointed out that population
data are difficult to handle on a regional basis because they are only
available for political units
17
that vary greatly in areal units and in popu-
lation size and density. An example of interest for anthropology, is the
political fragmentation by continent. Africa, with 12 per cent of the
worlds population, has 27 per cent of countries and, incidentally, the
longest political borders; the Americas have 14 per cent of the popula-
tion, and 24 per cent of countries; the equivalent figures for Asia are
59 percent and 21 per cent and for Europe 15 percent and 18 per cent. 18
If we superimpose a map of cultures of any of these regions on the politi-
cal boundary map, the discrepancies are very obvious.
16. Op. cit., p. 9.

17. J. Clarke and D. Rhinde, Population Data and Global Environmental
Change. Paris, International Social Science Council, 1992.
18. Ibid., p. 17.
98
Cultural interactions in a global setting

The problem just referred to, then, is one of creating accurate geo-
referenced data on intercultural flows; the next problem, however, is
to theorize as to the kinds of cultural interactions that are taking
place. An interesting starting point is Bob Carneiros retrojection
that estimates that there were about 20,000 autonomous political
units on the earth as recently as 3,000 years ago, and that today
there are only 200 or so. If we make the assumption that most of
those political units coincided with autonomous cultures, could we
posit that the long-term cultural evolution of Homo sapiens tends to
decrease cultural diversity?
This would suggest a fascinating yet tenuous hypothesis, albeit one
certainly worth examining. Its implications are many. It would mean
that the disappearance of many indigenous languages today is not a
loss but a normal millenarian process leading to decreased cultural dif-
ferentiation. One can see the radical theoretical difference of taking
such a view. It would take us back to a conceptualization of a multili-
near yet unitary evolutionary process underlying history. It would
turn globalization into the point on the horizon towards which all cul-
tures, or the superordinate structures they are embedded in, would be
oriented. It would, necessarily, turn anthropology around towards
macro-scale, globally oriented theorizing in order to create a new
framework on which to hinge micro- and meso-scale anthropological
research linking the local and the global.
Needless to say, this runs counter to the dominant trends in an-
thropology today. In a relativistic framework, globalization is a tem-
porary reversal of continued cultural fragmentation; in a post-modern
framework, globalization is an intellectually untenable project; in an
interpretative framework, globalization is an unintelligible linguistic
project. E pur, out there in empirical reality, globalization is posing
fundamental challenges to anthropology.
Such a hypothesis would also be based on considering politi-
cal/ethnic boundaries as indistinct from cultural ones. This seems un-
warranted, especially from a long-term historical viewpoint. In the rise
and fall of civilizations, rather than a simple progression of cultural en-
tropy, what we see is an ebb and flow of political boundaries and of
cultures. And the present creation of a global system of information
and communication does not seem to be altering this historical ebb
and flow. It has become a commonplace to speak of the apparent
99
paradox of globalization bringing about there-emergence of national-

isms and ethnicisms.
If we keep to our basic assumption that all humans have a creative
ability, we must posit that no global information and communication
system will ever be able to stamp out this creativity. On the contrary,
it seems to be feeding it. New computer images and new migration set-
tings are all generating neo-cultures: Cyberia, Creole cultures, border
cultures such as that of Mexamerica on the United StatesMexico bor-
der and traveling cultures are all in the making.
But increased political and economic interdependence must be
brought into anthropological models, if anything, as an analytical tool
with which to understand the reactions and interactions of local cul-
tures.
Already, other social sciences specialists are providing interpreta-
tions of global cultural processes. In a recent article, Professor Samuel
Huntington argued that the major international conflict in the years to
come will be the clash of civilizations, mainly between Christianity,
Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism. 19 Franois Peret sees northern coun-
tries protecting their boundary by establishing a liminality zone of
buffer countries: Egypt, Mexico, Morocco, Thailand and Turkey that
would carry on and deepen the NorthSouth divide. In political
forums an extreme right-wing interpretation sees future cultural reor-
derings in terms of racial affiliations, crudely classified as White
against Black and Yellow. These are, indeed, interpretations that an-
thropologists must take an interest in.
This brings us to what seems to me to be one of the most important
topics for research on cultural interactions in a global setting. It involves
the perceptions that local people are beginning to have about global
change. And I say beginning because, since such phenomena have not
hitherto been present in human experience, at this point in time we can
only record the immediate reaction of people to global issues. It will take
a long time for such perceptions to be shaped into conceptualizations
and value systems. In what follows, an example of such research is given,
based on fieldwork conducted in the Lacandn rain-forest in 199193.20
19. Clarke and Rhinde, op. cit.

20. This is the region of the Zapatista uprising in January 1994. Without real-
izing it, our analysis of perceptions on deforestation showed which groups
of farmers were involved and the reasons they gave for the uprising which
took place a year later. The book was published in the summer of 1993.
100

Searching for tools to analyse local perceptions

of global change
Research was carried out in a multi-ethnic context in which migrants
from over fifteen states in Mexico have poured into the Lacandn rain-
forest, the south-eastern corner of Mexico on the border with Guate-
mala.
This is the area where the Zapatista army rose in 1994. Fieldwork
was conducted there in 1991/92 and the book Social Perceptions of De-
forestation in the Lacandn Rain-forest was published in Spanish at the
end of 1993 an English edition is now in press. Although the theme
of the analysis was deforestation, informants testimonies in the book
give the background for the Zapatista uprising.
In carrying out the research, not only did we have to deal with a
multi-ethnographic situation but also with one where the new dis-
courses of environmentalism had been imposed on local inhabitants of
the rain-forest and outlying regions, forcing them rapidly to construct
their own perceptions of deforestation and to come up with socially
negotiated positions on environmental issues. In this chapter only
those perceptions which refer to localglobal links will be discussed.
Until as recently as 1983, under pressure to decrease the national
food deficit, the Mexican Agricultural and Cattle Law made it manda-
tory for farmers to cultivate all cultivable lands under their jurisdic-
tion. This fostered accelerated deforestation, especially in tropical
areas in the south of Mexico, which were perceived by international
agencies and the national government as agricultural frontiers. As a
result, in the area studied, Marqus de Comillas, on the border with
Guatemala, approximately 40 per cent of its 190,000 hectares were de-
forested between 1983 and 1988 by incoming migrant farmers who
were allotted 50 hectares of land through the Agrarian Reform Pro-
gramme. In December 1988, the government policy changed com-
pletely as President Salinas de Gortari decreed a total ban on
tree-cutting.
Farmers in the region were, needless to say, bewildered by the sud-
den change in the law and totally dumbfounded by the forest ban.
21. L. Arizpe, M. Velazquez and F. Paz, Cultura y cambio global: percepciones

sociales de la desforestacin en la selva lacandona. Mexico City, CRIM-
UNAM/Miguel Angel Porra, 1993. To be published in English by the
University of Michigan Press.
101
Never in their cultural histories had there been such rules, and this
necessitated a rapid revision of their cultural elements to put it into
perspective.
Such a field situation also required a different field approach, be-
ginning with the fact that the research team had to be multidiscipli-
nary. Communities had settled in the rain-forest in the 1980s with
immigrants from all over Mexico and their diverse cultural back-
grounds: Indian, mestizo, northern and even urban backgrounds.
Land allotments by the Agrarian Reform Programme provided the
only organizational structure in the communities, although extended
family ties and loyalties to ethnic groups soon began to stratify them.
In cultural terms the only divide that exists is that between Indians and
mestizos, but each of these groups is also highly fragmented except in
the case of the few monocultural Lacandn and Chol communities.
Hence, the traditional anthropological tools focusing on cultural
traits, values or culturemes could not be applied to this situation. After
a period of exploration, we decided to use the term social perceptions.
This was chiefly because the ban on tree-cutting was so recent that
farmers were only beginning to grope for socially negotiated reactions
to it. Notably, the only instance which we found of a conceptualization
being put in place was when some local people used the method of
backtracking to religion to come up with a ready-made-but-applic-
able-to-reinforcing-a-new-concept of the nature of nature. For the
most part, when we were in the field, local people were simply trying to
grapple with the problem of how to perceive what this thing about de-
forestation is, in the words of Higinio Ortiz.
Interestingly, one of the salient features of this process was that
people in the communities began to speak in terms of their own local-
ism vis--vis the international community, whereas previously their
outside frame of reference had always been national. Different occupa-
tional and ethnic groups had different ways of dealing with this new
perception.
Local ranchers, some of whose forebears had sold bananas or other
22 The team: Lourdes Arizpe, anthropologist co-ordinator; Fernanda Paz,

anthropologist; Licha Cmara; Margarita Velazquez, social psychologist-
environmentalist; Veronica Behn, ecologist; part-time participants were a
veterinarian and an assortment of students of anthropology, biomedicine
and engineering. The project was funded by the National University of
Mexico.
102

tropical fruits on the international market, and who now sell their beef
on the meat market in central Mexico, had no difficulty in under-
standing the challenges of the world situation. Luis Pedrero, a de-
scendant of a prosperous export-oriented ranching family in Las
Mercedes, when asked what the future of Mexico would be like,
answered: Well, not too good, but not of Mexico but of the whole
community, of the whole world. . . . What is needed is culture and
knowledge. Otherwise we will destroy the world.
Nor do the people living in the town of Palenque have any difficulty
understanding the links of the local to the outside world. However, since
they are far removed from the problems of deforestation their region
was deforested in the 1960s they are not concerned so much with glo-
bal change problems (though some of them repeat what they hear on
television about the ozone hole) as with the more traditional frame-
work of international relations. Miguel Hernandez, a night watchman,
when asked the same question about Mexicos future, said:
I see the future of the world as going badly. Governments are taking
each other by the hand, but the moment one of them gets angry,
theyre going to start shooting. Theres a lot of violence in Central
America, we must be ready for the future, to see whats going to hap-
pen. In the common market industrialized countries take the best, they
take advantage.
Although starting out from different viewpoints, the same reliance on
previous frameworks of international relations was found in other oc-
cupational groups in Palenque. Local government officials, discussing
international matters, immediately set the discussion in the framework
of sovereignty:
What happened in Marques all has to do with sovereignty. First they
began to colonize Palestina and Corozal during the regime of Echever-
ria; then, beginning in 1978, along the Lacantm river, the ejidos on the
eastern banks; but in 1980/81, the government-driven colonization
went along the banks of the Chixoy river, to [the ejidos] Roberto Bar-
rios, Flor de Cacao and Quetzalcoatl. There they got all the help they
needed with mechanical saws, a years corn and so on. It was all due to
the Guatemala undocumented migrants that pushed out Mexican ag-
ricultural labourers. More people came in and decided to go to the
ejidos along the border: Nuevo Orizaba . . Boca de Chajul. It all had
to do with defending national sovereignty.
23. Note his upgrading of the question to the world.
103
This is echoed in the words of a different group, that of primary-school

teachers. One of them, Genaro Almada, put it this way: I first feel a
member of my state [chiapaneco], then Mexican, then American. .. .24
I identify very much with South American countries . . . not with that
one in the north. Students tend to stay on this track, as Miguel Angel
Palacios, a high-school student, shows: The future of the world is in
the hands of developed countries. If they decide this is it, then every-
thing will be finished. They have a lot of arms and the means of destro-
ying the world.25
In marked contrast, among farmers in the Lacandn rain-forest,
seven hours away by jeep from Palenque, perceptions were
geared towards global change. Seven major social perceptions on
deforestation and sustainability were found. As regards the
local/global link, the independent farmers perception went some-
thing like this:
The changes in the rain-forest are going to have world consequences.
On a world scale something is going to happen and this is why every-
body worries. The gringos [Americans] and Japanese are the second
gods, they pay the Mexican Government so the rain-forest will not be
done away with; they are higher and higher up all the time, they are al-
most going to touch the gods. They did away with everything, they did
not reserve anything in their countries, thats why they want to con-
serve here.
So said Artemio Benitez. In other variants, the Europeans, the interna-
tional agencies, frequently the World Bank or else an abstract interna-
tional community is seen as the contender in the scuffle over the
rain-forest.
In a different perception among farmers, the theme of sovereignty
overrides that of deforestation as can be seen in the words of Aaron Ve-
lazquez:
We are next to Guatemala and I think we are here as caretakers, as sol-
diers, because since there is a guerrilla war over there, this is why they
sent us over here and we are in danger here because if the war gets
24. The term americano in many parts of Latin America is used generally for
anyone living in the New World, as it was used in colonial times. In con-
trast, citizens of the United States are called norteamericanos or estadou-
nidenses or are referred to by the handy term gringos.
25. Note that his interview was made in the summer of 1991, after the fall of
the Berlin Wall.
104
worse over there, the Mexican Government has to protect us; it [the
Government] must take this into account because we are defending
our land.
Among Indians the question of national sovereignty is rarely men-
tioned and the framework of international or global matters is practi-
cally absent. Their main concern is their treatment by ladinos and the
national government. In the rain-forest communities, Chol, Tzeltal
and Tojolabal migrants tend to live among themselves although they
share community grounds with the mestizos. A special case is that of
the Lacandn Indians, descendants of the Maya who have lived in the
rain-forest for millennia. Both groups of Lacandn, those of Metzabok
and those of Naj, have a clear idea of international links because they
have had such contacts through the lifelong work of Gertrude Duby,
an admirable advocate of the preservation of the forest and of the La-
candn culture.
Social perceptions about local/global links among these different
groups in the region were influenced in the beginning of the 1990s by
several events. First, by visits of high officials from international in-
stitutions World Bank, FAO, organizations such as Conservation
International and others. Second, by a much talked-about visit by an
official from the World Bank who actually arrived by helicopter to the
heart of the Marqus de Comillas area the World Bank is funding
several sustainable agriculture programmes, including a rubber plan-
tation and reforestation schemes. Previously, only the state governor
and the President, or officials at similar levels were regarded as heli-
copter travelers. With this visit a new level of reference was clearly es-
tablished in local peoples minds, and with a handy name attached:
Washington.
In 1991 a newspaper article appeared in one of the major Mexican
newspapers signed by the president of the Grupo de los Cien (Group
of One Hundred), an international environmentalist group headed by
Mexican writers and artists, directly accusing farmers in the Lacandn
rain-forest of destroying the forest resources. At a farmers meeting, as
the article was being read aloud, the farmers cursed, spat and were
ready to challenge the writer to a fist fight. Speaking to them later on,
it was clear that they had begun to perceive that a national group had
made an alliance with the international environmentalists and that this
coalition was bent on taking away their trees and/or livelihoods.
To arrive at a comparative view of such perceptions among differ-
ent groups in the region, a survey was conducted in which 13.4 per cent
105
of those surveyed believed that the international community would

suffer the most if the rain-forest disappeared.26 Farmers, for example,
explained it by saying: They depend on us farmers, otherwise they
would have nothing to eat; or On account of the increase in heat,
their pollutions [sic] will rain down [on them]; or simply because
Montes Azules [the biosphere reserve] is the lung of the world. It is
worth noting that the image which was most popular among farmers
was this very one of the lung of the world.
In contrast, among the farmers of two communities near Palenque,
the international framework was practically absent, probably because
none of their economic activities tie them to international issues of any
kind. In Palenque, on the other hand, the higher income group men-
tioned the international community in the first place, probably be-
cause all international groups and officials go through Palenque on
their way to the rain-forest, and because they hear about global issues
on television.
Those surveyed were also asked who should take on the responsi-
bility of preserving the rain-forest. Although farmers and the govern-
ment were each mentioned by a third of the sample, the international
community was also mentioned by 10.2 per cent of those interviewed.27
The reasons given for this were that the international community is
better off and needs the oxygen.
Summary
To sum up, research in the Lacandn rain-forest showed why and how
local people are beginning to create conceptualizations and symbols
related to global change. Comparative studies of this kind in different
regions of the world will, I believe, enrich the current discussion on
sustainable development and globalization.
26. A sample of 432 persons were interviewed from the following communities:
four villages in the rain-forest; two farming villages in the region of Palen-
que where most farmers have become ranch employees and labourers; two
urban groups in the town of Palenque, the highest-income groups of mer-
chants and proprietors and the lowest-income group of employees and la-
bourers; finally, cattle ranchers were surveyed as a special group, given
their influence on local and regional events.
27. Arizpe et al., op. cit., p. 145.
106

Research recommendations
Based on the discussion in this chapter, I would make the following
recommendations for future anthropological research on global
change:
1. Gee-coding anthropological ethnographies and cultural data to
permit an analysis of levels of magnitude, world distribution and
spatial dynamics of cultural interactions.
2. Enhancing the anthropological analysis of population movements,
particularly the dynamics of culture in migration, and the differen-
tial fertility among ethnic, religious or national groups.
3. Using the comparative method to establish the main trends in cul-
tural interactions in different continents and regions in order to
understand global cultural processes.
4. Analysing the ethic and symbolic interactions among macro-scale
cultures through global communications.
5. Exploring new methods to link local social perceptions to meso-
and global-level cultural trends.
On a broader front, anthropology has to update its theoretical models
to go beyond the unitary/relativist opposition, by proposing a broader
definition of the object of its study, and by incorporating into its intel-
lectual and theoretical corpus the temporal, humanistic and particu-
larist trends embodied in its traditional ethnographic methods.
In my view, all the knowledge that anthropology has amassed in
the last century should be put to use today not only to examine but
also to propose. Anthropology has not always been a passive science:
it has been an active science, for example, in formulating and revising
state policies towards ethnic groups. Why then could it not actively
propose a theoretical explanation of global cultural processes in order
to inform appropriate policies for emerging national and international
intercultural relations?
107
C H A P T E R 7
Social field
and cultural constellations:
reflections on some aspects
of globalization
Karl-Eric Knutsson
Introduction
I begin with a snapshot of my environment in Nepal where I live and
work at the moment. It illustrates some fundamental empirical, theo-
retical and ethical challenges for societies in a world of accelerating
globalization.
Selling ones daughter to buy a TV:

global consumerisms latest frontier
There is a huge sex market in South and South-East Asia. One of its
most appalling characteristics is the trafficking in young girls from
Nepal to neighboring countries. The government of Nepal estimates
the number of Nepalese girls in India alone to be around 200,000, of
whom 20 per cent might be children. A great number of the girls and
young women are abducted or sold by their parents, husbands or rela-
tives, or by friends of the family people in whom the young girls have
placed their trust.
The income-generating potential of the sex market has few, if any,
rivals at the village level. The sex trade offers the possibility of a quan-
tum jump in earnings that one would only find in a socio-economic
environment where there are high levels of education, small-scale in-
dustries and services and where opportunities for salaried employment
1. Summarized from ODea, 1993: 6-34.
109
abound. With most of these factors currently lacking in rural Nepal,

the sex market has an enormous economic attractiveness.
The new resources can sustain radically new lifestyles. This is espe-
cially so in the case of the mostly male parasites who live off the sex
workers. They can spend their time at leisure and still have access to re-
sources many times greater than a hard-working agricultural labourer.
The increased and easy income rapidly weakens the only safety
net available to the poor: collective solidarity and the values placed on
group work. Without these, the possibilities of eking out a living in the
hills are severely limited.
The brutalization of relationships between families involved in traf-
ficking aggravates gender disparity and gender inferiority. Female
children and women, already socially and economically weaker than
men, are at one and the same time the targets, the resources and the
victims.
In her overview of the problem, ODea (1993) asks: Who are the
clients? Like the sellers, the clients vary in origin and socio-economic
status. There are around 300,000 Nepalese migrating seasonally to
India and 150,000 in army and security jobs. Many are single and
others are separated from their wives and children. Not all buy sex.
However, of those who do, many prefer to be with their own kind who
share the same backgrounds and language. Besides these and the much
larger Indian clientele, there are also tourists from the region and from
around the world. These include an exclusive club of men from a
neighboring, affluent region willing to pay high prices for something
special. Many reports put the Nepalese girls and women into this cat-
egory. The price paid for virgins and minors can be very high. Special
auction markets for minor girls have been set up to satisfy such de-
mands. Child prostitution where most potential virgins are found
is also a growing concern for this reason (0Dea, 1993: 9).
Who, then, controls the market? From what we know, controllers
come from varying socio-economic backgrounds and wield different
degrees of power. The immediate ones are unscrupulous merchants,
who own brothels, hotels and restaurants; madams involved in hiring,
trafficking and running the brothels; and pimps and strong men who
rape and torture the young girls and who are willing to withhold food
and water until the girls are broken in. The young girls are part of a
victimization process of a culturally designed moral debasement and
physical battering. The methods adopted by the controllers make
women and children undergo a slow or rapid metamorphosis from re-
110
Social field and cultural constellations:
reelections on some aspects of globalization
spectable persons with dignity and freedom to sellers of sex and slav-
ery (Rozario, in ODea, 1993: 9). Sadly, the outside world is moving
into the Himalayan hills in company with the underworld, generating
new aspirations, images and resources. But the price of change is high.
The expanding market is sex that brings sexual diseases transmitted by
returnees escaped, rescued or retired HIV and AIDS, and, worse, a
new generation of violated children robbed of their childhood and
human rights and often traumatized for life.
In discussing this pyramid of torment one cannot neglect the impli-
cations of the flow of corruption money that the maintenance of the sex
market requires. After all, the huge enterprise continues though both
girl trafficking and prostitution are illegal in the countries of the region
and though all have ratified the International Convention on the
Rights of the Child and thereby turned this instrument into national
law. This is a clear indication of how the sex market has managed to
penetrate all levels of society local, regional and international.
Behind all the immediate controllers, other forces personal and
impersonal are working directly or indirectly to create and maintain
a situation that finally turns young girls into commodities of exchange
in a regional and ultimately global market of gender exploitation and
sexual violence. Among these are global, regional and national in-
equities, generating and maintaining poverty, and consumerism urges,
effectively communicated by media, tourism and globalization of mar-
kets. The abuse of female children in the Himalayan hills is a horrifying
yardstick of the successful expansion of such global forces.
In summary, the world is moving into the hills of the Tamang, and
the Tamang are expanding their contacts with the world. In some
sense, this has always been the case. But it is obviously occurring in
new ways today, over shorter time-spans, and with more radical con-
sequences for this peoples ongoing construction and management of
reality. It is as if the Tamang were both viewing and acting in quite
different videos at the same time: some locally produced, some pasted
together and subtitled in nearby towns, and some copied from distant
places.
What is global about this? Can we arrive at a more helpful theore-
tical perspective for our social and cultural questions by combining
our ethnography with reflections on globalization?
Perhaps so. But, and this is my main argument in this chapter, only
if we are willing at the same time to discuss some fundamental di-
lemmas within the theory of social science. In so doing, we may also
111
ponder the responsibilities of anthropology in relation to situations

and processes such as the ones that violate and dehumanize the lives of
millions of girls and young women in South and South-East Asia and
in other parts of the world today.
Reflections at the outset

All we can say about practically everything is almost nothing (Bould-
ing, 1956: 4). Despite this, it is urgent, as the thoughtful geographer
of time Torsten Hagerstrand (1986: 193 et seq.) says, to take a fresh
look at the matter and see if it is not possible after all to say something
useful about at least a considerable amount of everything at the same
time. If we do not dare to do this, we have no business being here.
The word globalization sounds very impressive and complex. But
is it really more impressive and complex than what can be said about
other territories or arenas within which different forms and aspects of
human life evolve and are enacted? The scale seems different, when
compared with what observers of social life are accustomed to: but is
this really the case? Are the scales and distances in landscapes of differ-
ent dimensions actually larger, or have the scales not in fact collapsed
and the distances become telescoped?
In my childhood I had an image of the world as a series of Satur-
nian rings that I consecutively entered and incorporated, walking on
all kinds of bridges and using both planned and unexpected connec-
tions. This simple version of the story of the immigrant into the world
so similar to the immigrants creation of bridgeheads and subsequent
expansion into a new land often spanning generations does not fit
any more, or at least not very well. Increasingly, the reverse is true. The
rings out there are traveling towards me, surrounding and entering
me, stardust and all, faster than I myself can plan or design my own
strategies.
The same is true for the dimension of social space and the space of
knowledge and symbols. We move through the ones in which we are
actively and consciously involved. At the same time, and ever more
rapidly, other spaces, or as I shall call them later, fields and constella-
tions, generated and maintained without our participation or knowl-
edge (at least until they reach us) are moving towards us, into us and
through us. The world seems increasingly to meet in everybody, al-
though everybody does not meet in the world.
112
.

Another fundamental feeling is that we seem to be increasingly wit-

nessing a struggle between the world as experienced by normal people
and as classified by the fairly recent phenomenon of science. In our
daily lives we do not care much about sectors of reality. We also com-
mute between ideas, analyses, experiments and practices without
necessarily identifying what phase of our activities we may be preoccu-
pied with at any one moment. It seems that our images of reality are
becoming increasingly organized according to some models of artifi-
cial disaggregation, which, in turn, influence the way in which people
actually experience, organize, interpret and manage their lives.
The reason for my exercise here is not that we now seem to live in
some global system or systems. If we apply the concept of time with
sufficient generosity, I suppose that there have been processes of glo-
balization since the very beginning of our existence on this planet. My
purpose rather is to ask how we might be better able to come to grips
with, and understand, the consequences of the dramatic shift in the
time/space dimension, generated by changes (perhaps advances) in
knowledge and technology, which have created rapidly expanding so-
cial fields in and through which people interact over global distances
and share and communicate through globally dispersed constellations
of knowledge, values and aspirations. We should remember that it is
precisely in situations of this kind that we must direct our energy to
scrutinizing the nature of our theoretical assumptions whether hidden
or explicit and to changing not only our maps but also our tools for
orientation and exploration (Kuhn, 1962).
Like all large concepts especially those that rapidly become
fashionable globalization gives me an uneasy feeling. Of course, it
sounds great, like the global village, internationalism and universal-
ism. It refers to contacts and communication between people, to de-
velopment co-operation and so on. But if we scratch the surface of all
these terms, however honestly they may have been proposed, it
becomes clear that their widespread acceptance is, in itself, the result of
very worrying characteristics. One such characteristic is that they are
all in some way sanitizing in nature they sound good and are there-
fore very effective as cover-ups for neo-colonialism, economic domin-
ance, dependency and similar expressions of global power play.
After all, whose perception of the global and what ought to be
globalized are we talking about? Another factor that accounts for the
spread and rapid acceptance of a term such as globalization is its
blanket character. Unfortunately, concepts of this nature, aggregated
113
to levels where they seem to take on a life of their own, tend to stop the
brain working rather than stimulate it. Phrases such as development
requires, we are all interdependent and globalization is the future
are bandied about as if they referred to irrefutable values. The
year 1984 has come and gone, but the language of Orwells book of the
same name lives on and is becoming ever more frequent and persua-
sive. We should beware of these dangers so that we do not create a new
terminology for the continued distortion of knowledge and abuse of
power.
What, then, is global about globalization? Despite what we per-
ceive as the shrinking of the world, we do not in fact live on a global
level but in some localized context such as the village of Tokha in
Kathmandu Valley or the Upper East Side in New York City. What
may be global in both these places is the increasing possibility and even
probability that in leading my life I will draw on physical, social or
mental resources that are primarily located in some other locality on
earth or some derivative of such resources. Consequently, these are not
global per se but rather are localized expressions or manifestations of
something from another part of the globe that attracts me as I imple-
ment various projects, or that is powerful enough to influence the con-
ditions in which I may design and manage them. Thus, what is global
cannot be restricted to any kind of specific entity. The only other possi-
bility, therefore, is to search for the global in the sphere of relation-
ships. Something is global because it is generated and maintained
through relationships that connect, combine and direct the use of
physical, social and mental resources located in various parts of the
globe.
The really new issue, then, is not so much that the world is becom-
ing one, but that it is, at least for a considerable time to come, becom-
ing many, and which increasingly operate on a global scale and relate
to each other in new and rapidly changing ways. Accordingly, we have
to proceed forward from a study of more or less discrete units in order
to face situations in which different means of access to technology,
transportation, communication and information generate a series of
worlds that are smaller or larger, accessible or unreachable, mana-
geable or unmanageable, depending on ones relative control of these
telescoping factors.
Here I wish to point out what might appear to be a paradox. There
are certainly a number of contacts, interactions and flows between
these many worlds (or fields). There is therefore an openness between
114

reflections on some aspects of globalization
them. But, as they are all limited in some way by the global envelope,
they are increasingly affected by the transition from open systems in
both practical and theoretical terms to systems that are closed or
closing. It does not take much reflection to realize that hypotheses that
might seem meaningful to make for theoretically open systems may be
irrelevant or misleading if a system is closed or closing. The recent dis-
cussions of full world economics illustrate this point.
Let me point to another seeming paradox: in order to deal with the
problem of a shrinking world, anthropologists need to broaden their
territories of research. This requires, among other things, that what-
ever conceptual frameworks or tools we propose, they need to be con-
structed so that they can serve us in exploring, describing, analysing
and reflecting about any social or cultural issue, whatever its nature
and on whatever scale or level it may be located. It also requires that
we take a closer look at our conceptualization on all levels, including
the most aggregate and, thereby, the least scrutinized ones.
For example, although I must use broad terms like society for
convenience and communication, such terms are not very helpful in a
meaningful attempt to understand the many different aspects and
dimensions of the human condition, or of processes of globalization
for that matter. By their summary nature and unmanageability, these
archetypical constructions illustrate Kants worst fears about large
concepts that describe little and explain less. They serve as blankets,
covering rather than revealing. Perhaps a reasonable compromise be-
tween conceptual clarity and convenience would be to use them as
denotative terms in the way that Eric Wolf (1982: 18) has suggested for
society: To designate an empirically verifiable cluster of interconnec-
tions among people, as long as no evaluative prejudgements are added
about its state of internal cohesion or boundedness in relation to the
external world.
The concept of culture gives rise to similar worries. The recent dis-
cussion between Wallerstein and Boyne (in Featherstone, 1990) sup-
ports the relevance of my concerns. With all his dependency on
evolutionism and positivistic Marxism, Wallerstein (1990: 65) actually
comes out of this debate with fewer scars than Boyne if for no other
reason than the following insight:
On the importance of studying culture, I feel about it the same way as
I feel about studying economics or politics. It is a non-subject, in-
vented for us by nineteenth-century social science. The sooner we un-
think this unholy trinity, the sooner we shall begin to construct a new
115
historical social science that gets us out of the many cul-de-sacs in

which we find ourselves. Emphasizing culture in order to counterbal-
ance the emphases others have put on the economy or the polity
does not solve the problem it in fact just makes it worse. We must
surmount the terminology altogether. . . . I confess I have no easy sol-
ution to offer. I am as much a victim of my education as my colleagues.
So I fall back on using the existing conceptual language in order to
communicate. But I assert that I am in search of better, and that
world-systems analysis, if it has any value whatsoever, is part of this
search, one incarnation of our collective quest for a radically revised
conception.
However, despite this insight and his commitment like mine to a
search for an improved language, Wallerstein fails to realize that the
conceptual framework of the world systems analysis suffers from the
same weaknesses that he wishes to remedy. Indeed, we need to be wary
about all boxlike concepts, similar to those of society and culture
such as system, community and others, that emphasize content as
process and consistency rather than flexibility and variation.
How, then, can we get out of the dilemma imposed on us by the
conventional use of often irrelevant taxonomic boxes? Before I begin
to make proposals, we need to remember the fundamental fact that
what severely hampers our ability to describe, understand and
handle flows and processes is ultimately caused by the classificatory
and thereby static nature of all human languages. Above all we have
to accept that the problems created by our neurological wiring, of
which language is a part, can be overcome to some degree by ap-
plying language as a kind of film mirroring Thaless river of re-
ality providing consecutive frames and tailoring the interval
between these frames as skilfully as possible to the nature of the
flows that we aim to capture.
But the unavoidable fact is that our perceptions and our language
are freezing both our perceptions and our statements about them as
well as our propositions about what causes those perceptions and ulti-
mately the resulting images. We can do very little about that until
some visitor from another galaxy teaches us a new language of con-
tinuously self-producing and self-reproducing information that either
identifies with, or corresponds perfectly to, the constantly changing
flows of events out there as well as of the in here processes of our im-
ages. Until then, we can only remind ourselves of our linguistic im-
prisonment and admire the titanic efforts of James Joyce in his
seventeen years of struggle with Finnegans Wake (Joyce, 1966) to make
116
Social fieId and cultural constellations:

language flow and change in the same way as Anna Livia Plurabelle
environs Here Comes Everybody in her incessant permutations.
In spite of our tragic destiny there might be something that we can
do rather simply. We can, for instance, choose to use a language indi-
cating even if it fails to capture the flows of reality. We can use
structuring instead of structure, valuating instead of values, acting in-
stead of action, and so forth.
Interest, fields and social gravity

By accepting the fluid and inconsistent nature of human experiences,
the actions they generate and the images that they create, we have al-
ready taken an important step forward. Next, I suggest that we search
for a language that reflects these insights by using metaphors such as
fields, clusters, constellations, dimensions and aspects which we might
temporarily remove from their total context for observation and reflec-
tion without imprisoning our thoughts for ever in neatly constructed
boxes of sectors, structures and systems.
But, alas, it is not the fluid and flowing nature of reality that has been
honoured with scientific or academic attention, but our taxonomy and
structure-oriented distortion of these. No wonder we continue to find
what we search for and, in doing so, widen the gulf between human ex-
perience and scientific abstraction. And what is worse even if it might
have made Plato happy our classifications have been either assumed
or unreflectedly treated as though they had an existence of their own. At
the very least, our conceptual language ought to indicate that there is no
such thing as social, economic, political, nutritional or medical prob-
lems. There are problems with these aspects.
People do not live in sectors. They live in a total reality room of
their own that has a constantly changing construction, and which con-
tains many different layers or aspects, in various combinations, con-
stellations and mixtures. These features of the social construction of
reality require, paradoxically perhaps, both a holistic approach in re-
search and analysis and a disaggregated methodology in order to ap-
proach and capture the different aspects, and what is valid and
relevant to a person in a specific situation. One possible solution to
this paradox is that, while doing the more individual tasks, the total
context has to be remembered, refined and referred to time and time
again, in order to make our specific inquiries progressively more
117
trustworthy and meaningful. This is one of the many theoretical justi-

fications for taking global contexts and processes into account.
So far I have only been able to indicate the need for changes in our
mind-sets. This is important as we seek to close the gap between scien-
tific abstraction and human experience. We need, however, to avoid
the danger of intellectual anarchy, which might be tempting but not
very helpful, if we want to communicate with one another. Having ac-
knowledged the basically fluid nature of reality and the fact that an im-
portant part of ordering and structuring are projections of organizing
principles applied by the observer, there is certainly also a need to
identify generative and structuring principles outside the observer.
This immediately invites consideration of actors, agency, interest and
other sources for which I use the illustrative term gravity.
In an attempt to locate social processes, especially those of the lar-
gest scale, Marx will always reign as the giant pioneer, regardless of our
scientific or political inclinations. But, like the evolutionists to which he
belonged, there is little room for variation in his definition of agency,
without which the wide fluctuations in the collective manifestations of
the social and the cultural would be difficult to account for.
One of the first to argue consistently the importance of more con-
text-specific interests is Fredrik Barth. Why his contribution has not
been in my view sufficiently acknowledged is not for me to analyse
here. It might be because he chose to use a language that was close to
the classical economists theory of rational man and to theories of
maximization, and the fact that he did not articulate clearly enough, as
did Bourdieu (1977), Ortner (1984) and Hechter (1987), the interplay
and reciprocity between the perspective of the actor and the accumula-
tion of continuous acting into something which frozen over sufficient
periods of time could be called structure.
During the 1960s and 1970s there were clearly also ideological
fashions and hang-ups which prevented a correct understanding of his
writings and his intentions. To me it is obvious that, correctly under-
stood, Barth was far ahead both in his balancing of an actor-focused
theory with a pragmatic structural ambition, and in so far as the so-
called theory of practice in both Bourdieus and Ortners definitions is
complementary to his proposals rather than innovative or alternative.
Be this as it may, Bourdieus combination of both pragmatism and
theoretical tentativeness makes his description of interest and his con-
cept of habitus helpful to our efforts here (Bourdieu, 1990: 87 et seq.).
Although it is also rather content-oriented, habitus is certainly an
118

improvement on the concepts of society and culture. In addition, it

helps us better to comprehend the fundamental issue of rootedness and
the nature of different sources of identity in a changing world. This is
especially important in a discussion of globalization, which often tends
to emphasize the erosion of such qualities. However, in spite of this
and of the deepened insights that the theory of practice has contributed
to social science, it has considerable difficulty in managing problems of
change, flows, flexibilities, alternative approaches and the like. This
has drawn me to concepts such as fields and similar, more dynamic
metaphors. Bourdieu (1990: 87 et seq.) frequently refers to fields, espe-
cially as they relate to professional areas of interest. However, I would
like to take it further.
During my early fieldwork, I soon ran into difficulty with such con-
cepts as community and village, and even the less dogmatic term of
neighbourhood. I found it much more helpful to circumscribe the so-
cial umland of activities, whether they were firmly or more loosely in-
stitutionalized (Knutsson, 1967). The most obvious were the umlands
of the local market, the local legal institutions, the various religious
centres, the marriage contract, the human-resource pool organized for
production, and so forth, The mapping of these created a community
of fields, which so overlapped in the same locality that people easily
and readily commuted from one to the other without any serious or
noticeable consideration of alternative choices. As an indication of the
importance of this concept of field and of the factors generating and
maintaining it, I propose the term social gravity field.
This is quite different from the concept of community as a bounded
system. One advantage at the time was that it helped me overcome the
artificially imposed conceptual borders between what could be called
inside or outside and between levels of interaction. Given differences
in the strength of interests and purpose, the mainly localized fields were
stretched or compressed without creating any theoretical or practical
difficulties at least not extraordinarily so for the actors themselves.
Essential forms of self-identification were, in general, based within the
fields in which membership was permanent and non-selective.
My choice of social gravity field as a central metaphor in the con-
ceptual framework for this chapter is not the only one to be contem-
plated. It is obvious, for example, that the concept of field is closely
related to that of niche. Globalization could, for instance, be discussed
in terms of the globalization of niches. We could describe some of the
phenomena in the case of girl-trafficking in rural Nepal as the creation
119
or expansion of a niche being populated and increasingly controlled by

a new species of entrepreneur making use of an expanding market of
gender exploitation and sexual violence.
There are two reasons why despite the relative clarity of the con-
cept of niche, as it has been formulated by Boulding (1978: 13) I
prefer the metaphor and the creativity that the concept of gravitational
field offers. First, the term niche belongs basically to the category of
more rigid content concepts. Thus, it does not help us understand
how people can be members of, and interact in, different social fields
more or less at the same time.
Second, the niche concept is less suited to description or explana-
tion of rapid changes. The metaphor of a social gravitational field with
its centre(s) in certain interests is much more helpful here. Change, for
example, obviously occurs because certain interests given the ever-
present asymmetry in any field and between such fields at any one
time are winning over other interests.
Yet another approach has been suggested recently by Appadurai
(1990: 296) who introduces the metaphor of different scapes such as
ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, finanscapes and ideoscapes
(a similar but more sectorized approach was suggested by Boulding,
1985). Appadurai qualifies these concepts as deeply perspectival con-
structs. Nevertheless, the metaphor of interest-based social gravity
field maintains its advantages. The major ones are that the field-crea-
ting and -maintaining factors are not restricted to some pre-defined
sector or scape that constrains Appadurais proposals but are always
contextual, regardless of whatever simplifying classifications we use to
aid us in our search and identification of different fields. Further, the
idea of a social gravity field offers a correspondence between the per-
spectives of the actors/participants and the observer/analyst. In addi-
tion, the contextuality of its binding force allows for very varying
interpretations of its nature by the participants in a field without
weakening its ability to bind. Perhaps the most important advantage
is that any social gravity field contains, or can contain, all the charac-
teristics of all the scapes that Appadurai is forced to separate.
When I propose changes in our conceptual framework and in the
metaphors that might serve as isotopes in our search, I am well aware
that my suggestions might aggravate or hide the problems I am trying
to reduce. If we fail to apply the utmost care in the use of our concepts,
then interest, gravity field and constellation may, in some different
form, reintroduce ontological dilemmas resembling those affecting cul-
120

ture, society and other similar blanket concepts. We might create an-
other set of assumptions that consciously or unconsciously can
transform the proposed tools for orientation, search and analysis into
metaphysical premises rather than as they are intended. To some ex-
tent these risks are created by the freezing nature of human language.
Nevertheless they have to be vigorously exposed and resisted. The best
antidote perhaps the only one is to be aware of them.
These risks are especially great in relation to the concept of interest.
Here I only stress that interest always needs to be contextually defined.
It is always acted upon by an individual. It does not follow that it is re-
stricted to the individual. As in the case of community that I have al-
ready discussed, interests can be transmitted in such a way and overlap
to such an extent that individuals easily and preferably share them with-
out any serious or noticeable consideration of alternative choices
(cf. Bourdieu, 1990: 108). Without attempting to sort out other epi-
stemological complications, I suggest that we identify such an empirical
aggregation of interests as the source of social gravity with the potential
of generating a social gravity field. This does not exclude the possibility
that such sharing can also be imposed by the very power behind a domi-
nant interest, without the voluntary consent of all members in a field.
Depending on the degree of relationships and the compatibility of
their sources of gravity (interests), fields can combine into constella-
tions of fields such as might occur in a neighbourhood, business firm
or nation. But they can also disaggregate temporarily or more perma-
nently into simpler componential gravity fields as well as reassociate
themselves temporarily or permanently with other fields, again de-
pending on the nature and compatibility of the field-generating gravity
sources. This oscillation between aggregation and separation and reas-
sociation, in varying combinations and with different durations, ap-
pears to represent admittedly in very abstract and generalized
terms what is happening today, also on a global scale.
Cultural constellations
While proposing the metaphor of social gravity fields, I should point
out that the source of such a field-generating gravity force cannot be
reduced to any simplistic organizational purpose or some kind of in-
terest as such. It invariably contains values, knowledge, assumptions,
beliefs, preferences of habits and styles of behaviour, idioms and codes
121
of communication. All of these not only condition the articulation of

interest: the interest itself is often constituted or influenced by such fac-
tors. They also represent the aspects of the reality room that are
usually classified as culture. Some are reinforced in that they clearly re-
late to, underpin, maintain and strengthen a field or a combination of
fields of social gravity. Such images have generally achieved some de-
gree of intergenerational validity. Other species of images have more
limited duration as a result of an ongoing testing of efficiency, validity
and comparative advantage in relation to other images. They are com-
bined, disaggregated and recombined depending on the projects that
we are involved in or because of their varying relationship to some
other social gravity field of which they are also part.
Although boundaries are fluid, certain clusters or constellations of
images, idioms and expressions of meaning tend to coincide with social
gravity fields. Using a commonsense language, reality could be de-
scribed as a combination of major strands or dimensions (the physical,
the technical, the organizational, the informational and the valu-
ational) that for heuristic purposes can be analytically separated but
which in real life are inseparable aspects of all our projects. The mani-
festations and representations of these dimensions are the outcome of
human efforts at exploring, imaging, knowing and valuating through
which we use, combine, borrow, invent or reinterpret available ma-
terial. If the forces towards permanency are sufficiently strong, they
might give rise to some cultural constellation or constellations of va-
rying duration that provide sets of resources for the ongoing construc-
tion of knowledge and meaning constantly taking place at all levels of
management of ones daily life.
Conceived and understood in this way, the concept of social grav-
ity field and its mirroring in cultural constellations experiments in
approximations as they clearly must be can help us overcome some
unnecessary or artificially produced problems and unhelpful perspec-
tives in social and cultural studies that are reflections of hidden or ex-
plicit ontological assumptions.
Furthermore, the metaphors suggested can also assist us at least
to some extent in the prevention, and perhaps even cure, of another
academic disease, which I shall call academico-centrism. It reminds me
of a poem by the Finnish poet, Edith Sodergran, who wrote: You
looked for a woman; you found a soul; you are disappointed. Trans-
lated to the academic world, the same insight would read: You looked
for systems; you found people; you are incompetent. The urge to con-
122

struct or describe systems and the emphasis put on consequence and

consistency is still a major driving force and sometimes an honour-
able one among academics. The major problem is that real life rarely
corresponds to such dreams. Life and its management is an ongoing
project in an environment where inconsistency is the norm and where
the construction of systems both of actions and ideas is happily left,
to use an Indian expression, to the chattering classes.
Finally, nebulous as they are, we need metaphors of the kind I have
proposed to be better equipped to handle the issues of boundaries and
thereby of the interaction of fields and constellations. In a situation
where the globe is the relevant space for many important human
undertakings and reflections, we might have expected that the issue of
borders would be somewhat minimized. We see daily that the opposite
is true. As social gravity fields and their accompanying variations of
cultural constellations are created, expand, meet, retreat or disaggre-
gate, borders of various kinds are proliferating.
What we seem to be witnessing at the moment is a major global
shift in what people regard as basic sets of boundaries. This, to a great
extent, has its roots in dramatic changes of the strength and nature of
the forces of gravity, organizational as well as valuational, in some
core geopolitical and economic fields. But I also feel that there is an-
other set of factors at work: that when for more and more people the
globe the little bluish ball that Neil Armstrong first saw from space
in 1969 provides the borders for field expansion and field interaction,
other types of boundaries are also affected.
In a paradoxical twist, Barbara Wards ethically attractive plea for
only one earth can be interpreted in several ways. The rationale
underlying her insight could, contrary to her intention, serve as an ef-
fective reminder to people and nations and especially to those at the
centre of dominant fields, that as resources are limited, their strategy
should be to intensify their control and maximize their utilization of es-
tablished fields. On the positive side, conservation and saving of re-
sources, which was one of Wards major recommendations, may not
be the only alternative. The perceptions of final global limits might
well lead to the identification and development of new potentials, new
interests, new knowledge, new fields and new boundaries, again de-
fying our conventional perceptions of the rules of entropy. Identifying
and analysing processes of these kinds, and suggesting informed and
ethically acceptable choices between them, might be the biggest and
most demanding challenge that our profession has ever faced.
123
Towards an agenda for research on globalization

It is helpful in a scientific project to identify and somehow restrict a ter-
ritory for study. One reason is the Kantian experience that the broader
our concepts are, the less they explain. The other more pragmatic rea-
son is to define a bounded region and then accept what is found in it
(including what is entering and leaving while the observation is going
on) as the given universe of enquiry (Hagerstrand, 1986: 195). This
ought to be complemented with a constant ambition to alter the defini-
tion of a research territory in accordance with the changes in knowl-
edge, definition of problems, application of methodologies, theoretical
conclusions and new theoretical assumptions that a study constantly
generates (cf. Tornebohm, 1974; Knutsson, 1990). Extended to its ulti-
mate philosophical consequences, this approach is not only a step in
restricting and trying to come to grips with the complexities inherent
in any area of research, but is also linked to fundamental characteris-
tics of the human condition.
We are all ultimately subject to an imprisonment in space/time within
the limits formed by the speeds by which it is possible to move and as-
semble inputs, by the bounded capacity of population members to en-
gage in more than one task at a time, by the limited number of life-lines
to draw upon for co-operation and prey, and by the limited capacity of
space to provide rooms for pockets of local order and for movement in
between [Hagerstrand, 1986: 212].
For the sake of convenience, this could be taken as an illustration of a
systems approach, albeit an ambitious one, including the conven-
tional four dimensions as well as those of mind, meaning and purpose.
Transferred to the issue of globalization, it forces us if we want to
understand the nature of alternatives and the number of possibilities
that such an approach offers us to extend its boundaries to coincide
with the boundaries of the planet Earth itself.
It is an approach that certainly provides us with one useful perspec-
tive for a research on processes of globalization. But it requires a lot of
qualifications. I have included it here for two major purposes. The first
is that if we want to carry out studies of this nature we must somehow
come to grips with the problem of boundaries be they empirically
possible to map or of a more theoretical nature that allows us to de-
complexity and disaggregate in order to be able to pursue a re-
searchable project of inquiry. The second reason is that a definition of
a bounded territory of inquiry in its time/space dimensions points
124

away from simplistic content analysis and conventional use of content-

biased concepts towards a focus on processes, fields, field-generating
factors and the changing constellations of such factors based on some
sort of energy of gravity such as interest, purpose or aspiration, or to-
wards similarly dynamic concepts such as localities used by Leeds
(1973).
It is against this background that I want to raise some further ques-
tions that may help us identify topics for research on processes of glo-
balization and make some suggestions about what anthropology
might contribute. I do not pretend to be aware of all the problems or
even of the necessary minimum of these that we need to address. At
the same time, I have to avoid dealing with some other problems that
I am aware of. I regret both deficiencies. The first is simply to be ex-
pected, and the second has to be accepted as I am attempting to man-
age questions of a very high degree of complexity and in doing so I
need to avoid overcomplexity.
As everything is very complex and in some way relates to every-
thing else, it can be helpful to somehow circumscribe and harness com-
plexity as a problem and thereby permit oneself to operate on a more
pragmatic level of honest simplification. This is quite different from the
unreflected simplification engaged in by the addicts of taxonomy (who
constitute the majority in the scientific community). The qualification
of honesty also means that one strives to maintain linkages and corre-
spondence between experience and abstraction and consciously pro-
vides channels of communication between ones decomplexified
propositions and the complexities they derive from or refer to.
I have already earlier in this chapter imposed on myself another
rather demanding imperative, namely, that whatever the nature of the
tools I propose, they shall be unrestricted in their application. In other
words, they should be so constructed that they can serve us in explor-
ing, describing, analysing and reflecting on any social or cultural issue,
whatever their nature and scale and at whatever level they are located.
Thus, in pursuing this ambitious project, I am trying to be aware of
complexity without drowning in it. Morin (1986: 63) has some good
advice to give for such an exercise:
The problem of complexity is not one of completeness, but rather of in-
completeness of knowledge. In a sense, complex thought tries to take
account of what is discarded and excluded in the mutilating type of
thoughts that I call simplifiers, and thus, it combats not incomplete-
ness, but mutilation. For example, if we think of the fact that we are
125
physical, biological, social, cultural, psychic and spiritual beings, com-

plexity is obviously that which attempts to link or identify these as-
pects by highlighting the differences between them, whereas simplified
thought either separates these different aspects or unities them through
a mutilating reduction. Thus, in that sense, the manifest goal of com-
plexity is to become aware of the links that are broken by these separ-
ations between disciplines, between cognitive categories, and between
types of knowledge. In fact, aspiring to complexity means aiming at
multi-dimensionality. It does not imply giving all the information on
an observed phenomenon, but respecting its diverse dimensions.
Some suggestions by anthropologists for anthropologists

Complexity should not be dealt with on the level of thought only. As
an anthropologist I am very concerned with how we can observe,
document and analyse more complex constellations of transactions,
agglomerations of artefacts and large and fluid networks, and make
observations and assessments on larger scales than we are used to in
our professional community of small-scale fieldworkers.
Anthropology, with its theoretical and methodological traditions,
has had special difficulties coming to terms with issues of globalization.
It has even had difficulties in understanding its importance. Wolf,
Worsley and Hannerz are exceptions rather than the rule (Wolf, 1982;
Worsley, 1984; Hannerz, 1986, 1987, 1990).
I do not intend to review here the contributions made so far, an-
thropological or otherwise. Instead I want to provide a few examples
that relate to my previous conceptual trekking in the vast landscapes
of globalization. They also illustrate the type of issues that we increas-
ingly need to deal with.
Without pretending to formulate a definition of what might con-
stitute a study of globalization, we nevertheless need to assume as a
minimum basis for agreement that something in a global process (of
globalization) has some connection with the whole globe, or that the
globe somehow is connected with the issue of the borders of some
field of interaction or communication. This, then, will in turn affect the
identification of research problems, the formulation of assumptions
and our research methodology. Thus, we need to document it and
trace such processes on all levels of manifestation, that is, the central,
the intermediate and those on which people, whatever their concerns,
live and manage their lives.
126

This is not simply a vague criterion of what globalization research

needs to cover. It also indicates where anthropology ought to direct its
main interest and where it might also have a comparative advantage,
namely in the study of how processes of these kinds actually affect the
resources material, mental or man-made which, in combination
and recombination, form the basis for human management of life on
all levels, including the local. This might sound like the old argument
for a deeper recognition of the need to include the macro-micro inter-
action in anthropological studies. But studies of globalization must go
beyond such a relationship where the macro-level has been introduced
very much as a black box, and involve itself in the study of the mani-
festations of a process of globalization on various levels, the actors and
permutations on those levels, the flow of the processes and the mecha-
nisms propelling that flow. However, on these issues, which are cer-
tainly central to any proposal for a research agenda, I hope that the
examples chosen will provide more effective illustrations than any ten-
tative theorizing might achieve.
Global penetration, global profit:

creating business-fields and business-culture
in the 1990s
It should come as no surprise to any of us that a large number of the
dominant processes of globalization are meticulously planned and
pursued. This has always been the case regardless of the size of the
defined world; and globalization is, in this regard, similar to other
processes based on power, niche-control and the application of infor-
mation, quite independent of differences in scale. The critical difference
at this historical juncture may be the recognition in boardrooms,
cabinets and committees that the physical limits of the globe increas-
ingly identify the boundaries for spatial expansion. Because of this, in-
vestment of energy is focusing more and more on creating and
improving the tools needed for in-depth penetration towards domin-
ance of a technology niche rather than towards total spatial coverage.
With the role of the state or country becoming increasingly blurred as
agency, this has led to new strategic and tactical patterns (cf. Griffin
and Khan, 1992: 59 et seq.).
In a recent and principally normative article, Rhinesmith
(1991: 25 et seq.) gives us some rather frightening glimpses of such
127
processes. He admits that global strategies and structures are impor-

tant, but stresses that the heart of a global organization is its corporate
culture. It is the means through which global strategies and structures
are executed to ensure global competitiveness and profitability.
According to Rhinesmith, a global corporate culture comprises the
vision, values, policies, procedures, systems and practices of an organi-
zation. These include elements such as: (a) a globally inspiring
mission; (b) a global corporate vision; and (c) global information
sources and decision-making criteria that reflect both global and local
values. These are pursued through culturally clear decision-making
practices; formal and informal networking and integration mecha-
nisms; global functional and corporate meetings and conferences; glo-
bal career path strategies for key management cadres and
cross-cultural management training and development practices as well
as global management training centres for multinational cohorts of
employees. Once an organization has achieved these cultural com-
petences it is able to scan the global environment for trends and frac-
tures, develop global visions and mind-sets, build global bridges and
alliances, reframe global problems to create new solutions and com-
municate cross-culturally in an actionable way. He argues that organ-
izations that follow such integrated agendas can make significant
progress towards an effective global control in their area of interest and
competence by aligning their people and cultures with their global
strategies and structures.
I have included these telegraphic references to the strategies of glo-
bal commercialization as a reminder to us that one of the mightiest
forces behind the ongoing and accelerating globalization is still the
purposeful, powerful and unscrupulous lust for profit, which either
crushes everything in its path or transforms what is perceived as resist-
ance into subservient fields increasingly populated by transplanted
intellectual and political Barbie dolls.
Negotiating world-views:
the case of international adoption of children
One comparatively minor aspect of the rapid globalization of ex-
change is the internationally managed adoption of children. This has
sometimes taken and continues to take exploitative and abusive forms.
Children are treated as commodities and sold for export by unscrupu-
128

lous middlemen often with the acquiescence of conniving or bribed of-

ficials. In the more acceptable programmes, adoption takes place fol-
lowing a serious search for the purpose of identifying compatible
partners children and potential parents for a lasting and beneficial
relationship.
In the 1970s I set out to document experiences of this very special in-
ternational process, which in its more acceptable version could perhaps
be called one of cultural combination, in addition to its character of ex-
change. I therefore brought together a group of social workers and rep-
resentatives of voluntary child-activist groups in Sri Lanka and their
counterparts in Sweden. The latter were representatives of adoption
agencies and adoptive parents associations. The triggering factor was a
press campaign in Sri Lanka that strongly agitated against interna-
tional adoption, whatever the needs of the children. The campaign had
very strong emotional overtones expressing distaste for the countrys
abandonment of its children. Behind it all, one could sense that interna-
tional adoption was regarded as an avowal of poverty, underdevelop-
ment and neglect and that this was hurtful to national pride.
In this situation I hoped that organizing a fairly prolonged en-
counter between the two sides would cast some light on the nature and
strength both of the reaction in Sri Lanka and the reaction to the cam-
paign among foster-parents. Secondly, the issue was also interesting in
terms of the centreperiphery and dependency discussion going on at
the same time.
As the discussion evolved, some of the reasons for the energy and
strength of the Sri Lankan views emerged. The same was true on the
Swedish side, where the debate had created a very negative attitude to-
wards what was seen as a callous attitude towards disadvantaged
children.
In spite of lengthy discussions the juxtaposition of views remained
and also deepened in the process. The attitude of the Swedish parents,
social workers and adoption volunteers can best be described as dog-
matic. To them the situation was clear. There were two sets of needs:
the needs of the abandoned or orphaned child moving towards a life of
poverty and neglect; and the pain of childless couples in Sweden cre-
ating a need for adoption. If these two needs on opposite sides of the
equation could meet, they would, as in mathematics, eliminate nega-
tives on both sides and the result would be positive.
The Sri Lankan position was totally different but equally strong.
The argument was that the Swedish equation omitted important facts
129
and qualities. However materially poor life might be, membership of

the Buddhist Sri Lankan community was the only way to meet the
need for identity, culturally and spiritually. In this the importance of
the countrys Teravada Buddhist tradition was openly articulated. The
Sri Lankans could not accept the responsibility in the long term of de-
nying the child whatever its situation the opportunity of liberation
from Samsaras imprisoning circle of returns. This could only be
achieved in a Buddhist environment which far outweighed any benefits
that a welfare state could provide. The Sri Lankans also argued that
many of the childs needs as perceived by the Swedes were either those
of the adopting parents, or produced by a consumer society and there-
fore artificial and, in real terms, detrimental. This the Swedes whose
exposure to cultural analysis was restricted to experience of some tour-
ist trips to, and some readings about, Sri Lanka could not under-
stand, much less accept.
Contact was broken off. Sri Lankas rules for foreign adoption
were considerably tightened. A global process of exchange with possi-
bilities of turning into a more symmetrical process of combining values
was weakened, and the messing around by an anthropologist in such
an important area was severely criticized, especially by the Swedes.
Two social fields had met, but in this case a global contact did not re-
sult in globalization probably because there was sufficient symmetry
in the relative power of the two interacting fields.
Similar values, different knowledge:

the creation of areas of understanding between
the global and the local
Miriam Were, a young Kakamega girl from Kenya, was educated by
the collective efforts of family, lineage and village members (Were,
1978). Finally she became a doctor and returned to Kenya. She wanted
as many of us do to make an effort to express her appreciation at
being educated (and in the process delocalized and globalized). She
went back to her village to try to deal with basic problems of child
health. She knew that parasite infestation in children was a major
problem and that the disciplined use of latrines was the solution. Her
information was received with skepticism and rejection: You are an-
other one destroyed by the books, she was told. The local belief was
that children were born with parasites and that the moral faults of the
130

parents in relation to the codes for dealing with their ancestors

caused this condition to turn into a destructive health problem for
their children. The remedy was to collect the faeces of the children and
bury them according to ritual instruction of the moral leader of the
community designated by the outsiders as the witch-doctor. Miriam
Were continued to teach and preach her views. Finally, she became
quite depressed realizing that it would take generations to translate the
message of her textbooks into practice.
In her desperation, Miriam Were asked herself how she could re-
main faithful to her own convictions and at the same time relate them
to existing local theories. She came up with the answer by trying to find
areas of agreement where both parties could remain honest to their
fundamental ideas and, by combining these, achieve mutually desired
results.
She called a meeting and said, in essence: I respect you. Let us do the
following. You are worried and spend a lot of time identifying the con-
dition of the faeces of your children. And then you spend time and
money getting advice on how to deal with the problem. Let us deal with
the problem together once and for all. Let us dig collective graves and
see to it that children always, or as often as possible, defecate in those
graves. Do the prescribed rituals on every occasion, regardless of the
condition, and both the child and you will be safe. In eighteen months,
and with small support from UNICEF, she single-handedly persuaded
42,000 households representing approximately 240,000 people to
step up the building and use of latrines from 3 to 97 per cent. Two fields
of knowledge had met. Between them an acceptable area of agreement
had been identified. Within this framework the local and global valu-
ation of child health also came together. The combination of the two led
to a noteworthy improvement in child health.
The doctor succeeded thanks to sheer common sense, where I had
failed in the case of intercultural adoption, by finding an effective
bridge between global and local knowledge, between global and local
practice and between global and local values.
Postscript
These briefly summarized cases and challenges bring me back to where
I started with reality as lived by people. Such cases help to emphasize
that the issue of globalization must be considered not as a new fad but
131
as an invitation, indeed an obligation, to look deeply into the nature

and possible contributions of social science and, therefore, into the na-
ture of our fundamental assumptions about our subject-matter and
our profession.
My comments here are intended to contribute to this debate. After
all it is only by taking our theoretical obligations seriously that we can
with some scientific and ethical credibility return to the situation of the
girl child in the hills of Nepal with a proposal that social science can be
a partner in her struggle for human dignity.
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133
C H A P T E R 8
Women and industrialization

in the Caribbean:
a comparative analysis
of the global feminization of labour
Helen I. Safa
Although there were variations by country, the period from 1950

to 1980 in Latin America and the Caribbean featured considerable
economic growth, with total production increasing fivefold and per
capita production doubling. Industry expanded and diversified, with
manufacturing output increasing sixfold between 1950 and 1987, while
the tertiary sector grew at an even faster rate, together with a decline in
agricultural employment. Population more than doubled from 1950
to 1980, and there was a marked shift towards urban areas where the
total population increased from 40.9 to 63.3 per cent over the same
period. Urban growth, which concentrated in large cities, was due
largely to internal migration, particularly of women and young adults,
and contributed to sharp declines in fertility as well as mortality, in-
cluding infant mortality. As a result, life expectancy increased to over
60 years in most countries, with a growing percentage of aged, espe-
cially women. Household size fell, particularly after 1960, and the
number of households headed by women grew to about 20 per cent.
Educational levels and employment rates grew for both sexes during
this period, but at a faster rate for women than for men. From 1950
to 1980, the size of the female labour force in Latin America and the
Caribbean increased threefold, with participation rates for women
growing from 18 to 26 per cent (ECLAC, 1988a: 7-9; ECLAC,
1988b: 1-3).
1. This is a revised version of an article entitled Economic Restructuring and

Gender Subordination published in Latin American Perspectives 85
(Spring 1995), 22 (2): 32-50.
135
Standing (1989) demonstrates that this pattern of global feminiza-

tion of labour with increased female labour-force participation and
declining male participation is not confined to Latin America and the
Caribbean, but is found in many developing as well as advanced indus-
trial countries, where international competition, labour deregulation
and structural adjustment measures have weakened workers bargain-
ing power. Labour-market deregulation cheapens wages by explicitly
abandoning formal labour regulations or simply weakening their im-
plementation, as in informal agreements between the state and multi-
nationals to prohibit unionization in export-processing zones. It is
manifest in a global trend to a shift from full-time paid employment,
with fixed wages and fringe benefits, to unprotected casual or tempor-
ary employment in export processing, subcontracting and homework
in the informal sector, all of which favour female labour. Women
workers are preferred in export processing because they are cheaper to
employ, less likely to unionize, and have greater patience for the te-
dious, monotonous work employed in assembly operations. Lim
(1990: 105) estimates that in the mid-1980s there were approximately
1.5 million women directly employed in export manufacturing in de-
veloping countries, between a third and a half of them in wholly or
partly owned foreign enterprises, which include not only multina-
tionals from the United States and other industrialized countries, but
also firms from other newly industrializing countries such as the Re-
public of Korea or Hong Kong. The bulk of these women are em-
ployed in Asia, with an increasing percentage in Latin America and the
Caribbean. In 1993, Asia accounted for 55 per cent of the worlds em-
ployment in export processing, while Mexico, the Caribbean, and Cen-
tral America represented 31 per cent (Wilson, 1992: 10).
The economic crisis that hit most of Latin America and the Carib-
bean in the 1980s accelerated the trend towards the globalization of fe-
male labour and threatened to overturn the progress of the previous
three decades. Unemployment and underemployment increased dra-
matically, the cost of living soared, and state subsidies for health, edu-
cation and other social services were cut, all of which threatened to
undermine womens newly won gains. At the same time, the crisis is in-
creasing the importance and visibility of womens contribution to the
household economy, as additional women enter the labour force to
meet the rising cost of living and the decreased wage-earning capacity
of men. The share of women in the labour force rose from 32 per cent
in 1980 to 38 per cent in 1988 (ECLAC, 1992: 59). The economic crisis
136
Women and industrialization in the Caribbean:

comparative analysis of the global feminization of labour
also increased the demand for female labour in the new maquilladora or
export-led industries promoted by the shift away from import substitu-
tion and the domestic economy towards export promotion in the inter-
national economy. The increased economic importance of women
coupled with the rise of female-headed households is challenging the
myth of the man as the principal breadwinner in Latin American and
Caribbean households.
This massive increase in womens wage labour as a result of econ-
omic restructuring has generated intense debate over its effects on
womens status. Does wage labour merely exploit women as a source
of cheap labour and add to the burden of their domestic chores? Or
does wage labour give women greater autonomy and raise their con-
sciousness regarding gender subordination? This chapter will attempt
to answer these questions by examining the factors affecting the impact
of paid labour on womens status in three countries of the Hispanic
Caribbean, Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, in which
I have conducted extensive research on women industrial workers
since 1980.2 These countries share common cultural and historical pat-
terns rooted in Spanish colonialism, plantation slavery and United
States hegemony, but differ radically in terms of state policy.
Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic have followed export-led
industrialization policies, which began in Puerto Rico as early as
the 1950s under Operation Bootstrap, and served as a model of ex-
port-led industrialization for other developing countries, even in Asia.
2. In addition to secondary data, this study is based on household surveys and

in-depth interviews conducted in all three countries at various periods.
In 1980 I supervised a survey of 157 women workers in three Puerto Rican
garment plants of the same manufacturer, while in 1981, CIPAF (Centro de
Investigation para la Accin Femenina), a private Dominican womens re-
search centre, conducted a survey of 231 women workers in the three oldest
export-processing zones of the Dominican Republic, and allowed me to
analyse this data. I conducted in-depth interviews among a subsample of
these Dominican and Puerto Rican women workers in 1986. The Cuban
survey of 168 women workers in a large textile factory was carried out
in 1986 by a team of researchers from the Federation of Cuban Women
under my supervision, and I returned in 1987 to conduct in-depth inter-
views with a subsample of these women. I am grateful to Magaly Pineda,
Director of CIPAF for providing me with the Dominican survey data and
to the Federation of Cuban Women, Francis Pou and Carmen A. Perz for
their assistance in the fieldwork in Cuba, the Dominican Republic and
Puerto Rico respectively. For a full report on these studies, see Safa, 1995.
137
Despite its current decline, the Puerto Rican model can offer impor-
tant lessons on the limitations of this model for self-sustaining growth.
The Dominican Republicj by contrast, is a classic case of recently ini-
tiated export manufacturing, with a total of 135,000 workers in
385 firms in free-trade zones in 1991 (Fundapec, 1992: 30), and has
become the leading source of exports under the Caribbean Basic
Initiative (CBI) in the Caribbean. Its success is directly attributable to
currency devaluations mandated by the IMF, which lowered the cost
of labour and other expenses in the Dominican Republic to one of the
lowest levels in the Caribbean,
The Cuban revolution in 1959 led to a radical transformation into
a socialist economy whereby the state took over most forms of produc-
tion and focused primarily on sugar exports and import substitution
industrialization. These policies provided full male employment in
Cuba until the economic crisis in 1990, resulting from the collapse of
Cubas trade with the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe and
the Soviet Union, which significantly altered many of the results de-
scribed here. However, as we shall see, the redistributive policies of the
Cuban socialist state also led to a decline in dependence on the male
breadwinner, even within a context of full male employment.
Differences in government policy have led to differential impacts
on male and female participation rates in Cuba, Puerto Rico and
the Dominican Republic, which have had profound implications for
the gender composition of the labour force in each country. In the
Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, male labour-force participa-
tion rates have declined or stagnated as a result of the disintegration
of the sugar economy and the emphasis on labour-intensive export
manufacturing and the growth of the service sector, employing
largely women. The more gradual decline in agricultural employ-
ment in Cuba and the absorption of men into import substitution
industrialization provided a stable source of male employment, at
the same time that the wage and consumer policies of the Cuban
state instituted in the 1970s promoted womens incorporation into
paid employment. However, the redistributive mechanisms of the
Cuban socialist state also made the household less dependent on
purchasing power to assure its basic needs, and lessened womens
dependence on male wages. The increased importance of womens
contribution to the household economy in all three countries eroded
male authority and led women to redefine their domestic role and
challenge the myth of the male breadwinner.
138

The key to understanding the impact of paid wage labour on

womens status is the importance of their contribution to the house-
hold economy. As long as women work but still depend primarily on a
male wage-earner, they are defined as supplementary wage-earners.
Most women continue to be seen as supplementary wage-earners at
the workplace, where they are confined to poorly paid, unstable jobs,
and by the state, where their domestic responsibilities as wives and
mothers are emphasized over their rights as workers or citizens. How-
ever, women themselves are becoming more aware of their critical con-
tribution to the household economy, and this has led many to
challenge male dominance, at least within the home, where women
have always had more legitimacy than in the public sphere of the work-
place and the state. This helps explain why, in my study, women have
gained more negotiating power in the household than at the level of the
workplace and the state, which is still considered the domain of men.
This suggests that there are various levels of gender subordination in
the family, in the workplace and at the state level and that these dif-
ferent levels, while linked, need to be kept analytically separate.
My analysis of women industrial workers in Puerto Rico, the Do-
minican Republic and Cuba reveals four fundamental factors which
condition the impact of paid wage labour on womens status:
State policy, particularly regarding development strategy, which af-
fects the demand for female and male labour and also affects supply
through the provision of educational resources and other state ser-
vices.
Access to income-producing resources, including the level of wages,
working conditions and other job-related factors, as well as alter-
nate income sources such as transfer payments, the informal sector
and migration.
The structure of the household, including the life-cycle of the women
employed, the number of contributors to the household economy
and support from kin.
Gender ideology, which is governed by cultural and structural factors
and affects the way in which women define their role, as sup-
plementary wage-earners or as major providers.
Traditional gender ideology which is rooted in separate spheres for
men and women, or the private/public dichotomy, may obfuscate the
contribution women make to the household and maintain the myth of
the male breadwinner. But, as we shall see, this ideology is breaking
down in each of the countries studied.
139
State policy
In Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, the states principal role
in export manufacturing is to create a favourable climate for foreign in-
vestment through investment incentives and the control of wages and
labour. Most garment-export manufacturing firms are direct subsi-
diaries of United States multinationals rather than domestic producers
subcontracted to these foreign investors. Workers in export processing
zones are generally entitled to the minimum wage, provided they can
meet their production quotas, since very few production workers are
paid a fixed wage, but operate on a piece-rate system. Labour control
can be achieved through outright repression or prohibition of unions
in free-trade zones, as in the Dominican Republic, or through co-opta-
tion of labour, as in Puerto Rico. Both repression and co-optation lead
to a weak and fragmented labour movement, which increases the vul-
nerability of female (and male) workers in both countries. Labour is
also weakened by structural adjustment measures which have resulted
in higher levels of unemployment and lower real wages. For example,
the real hourly minimum wage in the Dominican Republic declined by
62.3 per cent between 1984 and 1990, at the height of the crisis, while
unemployment rates in the same period never fell below 26 per cent,
and continue to be higher for women than for men. In Puerto Rico,
however, since 1950, unemployment rates have been higher for men
than for women, and in our sample survey of garment workers, 90 per
cent say it is easier for a woman than for a man to find a job.
Increased demand for female labour in export manufacturing and
the tertiary sector has contributed to rising female participation rates
in both countries, particularly in the Dominican Republic, where fe-
male labour-force participation increased from 9.3 per cent in 1960 to
38 per cent in 1991 (Ramrez et al., 1988; Baz, 1991). This rapid in-
crease also reflects the economic crisis, which forced women to com-
pensate for the declining employment opportunities and real wages of
men. As a result, working women are becoming major economic con-
tributors to the household and, in our sample of women workers in ex-
port manufacturing, 38 per cent consider themselves to be the major
economic provider. In Puerto Rico, too, the working womans salary
never represents less than 40 per cent of the total household income,
and for married women and female heads of household, is often much
higher.
In Cuba, the state is committed to a policy of full employment for
140

men, and has actively promoted womens incorporation into the la-
bour force as a means of promoting greater gender equality. In addi-
tion, the Cuban state instituted several measures to encourage women
to seek gainful employment, including: (a) greater educational oppor-
tunities, which eliminated illiteracy and led to a significant increase in
the number of women professionals and technicians; (b) special sup-
port services to alleviate womens domestic load, such as day care
centres, lunchrooms for students and workers, laundries, housing,
transportation to work sites, and special shopping plans; (c) puestos
preferences, or positions in which women would have preference, a
kind of affirmative action plan; and (d) the Family Code enacted
in 1975 to encourage couples to share household responsibilities and
child-rearing. Mass organizations such as the Federation of Cuban
Women (FMC) and the Frente Feminino or Feminine Front of
the CTC (Confederation of Cuban Workers) were also instructed to
promote the incorporation of women into the labour force. These
policies did not have any real impact until the 1970s when wage and
consumer policies reinforced womens desire to earn additional in-
come. At this point, womens share of the labour force climbed steadily
from 15.9 per cent in 1970 to 34.8 per cent in 1990 (Instituto de la
Mujer and FLACSO, 1992: 38).
In short, in all three countries, women are assuming greater econ-
omic responsibility in the household, but in Puerto Rico and the Do-
minican Republic this is also due to a decline in real wages and male
employment opportunities. Dominican and Puerto Rican women are
not only challenging the mans role as principal breadwinner, but are
in some cases being asked to assume that role, which may add to the
womans burden in the household.
Access to resources
State policy also plays an important role in determining women
workers access to resources, since it can influence wages and working
conditions (through the minimum wage and other regulations), pro-
vide social services such as education and day care centres, and re-
distribute income through transfer payments and redistributive
mechanisms such as rent control or agrarian reform. In a socialist state
such as Cuba, where almost all workers are employed by the state, and
where virtually all sectors of the economy have been nationalized, state
141
power is clearly stronger than in capitalist societies such as Puerto

Rico and the Dominican Republic, where the state is often at the mercy
of the private sector in defending workers rights.
In Cuba, women workers are guaranteed equal pay for equal work,
paid vacations and generous maternity benefits, and a much wider
array of support services than those found in capitalist societies. In
fact, in our sample, 68 per cent of the women earn 200 pesos or more a
month compared with 45 per cent of their husbands (not all of whom
work in the factory). However, wage differentials still exist because of
occupational segregation both within the workplace and between dif-
ferent sectors, with more women found in social service sectors such as
education and public health, where pay is lower than in industry or
other productive activities.
The new Cuban economic and management system instituted
in 1976 may have increased occupational segregation by putting pres-
sure on industry to reduce costs and increase productivity, which made
factory management give top priority to highly skilled workers, who
are generally male. In the textile mill studied, women production
workers are recruited primarily for lower-level work and are not given
certain jobs such as mechanics that offer the best salaries and the most
possibilities for advancement. At the intermediate level, women techni-
cians constituted half of the factorys labour force, while a third of the
engineers were women, but at the top level of management, there were
again only a few women. Women textile workers apparently experi-
ence higher rates of turnover and absenteeism because of their family
responsibilities, especially in production jobs, which demand rotating
shifts. The women textile workers we interviewed complained that
their chances for advancement were not equal to those of men and that
their needs for support services, especially day care centres and hous-
ing, are not adequately addressed.
Women are relatively recent recruits to the labour force in the fac-
tory, which has a strong male-worker tradition and may have led
union and management to undervalue women workers in comparison
with men. Male workers are also threatened by the continued increase
in women workers in the factory, and may try to defend their superior
status by barring women from more prestigious jobs and by devaluing
the work women do. As in recent studies of the textile industry in other
Latin American countries such as Brazil, Chile or Nicaragua, gender is
integrated into the hierarchical structure of production (cf. Humphrey,
1987; Galvez and Todaro, 1989; Perez Alemn et al., 1989). Occupa-
142

tional segregation in socialist or capitalist countries keeps women in

inferior job positions and defends the role of the male breadwinner.
The changes in the composition of the female labour force in all
three countries would appear to suggest some weakening of occupa-
tional segregation, as growing numbers of women enter the pro-
fessions, clerical work and the public sector. These changes again
reflect state policies which increased the supply of qualified women
workers through increased educational opportunities and lower fer-
tility levels, made possible by public access to birth control and abor-
tion in Cuba and Puerto Rico. However, in all three countries, women
are primarily concentrated in certain professions, focused on the social
services and clerical work.
It is harder to document occupational segregation within the work-
place in the garment plants studied in Puerto Rico and the Dominican
Republic, because virtually all production workers are women,
whereas management is entirely male. In Puerto Rico, this makes for a
very paternalistic setting in which older women are treated as girls,
and loyalty to the company is promoted over workers solidarity. The
Puerto Rican plants are unionized, but most women workers in our
s a m p l e r e g a r dthe International Ladies Garment Workers
Union (ILGWU) as a company union which does little to defend their
interests or invite rank-and-file participation. The unions primary in-
terest is in containing worker demands to retard the flight of garment
plants to cheaper wage areas elsewhere, but they have not been very
successful. In addition, the proportion of unionized workers in Puerto
Rico as a whole dropped from 20 per cent in 1970 to 6 per cent in 1988,
which can be partially blamed on the unions neglect of women
workers (Santiago Rivera, 1989: 93).
Despite migration and the growing employment of women, poor
families in Puerto Rico became increasingly dependent on transfer
payments such as social security or food assistance to support them-
selves. While seen as subsidies to workers, these transfer payments
are also aids to low-wage industries like garments that do not pay
an adequate wage and might otherwise leave the island because of
wage increases or a shortage of cheap labour. By providing alterna-
tive or supplementary sources of income, transfer payments further
reduce a womans dependence on a male wage, but increase her de-
pendence on the state. Transfer payments combined with slow job
growth also contributed to an overall shrinkage in the total popula-
tion of the labour force, which stood at 45.4 per cent in 1990;
143
in 1983, over half of all families were without wage-earners (Amott

and Matthaei, 1991: 278).
Wages and working conditions are much worse in the Dominican
export manufacturing plants, with brutal discipline, long working
hours and compulsory overtime. Workers are subject to the intense
pressure of high production quotas and to the constant threat of dis-
missal. Discontent is expressed in turnover or eventual withdrawal,
rather than through labour organizing. Unions have only recently
begun operating in the Dominican free-trade zones, and previously,
workers were dismissed and blacklisted with other firms for participa-
tion in union organizing. Dominican women workers in export manu-
facturing receive little support from the government in their struggle
for better wages and working conditions, and those who have tried to
take complaints of mistreatment or unjust dismissal to the Ministry of
Labour have generally been rejected in favour of management.
Why do workers not protest? Many factors contribute to the lack
of worker solidarity in Dominican and Puerto Rican export manufac-
turing plants, including the youth of, and constant turnover among,
workers, their recent entry into industrial employment, family respon-
sibilities and lack of job alternatives. In addition, the enclave pattern
of export-led industrialization in the Caribbean, combined with low
investment in research and development, and tariff regulations requir-
ing the use of United States materials, results in little skill or technol-
ogy transfer to these developing countries and dampens rather than
stimulates domestic production. This heavy dependence of the gar-
ment industry on United States capital, technology and markets, plus
the lack of linkages to the domestic economy in all areas but labour,
significantly reduces the countrys ability to generate capital and more
indigenous and capital-intensive forms of industrial production, either
in export processing or in the domestic economy, as occurred in Asia.
It also limits the growth of male employment, and further erodes the
mans role as economic provider.
In no country, then, do women share equal access to income-pro-
ducing resources with men, who still dominate the more highly skilled,
better-paid jobs and enjoy greater possibilities of advancement. This
cannot be explained by gender differences in educational levels, since
in all three countries womens educational levels are superior or equal
to those of men. Occupational segregation and wage differentials
would again appear to reflect the myth of the male breadwinner, al-
though Cuba has come furthest in combating this myth. Women are
144

no longer used as a cheap labour reserve, as in Puerto Rico and espe-

cially the Dominican Republic, and the array of support services pro-
vided to Cuban women may actually make them more expensive to
employ than men. In part, this stems from the fact that Cuba at-
tempted to reduce working womens double day through services pro-
vided by the state rather than giving priority to a more equitable
gender division of labour in the home advocated by feminists in capi-
talist countries.
The household economy

While they are relatively weak at the level of the workplace and the
state, where power must be exercised collectively, Dominican and
Puerto Rican women workers in export processing have begun to
assume more authority in the family. In both countries, the majority
of married women now maintain that they share household deci-
sions with their partners, and that men no longer have exclusive
budgetary control. Their authority in the home is derived from their
increased economic contribution to the household, which has taken
on major significance in the light of increased male unemployment
and its debilitating impact on a mans ability to be the sole bread-
winner. In short, it is not simply a question of whether women are
employed or not, but the importance of their contribution to the
household economy, which gives women a basis of resistance to
male dominance in the family.
Most women workers agree that paid employment has given
them greater legitimacy to negotiate with their husbands. In general,
more egalitarian relationships in all three countries seem to be found
among stable married couples who are both working and are better
educated. Most of the changes in household authority patterns have
come about through a gradual process of negotiation, in which
women use their increased economic contribution to the household
to bargain for greater autonomy and authority, though the changes
are less marked in the Dominican Republic than in Puerto Rico or
Cuba. Eighty per cent of the married Dominican women workers in-
terviewed still consider their husbands the head of the household,
and he tends to dominate financial decisions, such as making major
purchases or paying the bills.
Compared with the Puerto Rican sample, Dominican women
145
workers sampled are younger (three-quarters are under 30) with

young children to support, and they also have more children, which in-
creases their dependence on male wages. Households with young
children to support are in the most critical stage economically, and this
is the period when women are most dependent on men. The rate of
consensual unions is also much higher among Dominican than Puerto
Rican women, which increases the rate of marital instability. Domini-
can women have not been working as long and enjoy less protection
on the job. They are not entitled to transfer payments, which offer an-
other buffer to the unemployed and poorly paid workers in Puerto
Rico. Even some of the health services to which Dominican and Cuban
workers are entitled have been crippled by lack of funds and equip-
ment. These factors, coupled with the pressures of the economic crisis,
heighten the womans insecurity and her fear of challenging male do-
minance.
Female heads of household carry the heaviest financial responsi-
bility and constitute 27 per cent of our Dominican sample compared to
16 per cent of the Puerto Rican women, reflecting the higher rate of
marital instability generally among Dominican women. Most Domini-
can female heads of household are younger women separated from one
or more consensual unions, often initiated when they were very young.
Many of these women are reluctant to remarry, and cite the inde-
pendence that their work has given them as one of the reasons for re-
maining alone. For example, Teresa has worked in the Dominican
free-trade zones for ten years and is now a supervisor. At 38, she lives
alone, though she has had eight children in three consensual unions,
starting at age 13. The younger children still live with their father, and
she did not work while she lived with him. Her ability to leave this
marriage was clearly dependent on her finding employment, and she
says she would not quit working, even if she found another man, be-
cause:
They are machistas. They think that if the woman works, she will rule
too much, because thats the way it is here in Santo Domingo. That
when a woman works, they think she is liberal, a little too liberal, that
they cant mistreat or abuse her. . . . But many men when the woman
isnt working, the woman is obliged to wait, to have a bad time, to put
up with many things from a man. But when the woman is working,
then things change, because we are both working.
Teresa clearly expresses the dependence which lack of economic auton-
omy imposes on Dominican women.
146
Female heads of household are generally poorer, in part because

they have fewer wage-earners in the household. The age of the female
head of household also makes a difference. Many Puerto Rican heads
of household are older and live alone or with an older child or sister,
so they do not have young children to support, as in the Dominican
Republic and Cuba. They can manage on the low wages paid in the
garment industry, particularly if they own their own home. In addi-
tion, rural Puerto Rican households have a particularly tightly knit
network of kin and neighbors who help each other out in child care,
house-building, shopping, and may even ride to work together. Sixty
per cent of the younger women sampled have relatives working in the
same plant.
In the Dominican Republic, due to the cost of housing and child
care, women workers often leave their children with their mother or
other relatives in the rural area, and visit them once a week or less.
They often live alone, and send money regularly to their children and
parents. However, since their relatives live at some distance and are
also very poor, they cannot offer the same level of support as the rela-
tives of Puerto Rican or Cuban women workers, many of whom live in
the same neighbourhood.
The households of the Cuban women workers are the largest in the
sample, with 38 per cent consisting of five or more members. This is
partly due to the housing shortage in Cuba, which forces families to
double up, so that 41 per cent of the Cuban households contain three
or more generations, compared with only 17.8 per cent of the Puerto
Rican households, most of which are nuclear families with two genera-
tions. Extended families in Cuba often have the highest incomes be-
cause of the large number of wage-earners per household. In the
Cuban sample as a whole, nearly half of the households have three or
more wage-earners, compared with 16.5 per cent in the Puerto Rican
sample.
Many of these extended families consist of teenage single mothers
or recently married couples who continue to live with their parents or
in-laws, to whom they are clearly subordinate. There is a high rate of
teenage pregnancy in Cuba, despite the availability of contraceptives
and abortions, and nearly half of the women in our sample had their
first child before they were 20. Among female heads of household, this
figure is even higher, suggesting that teenage pregnancies contribute to
the problem of marital instability in Cuba, which has also grown
rapidly since the revolution. When teenage single mothers live with
147
their parents, the older generation continue to make the decisions and
administer expenses, and the mother often takes care of the children
while the daughter works. While this provides assistance to young
working mothers, it also perpetuates traditional gender roles and dis-
courages any challenge to male dominance. Crowded living quarters
also contribute to marital instability.
Three-generation households are even more frequent among fe-
male-headed households, which in our sample are almost equally
divided between these young single mothers and older women who
have their daughters living with them. Female-headed households
constitute 35 percent of the Cuban sample, higher than in Puerto Rico
or the Dominican Republic, even though the national percentage in
Cuba is lower than in either of the other two countries. Contrary to
the norm for larger extended families, 62 per cent of female heads of
household have only one or two wage-earners in the household and re-
ceive no assistance from the government, except for some priority in
obtaining employment. The fathers of these children are supposed to
contribute to their support, but few do, and several young single
mothers claim they do not want to press claims for support, because
this would give the father more authority over his child. For example,
Odalys receives no assistance from the father of her 3-year-old twins
and does not want any, because now they are mine alone and he has
no rights at all. Here we can see a clear correlation between economic
support and authority patterns.
As in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, paid employment
in Cuba has had an impact on authority patterns, since more than half
of the married women interviewed maintain that they make decisions
jointly with their husbands, and also administer expenses together.
Both husband and wife contribute heavily to the household, and they
often have the best-equipped households, with washing machines, re-
frigerators, radios and televisions. However, despite the Family Code
and the massive incorporation of women into the labour force, mens
household responsibilities have changed little. While men accept the
idea that their wives work, and probably also welcome the added in-
3. One reason for this discrepancy maybe the failure of national census figures
to list female heads of household who continue to live with their parents, in
which case the parents are considered as the head of the household.
148
come, most of them do not share in the housework or child care, nor
do their wives appear to encourage them.
The extended family pattern found in Cuba tends to perpetuate this
traditional division of labour, but it is also prevalent in Puerto Rican
and Dominican households where nuclear families predominate. In
none of the households in our study do men do much of the housework
or child care, except for occasional chores like shopping or paying the
bills. This suggests that authority patterns have changed more than the
gender division of labour, and can be partly explained by the perpetu-
ation of traditional gender ideology.
To summarize, there are clear variations both within and between
the samples in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic in
terms of family size, number of wage-earners in the household, age and
marital status of the household head, marital stability and aid from
kin, all of which affect household authority patterns as well as their
standard of living. Legally married, better educated couples in which
both husband and wife have stable jobs seem closer to an egalitarian
model of conjugal relations in each country, but they represent a dis-
tinct minority. Where women have had to assume the role of bread-
winner, this may produce conflict and lead to higher levels of marital
instability and female-headed households, as we have seen here. While
this form of economic restructuring may challenge the myth of the
male breadwinner, it merely shifts the burden of family survival from
men to women.
Gender ideology
Traditional gender ideology is more difficult to document than many
of the structural changes analysed thus far, because it is rooted in
womens dual productive/reproductive role. Traditionally, women are
charged with primary responsibility for domestic chores and child
care, whereas men are championed as the primary breadwinners. Des-
ignating men as the primary breadwinners maintains male control
over female labour, and creates separate spheres in which women are
confined to the private sphere, while men control the public sphere of
work and politics.
The public/private split in Western industrial society is even
stronger in Latin America and the Hispanic Caribbean, and dates back
to the Spanish colonial tradition of the casa/calle, where women were
149
relegated to the home and men to the street, as a way of maintaining

family honour and female virginity, fostered by Catholicism. These
norms were never fully followed by the poor and subordinated ethnic
groups such as African slaves and the indigenous population, where
women had to work to contribute to the familys survival. Neverthe-
less, the casa/calle distinction was upheld as the norm, and womens
wage work came to be even more stigmatized than in more White-
dominated industrialized countries because of its close association
with subordinated Black and indigenous groups. For example, in
Cuba in 1899, one year after United States occupation, nearly three-
quarters of all women wage-earners were Black and most were em-
ployed in domestic service, although Black people composed only a
third of the population (Prez, 1988).
As more women began to enter the labour force and upper-class
women were educated for professions such as teaching and nursing,
the stigma of womens wage labour began to fade, but the boun-
daries between the casa/calle or private and public spheres have not
been eroded to the extent they have in advanced industrial societies,
despite variations by class and race. The norm of the male bread-
winner is so strong that even among the working class, the role of
men as providers remains the ideal, relegating women to the role of
supplementary wage-earners. This reflects socio-economic differences
such as the lower and more recent incorporation of women, particu-
larly married women, into the labour force in Latin America as
compared with the advanced industrial countries. It also reflects cul-
tural differences rooted in gender ideology. Patriarchal laws cham-
pioning the man as provider and protector such as patria potestad
still prevail in many Latin American countries, while the rights of
women to divorce or equality before the law, or to control their own
sexuality through family planning or abortion are very limited. The
patriarchal family is upheld by the patriarchal state, which is com-
mitted to the maintenance of certain gender, racial and class hierar-
chies.
Even in Cuba, the Latin American country where the most radi-
cal measures have been undertaken to establish gender equality,
womens domestic or reproductive role continues to be emphasized.
For example, women are still barred from certain hazardous jobs for
fear it will endanger their reproductive capacity and until recently
only women could take leave from their jobs to tend to hospitalized
family members. The Family Code, though mandating the sharing
150
of responsibility within the household, is also aimed at strengthening

the family, which is threatened by rising divorce rates and teenage
pregnancies. Socialist support for the family is partly due to the
states recognition of the familys importance to social reproduction
and of its limited resources to replace totally the familys functions
in this regard (Bengelsdorf, 1985). In socialist as well as capitalist
societies, the contribution that the family makes to social reproduc-
tion greatly alleviates the role of the state. This is particularly evi-
dent in times of crisis, when the states resources are limited to the
extreme, placing additional burdens on the household to meet basic
needs. This has been most evident in Cuba during the special period
since 1990, but in Puerto Rico, and especially the Dominican Re-
public, structural adjustment policies have also shifted more respon-
sibilities from the state back to the household.
Conclusions
Has the casa/calle division been eroded through the massive incorpor-
ation of women into the labour force? Certainly working women in
Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic now have a more
visible presence in the public sphere, but as we have seen, they are still
clearly subordinated in the workplace and in the polity. In part, the
confinement of women to the home has been replaced by occupational
segregation, which allows women a limited representation in the work-
place in selected female occupations, which are often extensions of
their female role, even among professionals such as teachers and
nurses. Wage differentials between genders at all class levels also re-
inforce the notion of women as supplementary wage-earners depend-
ent on primary male breadwinners.
The lack of change in the gender division of household labour
among most of the women studied here is also evidence of the mainten-
ance of the casa/calle distinction. The fault lies not only with men but
with women themselves, who continue to define household chores and
child care as their primary responsibility, even if they are working full-
time and making a major contribution to the household economy. As
Stolcke (1984) notes, the family provides women with a social identity
which proletarianization as wage workers has not diminished. In fact
most of these women now consider paid employment part of their do-
mestic role, because they are working to contribute to the household
151
economy rather than for their own self-esteem or personal autonomy.

Among female heads of household, paid employment is critical to the
familys survival, and the extreme poverty of these households, par-
ticularly in the Dominican Republic, makes all women realize how dif-
ficult it is to get along without a male provider.
However, many Dominican and Puerto Rican women are being
forced to support their families without much help from men, because
high rates of labour-force participation for women have coincided with
declining job opportunities for men, due to the disintegration of the
domestic economy with the shift towards export-led industrialization.
All three countries suffer from a high rate of marital instability and fe-
male-headed households, but in Puerto Rico these have been allevi-
ated through transfer payments and in Cuba through redistributive
mechanisms such as rationing, which assure relative equality amidst
austerity (Prez-Stable, 1993). Dominican women are undoubtedly
the most exploited at every level and suffer the highest degrees of im-
miserization.
In short, to return to the questions posed in the introduction to this
article, women workers in capitalist countries are exploited as a result
of the global feminization of labour, while socialist countries such as
Cuba can no longer provide women with the safeguards that gave
women some support for meeting the burden of the double day. In-
creased labour-force participation has given women some measure of
economy autonomy, but the global economic crisis has also dimin-
ished male wage-earning capacity. The primary beneficiaries of this
form of economic restructuring are advanced industrial countries such
as the United States, which have promoted this strategy in order to re-
main competitive within an increasingly global market. Even in these
advanced industrial countries, workers, many of whom are women,
suffer from a loss of jobs due to relocation of production to other areas
of the country and abroad (e.g. Safa, 1981; Nash, 1989). Thus, econ-
omic restructuring weakens labour and strengthens capital. By placing
additional burdens on women and marginalizing men, it may be of
little benefit to either gender.
Gender consciousness is growing as the contradiction between
womens increasingly important economic contribution to the house-
hold and their subordination in the family, in the workplace, and in the
polity becomes more apparent. But the myth of the male breadwinner
is preserved by public forms of patriarchy embedded in the state and
the workplace, which continue to profit from womens subordination.
152
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C H A P T E R 9
Nationalities
in post-Soviet global changes
Valery A. Tishkov
On the phenomenon of ethnicity

Recent events in post-Communist countries have exposed a quite com-
mon tendency, which is that many societal processes, in the midst of
deep social change and radical reform, develop an ethnic content in a
highly manifest form. Discussion of the reasons for and forms of con-
flicting ethnicity has become one of the main centres of interest for
todays social scientists (Stavenhagen, 1990; Horowitz, 1991; Ruper-
singhe et al., 1992; Gurr, 1993). In the Russian Federation the topic is
at the centre of academic and public debate. In spite of significant in-
tellectual efforts, the results look disheartening. Society, and its policy-
makers and governors, are insisting increasingly that scholars give
objective analyses as the basis for adopting decisions rather than
making ideological invocations, and practical advice for policy and
public administration. In turn, scholarship, though liberated from
ideological dictates, continues to demonstrate a detachment from life,
the dissemination of mutually exclusive opinions, and the weakness of
forecasting.
The drama of the situation stems not only from methodological
differences, political orientations and researchers personal commit-
ments, but also from a deeper controversy. An affirmation of demo-
cratic governance and a dismantling of hypocrisy and demagoguery as
1. Reprinted by kind permission of the United Nations Research Institute for

Social Development which originally published this text in an extended
form in 1994 under the title Nationalities and Conflicting Ethnicity in Post-
Communist Russia (UNRISD working paper, 40).
155
fundamental principles of past policy orient todays knowledge user to

enlightening objectivism with its ontologization of truth. In essence, it
orients todays academics and public figures to the same positivist
method of uncovering natural laws and developing scientific concep-
tions of social behaviour and policy. At this moment, the global con-
text of world social sciences is forcing its practitioners to lean more and
more to the post-modern paradigm with its denial of logocentristic
knowledge and acceptance of less deterministic and instrumentalistic
principles of cognition.
Despite some disillusionment because of an existing lack of scho-
larly accord on the issue, I am confident of the possibility of avoiding
relativistic pessimism in discussing ethnicity and conflict governance.
At least general mechanisms and rules could be traced from the efforts
of policy-makers, public forces, military personnel and international
agencies responding to this challenge in recent decades. What I am
suggesting is not a new invention in many respects. Few principles and
approaches have been formulated in previous literature and public
statements. Among the latest ones is a statement by United Nations
Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali (1992) in An Agenda for
Peace. Stating that fierce new assertions of nationalism and sover-
eignty spring up, and the cohesion of states is threatened by brutal eth-
nic, religious or linguistic strife, he draws an important conclusion to
the effect that the time of absolute and exclusive sovereignty, however,
has passed; its theory was never matched by reality, and if every eth-
nic, religious or linguistic group claimed statehood, there would be no
limit to fragmentation, and peace, security and economic well-being
for all would become ever more difficult to achieve.
Approaches to understanding ethnicity

Among the basic approaches to interpreting the ethnic phenomenon,
two can be highlighted: the primordial and the constructivist. The first
of these scholarly traditions can be traced to the ideas of nineteenth-
century German romanticism and the positivist tradition of social
science. Its adherents see ethnicity as an objective given, a sort of pri-
mordial characteristic of humanity. For primordialists there exist ob-
jective entities with inherent characteristics such as territory, language,
recognizable membership and even a common mentality. These en-
tities, they believe, improve as they follow their own way, which is in-
156
Nationalities in post-Soviet global changes
dependent of subjective perception. In its extreme form, this approach

sees ethnicity in sociobiological categories as a comprehensive form of
natural selection and kinship connections, a primordial instinctive im-
pulse (Van den Berghe, 1981). Some take the view that a recognition of
group affiliation is included in the genetic code and is the product of
early human evolution, when the ability to recognize the members of
ones family group was necessary for survival (Shaw and Wong, 1989).
One of the major Russian students of ethnicity, L. N. Gumilev, be-
lieved in the existence of ethnos as a bio-social organism and tried to
formulate a theory of ethnogenesis in an obviously superficial form.
Sceptical of biologicizing movements, Y. V. Bromley and most Soviet
social scientists still adhered to deeply primordial positions. For them,
ethnos and ethnosocial organisms were the basic categories and arche-
types: their highest manifestation was the nation (Bromley, 1983;
Gumilev, 1990). On the whole, this approach remains quite margi-
nalized and the subject of serious criticism in world ethnology and so-
cial and cultural anthropology (Plotkin, 1990; Skalnik, 1990).
With the emergence of the so-called phenomenon of ethnic revival
and the growth of ethnic nationalism and separatism in the world in re-
cent decades, scholars began to focus more attention on ethnicity as a
means of collective striving for material advantage in the socio-politi-
cal arena. Ethnic mobilization, which can be found in various forms, is
motivated by the demands of one or more material factors that deter-
mine social behaviour. This mobilization is observable in various
forms. Ethnicity began to be seen as a part of the repertoire that is cal-
culated and chosen consciously by an individual or a group to achieve
certain interests and goals.
The constructivist approach, which has a special significance for
Russian reality, is unique for two reasons. First, it remains absolutely
alien to domestic social science and has never been seriously tested.
Second, the social practice specifically of the post-Communist world
contains a plethora of examples of constructed and mobilized ethnicity
(Tishkov, 1992). What is the essence of this approach that we have
been trying to introduce into Russian academic discourse for the past
several years?
I view ethnic sentiment, which is engendered on the basis of histori-
cal differences in culture, as well as the myths, conceptions and doc-
trines that are formed in its context, as an intellectual construct and the
result of purposeful efforts of the 1ite strata of those who are profes-
sional producers of subjective visions of the social world (Bourdieu,
157
1984: 6). The professionals include writers, scholars and politicians

whose intellectual production first became transmittable on a mass
level with the spread of the printed word and education.
It is specifically for this reason that the ideas of nation and national
consciousness (or self-consciousness), intellectual products of Western
elites, spread around the world almost simultaneously with the process
of modernization (Gellner, 1989; Hobsbawm, 1990; Greenfeld, 1992).
In the second half of the nineteenth century and at the beginning of the
twentieth it found support in Eastern Europe and Russia, especially
among leaders of peripheral nationalities of the former Ottoman, Au-
stro-Hungarian and Russian Empires. Later, specifically because of
the increasing availability of education and the creation of large intel-
lectual elites among the nationalities of the former USSR just as in
the countries of Eastern Europe the ideas and doctrine of national-
ism acquired deep emotional legitimacy and now are stimulating at-
tempts to convert myths and emotions into socio-political engineering
(Roeder, 1991; Lapidus and Zaslavsky, 1992; Motyl, 1992; Tishkov,
1992).
The contructivist approach pays special attention to the role of
mentalities and language as key symbols around which a perception of
ethnic distinctiveness crystallizes. Written texts and speeches contain,
for example, historical reconstructions that are used to justify the auth-
enticity and continuity of one or another ethnic identity. Soviet and
post-Soviet historiography, archaeology and ethnography, in many of
their manifestations, reduce the past to the present and represent a
projection based on the concept of the gradualness and homogeneity
of the historical process. In each contemporary reading of past cul-
tures, there is a drawing of history as a resource for solving todays
political tasks.
Such was the case, for example, when for decades Azerbaijani his-
torians intensively developed the nationalistic conception of Caucasus
Albania, including ancient Albania as the grandfatherland of Azeris,
territories that Armenians view as historical Armenia. This construc-
tion of a rich and ancient history of the Azerbaijani people has, as a
necessary component, a description of the Karabakh territory as the
heart of Azerbaijan. Just as Georgian intellectuals declare Shida Kar-
tli or Samochablo (southern Ossetia) the heartland of Georgia, In-
gush leaders consider the village of Angusht, located in a disputed
area, as the grandfatherland of the Ingush, and Ossetian intellectuals
formulate a thesis about the Alans, the cultural predecessors of the Os-
158
setians, whose bones are scattered all over the northern Caucasus.
Political and heavily ideological archaeology and ethnography have
been flourishing for decades in peripheral as well as central Soviet aca-
demias (Shnirelman, 1993).
The many so-called national histories, encyclopedias and cultural
research studies often have little in common with the peoples actual
history and ethnography. The very nomenclature of the peoples them-
selves, especially their names, is the result of outsiders prescriptions,
whether by ancient authors, travelers who first contacted and de-
scribed the peoples, or contemporary scholars and politicians.
The definition of a people in the sense of an ethnic community is
most often understood in contemporary scholarship as a group of
people whose members share a common name and common elements
of culture, possess a myth of common origin and a common historical
memory, who associate themselves with a particular territory and
possess a feeling of solidarity. All these indicators are the result of spe-
cial efforts, especially of the process of nation-building; the most im-
portant of them is solidarity. National affiliation is a sort of constant
internal referendum on affiliation and loyalty to one collective com-
munity or other. It is the result of a persons family education and so-
cialization. In the same way, nations are, according to B. Andersons
(1983) widely accepted definition, imagined communities.
Nationality or ethnic identity is not an innate human trait, though
it is most often perceived as such. Nations are also created by people,
by the efforts of intellectuals and by the states political will. Nation
is an in-group definition. It is not possible to assign it strictly scientific
or legal formulae. This also pertains to the more mystical category of
ethnos which was enthusiastically developed by Soviet social scientists,
and, as a result, in public discourse it became much more than a scho-
larly construction. Unfortunately, both primordial definitions (nation
and ethnos) are widely and thoughtlessly used in contemporary politi-
cal language and normative and legal texts. For example, aspirations
for achieving certain political aims through the mobilization of mem-
ory about the sociocultural characteristics of Russian Cossacks finally
resulted in the official definition of Cossacks as an ethnocultural en-
tity at the highest state level in Yeltsins decree and Supreme Soviet
law. It may be considered a classic example of Bakhtins raising
myths and memories from root level under the pressure of politics and
as a form of populist gesture.
Although the concept of ethnonational communities may be an
159
imaginary one, this does not prevent it from becoming a powerful re-
ality and an important basis for collective action. Without leaving the
historical arena, peoples ethnocultural diversity is moving increas-
ingly from the domain of material culture to that of consciousness and
values. A person needs ethnic identity and affiliation as a means of
adaptation and better orientation in a modern and complex world and
as a mechanism for achieving certain social goals. In the Russian
Federation, citizens thus regain their lost feeling of personal worth and
collective pride through ethnicity, while leaders realize social control
and political mobilization.
This intellectual construct is directly projected on to the phenome-
non of power. It is often coupled with the achievement of a political
will, ensuring for this a necessary arsenal of arguments and recruits/ex-
ecutors. The former right of Communist Party high priests to formu-
late from above and transmit downward their programmatic
postulates was one of their most important pillars of power, along with
the repressive party/state apparatus. Even today, the search for expla-
nations for disorder, crisis and conflict continues in parliamentary de-
bates, political discussions and the media, in view of the absence of
scientific formulae, conceptions and so forth.
A society used to living in unidimensional symbolism cannot in-
stantly become a multidimensional arena. The excessive emphasis on
learning formulae proposed by intellectual and political elites, and
their use, became almost a genetic trait of the Soviet people, Post-
Communist countries do not yet have powerful elements of civil, that
is, private, society expressed to a high degree in individual autonomy
and self-organization of social groupings on various levels. Such a so-
ciety is the ideal material for a mythological colonization of the mass
consciousness because, during crisis situations and radical social trans-
formations, when the perception of the world slips away, the magic of
the word, the right and ability to label and call into existence, with the
help of nomination, have become one of the simplest and most ac-
cessible forms of political power.
As in ancient times, the task of explaining and producing the sym-
bolic is granted to poets, artists and sculptors and now also to
playwrights, film-makers, scholars, humanitarians and, first and fore-
most, historians, ethnographers and archaeologists. No single histori-
cal period and region of the world has experienced such a wide-scale
escalation of power positions of Ph.D. social scientists and other intel-
lectuals as maybe observed in the post-Soviet space. The twenty-eight
160
members of the State Council of Georgia formed by Shevardnadze

comprised eleven philologists, historians and philosophers, seven ar-
tists and journalists, and only three lawyers and one economist.
The intelligentsia and the national idea

Since the collapse of Communist ideology, a new generation of politi-
cians and leaders of nationalist movements, in order to gain recogni-
tion and receive a mandate for power, is using ideas and words that
carry specific connotations for one group or other, In their midst, they
revive mystical controversies and reactions to traumas suffered under
previous regimes (usually by previous generations). The inertia of to-
talitarianism facilitated the replacement of the tyranny of party pro-
grammes with the no less oppressive tyranny of mobilized conceptions
and group myths raised to the level of political declarations and de-
mands. The situation in societies freed from Communist government
can rightly be called a new form of dictatorship when, for example, no
Armenian can oppose the policy of the Karabakh movement and no
Ingush can oppose the unification of the disputed region of northern
Ossetia with the newly forming Ingush Republic. (One recalls the sin-
gular example of the free spirit of the deceased Georgian philosopher,
Mamardashvili, who said: For truths sake I would oppose my own
people.)
The fate of todays intellectuals in politics most often assumes a
dramatic or even a tragic shape. My assessment of their activities is not
a criticism of personalities, who most often deserve respect and sym-
pathy, but rather an analysis of the phenomenon of educated intellec-
tuals in power or at the head of nationalist movements. For the first
time, post-Soviet politics is confronted with this phenomenon on a
large scale. Its essence can be seen from the perspective of social an-
thropology as a struggle for the power of knowledge and a struggle for
power by means of knowledge. And in this struggle in the collapsing
multi-ethnic state, the knowledge of archaeologists, ethnographers
and historians is the most professional in terms of its claims and ability
to influence for political mobilization.
Now, after violent conflicts in southern and northern Abkhazia,
Moldova, Ossetia and Tajikistan, the issue of the cost and responsibility
of intellectuals participation in political action and government is com-
ing to the fore. With the collapse of the USSR, new leaders of various
161
levels and degrees of legitimacy suddenly acquired the easy means to

supply their adherents with the most modern weaponry, organize for
war and give orders to kill. In this situation, the struggle for knowledge,
for the correct classification and order, is transformed easily and
quickly or is coupled with mass violence and enormous destruction.
Harm is done first of all to the people themselves, in whose name leaders
formulate positions and arguments and launch slogans and demands.
Former academic and social scientist and current president of Ar-
menia, L. Ter-Petrosyan, asserted in the pages of a newspaper that the
right of a nation to self-determination is absolute. If a people decides
to take its fate into its own hands, nothing, including violence, can
reverse this process (Ter-Petrosyan, 1991). There is nothing scholarly
in this thesis, but it is pronounced by a scholar-politician as an accom-
plished truth and as a prescription for action for the whole group. It is
notable that this thesis is put forth in a society of general literacy
(among Armenians, in Armenia, the percentage of people with a higher
education is one of the highest in the world and almost four times that
of the central regions of the Russian Federation) and political exalta-
tion of citizens who follow their leaders.
The fact that the struggle of peoples (nations, ethnoses) for self-
determination is seen by post-Soviet scholars and politicians as a na-
tional, democratic movement is not actually evidence of objectively
. existing trends and factors. It does not mean that we could deny a long
list of ethnic groups grievances and fundamental reasons for disinte-
grationist projects. I also contributed this simplistic explanation for
the end of the Soviet Union (Tishkov, 1991), which a few years later
can no longer be considered satisfactory. Rather, concerning post-So-
viet space, the realization of historical law is seen more as the con-
structed reality created by theory and dogma, The phenomenon of
manipulating ethnic feelings and nationalist sentiments is not at all
new. In Essays on Russias Time of Troubles, General A. I. Denikin
made the following observations about the situation in Transcaucasia
with regard to the 1918 Transcaucasian Republics declaration of inde-
pendence from Russia (this was followed by rapid political destabiliza-
tion and an exacerbation of ethnic and intersocietal conflicts and the
growth of local chauvinism, especially among Georgians with regard
to Abkhazians, Armenians and Russians):
The will of the peoples and the pressure of the masses these legal
and natural stimuli to political and national movements in Transcau-
casia have been significant. If on the all-Russian scale the waves of rev-
162
olution swept the life of the Russian intelligentsia from its heights, here,
by contrast, the history of Transcaucasia during its troubled years has
been a history of its predominantly socialist intelligentsia. Only the in-
telligentsia could determine domestic events, and on it alone lies the
historic responsibility for the fate of the Transcaucasian peoples
[Denikin, 1992: 92].
A most important part of my approach to the problems of ethnicity lies
in not accepting the arrogance of the objective-positivist paradigm,
which is at the root of the contemporary crisis in domestic social
science. This approach is not so burdened by circumstances as to ac-
centuate the essence, that is, the groups, including ethnic groups, by
their membership, borders, rights and so forth, to the detriment of re-
lations in the social realm. It allows us to rid ourselves of illusions that
see theoretically constructed classifications as objectively existing
groups of people or as laws of social life. It does not allow senseless
haste in translating mythical constructs and the symbolic struggle into
a language of state laws, presidential decrees or military orders.
Russian social scientists, who substantially constructed the subject
of their studies while, at the same time, refusing to recognize their co-
authorship of a perverted reality, through their indifference to relativ-
ist and constructivist approaches, actually limit the possibilities for
influence and participation in the processes of change and innovation.
The understanding that ethnicity is a social construct, according to the
opinion of M. P. Smith (1992: 526),
give[s] greater opportunities for mediating political and socio-cultural
interactions within and among ethnic groups through the same con-
structed symbolic action than are available to those who consider eth-
nicity either in naturalistic categories, regarding Ethnos (like Eros
and Thanatos) as a deep structural parameter of consciousness, or
else in existential categories as a component of personal identity, so
deeply rooted in past historical memory that no present-day human
influence is capable of forming the character of this identity or mitigat-
ing antagonistic manifestations on the parts of certain ethnic groups
vis--vis others.
Such an innovative approach might represent a breakthrough from the
grand methodological impasse and from such discouraging political
helplessness in the sphere of inter-ethnic relations. One needs only to
accept that ethnicity is constructed and reconstructed by certain verbal
actions that reflect contemporary conditions. Among these conditions
are power relations between social groups and those interpretative
163
meanings that people give to these conditions. One must not look at
ethnicity as a timeless or primordial parameter of human existence. In
such a case, the activity of leaders from the political and cultural elites
and the daily intervention of ordinary citizens into ethnic discourse ac-
quire new meaning and new recognition.
We need a deeper understanding of the fact that social experience is
not constructed with a single meaning and that professional historical
data are being used to create a particular version of the ideal present.
We must not continue to subscribe to the primitive formula that the his-
torian learns from the past so as to understand the present and predict
the future. This new understanding would not make social scientists and
political activists naive enthusiasts of the Wilsonian-Leninist interpre-
tation of the right to self-determination in its narrowly ethnic variant.
It is extremely risky to conclude that after Yugoslavia, Czechoslo-
vakia, southern Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh, the Crimea and Transd-
nestria (Moldova) in the twenty-first century this problem of
self-determination will confront the African continent, too, where
post-colonial borders artificially divided ethnic territories (Starovoi-
tova and Kedrov, 1992). A sounder opinion states that in the existing
world system, formulae for sovereignty from the epochs of Sauares,
Boden and even Rousseau are just ridiculous, and that in the coun-
tries of a former empire it is the elites of the new political formations
that are self-determined and inter-determined (Fillipov, 1992: 112).
The drama of the position of scholars who directly or indirectly partici-
pate in radical Russian transformations lies in their ability or inability
to differentiate between myth-making rhetoric and real interests, and
in the need to act amid everyday dogmatism and political motives.
Thus, my approach, since it is not arrogant or prescriptive in rela-
tion to societal reality, is not a refusal to understand or participate, but
rather a platform for participation based on understanding and greater
guarantees against irresponsible social engineering. It does not pre-
clude the possibility of formulating suggestions for governing eth-
nicity, including mechanisms for managing inter-ethnic controversy
and conflict in the former Soviet Union.
Ethnonational state and the plural society

The list of injustices committed in the past against ethnic groups in the
former USSR is long and extremely painful. Therapy from past traumas
164
may be lasting and costly, especially if resources and energy are directed
to reconcile the past and to return the norm of existence once lost. For
some groups and leaders this might mean the moment before the col-
lapse of the USSR or before 1917 (groups of Russian national-patriots);
for others, before the start of massive deportations (the Ingush, Volga
Germans, Crimean Tatars and others); for a third group, before the pre-
war annexations (the Baltic peoples, Moldovans); for a fourth group be-
fore the Civil War and Red Terror (Transcaucasian peoples, Kazaks);
for a fifth group, before their inclusion into the Russian Empire and col-
onization (the peoples of the northern Caucasus, Central Asia and Sibe-
ria); for a sixth group, before the expansion of the Muscovite state
(Tatars of the Volga region); and for a seventh group, before the period
of ancient state formations or even ancient cultures.
In any case, the ideal is represented by that historical period from
which the most arguments in favour of the currently desirable territor-
ial borders, political status and cultural conditions can be derived. The
further one looks for the roots of the past, the more mythologized the
concepts of historical territories, nation-state, and cultural tradi-
tions become.
Past traumas endured by externally introduced consciousness
(only a small proportion of citizens lived through them personally) are
complicated by recent challenges, of which the most serious is the
search for new identities in the context of the newly forming states.
The USSRs collapse occurred under the defining influence of the doc-
trine of ethnic nationalism or the ideas of national self-determination.
The realities that have emerged, however, are quite far from the pro-
posed goal. The new states are multi-ethnic formations in which the
titular population comprises from 80 per cent (Russia, Lithuania)
to 40 to 50 per cent (Latvia, Kazakstan, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan) of the
overall population.
Former Soviet minorities have now become dominating majorities
in fourteen successor states, having discovered new minorities just as
hungry for their own national self-determination. The majority of
these groups are homogeneously settled, regard their cultural charac-
teristics and leaders highly, and are able to formulate their own na-
tional ideas. Strictly speaking, the latter is already a reality for those
groups that had autonomous status in the former Soviet republics or
gained it in recent years (e.g. the Crimean Republic in Ukraine, new re-
publics in the Russian Federation). As the events in Georgia show,
eliminating such status is practically impossible.
165
The dominant doctrine of ethnonational state systems presents

new states and their leaders with a difficult task: either declare a pro-
cess of national self-determination in the statist form espoused by the
December 1991 agreement, denying other groups similar rights, or try
to find a new formula for legitimizing the state one that is not fraught
with future disintegration. Such a new formula for fifteen states, as well
as for the autonomous republics, might be based on the idea of civil or
political nation (instead of ethnonation) and on accompanying efforts
to establish common symbols, values and interests. Instead of the
dominating groups claim to preferential access to power and re-
sources in its own nation-state, new states must be constructed in the
interests of all groups on the basis of common citizenship rather than
blood (that is, states of those living in Kazakstan, Russia, Tatarstan,
Yakutia, etc.).
A nation is a multi-ethnic entity in composition, whose basic in-
dicators are territory and citizenship. Belonging to a nation does not
preclude belonging to a particular ethnocultural community of
people. National and ethnic loyalties are not mutually exclusive.
Moreover, a nation may assume a distinct ethnocultural profile
determined by the culture of the dominating group or by several
groups. The English do not lose their characteristics by not under-
going national self-determination and by being members of the Brit-
ish nation. The same is true of the peoples of India, Spain and other
multi-ethnic states. By the same measure, it does not threaten Rus-
sians in Russia, Georgians in Georgia or Tatars in Tatarstan, if their
respective state formations, while they may be at different levels, are
not declared ethnonational.
The official declaration of the ethnic nature of state or even ele-
ments of one culture (for example, language) always engenders con-
troversy that weakens territorial co-citizenship. If the desire to restrict
access to power and resources does not stand behind this controversy,
then achieving the goals of development and perception of language
and culture is more easily and effectively accomplished through educa-
tional, informational and publishing programmes and projects than
through usurpation of power structures. As for the incorporation of
ethnicity into the state, this process must reflect the entire cultural mo-
saic of those citizens who live in the state. The Estonian or Latvian lan-
guage is not so weak as to assume the exclusive functions of a state
language. It is much more important to ensure civil unity through offi-
cial bilingualism (or even possible trilingualism as, for example, is
166
needed in Abkhazia, Bashkiria, Crimea and Gagauzia), which today

strengthens rather than threatens newly acquired political sovereignty.
A search for new formulae apart from doctrine of ethnic nation-
alism is needed in order to keep the fifteen new states from disintegra-
tion and to ensure that they remain peaceful societies.
However, the vitality of doctrine in the post-Communist mentality
is amazing, although it seems that in the past fifty years a whole galaxy
of leading scholars and politicians have shown the insolvency of doc-
trine. In 1945 Karl Popper wrote in Volume 1 of his work, The Open
Society and its Enemies, that
the attempt to uncover certain natural state borders and, accord-
ingly, to see state as a natural element, leads to the principle of na-
tion-state and to the romantic fictions of nationalism, racism and
tribalism. However, this principle is not natural and the very thought
that natural elements such as nation, linguistic or racial groups do
exist is simply fabrication. At least this we must make clear from his-
tory: after all, from the beginning of time people have been interming-
ling, uniting, separating and again intermingling. This will not stop,
even if we want it to [Popper, 1992: 357].
This discussion contains a partial explanation of why it is so difficult to
resist the principle of the ethnic nation-state. The popularity of this
principle is explained by the fact that it appeals to tribal instincts, and
that it is the cheapest and most reliable means for a politician without
anything else to offer to rise to prominence (Popper, 1992).
On national self-determination
About three years ago the academician Sakharov proposed a Constitu-
tion of the United States of Europe and Asia, which called for the crea-
tion of a union of nation-states with equal status from the fifty-three
nation-state formations that existed at that moment in the USSR. Thus,
Sakharov envisioned the realization of the right of a people to national
self-determination as a part of democratic transformation. At the begin-
ning of 1993, G. Popov proposed to solve all mans national problems
by allotting him rights and national-cultural autonomy for all nations
both on the level of Russia and on the level of lands. Fifteen to twenty
federal lands must comprise Russia, he suggested, and there must be no
national-territorial structures. Whoever does not agree with this may
leave the Federation (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 26 January 1993).
167
In spite of the contrasting stances of these two approaches, one

common fallacy, a legacy of the incorporation of the doctrine of ethno-
nationalism into Marxist-Leninist theory on the nationalities ques-
tion, unites them both. It is derived from the notion that a people or a
nation is first of all an ethnic community; that from the beginning it
has an inherited historical right to its own state; and that each ethnos
must have its own state, which it must nationally determine itself. Such
is the credo of ethnic nationalism.
This view differs radically from world (not only Western) political
experience and dominating scholarly conceptions. Its weakness lies in
its impracticability, despite the great emotional and mobilizing power
of the ethnonational idea. Moreover, a choice of one of the above-men-
tioned variants could lead to serious consequences in a new, irrespon-
sible social engineering for Russia.
The Sakharov variant has been partially realized in fourteen of the
former socialist nations, which, during the collapse of the USSR, created
their own sovereign nation-states. Twenty-one peoples (or nations) of
the Russian Federation have raised their status to the level of nation-
states. The fact remains that all new states (besides Armenia after it de-
ported all Azerbaijanis) and the republics within Russia are formations
with multi-ethnic populations. The peoples that give the states and re-
publics their name (titular nationalities) and dominate therein in their
culture and language only lend the state a characteristic appearance and
ensure a basis for social consolidation. But these very states, and their
sovereignties and institutions of power, are constituted and act in the
name of all citizens. If all new states and Russian republics accepted as
the basis of their territory the borders existing at the time of the collapse
of the USSR, then the entire population of their territory accordingly
represents new co-citizens. In other words, these co-societies (i.e. nations
as polyethnic formations), were in fact admitted to the United Nations.
For these new states to survive, and not endure ethnic unrest and
possible disintegration, sooner or later they must disclaim the concept
of ethnonational state systems and build new nations based on com-
mon citizenship, such as those living in Kazakstan, Latvia, Russia,
Ukraine and so on. The fundamental concepts of national interest,
symbols, economy, safety, currency, army, etc., will then be put in
their proper place and be rid of ambiguity. The term national must
lose its ethnic connotation and become synonymous with state. Only
by accepting that Georgia is a state for all its citizens and that in Ka-
zakstan it is not the Kazak ethnonation but the citizens of Kazakstan
168
who are nationally self-determined can the state authorities demand

that not only ethnic Georgians or Kazaks, but all members of society
serve in their national armies (or guards). Thus, along the whole spec-
trum of state activity and throughout the entire former USSR, sooner
or later a dismantling of the political doctrine of ethnic nationalism
and a change to principles of building and functioning of state systems
on the basis of common citizenship must occur.
Does this mean disrespect for the interests and rights of peoples as
ethnocultural communities, or for the needs of citizens with respect to
their ethnic affiliation? The opposite is probably true. Narrow ethno-
nationalism includes a claim to power, access to resources and privi-
leges, control of the cultural-informational domain on behalf of
members of one group of the population (even if the majority) as mem-
bers of the so-called indigenous nation. The remaining minorities,
which are promoted in rank, of the non-native or Russian-speaking
population (in a number of instances forcibly depriving them of
citizenship), cannot reconcile this situation. In the best case, they move
from apathy or a boycott of the political process to ethnic self-organiz-
ation and begin to campaign for their own representation in institu-
tions of power for their rights and interests. In the worst case, they
turn to violence or separatism (under the very same slogan of national
self-determination) or prefer emigration. I include the latter among ne-
gative alternatives, since it is associated with enormous losses for the
people themselves and deprives neighboring states of the powerful
factor of favourable relations.
Thus, analysing the situation in the former Soviet Union (FSU),
we can observe rules for group behaviour in complex societies, espe-
cially on the part of diminished ethnic minorities. This rule, voice or
exit, means that minorities without proper representation prefer to
leave the socio-political arena and to organize other societal units
where they can raise or completely change their status preferably into
the status of a ruling majority.
As the events in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and, recently, Rus-
sia show, it is not possible to deal successfully with this question
through the use of force. Internal conflict and devastating wars render
senseless the primary goal of self-determination to improve the social
and cultural conditions of the peoples themselves. Even hastily declar-
ing official status for nationalities languages is against the interests of
a significant part of the population, who, after lasting contact with
Russian culture and language, have adopted the Russian language,
169
while remaining in their consciousness the same Kazaks, Kyrgyz or

Ukrainians. This portion of the population in the new states is much
larger than censuses indicate. According to our data, among peoples
such as Belarusians, Kazaks, Kyrgyz and Ukrainians, this portion
comprises from 30 to 50 per cent of the overall population.
Since the fall of the USSR, the only solution is to substitute the im-
practical ethnonational idea, which played a mobilizing role during
the struggle against the former system, with a new formula and a new
idea. The idea can be cultural pluralism, and the formula can be one
used in other multi-ethnic states. In India it is unity in diversity, in
Canada a cultural mosaic or multiculturalism in a bilingual frame-
work, in Jamaica out of many, one people, and so forth. Thus far in
the post-Communist world there has been movement in that direction
in Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Ukraine and, very recently, in Georgia and
Moldova. The new political formations will unavoidably reach an
understanding of nationhood that will unite citizens of a state and con-
front ethnic separatism and tribalism. This is exactly how the Cana-
dian nation unites two peoples (French and Anglo-Canadians), the
Spanish nation three distinct groups (Castilian, Basques and Cata-
lans), the British nation four (English, Irish, Scots and Welsh) and, in
the case of the Indian, Nigerian and Indonesian nations, dozens of eth-
nic communities. There is no reason why the Russian Federation and
other FSU states should not follow the successful paths of states that
have a multi-ethnic population.
Separatism and its consequences

Despite the difficulties facing multi-ethnic states, the international
community is unlikely to follow the path of the balkanization of the
world political arena. At the same time, we must not discount the
mobilizing power of successful secession movements that have led to
the emergence of more than twenty new states. One of the first of such
breakthroughs was the victory of Eritrean separatists in Ethiopia,
which was achieved after decades of struggle and support from
anticentrist guerrilla movements. Currently in Somalia one separatist
movement has formulated a demand to create an independent state.
Similar groups exist in a number of other African states. For the first
time since decolonization, the political map of Africa is in question.
The reason for this, however, is not the borders created artificially by
170
colonizers, but rather the inability and difficulty of these states to solve
social and political problems.
It is important to recognize that all borders are the result of politi-
cal will and historical precedent, and searching for natural or just
borders, especially along ethnic lines in Africa or the regions of Central
Asia, the Caucasus and the Volga, is both absurd and extremely dan-
gerous. Responsible politicians or scholars would not dare draw a new
map of re-self-determined Africa or the ethnic states of the Eastern
European plain and the Caucasus, let alone those of Central Asia,
where ethnic nations were constructed in the Soviet period and where
religious, dynastic and regional identities were always much stronger
than ethnic ones, and therefore served as a basis for politics.
The disintegration of the USSR and Yugoslavia and the division of
Czechoslovakia have had internal and international repercussions. The
readiness of the world community, especially the West, to recognize the
separatists claims to their own states could initially be explained by
world sympathy for the Baltic countries, which had a legitimate basis
for their claims to independence. With respect to Yugoslavia, the propi-
tious positions of Germany towards Croatia and of Austria towards
Slovenia played decisive roles in the support and recognition of se-
cession. In addition, the inertia and logic of superpower confrontation
during the Cold War years influenced the departure from previous prin-
ciples of non-support for separatism and of respect for territorial integ-
rity. It seemed natural to enhance the victory of Western democracy not
only by overthrowing totalitarian regimes in the Soviet bloc and agree-
ing to radical disarmament, but also by reducing the size, and therefore
the resources, of the state that had been seen as the source of the nuclear
threat. Yugoslavia, too, may have seemed powerful and unstable to the
small countries of Western Europe, although the Yugoslav state was no
less legitimate than other European states.
In this way, the geopolitical factor for the Western states that won
a liberal victory over Communism encouraged them to overcome their
resistance to the principle of national self-determination in its most
radical form. This is the third time in the twentieth century that the vic-
tors have dictated, albeit in camouflaged form, terms to the van-
quished. Following the initiative of Woodrow Wilson after the First
World War, the Entente leaders created a new political map for Eu-
rope under the slogan of self-determination. Leaders of ethnonational
movements in Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire acquired
their own states. In the final analysis, however, the same unsolved
171
problem of ethnic minorities and unfair borders became a source of

instability and hastened the unleashing of a new world war.
After the emergence of Nazi Germany, and during the course of the
war itself, the manipulation of borders and displacement of populations,
including that of about 10 million Germans in the Baltic states, Czechos-
lovakia and Poland, were realized under the same slogan. That time the
victor was Stalin. Recently, the fall of the Soviet regime spurred politics
of secession. Western democracies encouraged ethnic self-determina-
tion in the FSU and are now unlikely to come out in favour of the terri-
torial integrity of Russia and of other self-determined states. Again,
however, this principle is not expected to spread to Western countries,
which have their own ethno-racial problems and separatist movements.
Thus in recent years the forces of separatism achieved inspiring
successes in the struggle with central governments and unitarian sys-
tems. For the first time, the international community has departed
from support of the integrity of states, having instilled hope and pro-
vided a powerful stimulus to potential separatists in many regions of
the world, including the newly self-determined states.
The process of dividing states is not an unmistakably negative phe-
nomenon in and of itself. In the contemporary epoch large states dem-
onstrate a whole series of inherent weaknesses. They are likely to be
involved in dangerous rivalries in the world arena and to create strict
hierarchical structures which, for citizens, spawn immovable bureau-
cracies. Finally, they almost always include difficult problems in inter-
relations between ethnically diverse groups of the population. What
are the new, difficult issues raised by current realities and by the
possible increase in the number of states in the international system
that politicians should address?
Firstly, the right to national self-determination does not work as a
rule. Separation does not lead to the creation of more homogeneous
states. Just like territories moving towards separatism, the truncated
states that emerge from separation remain cultural mosaics. Even the
separation of Bosnia from Yugoslavia and its possible division into ten
autonomous units does not solve the problem of inter-ethnic relations.
Those who know the ethnic map and possible ethnic manifestations
are sceptical about the choice of ethnically homogeneous states.
Secondly, separation leads to the emergence of interstate borders
between former ethnic rivals. These erstwhile opponents then acquire
the legal basis to build an army and mobilize for war. In this way, what
was once an internal conflict or intercommunal tension may escalate
172
into interstate military action. The probability that this might happen
is increased when the new state boundaries separate culturally related
communities from the general tract of their brethren, or divide some
groups almost in half, as in the case, for example, of the Lezgin be-
tween Azerbaijan and Russia. The participation of Russians in military
action in Moldova, of the Abkhaz-Adygei peoples in Georgia, and of
the Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia is evidence of the internationalization
of ethnic conflicts. Separatism almost inevitably engenders its antipode
irredentism, that is, the desire to be reunited. This phenomenon is
nothing new and was made familiar by the bloody wars in Bangladesh
and Biafra.
Thirdly, the growth in the number of states resulting from the dis-
memberment of superpowers such as the USSR opens the way to a new
asymmetry in world geopolitics. A number of powerful and centralized
Western European states, as well as China, Japan and the United
States, are averse to using the principle of national self-determination
with regard to their own ethnic minorities. In China, 55 million such
people live quite densely along the Han Chinese periphery. In Western
Europe there are about fifty ethnic minorities, each of them numbering
at least 100,000 people, who are able to formulate their demands. How-
ever, it is doubtful that these states will allow themselves to be bal-
kanized. The new asymmetry caused by the now unchallenged military
dominance of the United States could tempt it to dictate its will and
understanding of international norms by more forceful means. This can
hardly be called global and definitive stability, since such was not the
case during the United StatesSoviet confrontation in recent decades.
Secession under the slogan of national self-determination is still not
a response to the mission of a state, that is, the safeguarding of proper
conditions of social existence for its citizens. Rather it is a reaction to,
and the result of, the inability of existing political regimes to meet this
challenge. If the newly self-determined states fail to do so, the same fate
of disintegration awaits them too.
The specifics of the Russian Federation

The most complex situation in the sphere of inter-ethnic relations is
found in the Russian Federation. Besides Russians, who comprise
82 percent of the countrys population, there are also about 100 ethnic
groups totalling about 27 million people. In the Soviet period,
173
territorial autonomy was granted to the larger and more homogeneous

peoples. These territories now exist in the form of national subject re-
publics of the Federation and autonomous okrugs. However, only
about half of the non-Russian population actually live on the territory
of their respective state formations. More than 10 million non-Rus-
sians, who live in a dispersed manner, have no nation-state formation
at all. Among them are 4.3 million Ukrainians, 1.2 million Belaru-
sians, 700,000 Germans, 600,000 Kazaks, 500,000 Armenians, and
100,000 each of Greeks, Gypsies, Koreans and Poles. Almost all eth-
nonationalist projects, including secessionist ones, are formulated on
behalf of titular nationalities living in the territories of their own re-
publics. That comprises only about 8 million people from a total of
27 million non-Russians.
Despite far from favourable socio-political conditions and a high
degree of assimilation in favour of Russian culture, the majority of
peoples in Russia retain their ethnocultural characteristics and a
strong identity. For this reason, it is difficult to agree with the option
that calls for the abolition of existing ethno-territorial autonomies.
Firstly, the non-Russian peoples themselves, considering the republics
to be their own nation-states, would not accept this. These formations
played a positive role in preserving ethnic cultures and languages even
during totalitarian times. Now especially, they ensure access to power,
and in a number of republics the majority (or close to it) titular popu-
lations have acquired complete control of state institutions as well as
dominant economic positions (e.g. Chechnya, Chuvashia, the Kalmy-
kia and Tuva).
Powerful political and intellectual elites of titular nationalities are
able to organize opposition to efforts to abolish the republic or to
change its status arbitrarily. The latter is impracticable: it is evidence
of the helplessness of our political thinking and of a dangerous rev-
erence to Russian national patriotism. Even in Tsarist times, some
non-Russian peoples had various forms of autonomy, including free-
dom from serfdom and state service.
Even more senseless is the proposition that If you dont agree, you
may leave. First, Russia is not only Russian; it was created and ar-
ranged by other peoples. Some national leaders, breaking with the for-
mer Communist centre, are ready to dissociate themselves from Russia.
Scratch a Russian and youll find a Tatar, states the proverb. Who, if
not the Tatars and Russians, built the major cities of Russia, including
Moscow, and colonized the regions of the Volga, the Urals and Siberia?
174
The Chuvash, Udmurt, Mordvinian and Mari have no less a claim to be

the founders of Russia. And they could well say to other people, If you
dont agree, you may leave, as suggested by G. Popov.
The situation is more complex with the peoples of the northern
Caucasus. There, the memory of the Caucasus War and Stalinist de-
portations remains. The region has an extremely complicated ethnic
mosaic, and many current nations are constructions of the Soviet
period: either the unification of a dozen groups with various languages
into the Avar people, or the separation of the former Cherkess into the
Adygei, Cherkess and Kabardin. Interrelations between these peoples
were complicated. Today, they are searching for new identities and for
a place in the new world. Cultural and other ties to Russians in this re-
gion among Caucasians run quite deep. Russians comprise the largest
group there and, in their way of life and traditions, are closer to Cau-
casians than to the Russians of the Pskov and Arkhangelsk oblasts. Al-
though there is some doubt that it could happen, the northern
Caucasus is a region with a complex ethnic mosaic that could become
the basis for separate political units. In this region, under responsible
political leadership, multi-ethnic formations of the Dagestan type are
more viable than any drawn along ethnic lines.
But the most difficult problem in the Russian situation lies in the
Russians need to share the general logic of nation-state building that
is, to realize their own national self-determination. Should the Russian
Federation become the nation-state of Russians, or should a Russian re-
public like the others have be created in the framework of the Feder-
ation? Both options are impossible to achieve for two reasons. The first
is that the geography of the ethnic territory of Russians would not allow
the creation of a whole and exclusively Russian territory. But this is not
a sort of historical guilt of a people that must pay for its own expan-
sionism. Other peoples, especially large ones, do not have such distinct
ethnic areas or historical territories. Much more often these territories
intermingle or form separate enclaves. The Tatars in the Volga region,
the Urals and Siberia colonized land where smaller peoples, primarily
the Chuvash and Bashkir, lived and were subject to assimilation. The
Yakuts resettled on the land of the Tungus (Evenki) and, if the latter
carry through the demand made by certain leaders of northern peoples
to recognize their right to the territory thus settled, the Yakuts might
find themselves without a territorial basis for a nation-state.
The administrative borders of national republics in Russia do not
correspond to the ethnic areas of its peoples. In the Soviet period, these
175
borders were established with an eye to the interests of national mi-

norities and with the task of developing the economies of the republics.
This convention was acceptable in the framework of one state, but
there is no justification for creating one more such case in the name of
the largest people or to attempt to realize an ethnic principle of state
organization. The ethnic Russian republic, even if it could be con-
figured along the parameters of other national republics, would not be
populated by ethnic Russians alone. Russians themselves do not com-
prise a culturally heterogeneous group. Neither do Azerbaijanis, Geor-
gians, Ukrainians or other large peoples.
Choosing a formula for a plural society is the way to a new under-
standing of the Russian state. This choice requires a break with many
old stereotypes and myths and a realization of more conscious and
consensual efforts of citizens and politicians. It requires more time and
resources, more responsibility and compromise. But it is the only
choice and, most important, has been proved correct by world experi-
ence. It is also a legal imperative, since the Declaration of State Sover-
eignty of the Russian Federation was pronounced in the name of its
multi-ethnic people.
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177
C H A P T E R 1 0
In our image: the environment
and society as global discourse
Michael Redclift
Summary
The environment is clearly shaped by human hands, but it is also
shaped by the human mind. This chapter examines the way in which
the environment is produced, as intellectual capital. It questions the
extent to which the environment can be understood by science and
through science. It also explores the way in which science, as a cultural
form, enables us to construct an environment that is manageable but
prevents us from coming to terms with increased uncertainty. Environ-
mental management is the province of economics. The chapter
observes that establishing economic penalties for transgressing envi-
ronmental standards removes these standards from the context in
which they were developed.
This essay is about how the environment is produced. It is about
the physical landscape that results from human activities and ingenuity
and the mental landscape that shapes these activities and is shaped by
them. It is also about the value that we place on the environment and
the extent to which anthropologists should be prepared to endorse
their own societies view of environmental valuation.
The chapter asks whether our environment, indeed, any environ-
ment, can be understood by science or through science. It explores the
way in which our science, as a cultural form, gives rise to our construc-
tion of the environment.
Drawing on research about the Canadian frontier in the 1840s and
current critiques of environmental economics, I conclude by sugges-
ting that research on the global environment should recognize the ex-
istence of different and divergent understandings of what the global
179
environment is and how the problems associated with global environ-

mental change can be addressed. Establishing this new intellectual ter-
ritory is a task for which anthropology is uniquely fitted.
To anthropologists, it is clear that the environment is a social con-
struction. However, it might be useful to illustrate this observation
with a couple of examples, drawing on experience in the United King-
dom.
Case one: biosphere reserves in Scotland

On 23 May 1990, I attended a meeting in Edinburgh organized by the
United Kingdom Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme to dis-
cuss a working party report on the designation of new biosphere
reserves. Between 1977 and 1984 (when the United Kingdom left
UNESCO) thirteen biosphere reserves were designated in the United
Kingdom, and the meeting was convened to consider whether new
ones should be added.
This raised a series of issues for the British committee. Some mem-
bers declared that we did not have biosphere reserves in the United
Kingdom, only national parks. Others argued that the term biosphere
reserve was not British but foreign. They had biosphere reserves, not
us. Some participants decided, unilaterally, that if we really did have
biosphere reserves we could dispense with buffer zones. We did not
need them. Finally, there was strong support for the proposal that we
should tell UNESCO to use our designations national parks, ESAs,
SSSIs, AONBs, and so on.
The meeting in Edinburgh had problems with competing defini-
tions of the environment. Our designation was not theirs. This was a
matter of some importance. It was as important to those attending the
meeting as cricket or real beer or Maastricht. The objection was that
our protected areas were not biosphere reserves and never would be.
Case two: public inquiry discourse

The second case is taken from the inspectors report of a public inquiry
into a new road plan (quoted from Burningham and OBrien, 1992).
First, the inspector argues that an area of woodland is environmentally
valuable and should not be used as a site for lay-bys (rest stops):
180
In our image: the environment and society as global discourse
It is reluctantly accepted that the new road will have to pass through
Devils Copse but not that lay-bys should be located in this attractive,
natural, untouched woodland which is worth preserving. It would be a
deplorable and needless extravagance to destroy a small proportion of
a small copse used, with permission, by the British Trust for Ornitho-
logy and by members of the public, and believed to be rich in wildlife
and flowers, simply to provide lay-bys which could be placed on
the A27.
The Department of Transports view was rather different:
Devils Copse is an overgrown and neglected piece of woodland. . . .
Most of the trees are not of a great age being up to around 80 years old
and no coppicing has taken place for some 20 years. There is no public
footpath running through the wood and footpath 251 passes along its
south-western boundary. A survey of the copse concluded that its flora
and fauna were unlikely to be rich and varied [p. 7].
Was the woodland bordering the A27 attractive, natural and un-
touched or overgrown and neglected? The point is that assessments
of the environment are informed by a variety of social commitments,
and these assessments are used to pursue specific social goals. We are
not simply talking about a piece of woodland, we are talking about it
in a social context. That context is provided by us.
Case three: Canada West in the 1840s

My third case concerns an early migrant to Canada, whose letters to
his family in the 1840s formed part of a private research project. In this
case the environment helped create personal identity. By examining
the way that nineteenth-century settlers forged new social relations
and created a civil society, we can explain current Canadian preoccu-
pations with the environment.
Francis Codd qualified at the College of Surgeons in Lincolns Inn
Fields in 1844 when he was 21 years old. He must have had difficulty
in finding a medical post in England; his letters imply that he needed a
patron before he could establish himself properly. This sounds plaus-
ible. Cowan (1961: 187), writing about British emigration to British
North America, notes: Frequently the applicants were professional
men who had been property holders, [After 1825] two new reasons for
removal are evident: the desire to get away before all is lost, and
the necessity for taking educated young people from a land in which
181
professions and occupations are already crowded to a colony where

openings for them may be found.
In Canada opportunities were very much better. Francis chose to
settle in what was then virtually uncharted country, in the hamlet of
Pembroke, to the north of what was then termed Canada West. South-
ern Ontario to the south had already been settled, it represented the
civilized Canada of small farms and flourishing towns such as Hamil-
ton (Katz, 1978). The Algonquins, where Francis tried to establish
himself, was another country. Apparently it took his fancy because it
was such a long way off. Few settlers had penetrated the region, and
the road to Pembroke was still used principally as a winter route by
lumbermen. Not until 1860 was a road opened from Renfrew County
to the north-west (MacDonald, 1966: 18). On the night of 12 Feb-
ruary 1847, Francis arrived in Bytown (later Ottawa) from Montreal,
in a covered sleigh drawn by two horses. He was swathed in buffalo
skins to keep out the sub-zero temperatures. The journey from Mon-
treal had taken a day and a night. Today it takes forty minutes by
plane.
According to Francis, Bytown was already one of the best planned
and most flourishing towns in Canada with about 7,000 inhabitants,
but in the late 1840s it was a very rough town indeed. It was the scene
of frequent riots and head-breakings between rival Irish and Canadian
lumbermen (Careless, 1967: 30). In the early 1840s the Irish had at-
tempted to drive out the French in Upper Canada by force and had
met reprisals in turn. The Irish, before the 1850s, were usually Prot-
estant Ulstermen and the battles they fought with French Catholic set-
tlers were looked upon as holy wars. Francis Codd had become a
Catholic and this influenced his judgement of many things, notably the
choice of a marriage partner. He observed wryly that Catholic Eng-
lishmen are regarded as nondescript in Canada, where being English
confers prestige on anyone, for an Englishman is regarded to be a man
of honour till he proves himself to the contrary.
First impressions of the area to the north of Bytown were mixed.
Codd notes that the countryside was not gloomy like the winter scen-
ery in England, but quite entrancing. This aesthetic delight was to
continue unabated during the subsequent four years. The people were
less attractive than the countryside, however: There is no other part of
Canada peopled by such savages . . . and no law or civil power within
a hundred miles to control them. Codd soon found that his patients
rarely paid their bills, were regularly drunk, and expected him to save
182
their lives or he risked losing his own. By April 1847 he had found
great favour with all the people . . . but the cares and duties of a doc-
tors life are greater even than I expected.
As Careless (1967: 28) points out, Canada West . . . was so full of
recent immigrants and so much in the stage of extensive rather than in-
tensive growth, that its social structure was naturally ill-defined. On
the frontier a distinctive lumber community had developed, which
combined logging in the winter with farming in the summer. During
the 1840s more hired labour was used in the lumber industry, the shan-
tymen whom Careless (1967: 30) refers to as a forest proletariat.
Francis Codd found many of his patients within this unruly frater-
nity. He was expected to distance himself from them: I cannot farm
and practice medicine, patients would not like it and I would not have
the time. Indeed, he was told by an admirer that he was not half
roughian enough for this place. Nevertheless, those who did succeed
earned his admiration. Soon after arriving he met a woman from Nor-
folk who told him Lank, Sir, if the poor creatures at home only knew
what a place Canada is, it would be good for em. Eight months later
he wrote that if he still had the 200 with which he landed in Canada
he would go into the bush and become a farmer rather than a doctor.
Typical of the success stories he encounters is a man named Pinhey
who lived near Bytown. Francis noted that although he was not a
poor man when he migrated, now he is probably in ten times the living
and independence he did in England . . . had he stayed in England he
would still have been a nobody. . . now he is a member of Legislative
Council . . . is the founder perhaps of a noble Canadian family and
owns the greater part of the township of March.
The frontier seems to have been distinguished by property-owning
anarchy as much as by a forest proletariat. Land was cheap and easily
available, especially since the land grant system had been abandoned.
Cowan (1961: 113) notes: The government [in England] began to ap-
peal to mans purely selfish instincts by making his reward depend
solely upon his own efforts. The land market developed in competi-
tion with that of the United States: Between 1844 and 1848 purchases
of land to the amount of almost one million dollars were made
(through scrip) . . . the greater part of it for speculative purposes
1. Hamnett Kirkes Pinhey, landowner, politician and author, 1784-1857 (see

Redclift, 1993).
183
(MacDonald, 1966: 13). However, it was the revenue to be derived

from lumbering that attracted government interest in the region and
necessitated a road-building programme. For the colonizing popula-
tion, cheap land was an important accompaniment to lumbering.
Francis remarked that all farming produce meets with a ready market
here from the timber merchants and yet a hundred acre lot, half
cleared, sells for about 50. Farther from the settlements one could
buy a farm of 500 acres for 40, but only thirty acres of it cleared.
The essence of succeeding on the frontier was efficient self-provi-
sioning. The people made maple sugar and molasses and picked straw-
berries and blueberries in the summer. The main art of living in
Canada is to do with as little cash as possible and if a man has a farm
he can raise his own flour, pork, butter and cheese. Fish and venison
were bought from the Indians. In other words, it was as important to
save money as to make it. The life of a frontier farmer was rewarding
but it was also hard. Farming does very well for a man who has a fam-
ily and who is willing to lead a stationary, moneyless life and be con-
sidered as an equal by all his clodhopping neighbors and laborers.
In 1850, after his return to Canada, following a brief visit to Eng-
land, Francis built a house and employed a housekeeper, which
proved more economical than renting rooms. He was still constantly
in debt which meant that his credit was always good but his income
had improved. It was still difficult for him to make social comparisons
with England. His friend, Mr Donnell, a civilised lumberman. . . lives
as a man would in England worth &400 or 500 a year, though in fact
he is a very quiet man in this part of Canada. In December 1849,
Francis wrote: I begin to think that 100 in England is worth 200 out
of it as far as comfort is concerned.
Creditworthiness came to assume more importance the longer he
lived in Canada. Since few people arrived with much capital, and the
flow of cash was so irregular, what mattered most was personal credit.
In January 1852 Francis calculated that he had earned 130 from his
practice in the previous year. Of this sum 92 was still due to him and
he had accumulated debts of 77. He asked his father rhetorically
whether if I had been in the same situation in England I should have
met with as much help in the shape of credit as I have had in Canada?
I love old England very much but I should not like to try it, I must con-
fess.
Francis Codds early period in the Algonquins was characterized
by the usual traumas that accompany immersion in a new culture. At
184
In our image: the environment and society as g[obal discourse
the same time the frontier was changing. By December 1849a division
court had been established in Renfrew for small debts. Francis came to
take a very positive view of the efforts that were made to build a net-
work of local magistrates with a high degree of legitimacy. He was at-
tracted to the makeshift democracy of frontier Canada. By
January 1852 he was writing:
A magistrate in this country is, however, a very different animal from
the same in England he need not spend a dollar a year the more for
being a magistrate many of our magistrates are plain farmers who
can just read and write decently but their authority seems to be just as
much respected as in England. One of the two magistrates in this vil-
lage is an old pensioner-sergeant who was quartered in Holt (Norfolk)
in the Artillery in 1806.
Civil disturbances were still common, of course, but there were
signs that support existed for genuine community-based efforts at law
enforcement. In the same letter, in 1852, Francis referred to a concert
performed by a local music club, mostly young ladies taught and led
by Mr. Thompson, the blacksmith, which succeeded, despite derisive
shouting from the audience, in raising money for a Renfrew Mech-
anics Institute Library. Francis noted that if the township can raise
f25 the government is bound to give f50.
Between 1847 and 1852 Francis Codds view of Canada changed
dramatically. At the beginning he sought to survive and to establish
himself professionally. He was in no doubt as to the drawbacks of liv-
ing on the frontier. There are no emigrants up here, he complains in
June 1847, they stay in the more popular parts of Canada where land
is more expensive and everything else cheaper. He toyed with the
thought of returning to Montreal, where he could earn a regular salary
as a doctor in the governments employ.
The longer Francis stayed in Canada the more he liked the frontier.
He assured his parents that although he was returning to see them he
intended leaving old England perhaps for ever. His complaints were
directed at individual misconduct rather than Canada.
Before returning to England briefly in 1848 he wrote to urge his
brother Henry to come to Canada to qualify as a lawyer. Half the
members of the Canadian Parliament were lawyers or doctors, chiefly
lawyers. He said he prefers Canada to England under any circum-
stances, and fears that already he would feel more like a stranger in
England than Canada.
The second phase of Francis Codds correspondence after 1849 and
185

his return to Canada is punctuated with repeated pleas for his family
to join him there. Although he returned to the same part of the
country, he regretted that he had not settled further west, for the
farmers can always get cash for their wheat and here [in Renfrew] the
markets are very uncertain because everything depends on the lumber
trade. In 1849 he was 26 years old: Where shall I be next birthday?
Here I hope, although of course I should like to see you all.
Franciss attachment to the frontier grew with familiarity. Local
society began to develop. In nearby Packenham village there were
two doctors, four clergymen, a lawyer, several storekeepers and lots of
civilised girls. This was in January 1850. Soon Francis was established
in his own house with a housekeeper who is clean and honest but apt
to get drunk occasionally. He reviewed the prospect of his parents
emigrating to Canada and decided that they were too old to uproot
themselves. Anybody intending to emigrate should spend between two
months and a year having a look at the country first.
But an extraordinary coincidence occurred. As his own fortunes
improved so did those of his adopted country. Increasingly Francis
referred to the advantages of Canada over England. He was critical
of Lord John Russells proposals on Catholic emancipation (in
March 1851). In Canada the government does not try to interfere with
the Catholic Church: Canada is freer. When his brother Henry com-
plained about the Canadian winter, Francis retorted: There can be no
worse climate than that of England. Canadian wheat is so good. It
was even sold in New York last year! Canada is flourishing and all
parties feel that it is getting strong enough to defy any attempt at tyran-
nizing either by Great Britain or the United States. His first obliga-
tion, as a Canadian, was to learn French. Three years earlier Francis
bemoaned his inability to talk to the French women in a shanty on the
Madawasha River. Now he has commenced learning French again
and means to stick to it until I can talk fluently.
He began to take delight in the company of others during his fre-
quent trips into the bush. In January 1852 Francis accompanied the
new Presbyterian minister none of the evangelical humbug about
him that most of the Scotch have - to an Indian camp, seven miles up
the ice. They feasted on venison and he noted how delighted
Mr Thomson, the minister, was: He likes Canada very much, he says,
and his wife and eight children are coming out next Spring.
The last letters are full of advice on how to survive with limited fin-
ancial resources in an alien environment. Francis noted that, It takes
186
a man several years to open his eyes to what maybe done with a little
capital in Canada, and by that time an emigrant has generally fooled
away all he brought. Franciss expenses increased as his practice
began to flourish, but he was evidently in demand not only as a doctor.
He is asked to give a lecture in aid of the Mechanics Institute Library
Fund and was called as a key witness in a murder case held in Perth.
Francis Codds experiences illustrate my point about the way we
construct the environment out of human ingenuity and then go on to
impart normative value to it. Francis invested Canada with his own as-
pirations and constructed a view of the environment that could be
defended solidly, which was part of himself.
The people were rough . . . but they were often courageous. They
had no money . but . . they were worth a lot more than they had been
in England. Civilization was spreading . . . but not at the expense of
the wilderness, which left Francis awestruck and admiring. This, of
course, is the stuff of movies and novels, of Canadian consciousness.
Perhaps it helps explain why Canada, despite failing to resolve its eth-
nic differences internally, has taken the environment so much to its
heart. The Canadian Green Plan is supposed to inform research in the
universities and in the sciences. It is the inspiration behind the Cana-
dian Global Change Programme. The representations of nature and
the environment contained in letters like those of Francis Codd tell us
much about the societies from which they sprang and the societies
they produced.
Ecological imperatives: global nemesis

We have seen how the environment is constructed intellectually and
morally in the treatment it receives from our culture: the discourses
that we employ. My final example comes to the heart of the issue: Is
science adequate to the task before us to equip human societies to
manage the environment more sustainably? By the same token, does
the acknowledgement that our view of the environment is socially con-
structed weaken our capacity to get on top of real problems in the real
world? (I refer to this as the realistic position, as opposed to the rela-
tivist, or socially constructed, position.) At the leading edge of these
issues is the new discipline of environmental economics. I refer particu-
larly to the work of Pearce et al. (1989).
In examining environmental economics at close quarters, one is
187
struck by a paradox. The difficulty in fully incorporating social goals

within the analysis of environmental economics is demonstrated by the
principle that is used to defend it. Pearce et al. (1989: 8) declare that we
know natural capital is valuable because people are willing to pay to
preserve it:
A simple conceptual basis for estimating a benefit is to find out what
people are willing to pay to secure it. Thus, if we have an environmen-
tal asset and there is the possibility of increasing its size, a measure of
the economic value of the increase in size will be the sums that people
are willing to pay to ensure that the asset is obtained. Whether there is
an actual market in the asset or not is not of great relevance. We can
still find out what people would pay if only there were a market.
It is clear that environmental economists like Pearce et al. have
proved able to push back the boundaries of the neoclassical paradigm
and to accommodate environmental concerns in their analysis. How-
ever, this accommodation has come at a price. Essentially, the analysis
has widened the bounds of consumer choice, enabling the individuals
preferences to be expressed. In the next section we shall examine the
limitations of this approach. For the moment we need only note that
environmental economics leaves the neoclassical intact. Market
values, or imputed market values, can be used to provide a fuller ac-
count of natural capital, and the benefits of sustainability. In seeking
sustainable development, Pearce et al. (1989: 3) note that what con-
stitutes development, and the time horizon to be adopted, are both
ethically and practically determined.
This observation should lead us to consider not only the political
context in which decisions are taken about the environment, but also
the circumstances under which environmental economics is used to
help facilitate decision. If development is subject to value judgments,
and lies outside the compass of objective science, why is environmental
economics not subject to the same value judgments? Is development
to be subjected to value judgments, but not the paradigm within
which it is understood?
I have already argued that environmental economics has succeeded
in enlarging the neoclassical paradigm, with important consequences
for the way that the environment is calculated. It remains to examine
the assumptions of the paradigm itself.
The first problem with the paradigm is that it fails to recognize that
monetary values are always exchange values, not use values. When
Pearce et al. refer to use benefits and use values they are referring to
188
exploitation values. Use values do not attract monetary values because

they exist outside the framework of market pricing. As Francis Codd
noted, they were the currency of the Canadian frontier. Environmental
economists will argue that this is no impediment to using monetary
values for them and that the way that we arrive at these prices is a mat-
ter of methodological refinement. Economics has developed tech-
niques to impute such values, in the form of shadow pricing and
contingent valuation. There are no barriers to attaching prices to envi-
ronmental goods and services it will be objected merely misplaced
ideological objections.
This misses the point. Economists cannot value what the environ-
ment is worth; merely its value in monetary terms. As Oscar Wilde
maintained, it is possible to know the price of everything and the value
of nothing. The point is that monetary valuations do not capture the
worth of the environment to different groups of people. Giving in-
creased value to environmental assets is not simply a question of at-
taching larger figures to assets in the course of costbenefit analysis. As
Elson and Redclift (1992) demonstrate, this means attaching cardinal
valuations through monetary measures, such as prices and taxes, when
ordinal valuations (more/less valuable) may be more appropriate and
useful. We can undertake valuation by establishing the thresholds that
operate for real people in the real world, rather than through moneti-
zation.
Let us use womens labour in the forest communities of the develo-
ping world as an example. Men and women value the environment dif-
ferently because of the different uses they make of it. The value women
attach to the environment is usually invisible to others because the use
they make of it is not subject to market values. Nevertheless, womens
activities, such as collecting firewood, gathering plants and fetching
water, for both use and exchange, are vital for the sustainability of
poor rural households. Many of the environmental goods that women
collect and households use are free goods in nature but vitally impor-
tant for survival. Elson and Redclift (1992) note that one tribal com-
munity in Andhra Pradesh could identify 169 different items of
consumption, drawn from forest and bush land. Environmental ac-
counting is ill-equipped to measure the real value of the environment
to women, when these use values are part of direct household provi-
sioning.
The second problem with the paradigm is that it claims value neu-
trality, when environmental economics itself expresses the preferences
189
and biases of the society in which it was developed. Providing econ-

omic penalties for transgressing environmental standards removes
these standards from the context in which they are developed. Values
are a reflection of specific social systems and express degrees of com-
mitment to a specific social order, the order that espouses them. The
values we place on nature, not surprisingly, reflect our priorities, not
the value of nature itself. Nature is a mirror to our system of values,
and in seeking monetary values for environmental goods and services
we are attempting to naturalize the environment. The point would
not have been lost on Francis Codd.
Environmental economics provides a good illustration of the way
we seek to construct the environment socially, through the mechanism
of monetary valuation. Progress within the discipline aims to extend
the paradigm, rather than to place it within its political and social con-
text. Development projects, for example, such as large dams or irri-
gation schemes, are said to have environmental consequences, which
environmental economics is well placed to address.
This ignores the fact that development projects are socially created
and socially implemented. They internalize a view of nature in their
methodology and practices. They also seek to acquire legitimacy for
the idea of projects another instance of the way they are socially con-
structed. The projects have already internalized a view of nature from
which environmental consequences themselves spring. (In the same
way, ecological projects have internalized a position on society, but
this is a still more difficult nut to crack.) What is at issue, then, is the
appropriateness of environmental economics, which does not recog-
nize its own relativism, in evaluating projects that are themselves ex-
pressions of specific values and interests in the social order.
There is a third area in which the neoclassical model can be faulted.
It is that this model fails to recognize that conventional economic ana-
lysis rests on a particular view of human nature and social relations.
Human nature is not immutable. It is important to establish the ele-
ments in this model of social relations that underlie the methodology
of monetary valuation.
First, environmental economics sees social interaction as in-
strumental. That is, it is designed to maximize the individuals utility.
As Hodgson (1992: 54) writes, [within environmental economics] the
tastes and preferences of individuals are considered as given.
Second, and related to this, environmental economics does not see
social interaction as constituting value in its own right, because of the
190
intrinsic value of human beings. Social interaction reveals the person

as an object, surrounded by other objects, rather than as a subject
person (in Max-Neefs phrase) able and willing to behave in ways that
do not correspond to short-term economic advantage (Ekins and
Max-Neef, 1992). It is this failure to recognize human behaviour as
culturally determined, and capable of a very wide range of variability,
that cannot be easily married with the reductionism of economics.
The rational, individual calculator beloved by economists sits un-
easily in cultures other than those that helped develop the paradigm in
the first place. (And none too easily in many areas of behaviour within
the developed countries.) This individual is supposed to make choices,
expressed as market preferences, within a neutral society in a univer-
sal sense: rationality is always culturally grounded. Once we admit the
existence of society, the calculations of individuals are not the same as
individual calculations.
The calculations of individuals can be best understood as the out-
come of social processes, peculiar (and unique) to every society. Con-
cepts like willingness to pay, used by environmental economists,
presuppose a set of cultural and ideological assumptions. Returning to
the example we gave from Pearce et al. (1989) earlier, although econo-
mists might look upon the North Sea as a waste sink resource, fishing
communities in the area would view it otherwise, as would vacationers,
or artists, or any individual or group of individuals. Similar observa-
tions could be made today about the Algonquins, which Francis Codd
helped to civilize. Is this beautiful area a resource for tourists, a wil-
derness, a historical heritage or a potential area for development?
The problem for modem environmental economics is compounded
by a fourth set of issues, which concern the degree to which the indi-
vidual, rational calculator is fully appraised of the situation in which
he or she is being asked to make choices. As Gleich (1987: 181) puts it:
Modem economics relies heavily on the efficient market theory.
Knowledge is assumed to flow freely from place to place. The people
making important decisions are supposed to have access to more or
less the same body of information.
These objections to the paradigm on which environmental econ-
omics is founded suggest that environmental economics has real tech-
nical competence in attaching monetary values to environmental
benefits and losses, but that this competence does not constitute an
adequate basis for environmental valuation. Indeed, we need to look
at environmental economics within a wider context, considering it as a
191
product of society itself. If environmental economics enables society to

make decisions, to serve the needs of society, it clearly mirrors the
values of powerful sectors of opinion in that society.
Before considering where this leaves our discussion of the environ-
ment and society, we should examine the wider policy context from an-
other perspective, which builds on the points above. We need to look
at the environment within the context of the way science itself is so-
cially constructed.
The environment and the social construction of science

It is clear that the view we take of the environment is closely bound up
with the view we take of science. Increasingly, environmental problems
are regarded as scientific problems, amenable to scientific answers.
An example is the current policy prescriptions surrounding global en-
vironmental changes, particularly global warming. Since global warm-
ing is a scientific problem, it is assumed that it must have a scientific
solution. The greenhouse effect is viewed as carrying social and econ-
omic implications, but scarcely as an effect, in that the human beha-
viour that underlies global warming is rarely considered. More
attention is paid to ways of mitigating the effect of global warming
than to its causes in human behaviour and choices, the underlying so-
cial commitments that make up our daily lives.
Part of the problem with this approach is that the modes of inquiry
in the natural sciences are themselves social processes, into which cru-
cial assumptions, choices, conventions and risks are necessarily built.
Once we regard science as outside ourselves it becomes impossible to
take responsibility for its consequences. And so it is with global warm-
ing. Relegated to the sphere of consequences, we are able to avoid the
environmental implications of our own behaviour and that of our so-
cieties.
This process of disengagement from the consequences of our beha-
viour is well established in a variety of ways. The second World Con-
servation Strategy document, Caring for the Earth (IUCN, 1991),
provides a useful example, in diagrammatic form, of the model
through which we manage our resources (IUCN, 1991: 76). The model
portrays the way in which economic development, driven by fossil fuel
resources, has taken society along a path that ignores the limits im-
posed by renewable solar energy (in all its forms). Instead, our devel-
192
opment model has channeled the material wealth that fossil hydrocar-
bons have helped to create, towards the creation of capital goods,
themselves dependent on further fossil-fuel exploitation. The model
thus ensures a continued and spiraling demand for scarce and ulti-
mately finite resources, which are fast contributing to global nemesis
by posing the ultimate, unsustainable problem for the economies that
consume them. Global warming, the loss of biodiversity, the problems
associated with the ozone hole, and other global environmental
changes represent the ultimate externality and point to problems in
the growth model itself.
As Caring for the Earth (IUCN, 1991) points out, by concentrating
investment on surplus value to maximize the accumulation of indus-
trial capital, we have tended to neglect natural capital (environmental
goods and services). Instead, we have focused our support on the de-
velopment of human capital, within a small intellectual elite, working
within spheres of knowledge that are closely allied to new technologies
and often wasteful resource uses. This, in a nutshell, is the problem of
unsustainable development.
It also illustrates the lack of congruity between technological and
scientific knowledge and the social implications of using that knowl-
edge in specific ways. Wherever we look nuclear power, toxic wastes,
pesticides, air pollution, water quality we see examples of our failure
to grasp the social implications of the scientific knowledge we possess
and the costs that are passed onto the environment. We know that en-
vironmental science cannot make political choices about the conse-
quences of technology for the environment. At the same time,
environmental policy is nothing more than the formulation of one set
of social and political choices, governing environmental uses, over an-
other set of choices.
It is hardly surprising that the discussion and practice of sustain-
able development are intimately linked to the social authority of our
science and technology. In the North this authority is increasingly con-
tested, especially by environmental groups and interested citizens. In
the South it is frequently ignored, notably by development institutions
whose model of development often acknowledges no social authority
but that of science. As I have argued, that is why development in the
South is, ultimately, not socially or politically sustainable.
Where does this leave our discussion of the environment and devel-
opment? It is clear that we cannot achieve more ecologically sustain-
able development without ensuring that it is also socially sustainable.
193
We need to recognize, in fact, that our definition of what is ecologically

sustainable answers to human purposes and needs as well as ecological
parameters.
By the same token, we cannot achieve more socially sustainable de-
velopment in a way that effectively excludes ecological factors from
consideration. If the model for better environmental policy merely
adds on environmental considerations to existing models, it is not
equipped to provide a long-term view. The strong sense of sustainable
development emphasizes the sustainability of the interrelationship be-
tween biological, economic and social systems, rather than that of the
component parts. Each system involves elements social needs, lev-
els of production, biodiversity that are subject to modification. It fol-
lows that social science is ill-equipped to address environmental
problems if it does not rethink the development agenda.
I have argued that much of the writing on the environment and de-
velopment takes its message from the natural sciences. In the past this
has been a message of hope, as people have lived longer, and consumed
more goods, especially in the North. Sustainable development, in this
usage, is about seeking consensus and agreement, in the belief that we
can manage the contradictions of development better.
A more critical perspective, it needs to be added, regards science as
part of the problem, as well as the solution. It takes issue with the in-
evitability of economic growth and its consequences, for the aptly
named hydrocarbon society. It argues that the limits placed on devel-
opment are not merely limits in the resources available to us, as was
believed in the 1970s. The limits today are external limits, too, repre-
sented most vividly by the challenge of global warming. The more criti-
cal perspective suggests that environmental management, as a strategy
to cope with the externalities of the development model, is found want-
ing. Modern economics has played a major role in the success of
economic growth together with the unsustainable development that
characterizes North and South. For the pursuit of growth, and neglect
of its ecological consequences, has its roots in the classical paradigm
that informed both market economies and state socialist ones. As the
discussion of the Canadian frontier makes clear, environmental man-
agement is a cultural process through which not only nature is trans-
formed, but our understanding of it.
If we are to meet the problem presented by unsustainable devel-
opment, on a global scale, we need, of course, to go beyond the as-
sertion that such problems are themselves socially constructed. We
194
need to embrace a stance for which we are ill-prepared in many

ways, and one at odds with the way we formulated economic and
social problems in the past. We can only assume full responsibility
for our actions towards the environment by examining the under-
lying social commitments that govern our lives: the way we use en-
ergy and scarce natural resources, the way we value goods and
services. Environmental economics at least represents one attempt to
grapple with these problems, although, I have argued, it stems from
a paradigm that is fundamentally flawed. Environmental economics
was created in our own image, to reflect human concerns and the
preoccupations we have inherited from a world economic system
that is in disarray.
The problem with our discourse about the environment and devel-
opment is that it meets the criteria of yesterday. The Earth Summit in
Brazil in 1992 demonstrated, as few events have, that the global dis-
course about the fate of the planet was initiated in the North and, ulti-
mately, dependent on northern goodwill. It is a one-sided global
discourse from which we are trying to wrench benefits without exam-
ining the processes that require global agreement. Sustainable devel-
opment is a global project, but our ability to find solutions is
influenced, critically, by our inability to admit mistakes. The global
project is being developed through parsimonious negotiations, in ig-
norance of the intellectual history that contributed to global problems
in the first place, and makes us poorly equipped to deal with them.
The universe that Francis Codd was entering, the Canadian fron-
tier of the 1840s, was one of confidence, inspired by the Promethean
spirit. As Roland Barthes (1973: 1423) has reminded us: Myth has
the task of giving a historical intention a natural justification, and
making contingency appear external. . . . A conjuring trick has taken
place; it has turned reality inside out, it has emptied it of history and
tilled it with nature.
In dealing with the environment, we are dealing with myth. The
burden of my argument is that acting responsibly towards nature
means reclaiming that history. Latter-day Canadians view the envi-
ronment through their construction of the frontier and wilderness;
environmental economists through the lens of neoclassical economics;
and conservationists and developers through their own interests and
social commitments. Before we can really address the problems of the
environment we need to look in the mirror, to discover why we created
nature in our own image in the first place.
195
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COWAN , H. I. 1961. British Emigration to British North America. Toronto,
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196
C HAPTER 1 1
The electronic Trojan horse:
television in the globalization
of paramodern cultures
Philip Carl Salzman
Introduction
Arriving several years ago in highland Sardinia, in mountain com-
munities renowned for intrepid shepherds and their sheep rustling, on-
going vendettas and notorious kidnappings communities widely
characterized, even locally, as isolated, closed and backward I was
struck by finding in the centre of each home, in the heart of each fam-
ily, connected by an electronic umbilical cord to Rome, Milan, Paris,
London and Los Angeles, and attended extensively and closely by
individuals and groups of family members or friends, a large colour
television set overflowing with sounds and images, purveying multitu-
dinous messages, apparently tying each island highland household
with the wide world. This reminded me of other similar instances that
had given me pause: the Tuareg nomads of the Sahara, postponing
(according to a brief human interest newspaper account) a major mi-
gration in order to find out who had shot J. R.; the Bedouin tent with
its electronic spire, a television antenna, that I had seen alongside a
road in the Negev; my Jodhpur landlord Bagh Singh puzzling over an
English detective programme on Doordarshan, the Indian television
network, just arrived in Rajasthan.
The theme I address here is the impact of television upon local life
as lived in communities around the world. The thesis proposed is that,
while the world may never quite become the global village rhap-
sodized by Marshall McLuhan, each village, whether rustic or urban,
pre- or post-industrial, is becoming more and more global as, elec-
tronically, the world increasingly comes to each village and neighborh-
ood, hamlet and settlement, quarter and suburb. The cultural vision
197
that we anthropologists believe to be the precipitate of the past and

precipitator of the future, this cultural vision is now supplemented by
television, an unprecedented external cultural influence provided and
consumed in mega-doses.
Television as a medium of cultural influence has, as do its milder
electronic predecessors such as radio, characteristics unprecedented:
the easy availability of the medium, its very broad scope, and its appar-
ently benign presence.
The easy availability of television programmes is due partly to the
relatively low cost of owning and maintaining a television set, even
where there are annual licence fees and cable subscriptions. Further-
more, for almost all viewers (the rare pay-TV subscribers aside), there
is no financial constraint on how much is watched, for watching more
costs nothing more; rather, the more one watches the more value one
gets from ones investment in the set and the annual licence fee or cable
subscription. The low economic cost of watching TV is matched by the
low personal energy costs and the general convenience. For most
viewers, television is available in their own houses as well as in the
houses of relatives and friends they might be visiting. The television
can even be manipulated by remote control, without the viewer mov-
ing from a position of repose. Watching requires little initiative and ef-
fort, and thus is attractive to those tired and worn out with the days
travails.
The broad scope of television has several aspects. One is availa-
bility: increasingly, programmes are available many hours of the day,
if not around the clock. Another aspect is the sheer number of pro-
grammes available at any given moment and thus, in any particular
stretch of time, a number ever-increasing with new channels and net-
works. A third aspect of scope is the eroding of distances as images and
messages flood in from around the world and even beyond. While such
long-distance communications have hitherto been mediated by na-
tional and regional centres, the new satellite-and-dish-receiver technol-
ogy eliminates mediation and makes possible worldwide reception.
Finally, the fourth aspect of scope is the range of programme material
available to viewers from multiple sources of broadcasting and myriad
sources of narrowcasting, a broad and broadening range which covers
many topics, subjects, interests, orientations, moods and preferences.
The constantly expanding scope of television is readily seen in
frenetic business competition and technological advances. For
example, cable television companies in Canada are quaking in fear of
198

television in the globalization of paramodern cultures
what they call the death star, a satellite transmitter capable of sending
hundreds of channels to anyone with a small dish receiver. And in
India,
In the past 18 months tens of thousands of Indian viewers have aban-
doned Doordarshan for cable and satellite outlets that offer such inter-
national fare as MTV, British comedies, American soap operas and
Japanese entertainment shows. The [Doordarshan national] network,
best known for boring, stodgy, government-controlled fare, is hoping
that opening [five] new channels to private producers will result in
flashier sports, entertainment and news programmes that will win
back viewers who have deserted it [Montreal Gazette, 1993, A4].
Perhaps the most important feature of television as a medium of
cultural influence is its benign presence, its apparently pleasant, gratif-
ying and unthreatening nature. Obviously critical is the entertainment
that television provides, drawing people for the pleasure they gain
from watching. People watch to enjoy themselves, to feel good and to
relax. Television gives them what they want. Or it allows them to take
what they want, for it is the viewer who chooses to watch or not to
watch and who selects the programme. That the television is, or ap-
pears to be, under the control of the viewer is another aspect of the
benign nature of television. In addition, partly because of the variety of
views and positions expressed in programmes, and partly because of
viewer control, television is generally not overtly critical of viewers nor
usually explicitly judgmental about local culture or cultures. In con-
sequence, television is not threatening and does not generate a defen-
sive stance among viewers.
The easy availability, broad scope and apparently benign nature of
television make it a particularly effective medium of cultural influence.
Radio pales beside television, surviving primarily due to portability.
Movies have largely been encompassed by television and videotape re-
corders, making redundant to a considerable degree the expensive and
inconvenient cinemas. Some of the non-electronic print media, par-
ticularly newspapers and magazines, have a number of these same
characteristics, and they, too, are important influences. However, the
availability of print media is inferior to that of television, owing to
awkward physical transportation and the demands of literacy and the
effort of reading. Books are expensive (the cost of fifteen or twenty will
buy a colour television set), not well distributed and require effort to
read. Institutionalized face-to-face cultural influences, such as schools
and churches, are to a significant degree imposed rather than
199
.-..
controlled by the users, have highly restricted timetables, provide

messages explicitly according to their own rather than their listeners
agendas, and are paradigmatically critical and judgmental. In com-
parison, television is the most user-friendly of all media, which is why
just about everyone invites it into their homes.
Illustrations from the ethnographic literature

But how much do viewers take it to heart? This is the test of any alleged
cultural influence of television. The several examples that follow, being
unsystematic samplings from the ethnographic literature, illustrate an-
ecdotally the cultural influence of television as well as the awareness of
anthropologists of this impact.
Sydel Silverman (1975), in her classic account of a central Italian
hill town, Three Bells of Civilization, argues that television, which
by 1960 had a greater influence than newspapers, magazines or radio,
exerted major structural and substantive impact on local society. As
she puts it:
The expansion in the means of communication implies a structural
change. Montecastello has always been in contact with the world out-
side, but it is only in the contemporary period that such contact has
been directly accessible to all classes. . . . [New] ideas are no longer fil-
tered through an elite, but are directly accessible to many [p. 146].
[This] broadened participation is changing the definition of civilt
(i.e. civic culture). Increasingly, to be civile is coming to mean the
ability to take ones place as a citizen in national life and to subscribe
to acceptable standards of behaviour. Increasingly, those standards
are external ones, the national models projected via television and ma-
gazines [p. 147].
Thus, in central Italy, by 1960 television had become a major factor,
together with travel and the print media, in democratizing local cultur-
al life and in presenting urban Rome and Milan as the models for emu-
lation (Silverman, 1975: 105).
Another observer of Italy, Ann Cornelisen (1991), has provided a
vivid vignette in Women of the Shadows of one group of girls and their
fascination with television.
Cettina (who left her husband and two children). . may be more typi-
cal than one would like to think. She and her friends grew up (in
the 1960s) with one eye firmly fixed at the television keyhole. They
watched everyones favourite programme, thirty minutes of back-to-
200

back commercials, and became avid consumers, if only in their minds.

All they need do was wait for the Italian Miracle to overcome
them. . . . They whiled away their time with variety shows, give-away
programmes, and old American films. Their knowledge of movie stars
lives and the trousseau of the Shah of Irans new bride was encyclo-
pedic; they never missed an issue of a magazine revealingly called
Grand Hotel. They brushed aside the grumbling pessimism of their
parents with brutal scorn that would have earned their mother a beat-
ing. What do you know about the world? Youre buried in this place
even God has forgotten. Work, work, work! Thats all you know! And
what did you get for it? Nothing! Well, its different now. Were not
dumb, like you. . . . They were greedy voyeurs of Real Life, and when
it remained an elusive coming attraction, they still imagined them-
selves, if not with the white telephone, at least with a white rug on the
floor and a husband to match [pp. 155-6].
Here television appears to have encouraged an orientation to con-
sumption and the high life, discrepant from the local world of limited
opportunities, labour and sacrifice, as well as a contempt for unen-
lightened elders. Whether liberated aspirations or inauthentic phan-
toms, these images and messages appear to have shaped the lives of
these girls and the women they became.
A somewhat similar pattern appears in the lives of women de-
scribed by Pavlides and Hesser (1986) in their essay, Womens Roles
and House Form and Decoration in Eressos, Greece. As was gener-
ally the case in rural and pre-modern society (in spite of ideology-
driven revisionism to the contrary), the women of small Greek
communities such as Eressos were central players in the household-
based economy and family-based social life. As has also been common,
twentieth-century commercialization of production and consumption
led to the marginalization of women from productive labour and re-
duced the value of their services, leading to a decline of their status and
power. It is within this context that television has arrived in Eressos:
As women [in Eressos] have become [during the past fifty years] little
more than caretakers of the house, however, men have become provi-
sioners of the house in almost all respects. At the same time, few new
activities for women have been introduced [watching television is one
of them], few modem-life roles are available to women, and oppor-
tunities to earn cash are extremely limited. . . . [However, women] are
exposed through television to images of an alternative world in which
women have expanded domains and greater freedom. Such images re-
veal to them their own restriction. The resulting discontent is most evi-
dent among female teenagers who complain about their confined lives
201
and whose strongest desires are to leave Eressos for the city. Among
older women, discontent, although verbalized by a few, is more widely
reflected in the frequent consumption of prescribed tranquilizers for
nerves [p. 92].
In this case also, local vision of possibilities and desirabilities is chal-
lenged by television and the images and messages it carries. Local
viewers conceptions of possibilities, hopes for themselves and their fu-
ture, and assessments of local life and opportunities appear to be in-
creasingly based upon the models provided by television.
The messages from TV go well beyond providing attractive
models. Television can at the same time, or more directly and didacti-
cally, challenge approaches, attitudes and beliefs. An example is pro-
vided by Carol Delaney (1991: 155) in her study of reproduction and
gender ideology in a Turkish village, The Seed and the Soil.
The government [of Turkey] . . . launched a campaign to discourage
marriages between close kin, arguing that marriages between blood
kin . . . produce . . . deformed, disabled, crippled children. Short televi-
sion programmes described the lives of deaf, blind and crippled people
alleged to be products of such marriages. . . . This] message was
shocking to villagers, since it called into question their most fun-
damental ideas about inherent differences between the sexes, ideas that
are basic to their beliefs about the nature of the universe and the social
order.
Messages that influence viewers attitudes need not result from pur-
poseful campaigns. Soap operas, which reflect and highlight certain
daily family problems in a particular social context, can become per-
suasive models for change in different cultural settings. Janice Boddy
(1989: 321) reports, in her important study of gender and culture in
northern Sudan, Wombs and Alien Spirits, that Egyptian family
dramas shown on Sudanese television are generating major changes in
attitudes among rural Hofriyati viewers.
Egyptian video plays . . deal with themes of problematic kinship,
marital intrigue and thwarted ambition, often absorbing current issues
within traditional [Egyptian] frameworks where they are, in a sense,
naturalized.
The impact of these television dramas [in Hofriyat, northern
Sudan] can be seen in an increased use of Egyptian dialect words in
everyday speech, in a concern to acquire the material goods displayed
in Egyptian households and TV advertisements (so reinforcing the la-
bour emigration of village men) and, more subtly, in ideas about fer-
tility and the ideal relationship between spouses. A few young people I
202
spoke to said they had sought companionship in their marriages and,

like Egyptian couples on TV, were presently sharing a bedroom.
Neither behaviour was deemed possible or desirable during my first
period of fieldwork, when sexual segregation was observed at home as
well as in public. Cohabitation of this sort was something done by kha-
wajat (Europeans), not by (good Muslim) Hofriyati. Moreover, three
young men of my acquaintance now stress the need to practice birth
control in order to have fewer, better-cared-for children, a sentiment I
had heard in 1977 only from women, and then only in private. All this
represents a shift of attitudes: earlier emphasis on gender solidarity
and the concern for founding a descent group is, for some Hofriyati,
apparently giving way to marital solidarity and an intensification of
nuclear family relationships. While it is undeniable that economic fac-
tors are playing the major role here, video dramas legitimize the pro-
cess and show it to be congruent with accepted values.
Thus, television programmes that express and illustrate dynamics and
discourses in one society become challenges and alternatives when
aired in other cultural contexts.
This selection of cases illustrating the impact of television is drawn
from ethnographies focused on other issues, and there is not much
more information in these works about television or other mass media
than I have presented here. The authors are to be commended for their
sensitivity to these influences and for their assistance in alerting us to
the importance of the media in the lives of our contemporaries around
the world. The particular influences running through these cases are
several: the bypassing of elites in the flow of information; the consump-
tion cathexis as an appropriate orientation; the legitimation of urban,
metropolitan and cosmopolitan models of living and working; the
authoritative advocacy of establishment scientific and state ideologies;
and promotion of certain languages, dialects, concepts and terms.
Whether these processes are inherent characteristics of television or ar-
tefacts of the specific modes of production current at this stage of tech-
nology and organization remains to be discussed, but each of these
democratization, consumerism, urban modelling and linguistic hege-
mony is currently widespread and each has major ramifications for
cultural life locally and beyond, and they all deserve close and detailed
attention by anyone trying to understand contemporary life,
Most anthropological ethnographers, still striving against the odds
to achieve the impossible dream of holistic accounts, have given little at-
tention to the flows of mass media into their field sites, and very few have
taken media as a major focus for research. For this reason, the few
203
anthropological studies that have been made of media are particularly

valuable. I would like to review briefly three such studies, to see whether
the processes indicated in the above-mentioned suggestive accounts
find echoes in the results of more systematic and extensive research.
An interdisciplinary longitudinal and comparative study of the ar-
rival and impact of television among the Cree in northern Manitoba
by Gary Granzberg and collaborators has resulted in a rich body of in-
formation. One finding was that television was assimilated into two
traditional institutions, the koosabachigan (shaking tent) of shamanis-
tic conjuring, after which television is called in this community, and the
dream world of wandering souls (Granzberg, 1982). As Granzberg
et al. (1977: 157) summarize it:
Among the Cree, traditional conceptions of communication influence
the way new media are perceived and used. The traditional concep-
tions seem to cause the Cree to be very susceptible to TV, to take it
literally and seriously, to idolize the superhero characters, to read spe-
cial messages into it concerning behavioral requirements, and to be
especially concerned about its potential harm to children.
In comparing two communities - one a small, homogeneous, highly
integrated community with negative historical experience of White so-
ciety; the second a larger, heterogeneous community with a history as
a centre of trade and resourcefulness divergent consequences of the
arrival of television were found, the small community responding
within the framework of victimization, the larger community respond-
ing within the framework of adaptation and exploitation of outside re-
sources. After the arrival of television, members of the small
community more frequently visualized themselves as victims of ag-
gression in human relationships, whereas those of the larger com-
munity more frequently visualized themselves as aggressors in human
relationships (Granzberg, 1985: 320). In the small community, non-
traditional aspirations for education and occupation declined substan-
tially after the arrival of television, whereas in the larger one they
increased (Granzberg, 1985: 321). In both communities, there was an
increase in external referents, including the use of television characters
for fantasy play, the use of English, and the use of the label Canadian
for members of the community (Granzberg, 1985: 320-1).
A longitudinal and comparative study of television based on re-
search in half a dozen communities in Brazil is reported in Kottaks
Prime-time Society (1990). The different periods of contact with televi-
sion in these communities, some urban and some remote, provided a
204

developmental picture: just after arrival, in stage one, the novelty

makes the medium (the set) rather than the message (content) . . . the
mesmerizer; stage two, lasting ten to fifteen years, is a period of maxi-
mum receptivity. People accept, reject, interpret and rework TV mess-
ages; The third stage during which TV impact appears to be least
has a subtle, though powerful, legacy; stage four . . . encompasses the
cumulative effects of TV on full-grown natives who have spent their
lives in a society pervaded by television and the behaviour patterns
and mass culture it spawns (Kottak, 1990: 188).
The detailed findings of this extensive study drive home the impor-
tant general point that viewers are not passive receptacles tilled by the
messages conveyed by television. Rather, viewers
are human beings who make discriminations about and use television
in ways that make sense to them. They watch to validate beliefs, de-
velop fantasies and find answers to questions that the local setting dis-
courages or condemns. People use TV to relieve frustrations, build or
enhance images of self, chart social courses and formulate daring life
plans. Sometimes the interaction between viewer and set leads to unre-
alistic plans, false hopes, disappointment and frustration [p. 192].
Viewers differ not only according to individual predisposition, but also
circumstantial and cultural background, whether national, regional or
local: Programme choices and preferences reflect pre-existing social
categories and contrasts, power differentials, and variant predisposi-
tions within the local culture (p. 192). But there is a powerful feedback
effect on local life:
Long-term exposure to messages feeds back on social reality, grad-
ually changing old beliefs, attitudes and behaviour. This process con-
tributes to a changing [mass] culture. Unifying themes may emerge,
but the result is not simple homogenization. New differences and divi-
sions may also arise, and pre-existing distinctions and conflicts maybe
reinforced or even intensified [p. 192].
One major substantive finding in this case is that
TV impact is one highly significant part of a more general process of
urbanism, nationalism and state solidification, with many mutually re-
inforcing aspects. That telenovela [prime-time, soap-opera-like family
dramas] characters tend to belong to the national elite, enjoying the
good life of wealth, power and leisure, encourages local-level accept-
ance of the external messages. Townspeople mine the world of tele-
novelas for patterns and values that eventually influence local prestige
norms. More and more people emulate them. Over time, Brazilian TV
gradually aids a national process of social liberalization [p. 193].
205
Finally, I draw attention to the recent work of Mark Liechty in Nepal.

Through a sensitive and fine-grained examination of daily discourse,
especially the appropriation of English words such as body and face,
Liechty (1992: 5) is able to unwrap media-influenced transformations
in meaning:
In Kathmandu media actively devalue identities that derive from so-
cial or moral systems, replacing them with marketable identity fea-
tures. Thus the new gendered body, fragmented and idealized, helps
promote new commoditized regiments of fashion, beauty, fitness,
health, body training, dieting and nutrition including the dozens of
health tonics, strengtheners and vitamin supplements advertised
heavily in all the media . . . the new demand for womens cosmetics
and the means to acquire the new mans heroic body are only two in-
stances of new gendered identities, achievable only through consumer
transactions.
Similarly, relations between young women and men, doing love, is
presented by the media in commercial wrapping, including expensive
fashionable clothing and fancy restaurants and other commercial set-
tings [pp. 6-9). Liechty is thus able to show how media are powerful
means for altering a societys ideas of salient gender attributes and
ideal gender behaviors (p. 5).
The case of a community in highland Sardinia

The influences of television indicated in the ethnographic literature dis-
cussed above are suggestive for understanding the Sardinian mountain
community, Villagrande Strisaili, in which I am conducting research. I
would, therefore, like to review, with these influences in mind, some of
the preliminary findings from my research. But I do not intend here a
mechanical test of narrow hypotheses; rather, I shall elicit some themes
and provide some complications. I warn you ahead of time that the re-
sults will not be tidy or the conclusions decisive. I propose to prove
only that Villagrande Strisaili has become, at least partly through the
mass media, increasingly global, and to thus encourage us anthropo-
logists to pursue more consciously and more systematically the cultur-
al influences which, through the mass media and especially the
electronic media, have contributed to this globalization.
The mountain community Strisaili the name derives from the
words tre ovili, three sheep stations split during the plague, the
206

larger original settlement being called Biddamannu in Sardinian, Vil-

lagrande in Italian. Villagrandesi of my generation grew up in a com-
munity in many respects similar to that of their ancestors; they herded
sheep and tilled the soil for their food; they made cheese, baked bread
and cured prosciutto (ham); they carried water to their small stone
houses and washed their clothes in the river; they married fellow vil-
lagers and distrusted outsiders; and they expected to live their lives in
the village territory and to be buried in the village cemetery. The long
arms of the state and the Church touched and shaped them, as it had
for millennia, but were not able to grip them tightly; external authority
was resented and resisted, with autonomy of the comune and individual
self-help in political disputes describing the local ideal of inde-
pendence.
Even today, Villagrande and its surrounding region, Ogliastra, is
so isolated even from the rest of Sardinia, that it is universally called
lisola nellisola (the island within the island). The only transportation
other than motor vehicles and the occasional, lethargic, tinkertoy nar-
row-gauge train, is the ferry from the Ogliastran port of Arbatax, tak-
ing as long to get to other Sardinian ports and to peninsular Italy as it
did at the turn of the century. But much in Villagrande Strisaili has
changed in the fifty years since the Second World War: for decades Vil-
lagrandesi have had running water and electricity; large, well-fur-
nished modern houses and apartments; cars and trucks; shops with a
wide range of products from Italy and beyond; an elementary and
middle school, and many high school and some university graduates
who have gone abroad for their education; some government jobs,
many pensions, and many subsidies; spouses from other Sardinian
communities and even peninsular Italy and beyond; migrant labour in
Italy, Belgium and Germany; occasional vacations and trips to the Ita-
lian peninsula, Europe and Asia; daily local access to a dozen peninsu-
lar and two Sardinian newspapers and 100 magazines; and, of course,
radio and television.
Just about every household in Villagrande has a large colour tele-
vision set, usually placed in the kitchen/dining-room area, sometimes
in the living room, always in a conspicuous place of honour in which-
ever area is the one habitually occupied. Most Villagrandesi are home
at midday for the main family meal, il pranzo, and it is common for
family members to watch the major daily news reports on one or more
channels at this time. Watching during and after the late light supper
is also common. The television is often on during these periods even if
207
no one, except perhaps children, or one or another adult, is paying at-

tention. When asked exactly what programmed they watch during a
specific week, two dozen Villagrandesi reported that they watch televi-
sion for an average of some two and a half hours a day, about half of
them between one and two hours each day, the other half more. This
includes an average of forty-two minutes a day of daily news pro-
grammes.
Most people watch television at home most of the time, but unmar-
ried people in their twenties often say they prefer to watch with friends,
because of the lively discussions that go along with viewing. Some
people feel social pressure to watch so that they can share the experi-
ence with friends. Naturally tastes vary, some people preferring news,
others sport, others drama and yet others variety programmes; a num-
ber of my two dozen informants stated that they prefer programmes
with an ironic appreciation of the world; several others look for escape
from reality, happy endings and sentimental stories, while others fol-
low realistic accounts of events and the problems of ordinary people.
Villagrandesi tend to be quick in injecting critical discourse into re-
sponses about what they see on television. As one informant put it:
While at first [what was presented on television] was thought to be as
good as gold, with no hesitation people said: This or that is so because
they said it on television, now this is no longer so, because we are
aware that those who make television programmes are ordinary
people who can easily fall into error; furthermore, there are many po-
litical games [being played] and therefore the information [on televi-
sion] is not always perfectly consistent with the facts as they have
happened, but, the major part of the time, are misrepresented for pur-
poses which, to us viewers, are unknown.
This declaration recounts nicely the transition in acceptance that
viewers go through after the arrival of television, and is part of the shift
in sequential phases of viewing identified by Kottak. While the tone is
strong and might be characterized as cynical, the judgments are not
highly discrepant from those of other Villagrandesi. Out of two dozen
interviews, nine individuals said, sometimes repeatedly, that at least
much of what one sees on television is not realit (reality), while three
others referred to the lack of verit (truth). Four of these same people
argued that programmes were highly selective and could not be taken
as a balanced picture. One said that much on television does not com-
baciare (correspond) with the world as it is. Villagrandesi like to think
of themselves as critical viewers.
208

At the same time, Villagrande viewers express enthusiasm for tele-

visions gift of the wider world. Some half of those interviewed felt
strongly the value of exposure through television to life around the
world. The aspect most commonly cited in which television has
changed Villagrande is that people are now informed about what goes
on beyond the boundaries of the village and the island.
People are much more informed than previously. Before television,
people were ignorant; they bought newspapers but not everybody
could read, while now they watch television. Before, what happened in
the world was not known; now what happens in America is known,
why things happen in Sicily, very probably before these things would
not have been known, or known long after. Now, for example, who
has not been following the Gulf War? Everyone knows what is hap-
pening. That has changed, that we are all more informed.
I learned [from television] to understand the problems that exist
throughout the world, otherwise I would not have known.
A number of people emphasized the value, some in terms of under-
standing Villagrande better, of exposure to other societies and cul-
tures. Television makes us aware of new things, new environments,
new persons . . . different ways of life.
Television thus provides for Villagrandesi contrasting models to
compare with their community and their own lives. Undoubtedly
everything that is seen, that is watched, helps one to understand better
ones own life, ones own way of living, and gives cues for improving
ones own way of life.
Television] helps you to understand certain realities and then perhaps
to compare them with your own. . . . It has taught me to make com-
parisons, which is very important, because when you compare with
other situations, you know if you can improve in some things, or you
know if you are far behind.
Accordingly, as six informants put it explicitly, television encourages
and supports change: Some programmes incite you to do things differ-
ently to the way they are done here.
On television, things are done differently to the way they are done here
in Villagrande. There are some things that you can learn from televi-
sion. Here (in Villagrande) everything is different (from what you see
on television), therefore television helps you, helps you so much to
change your life.
One can learn to live a bit differently, because watching the lives of
others you are able to reform yourself a bit, or you see yourself (in the
light of others lives) and then try to change yourself.
209
Watching television we perhaps tend to be influenced by a culture

too different from ours.
Undoubtedly television is the instrument that has most changed life,
not only in Villagrande, but in all Italian communities and I think also
[all communities] in the world, inasmuch as it is present in all families
and has an enormous power, by which it has created certain modes of
behaviour that otherwise would not exist.
Many Villagrande viewers thus acknowledge television as a source of

alternative vision, providing models contrasting with local life, and
consequently encouraging change, whether for good or ill.
When Villagrandesi talk about Villagrande and their problems, the
consistency is striking: teenagers complain that nothing happens in Vil-
lagrande, that they ache to be somewhere with movimento, action;
those in their twenties and thirties complain about the lack of work, the
absence of good opportunities; while older people complain bitterly
that young people do not want to work, but only want to play, and that
the land is falling idle. The occupational goal of those in their twenties
and thirties is to get a posto fisso (full-time job) with fixed and limited
hours of work, permanent tenure, good pay and a secure pension,
preferably a white-collar, technical or sub-professional job. When they
say that there is no work in Villagrande or in Ogliastra, they mean that
there are not nearly enough posti fissi available or likely to become
available. Nobody is surprised that there are not enough posti fissi in a
small community which for centuries gained its living from the land and
continues to do so to a significant degree; nobody is surprised, only dis-
appointed. There is no sense among the young people of a future in
agriculture; they say quite flatly, non rende (it does not pay). No
consideration is given to the substantial potential for modern, market-
oriented farming, even though Sardinia is a big importer of fruit and ve-
getables, and even though studies by agronomists have cited Ogliastra
as an ideal environment for lucrative cultivation. Young Villagrandesi
have turned away from the land; about one thing, each is clear, Non
vorrei essere un/a contadino/a [I do not want to be a peasant]. Work on
the land, manual labour, cultivation: these are rejected, to the desper-
ation of the elders. This is one of the great changes in Villagrande, an
agropastoral town envied for centuries among its fellows for its fine land
and pastures both down on the coastal plain and upon the high plateau,
famous for its pecorino (sheeps cheese) and prosciutto.
The change in aspirations and self-definition of Villagrandesi is un-
210

doubtedly overdetermined, that is, brought about by converging in-

fluences from at least three social and cultural forces: (a) the economy,
including agricultural returns, the expansion of alternative sectors,
and government employment and subsidies; (b) education, centrally
controlled from Rome, and its cultural and vocational objectives; and
(c) the mass media, including newspapers and magazines as well as
radio and television, mostly produced in Rome and Milan. Television
programmes which tend to show urban life rather than rural life, to
portray positively industrial and white-collar occupations rather than
manual rural ones, to valorize consumption through market purchase
and consumer goods rather than production and home consumption
of genuino (pure, authentic, genuine) foods and artefacts, and which as-
sumes an individualistic social life rather than community sociability
and responsibility these television programmes have undoubtedly
contributed to the rejection by young Villagrandesi of production on
the land and of traditionally rural ways of living. What I would like to
emphasize here is that this is a cultural influence, based upon a rejec-
tion of contado (countryside), as a reference point. The many economic
reasons for pursuing modern agriculture are shunted aside in the refu-
sal to take on the now unattractive and even laughable identity of the
contadino or contadina (peasant). How are you going to keep them
down on the farm, after they have seen Rome, Milan, Paris and
Beverly Hills? Young Villagrandesi have been sold the power, wealth
and chic of modern urban life, as seen on TV, and now struggle with
unfulfilled aspirations in the rural realities of Villagrande.
Young Villagrandesi do not, however, admit that they and their
views have been influenced by television. Certain questions such as:
Has your life, your own life, been influenced by watching television?
How? and How have television programmes influenced your feelings
and assessments of Villagrande? generated a chorus of denials, many
vehement: They have not really influenced anything; No. That is, I
draw a distinction between television and real life as I live it; They
have not influenced me; Not at all; and so on in similar vein, with
rare exceptions.
Older Villagrandesi, those above forty, have a different view of the
direct impact of television upon younger Villagrandesi: they believe
that television has been a great influence on the ideas and behaviour of
the younger generations:
All peoples lives in Villagrande are not the same, because for a while
there has been, not a break, but a substantial differentiation between
211
the way of life of middle-aged and older people, on the one hand, and
the way of life of youths and younger men and women. Therefore,
while before the way of life and the habits and customs of life were simi-
lar for young and old alike, today there is this great difference. It takes
its starting point, these [new] habits and customs of life of the youth
and young adults, from television programmes as from other experi-
ences that they may have had. Meanwhile, the life of the older adults is
still somewhat tied to the old Villagrande way of life.
The youths and young adults of Villagrande try to imitate what they
see on television completely and in every way.
The youths and young adults tend to imitate the way of life presented
on television in various programmes.
Everyone dreams of this world [seen on television], but then when we
turn to our real lives, things are different. This is a bad thing; the young
people are not contented, because what they see [on television] is bet-
ter, much better. Therefore they are not content with what they have
and constantly search for more, for what they see on television. This is
why there is this discontent, this malaise, especially among young
adults, because of what they see on television.
The young people - not all but unfortunately there are many - identify
with people [on television], and for them they are fantasies that one day
could become real.
For older Villangrandesi, many of the attitudes and modes of beha-
viour of younger Villagrandesi, which are seen as significantly diver-
gent, are believed to come from the influence of television on the young
people, who identify with people they see on television, who seek to
imitate what they see, and who want what they see on television.
One clue to the denials of young Villagrandesi of the influence of
television on them is their response to questions about who, seen on
television, might be a good model for Villagrandesi to follow. While a
number did name various people seen on television, some half dozen re-
jected the idea of such a model: No, no, I think that each must be him-
self without imitating others; Each creates the model for himself;
There is no need for young people of Villagrande to have anyone to fol-
low. . . . Each young person of Villagrande lives his own reality, which is
completely subjective rather than objective. I think that they must cre-
ate their own models for themselves; Each follows his own destiny.
This assertion of the autonomy of the individual and the individual
creation of direction, bespeaks an individualism and a pluralism that
are themselves a testimony to television and a serious departure from
212

the community-based, normatively bound, circumstantially restricted

cultural vision of their elders and of pre-war Villagrande. The influence
of the new and wider world of television (and of higher education and
travel) is reflected in the very denial of influence in favour of individual-
ism and freedom. I am inclined to agree with the view of one young Vil-
lagrandese: With television, everything changes.
Conclusion
How is it, we might ask, that television (and other media) can influence
people to change their societies and cultures? This influence would be
a puzzle if we were to view social life and meaning systems as somehow
rooted in the local earth and determined by topography and climate.
But culture, the established ways in which we construe and cope with
our surroundings, each other and ourselves is an ongoing creative ef-
fort with an interplay between reproduction of the constructed and in-
novation directed to the imagined. The flows of the media, directed
beyond the metropolis and beyond centres of wealth and technology to
rural communities and agrarian societies, do not so much intrude
upon static, rigid, closed traditional structures as feed into thereby
enriching and diversifying the flows of meaning constantly being re-
vised and transformed even as they are reproducing so-called tradi-
tional cultures.
The ongoing creative construction and reproduction of culture in
rural communities and agrarian societies are inevitably based heavily
upon local experience, but not totally constrained by the boundaries of
local activities. For thousands of years, in China, India, Persia, Meso-
potamia, the Mediterranean, Central America and elsewhere, centres
of high culture have generated and broadcast refined and elaborate
myth and poetry, science and theology, stimulating and enriching and
expanding the worlds of local community members widespread among
fragile and turbulent political realms. So, too, have the strengthened
state and Church through the last millennium. Printing and literacy,
newspapers and magazines radically expanded the flow of information
to even the most far-flung local communities.
Now the electronic media, most notably television, have added
their inflow to the ongoing creative processes of cultural reproduc-
tion and enactment. Through television, viewers not only broaden
their views from the rich flow of information but, because of televi-
213
The cultural dimensions of global change /
sions vividness and continuity, are able vicariously to experience lives

and situations different from those of local life. From this vicarious ex-
perience, viewers are able to reconstruct imaginatively their own lives
and futures, their own communities and cultures. It is not only nations
and ethnicities that are imagined communities: all communities are
imagined, in that their forms and norms are creatively constructed and
not mechanical reflections of local circumstances and conditions.
Local television viewers draw upon the rich offerings of television to
construct an imagined community and an imagined self. This should
not surprise us: that we define and assess ourselves not on the basis of
some objective assessment of local circumstances but rather in terms
of selected reference groups has long been established.
Television radically if selectively expands the terms of reference
from which local viewers may choose, and the vividness of its offerings
stimulates the creative reconstruction of societies and selves. How else
can we account for the advice of the leaders of the Russian com-
munity group in Estonia, challenged by seemingly anti-Russian Esto-
nian citizenship regulations, urging Russian Army officers in Estonia
to stand up for the protection of their property, home, dignity and
human rights by follow[ing] the example of American Westerns (Bal-
tic Independent, 1993, 4).
The enriching, stimulating electronic stream of messages flows into
many communities and societies very different from those producing
the programmes and even those originating broadcasts. These com-
munities may diverge from producing and originating centres by hav-
ing agrarian rather than commercial, industrial or post-industrial
economies, by basing education on participation rather than upon
specialized institutions, by shaping their relations with each other and
with nature in terms of a sacred vision. But, with the arrival of modern
communications and transportation, and above all television, they are
no longer traditional societies, but rather, sharing with societies
around the world the international flow of electronic messages, are
paramodem, to use the useful conceptualization of John Galaty
(1992), moving beside and perhaps parallel to, but not necessarily con-
verging with, urban and industrial producers and originators of those
messages. After all, the imaginative reworking of the cultural vision
under the stimulus of the global electronic flow continues in one degree
or another to draw creatively upon local symbolic resources and to ac-
knowledge local conditions and circumstances. But whether cultural
re-creation runs on parallel or converging lines, it will inevitably draw
214

upon the increasingly universal globalization of vision. Elizabeth Col-

son (1991: 57) writes: As television spreads and sets multiply, it also
invades the conceptual worlds of an increasing portion of the worlds
population. Both anthropologists and their subjects are being formed
by the same discourse.
When Tuareg nomads worry about J. R., Russian resisters draw
inspiration from cowboys, young Sudanese rural couples follow the
examples of middle-class Cairenes and Italian teenagers emulate
those of Beverly Hills, perhaps it is time for anthropologists to
switch on.
Acknowledgements
As the Director of the Mediterranean Anthropological Research

Equipe (MARE), I carried out ethnographic research in the Ogliastra
region of Sardinia for a total of twenty-eight months between 1987
and 1995. Financial support for the MARE team project and for indi-
vidual team members was provided by the Department of Anthropol-
ogy and the Faculty of Graduate Studies of McGill University
(Montreal), the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Re-
search (New York), the Fends FCAR (Quebec), the Agnelli Founda-
tion (Turin), the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of
Canada (Ottawa) and the Finnish National Academy of Arts and
Sciences (Helsinki). MARE was affiliated with the Istituto di Disci-
pline Socio-antropologiche, Universit di Cagliari, thanks to its Direc-
tor, Professor Giulio Angioni. Fieldwork was made possible by the
gracious, welcome and unstinting generosity and active co-operation
of many Sardinian friends and acquaintances. I owe particular grati-
tude to those of Villagrande Strisaili.
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216
C HAPTER 1 2
The ethnography of development:
an African anthropologists vision
of the development process
Paul Nchoji Nkwi
Historical background
In a report on sub-Saharan Africa, the World Bank (World Bank,

1989: 30) describes the economic situation of the region as one of
failure and collapse. The document enumerates factors that have con-
tributed to the poor performances of African economies: terms of
trade, population growth, declining investments and low returns on
these. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP,
1992: 255) report highlights the same points. When Western economic
analysts use socio-economic indicators such as population growth
rate, mortality rate, birth rate, per capita income, literacy rate and nu-
tritional status to characterize the underdevelopment of Africa, it is
only logical to conclude that attempts to bring the continent to accept-
able development standards have failed. Who is to blame for this?
Attributing Africas present economic plight to a long historical
process, often not given much attention, is an attempt to appreciate the
enormous constraints and problems Africans have had to face in the
development process. This chapter looks back at Africas history and
tries to identify the proximate and remote causes of its underdevelop-
ment.
PRECOLONIAL AFRICA
According to fossil records, all the human species originated in Africa.
Scientific literature demonstrates that Homo sapiens lived in Africa
long before migrating to the Middle East or to Europe (Robins, 1991).
Molecular and linguistic studies also show the African roots of todays
217
worldwide populations. Scientists may dispute Africas central role in

world history, yet it must not be forgotten that development has been
determined to a large extent by global forces. What powerful nation on
earth can claim that it has not used or misused Africans or African re-
sources?
According to Cheikh Anta Diop (1981: 60), Africa was the cradle of
civilization. Also according to Diop, Hellenic civilization drew much
inspiration from Egypt. Diop believes that Egyptian civilization
started in the Rift Valley Region before it migrated along the Nile to
Egypt. History was distorted when Western civilization was largely at-
tributed to Athens and Rome. During the colonial period, Western
civilizing missions to Africa failed to recognize not only the great civi-
lizations of Africa, but also the fact that Africa was the cradle of hu-
mankind and of learning. Historically, African civilizations suffered
the same setbacks or devolution that have characterized most great
fallen civilizations.
SLAVE TRADE AND SLAVERY

One of the most humiliating relationships between Africa and the rest
of the world was that of the slave trade. The slow and steady develop-
ment of the African continent was compromised and jeopardized by
the massive movement and implantation of its human resources into
other economies. The discovery of the New World and its abundant
natural resources made it a centre of attention. The exploitation of
these resources required enormous inputs in terms of human labour.
European demographics did not permit it to meet the labour needs of
the New World. Williams (1964: 6) indicates that with the limited
population of Europe in the nineteenth century, the labour necessary
to cultivate the staple crops of sugar, tobacco and cotton in the New
World could not have been supplied in quantities adequate to permit
large-scale production.
The discovery of Africas human resource pool offered a handsome
economic solution for mass labour recruitment for the New Worlds
plantations. Williams (1964: 6) asserts that slavery was necessary. At
first, Europeans turned to the indigenous Indians, but the Indians could
not meet the labour requirements; they were neither co-operative nor
adaptable to plantation needs. Considered lazy and unable to endure
intensive labour as did Black Africans, American Indians escaped the
scourge of plantation slavery. As Williams (1964: 78) puts it:
218
The ethnography of development: an African

anthropologists vision of the development process
The Indians rapidly succumbed to the excessive labour demanded of

them, the insufficient diet, the white mans diseases, and their inability
to adjust themselves to the new way of life. Accustomed to a life of lib-
erty, their constitution and temperament were ill adapted to the rigors
of plantation slavery. To subject the Indians to the mines, to their
monotonous insane and severe labour, without tribal sense, without
religious ritual . . . was to enslave not only muscles but also their col-
lective spirit.
Unable to use American Indians as beasts of burden or as a source of
labour, European imperialists turned to Black Africa. For many de-
cades Africans were a standard form of trade. The child labour of the
Industrial Revolution was further refined in the enslavement of Afri-
cans. Although slavery existed in Africa long before the arrival of colo-
nialists, it was none the less slavery of a humane kind.
In most African societies, slaves were allowed to own property and
take wives within their masters groups. Their children became free at
birth. In the kingdom of Kom in Cameroon, a slave purchased by a
prince became one of the most powerful persons in the kingdom
(Nkwi, 1976: 25). It was not an African tradition to brutalize slaves.
They were equals and humans. The only difference was that they were
taken in war. Captured women were hardly considered as or treated as
slaves.
When Europeans entered the African slave market with abundant
cash, goods and racism, the whole concept of slavery changed. The
slave became a commodity and thus an inferior being, without human
rights or dignity. It has been difficult rehabilitating the image of black
people. Slaves were transported to plantations in poor health and un-
hygienic conditions, leading to great loss of life. Centuries of carnage
and pillage had far-reaching ramifications on Africas development.
Deprived of its major working force, the continent witnessed stagna-
tion and dependency. Daniel Offiong (1980: 91) estimates that Africa
lost between 65 and 75 million souls by the end of the slave trade.
Africas process of underdevelopment began not only with this de-
pletion of its human resources, but also with the inferiorization of
local products. The introduction of cheap manufactured Western
goods, believed to be superior, stifled or destroyed African initiative
and industry, The dependency syndrome gradually became consoli-
dated over the years. As Offiong (1980: 91) puts it:
Slaves constituted an increasingly major addition to the available ex-
ports gold, silver, ivory, spices, skins, guns, grains, wax and other
219
goods. In return for these goods, the rulers and their peoples received
a large enough variety of European goods to support an economic
base of great importance. The more goods, including slaves that were
produced in or channeled through his kingdom, the more imported
goods a king and his people were able to acquire. With these imported
goods a ruler could equip at least some of his soldiers with European
weaponry, This gave him an enormous advantage over neighboring
peoples who fought with traditional African weapons. And the spread
of attractive foreign goods served as a powerful inducement to the
rulers followers and vassals to support him in wars of conquest, which
usually increased the supply of African goods, including slaves.
Africas human resource base was significantly depleted by the slave
trade, which began to decline as European nations moved into the
continent and partitioned as though it were war booty.
COLONIZATION
The cultural, economic and political dependence of Africa on the West
began with colonialism. The new order gradually paved the way for
economic exploitation of Africas natural and mineral resources by the
West.
Like the slave trade, colonization was a further significant con-
tributor to the drama of African underdevelopment. When the Indus-
trial Revolution made the slave trade less profitable than before, the
huge natural resources of the colonies emerged as a more attractive
economic asset. As the United States was gradually gaining its political
autonomy and Europes disengagement was inevitable, the need arose
for strategy revision. Instead of transporting labour from Africa to the
Americas, human labour would now be used to exploit natural re-
sources on the African continent. The slave trade was replaced by ser-
vitude and hard labour on plantations. Large farms and plantations
were established through surreptitiously expropriating land from the
indigenous people with no compensation. The Bakweri lite have at-
tempted over the years to recover land expropriated by the German
colonial government between 1884 and 1916 but to no avail. Expro-
priated land became a valuable commodity for the plantation econ-
omy that required African labour.
In 1892 a German colonial officer, Eugen Zintgraff, called on the
German Government to recruit Africans massively to work on the
newly established plantations in Cameroon. The colonial policy re-
garding Africa was Africa for Africans and Africans for us. If the Ger-
220

anthropologist vision of the development process
mans could use Africans as plantation labour in Africa, the profits

would go to Germany and not to Africa (Nkwi, 1989: 13).
It can be argued that the change that occurred was one from
slave trade to slavery on African plantations. It can also be argued
that the worldwide drive for humanitarianism that became so pro-
nounced in the latter half of the nineteenth century, led by William
Wilberforce among others, forced the slave dealers and imperialists
to try to conceal this highly inhuman treatment. The reversal of the
strategy that followed gradually and systematically paved the way
for colonization. The urgent need to protect the plantations and
business concerns and to reinforce authority over these areas be-
came a greater concern. The Berlin Conference of 1884 established a
framework for the balkanization of Africa. The decisions of that
conference legalized the exploitation of Africas resources without
any regard to the rights of its people. Few profits went into the de-
velopment of African colonies, whereas tremendous profits poured
into the economies of Western Europe.
STATUS OF THE COLONIES

The imperialists at the Berlin Conference behaved as though Africa
was a defeated country. Every colonial state was confronted with the
problem of how to deal with the diverse ethnic groups. Each power es-
tablished its own policy and subjected people the way it thought most
appropriate (Yacono, 1979). The colonial state was highly decen-
tralized under the British and, through its indirect rule policy, ethnicity
emerged as a form of control. That explains why most revolutions in
the British colonies were ethnically based. Although the British
granted the indigenous people greater autonomy, their policy was fun-
damentally racist. Their attitude was to leave the ethnic units to man-
age their own affairs.
For the British, the best way to govern the local populations was to
maintain traditional governments and use them as intermediaries be-
tween the people and the colonial administration. In modem times
racism has been part of life in most former British-controlled or -in-
fluenced countries (e.g. South Africa, the United States) where apart-
heid or segregation emerged as a remote cause of a policy of indirect
rule. The French, Portuguese and Spanish opted for a slow process of
complete assimilation of local educated lites. The colonies were an in-
tegral part of France, Portugal and Spain. When Brazzaville served as
221
the capital of Free France, it made no difference to the French (De-

schamps, 1953). After all, the Congo was part of the French Republic.
The scramble for Africa and the acquisition of colonies for econ-
omic profit rather than for humanitarian considerations (the civilizing
mission) by the imperialist forces make it quite clear that the colonial
powers were concerned with their own agendas and economic gains.
Commercial crops were not introduced to bring economic advantage
to local people but to generate a multiplier effect on the lives of people
in the home country. Forced labour was institutionalized. In areas
where there were no plantations, cash-crop farming was introduced
and firmly reinforced on a smallholder basis among African house-
holds. Little attention was given to increased production of food crops,
vital for improving the nutritional status of the local people.
The consequence has been, among other things, famine, given that
much of what was produced consisted largely of cash crops. Cash-crop
farming led to deforestation and environmental degradation, soil ero-
sion and depletion, famine, poverty and material deprivation for the
indigenous people. Today, when the same former colonial powers tell
Africans not to cut down their forests for economic profit, most Afri-
can leaders think it is another attempt to stifle African economies or
another form of economic slavery. The Structural Adjustment Pro-
gramme (SAP) that has brought untold suffering and poverty to Afri-
can peasants is clear testimony of economic slavery and neo-colonial
manipulation, as explained below.
All these considerations lead one to believe that Western financial
institutions have played a major role in the underdevelopment of Af-
rica. The economic and monetary systems of African countries are
Western: most Africans have not yet adapted themselves and their so-
cial structures to such systems. Again, the transformation of most Af-
rican primary products has taken place outside the continent. The
Western capitalist system has rapidly taken over. Western writers still
think that Africa was not well prepared to deal with the issues of mod-
ern administration and modernization. How is that possible when
most colonial administrators were virtually driven from the continent
by nationalist forces seeking independence? One central African nation
had no more than sixteen university graduates at the time of inde-
pendence. How could these privileged few manage a system that was
strange to them? According to Ren Dumont (1982):
[For] the most part, colonization made it possible for the colonies to be
able to support the weight of modern administration. Money was in-
222

troduced that was to aggravate the impoverishment of the peasants

and bar them from any capital accumulation and therefore modern-
ization. Industries were for a long time forbidden in the colonies. The
latter was only to provide the market for Western manufactures and a
base for raw material.
What may be called modern administration was actually prepara-
tion for the emergence of the dependency syndrome. The neo-colonial
forces that have continued to manipulate African economies show that
Africa was not fully prepared for modem government and administra-
tion. Independence was a sham. Some African countries did not have
the workforce to operate systems that were strange to the majority of
them. Was this deliberate? Were colonial administrators taken una-
wares by the African nationalist liberation movements mobilizing local
insurgent groups to fight for independence? Why were the people not
adequately trained or educated in the art of good government?
Answers to these questions have serious implications for the issue of
underdevelopment.
NEO-COLONIALISM
Most African countries won independence in the 1960s and 1970s
after many years of liberation struggles. This marked the official end
of colonial administration and political control. However, no colo-
nial power had prepared the ground for a strong and vibrant econ-
omy of its former colonies. Attempts by the Casablanca group of
nations (Egypt, Ghana, Guinea and Morocco) to forge a new econ-
omic, political, military and monetary policy for independent Africa
were sabotaged by neo-colonial forces operating inside the newly in-
dependent countries of the 1960s. What emerged as the Organiza-
tion of African Unity in Lagos in 1963 was Africa disarmed.
Continuous neo-colonial control has been achieved through:
(a) conservation of economic monopolies to the detriment of local
initiative; (b) political institutions tailored to suit neo-colonial inter-
ests, and (c) a civil service made up of Westernized Africans, more
Western than Westerners themselves. The colonial administration
created four social classes: (a) a foreign imperialist bourgeoisie;
(b) an indigenous bourgeoisie (assimilated Africans); (c) a lower
middle class (office clerks, messengers, etc.); and (d) the peasantry,
made up of uneducated farmers with little control over natural re-
sources (Owona, 1990).
223
At independence, a small corps of colonial administrators re-

mained and are still there. The economic influence of these few cannot
be underestimated. They stayed to maintain the link between the col-
onies and the home country while continuing to promote the interest
of the latter. Owona (1990: 68) asserts:
In reality, despite a limited physical presence some expatriates were
stocked in several administrative posts as technical advisers control-
ling almost two-thirds of the management of the private and public
sectors. In 1982 all enterprises of Western origin had 43 per cent of the
top management as opposed to 25.7 per cent Cameroonian. In 1981
there are 7,847 top management posts, of which 43.6 per cent went to
foreign experts. They constituted the main corps of the professional
hierarchy.
Even today foreign experts constitute a significant proportion of the
upper echelons in some African countries. They are the ones who make
the big decisions. Western interests continue to be protected.
Colonial administrators were replaced by a Western-educated
elite who had acquired Western culture, studied in the West and
were Westerners by culture and in spirit. Little attempt was made to
give them a good grounding in technology transfer and mastery.
This was to ensure the protection of colonial interests by people
hand-picked and trained for that purpose. Frantz Fanon (1961,
1983) calls them compradors, or internal collaborators of the im-
perialists. Thus African nations acquired political independence
without economic and cultural emancipation. Granting political in-
dependence to African nations was a smokescreen behind which co-
lonial manipulators could use the same nationalist leaders to enslave
Africans economically. Some observers refer to this phenomenon as
neo-colonialism. Jean Ziegler (1979) has described African states as
suffering from the whims and caprices of Western imperialists and
proto-nations. The corollary to this has been dependence, deterior-
ation of trade terms, lack of initiative, and the development of
underdevelopment in Africa.
The big question that remains to be answered is to know how suc-
cessful the current strategies to redress the situation in Africa have
been. Have they brought satisfactory results? If not, what should be
done, considering the acuteness of the problem? The underdevelop-
ment of Africa is certainly deeply rooted in the continents past. And
the Western economies of today cannot deny their involvement in that
process.
224

The analytic assessment of development assistance
Most African countries gained independence at least twenty-five years

ago, and economic development has been described as having failed or
collapsed totally. It has been evaluated using principally economic indi-
cators. Development means essentially economic progress, economic
growth and modernization. Within this perspective it presupposes a
modification of the economic and social structures and the investment
of economic surplus. Most writers use gross national product (GNP),
gross domestic product (GDP), industrialization and volume of ex-
changes as indicators of development. Very often, the qualitative as-
pects of development are neglected in any meaningful evaluation and
analysis of the African situation.
Underdevelopment is generally defined by the following character-
istics (Grawitz, 1983: 338): high infant-mortality rate, limited optim-
ism in life, undernourishment, illiteracy, high dependence on external
sources for subsistence, rudimentary industrialization, an overwhelm-
ing primary economic sector, low social status for women, marked ab-
sence of a middle class, low energy consumption, poverty and general
misery. Why is the situation so gloomy more than twenty-five years
after Africans took charge of their own destiny? According to Lacoste
(1985: 23):
Underdevelopment has become an object of common concern. It is a
multiform ubiquitous concept, likely to be evoked at all times and in
all places. It is an object of common discourse among intellectuals. It
is also used to designate difficult socio-economic conditions. It re-
minds us of poverty, the expression of deprivation, insufficiency, infe-
riority, inequality, and the lack of basic material well-being.
Poverty is the most visible and the most palpable aspect of underdevel-
opment. If riches characterize development, then poverty of economic
origin is often an outcome of unequal distribution of riches and the
fruits of economic growth. It is a condition of the poor who, in a given
society, are deprived of sufficient revenue for their psycho-social needs
(Labbens, 1978: 12). Lack of food, good health and a steady income or
revenue are indicators of poverty and underdevelopment. Most poor
countries of the world are found in Africa, and these are often econ-
omically weak, vulnerable, miserable and unable to maintain reason-
able and sustainable standards of living (see Nkwi, 1993a: 3). Suffering
from economic strangulation and the dependency syndrome, these
countries rely on external assistance to subsist.
225
Dependency is played through the structure of the international

economic system which depends on the Bretton-Woods Accords
of 1944 (IMF and the World Bank) and of the GATT of 1947 (re-
vised in 1994), but to whose benefit? African economies that are in
deep economic distress because of the fallen prices of their primary
products cannot prosper in this international economic jungle where
only the fittest survive. Development assistance becomes more an
act of mercy than a conscious endeavour on the part of equal part-
ners. Within the framework of world capitalism, free trade favours
developed countries and penalizes underdeveloped economies. It is
impossible for Africa to develop under such imperialistic capitalist
systems.
According to Ziegler (1979: 61): Scarcity governs the planet: scarc-
ity of freedoms, scarcity of food, scarcity of opportunities for a good
life. This is certainly organized scarcity. The economic predicament of
Africa today is the result of a careful manipulation and management of
scarcity in the South by the North. After several decades of unguided
development assistance with no concrete sustainable results, the inter-
national power brokers see the scarcity of freedoms as one of the
factors of Africas underdevelopment. Democratization has been pres-
cribed as the new rule. Will that turn the economies around? I doubt
it. The emphasis on good governance and democratization as essential
components of meaningful economic development capable of pulling
the continent out of its present economic doldrums requires a rethink-
ing of the world economic order in which Africa has a crucial role to
play on its own strength. The whole philosophy of development assist-
ance needs to be recast.
Development assistance has a long history: huge sums of money
have been pumped into Africa. Since the 1960s Africa has received
more than $300 billion in aid. By the 1980s it represented 12 per cent
of the developing worlds population but received about 22 per cent of
the development assistance of the West. Bad governance and the or-
ganized and institutionalized looting of the continents wealth by its
own sons have continued unabated. African governments have spent
over $12 billion of their peoples tax money on arms and the mainten-
ance of the military and dictatorships (Nkwi, 1992: 29).
Development assistance is still built on colonial logic. The protec-
tion of vital interests remains at its heart. Development aid has been
and will continue to be given to countries despite systematic wastage of
funds in the past. Poverty and misery will remain despite assistance ef-
226

forts. Claude Freud (1988: 48) criticizes French technical assistance in

the following terms:
From the very outset, technical assistance had its roots in a form of ag-
gression on the part of persons who convinced themselves that they
were the sole reference for any solution to underdevelopment. The
concept of co-operation flatters them and encourages them to assume
a more domineering position. If they are to continue to hold this posi-
tion, it is vital that the indigenous population remain primitive. These
agents, too, take every precaution to avoid any form of contamination
that would make them look like the natives. They refuse to learn their
languages and, generally speaking, avoid any extra-professional con-
tact with them.
The essence of development assistance, especially in the public sector,
is to consolidate former colonial ties, make economic friends and
profits, and exploit and re-exploit the economic potential of the re-
ceiver country. African government officials have fallen prey to this
mirage and they still see such assistance as the only way of fighting
poverty and underdevelopment. What are usually called development
projects, and into which millions of dollars are dumped, are usually
not for the benefit of the people.
Governments of developed nations that have maintained and
abetted compradorial regimes are largely responsible for the growing
underdevelopment of Africa. When one looks at non-people-oriented
projects white-elephant projects such as luxurious airports, ostenta-
tious conference halls, presidential palaces, basilicas and new capi-
tals all sponsored by foreign donors, the responsibility of developed
nations becomes more evident. Here are two cases to illustrate this
point.
The first case is that of a government that embarked on the build-
ing of a $25 million international airport at the height of the economic
crisis. The project was sponsored by a European country, following a
loan agreement between the two capitals. To win friends or contracts
is more important to some European countries than to poor Africans
who do not need another international airport. They already had two
that were underutilized, and more urgent things were needed. When
the African country issued a regulation obliging all airlines to land at
the new airport, the European countrys airline ceased all its oper-
ations with its African partner, saying it was uneconomic to use the air-
port (albeit built with a loan from that European country).
The second such case concerns the same African country which is
227
littered with expensive airports and five-star hotels, although less than
0.5 per cent of the population use these facilities. In a 1992 speech in
the capital of the least-developed province of the country, the Presi-
dent of the country in question noted with complacency that the road
network in the province was poor due to the fact that funds allotted for
road development in the area had been diverted to loftier projects,
i.e. building the airport in question and a three-star hotel, all in the
said province.
In the same province, two donor nations were each awarded pro-
jects. One concerned the promotion of swamp-rice cultivation: the
other the building of a dam to provide more water to a hydroelectric
plant in the dry season. Experts on both projects knew that the dam
would flood the rice-fields. They did not indicate the implications of
the dam on the rice project to the government. When the dam project
was completed, not only were rice-fields flooded: so too were cultural
and archaeological sites.
Assisting independent African countries was, in neo-colonial
terms, maintaining a colonial grip on these nation-states. Decades
of colonial exploitation were forgotten. Development assistance was
not seen in terms of being a partial return of the economic riches of
the colonies. European museums are tilled with the pillage of Afri-
can material culture. There has been an outcry for the return of Af-
ricas finest objets dart: but this has not taken place. It is difficult to
assess the extent of the economic looting of Africas natural and
mineral resources. Development assistance by former colonial
powers, considered today to be among the richest countries in the
world, must be seen as a form of restitution or repatriation of the
continents wealth.
For historical reasons, France has been deeply implanted in Africa.
Its political, cultural, technical, financial and scientific involvement in
its former African colonies is enormous and pervading. The French
Fends dAide et Coopration (FAC) allocates funds or loans to coun-
tries of the FAC zone, consisting of all the former French colonies as
well as Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland. The non-FAC
zone countries receive assistance for investment exclusively from the
French treasury, whereas technical assistance is in the hands of the
General Directorate of Cultural, Scientific and Technical Co-oper-
ation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Freud, 1988: 36). Other in-
stitutions such as the Caisse Franaise de Dveloppement (ex-CCCE)
and some ministries (Co-operation, Finance and Economy, and Edu-
228

cation) co-operate directly with ministries in countries receiving devel-

opment assistance.
These and other institutions are in Africa not only with the aim of
helping Africans to develop their countries and economies, but also to
protect French economic, cultural and political interests. The new
leadership in France may promote different policies from its predeces-
sors.
Because of the insecurity of the leadership, French military assist-
ance to Africa has occupied a preponderant place within the frame-
work of its co-operation. In 1986/87 French military assistance to
Africa absorbed more than 10 per cent of its development assistance.
The rural sector tops the chart of activities directly or indirectly funded
or assisted by France. The FAC balance sheet for 197181 shows that
the agricultural sector received 33.4 per cent of FAC funds (Freud,
1988: 36). A closer examination reveals that financial resources went to
areas that do not threaten French agricultural products but will en-
hance products that France needs for its own economic interests or
survival. Will France sacrifice its farmers to promote African agricul-
tural products? The answer is clear. Within the framework of interna-
tional co-operation, countries without colonial ties with Africa have
built their development assistance on different principles. The unwrit-
ten rule seems to be minimum involvement and no interference in the
development work of Africas historical partners.
The United States also provides development assistance. The
United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has
made significant contributions to Africa through health, population
and economic growth programmes, and more recently environment
and democracy training. Although USAID is cutting back and pull-
ing out of some countries (see below), Africa has received billions of
dollars from United States development assistance to the Third
World.
Berg and Whitaker (1990: 448) assert, and rightly so, that the
United States development assistance programme has evolved the
most when compared with other development efforts. They say that
within the framework of external assistance to Africa, enormous
changes have taken place in United States co-operation policy. Realiz-
ing that bilateral public assistance has made little difference, Washing-
ton has become increasingly dependent on non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) to bring about real economic and development
change. The alleviation of poverty, malnutrition and disease remains
229
at the heart of USAIDs legislative mandate. The success of such a pol-

icy can best be achieved through private and market forces.
According to Berg and Whitaker (1990), United States assistance is
oriented towards and focused on human resources or capacity build-
ing. Local people must acquire the capacities and skills to operate their
own systems and maintain and renew equipment. The problem of sus-
tainability becomes crucial. In a USAID news release of 19 Novem-
ber 1993, USAID administrator Brian Atwood justified the agencys
closure of twenty-one missions worldwide, nine of them in Africa, in-
cluding Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Mali. He stated that countries
that do not allow their own citizens to participate adequately in the de-
velopment process are poor partners in that process. He went on:
Sustainable development cannot be achieved in these countries so
long as the policies of their government do not change. This leaves no
doubt as to what the United States Government is looking for in its
ties with African countries.
At the level of the United Nations, Africa still heads the list
of UNDP projects throughout the world. Between 1988 and 1991 Af-
rica had 234 projects, well ahead of Asia and the Pacific put
together (224), the Arab world and Europe (122), and Latin America
and the Caribbean (102). Despite the influx of human and financial re-
sources into Africa, especially from developed countries, the continent
remains the most backward and the most underdeveloped region in
the world. Thirty years of independence and intensive international co-
operation have not succeeded in pulling it out of abject poverty, dis-
ease, illiteracy, malnutrition and population growth. It is sinking ever
more deeply into misery and is in danger of remaining there (see
Kabou, 1991).
Kabou states that the force of action of Africa is situated invari-
ably outside, out of her reach. The more aid increases and is rein-
forced, the more the power to develop escapes the grip of Africans
themselves. One of the most far-reaching consequences of develop-
ment assistance to Africa is that it maintains and reinforces depend-
ency at the expense of popular creativity.
Africans have not mastered the intricacies of the world market.
There, commodity prices can decline dramatically and drive many Af-
rican countries to resort to heavy external borrowing to sustain levels
of expenditures made possible by earlier booms (World Bank, 1989).
The World Bank noted that between 1970 and 1988 the debt of sub-
Saharan Africa rose from around $6 billion to $134 billion. It reported
230

that Africas debt grew much faster than that of other developing re-
gions. Today, Africas debt is evaluated at about $170 billion. Inter-
national experts are unanimous in their views regarding the
consequences of this huge debt for African development. If the alloca-
tion of new funds for development is henceforth to be linked to the re-
payment of external debt and the democratic process, Africas
economic take-off is still several decades away. The Structural Adjust-
ment Programme (SAP) of the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) has further confirmed that Africa needs to wait
several decades to join the community of developed nations. The poor
have become poorer, while corrupt governments are still very much in
place.
It is undeniable that the crisis is partly the cause of accumulated ex-
ternal debt (Berg and Whitaker, 1990: 482). Initially, development aid
was conceived and considered an urgent necessity for the improve-
ment of living conditions, but thirty years have proved that it was an
enslaving and subjugating practice (Jalee, 1965: 92) that has only
succeeded in worsening Africas underdevelopment. If Africas debt
can be written off or swapped for environment, there is a slim hope that
it will see better days. But Africa must be able to handle its own destiny
and control market forces.
An anthropological perspective
FAILURE OF CONVENTIONAL APPROACHES TO DEVELOPMENT

The most elusive thing for Africa has been its socio-economic develop-
ment. Theory after theory has been propounded to explain the process,
especially with reference to Africa and the Third World. Despite Af-
ricas abundant human and natural resources and relatively good
economic performances in the 1960s and the 1970s, there was still
abysmal poverty. The 1980s and 1990s have been more pathetic.
Conventional theories have been applied, and the local people have
grown poorer. In theory or practice, development is imposed exter-
nally and from above by governments or others for altruistic or exploi-
tative reasons. Knowledge of and links with the recipients have often
been at minimum levels. According to David Pitt (1976: 4), the social
gap between development planners and beneficiaries of development
projects was so enormous that nothing was ever achieved.
231
The conventional approach saw socio-economic development as

synonymous with economic growth. Featuring prominently in this
school of thought have been the works of W. W. Rostow. He sees so-
ciety as passing through five stages of economic growth, the most criti-
cal of which is the take-offstage. In the African context, this approach
emphasizes the importance of outside activism hefty injections of
loans, aid, experts and capacity building. Little consideration is given
to the general well-being of members of the community. Nor are mem-
bers of communities ever consulted.
The challenges to the conventional approach in Africa have been
tremendous. Thus far, African economies are organized according to
colonial visions which ignore African realities. Modern administra-
tions modelled on Western cultures have failed to recognize the im-
portance of indigenous cultures in the development process.
Participation of local people in the decision-making process affecting
their lives and destinies has been largely ignored. Development has not
been people-centred nor viewed as a way of helping individuals and
communities attain a better quality of life (Hagan, 1990: 8).
In the face of the failure of the conventional approach, anthropo-
logists and other social scientists have argued strongly against purely
economic models. An alternative approach or model places the people
and the cultural environment whether village, rural or urban at the
centre. The theory about community involvement places greater em-
phasis on people and their participation. It is gaining remarkable
ground in contemporary intellectual discourse around Africa, even
among conservative economic theorists. Communities know what
they need: they are the best decision-makers. Quoting a Fanti proverb
in Ghana, Ayittey (1991) holds that If you rely on someone for food,
you will go without breakfast.
The whole debate on Africas development has been relaunched by
empirical evidence demonstrating that development imposed from
outside or from above, without giving due consideration to internal
cultural dynamism, leads to disaster and underdevelopment. Accord-
ing to Bodley (1975: 150-2), when one looks at anthropological evi-
dence and compares the precolonial living conditions of tribal peoples
with their living conditions since their incorporation into the world
market economy, the conclusion invariably is that standards of living
have fallen with economic progress. The plethora of anthropological
data on culture and development confirm that all too often the real re-
sults have been poverty, longer working hours and greater physical
232

exertion, poor health, social disorder, discontent, discrimination,

overpopulation and environmental degradation, combined with de-
struction of the traditional culture.
Development viewed in an entirely Western context is altogether
different and cannot be transposed or juxtaposed to the African con-
text. Economic development in a cross-cultural context remains a very
difficult concept to deal with. It is widely recognized that standards of
living, which are the most frequently used to measure progress, are in-
trinsically ethnocentric and Eurocentric measures, relying heavily on
indicators that clearly lack universal cultural relevance. Indicators
such as GNP, per capita income, employment rates, literacy rate and
nutritional status certainly have some relevance in judging how condi-
tions have improved for local peoples. But there is more to it than just
these indicators.
Standard economic correlates often paint a negative picture of
local African economies. If we consider that since 1960 traditional
African families have been widely exposed to Western manufactured
goods, while living conditions have deteriorated dramatically, it is
clear that the indicators used to measure development are not
necessary cross-cultural. Why are informal sector activities not used
as indicators? Do African economies have unique characteristics?
What indicators may be used in this context to evaluate progress?
The rotational credit systems based on mutual confidence and trust
have remained the most reliable banking system since the SAP
restructured the banking sector in West Africa. The poor have
survived the economic crisis thanks to a well-organized informal sec-
tor within which cash, goods and social rapport are vital com-
modities.
Socio-economic changes in society are placing people in a pre-
carious mental and psychological state of balance and making them
dissatisfied with themselves. Anthropological research and inquiry
question the real positive impact of economic progress on standards of
life and cultures. In Cameroon, experience shows that people spend
more money on the scarce and exotic than on locally produced foods
and commodities. The local cloth and iron industries that struggled
during the precolonial and colonial periods have folded in the face of
stiff competition with cheap cloth and iron products from European
industries. No attempt was made to develop existing local industries.
Africa went into technological stagnation with colonial penetration.
Africa came to colonialism with a hoe and has emerged from it with a
233
hoe. This time the hoe was not made by Africans, it was imported (Tin-
dimubona, 1992: 2).
The anthropological approach maintains that major break-
throughs in the development process can only be achieved if local
populations and cultures participate in designing, planning and imple-
menting development projects. Local people must be fully engaged in
self-reliant development (see Bodley, 1975; Pitt, 1976; Fahim, 1982) if
development efforts are to be sustainable. Reliance on culture and its
strengths becomes a vital ingredient.
Culture is to a people as the heart is to the body. The pervasive na-
ture of Western cultures has deprived most African ethnic groups of
their strong cultural base. Indigenous cultural values have been aban-
doned in favour of imported Western models that local people can
neither afford nor reproduce. The net effect has been the emergence of
cultural mulattos or mttissage'. According to some authors, contacts
with European cultures have acquainted local people with great
wealth, opportunity and privilege, but only very limited avenues by
which to acquire these things (see Bodley, 1975; Ela, 1990). In cultural
dynamics, acculturation is a positive mechanism that permits the cul-
ture to readjust to new demands and conditions without destroying its
very essence.
With the Meiji Restoration in Japan in 1868, one of the five oaths
the emperor took was that knowledge will be sought and acquired
from any source with all the means at our disposal, for the greatness
and security of Japan (Salam, 1988: 20). The Japanese have reached
technological heights without destroying their culture and socio-cultu-
ral behaviour. The anthropological approach does not suggest the cre-
ation of cultural zoos in which the overwhelming influence of wider
society will be completely cut off, but rather a cultural selection process
that is entirely determined by societal actors. These actors are the Afri-
can traditional or modern leaders who seek to build a great and secure
Africa. They cannot do so while ignoring the vital social entities of the
nation-states. Ethnic groups or tribal societies are still very much part
of the modern state seeking to join the community of developed na-
tions. The continent cannot but adjust appropriately to changing
times.
Cultural dynamics teach us that cultures continue to adjust accord-
ing as opportunities for the re-examination of existing social structures
occur. Technology has made the world a global or planetary village.
Events in one part of the world are seen, heard and felt everywhere.
234

TV has brought the world into the living rooms or huts of even the
poorest and remotest African household. Social protests in the admin-
istrative capitals of Abuja, Dakar, Johannesburg, Libreville and Nai-
robi filter instantly into the African hinterlands. Protest rallies in
Germany, riots in California or demonstrations in Japan are immedi-
ately integrated into the democratic culture of a new Africa by CNN
anchorperson. New cultural invasion is threatening Africas future.
Anthropology argues for an integrated approach in which the over-
whelming influence of a wider culture is curbed to accommodate the dis-
tinctive characters of local cultures without creatinga feeling of cultural
deprivation from the global benefits. Development agencies, govern-
ment planners and implementers must be aware of this and work with
the people to enhance local talents and skills capable of promoting the
integration of positive cultural values into the development process.
This will reinforce the peoples dignity, prestige and satisfaction.
ANTHROPOLOGY AND DEVELOPMENT

IN POST-COLONIAL AFRICA
At independence, African governments relegated anthropology to the
background, calling it a racist and oppressive discipline. Its role in na-
tion-building was never recognized. Anthropological research, which
had been given prominence during the colonial period, sank into obli-
vion. Celebrated African leaders like Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, Julius
Nyerere of the United Republic of Tanzania, and Busia of Ghana were
trained anthropologists, but they did nothing to promote the disci-
pline even in their capacity as heads of state. Africans trained in an-
thropology disappeared into departments of sociology of African
universities or into government ministries. The 1950s and 1960s were
definitely dark decades for the discipline in Africa.
Anthropological research, such as that done by Malinowski and
Radcliff-Brown, was vital for the success of colonial administration.
Anthropologists carried out extensive work on the cultures and cus-
toms of the colonies. They also stressed the function of culture within
given societies. Their tindings permitted colonial administrations to
adapt their policies and make them more appropriate to the local
needs of African populations (Bodley, 1975: 81). Nkwi (1993b: 3) as-
serts that often enough, Africanist anthropologists indicated how the
knowledge they obtained through the study of Africans could be used
in the practice of colonial administration, and in so doing, they shaped
235
an uneasy future for the discipline and for African anthropologists

today.
Anthropological knowledge did not figure in the development
strategies of post-colonial Africa. African economists, political scien-
tists, sociologists, lawyers and scientists were called upon to partici-
pate in the development process of the new nation-states. They
brought a microanalytic framework back from the highly industrial
nations of the West to nations that were fragmented and required
more microanalytic tools to deal with their critical issues. The re-
sults have been a failure after decades spent wasting scarce resources
trying to implement models that were foreign and unsuited to Afri-
cans.
Modern theorists have admitted that a new approach is needed.
Since the vast majority of African peoples live in rural communities,
neo-classical observers maintain that greater attention should be paid
to understanding the social and cultural contexts within which devel-
opment takes place. With this new approach fast gaining ground, de-
velopment agencies, planners, implementers and others are calling on
anthropologists, grass-roots specialists and experts on indigenous cul-
tures to play a leading role (Nkwi, 1993b).
Taking a critical look at imposed development strategies, Pitt
(1976: 13) argues for a multidisciplinary approach. He sums up his ar-
gument in these words:
It seems obvious that more realistic development thinking and more
appropriate avenues for the anthropology of development lie in in-
creasing the lines of communication between disciplines, institutions
and cultures. But in order to achieve this and ultimately in order to
achieve greater development success, it is first necessary to develop a
much more flexible and more realistic model and method, capable of
multidisciplinary usage.
Granted that all social variables are interwoven and related, an inter-
disciplinary approach becomes an imperative for a viable development
strategy.
Within the context of this new philosophy, anthropology is achiev-
ing recognition and results. Nkwi (1993b: 5) indicates that
at the national level, African anthropologists are increasingly called
upon to advise government planners and policy implementers on
issues of development. In Africa, the success of development pro-
grammes in food production and delivery, in health care, in housing,
and in education depends more and more on sensitivity to ethnic
236

diversity, to intracultural variation, and even to the culture of modem

bureaucracies. These issues can only be approached from a multidisci-
plinary angle.
History teaches us that a rupture in one socio-economic or sociocultu-
ral system often gives way to an interregnum during which viable alter-
natives are tested and the basis of a new order is gradually established.
The search for new models, after the apparent failure of conventional
economic development theories, is an attempt to discover some appro-
priate endogenous solutions to Africas problems.
Africa is at the crossroads and desperately needs new approaches
to old problems as it faces its second struggle: socio-economic develop-
ment and cultural liberation. There is need to enfranchise its people
and broaden the decision base. In these circumstances the contribution
of anthropology to development becomes critical. Its contributions
may redress the past colonial negative image of the discipline. Anthro-
pology can only achieve this by making itself relevant to development.
African leadership seems to be responding to anthropologys desire
to become utilitarian. The African Charter of Popular Participation in
Development and Transformation, adopted in Arusha in 1990, admits
that socio-economic development has failed because African people
have not been intimately associated with the development process. It
also admits the marginalization of people in the development process
(Adedeji, 1990: 7). The charter tacitly endorses the role anthropology
can play if African people are to be part of the development process.
The communique of April 1989 by African ministers of economic plan-
ning and development and ministers of finance asserts that African
populations on the whole must be fully associated with the elabora-
tion, realization, follow-up and implementation of development pro-
jects (Adedeji, 1990: 21).
Knowledge gathered through anthropological research can be
used in two ways: firstly, to design and implement new development
projects, and, secondly, to reorient ongoing development projects.
Over the last two decades, a number of development agencies have
turned to anthropology for assistance. The World Bank employed its
first anthropologists in the early 1970s. The change in the banks lend-
ing policies from investments in infrastructural projects regardless of
their beneficiaries towards investments in poverty-oriented projects
also contributed in shaping this new perspective. After the 1973 Nai-
robi meeting of the World Bank to consider the banks development
strategy towards Africa (Fahim, 1982: 127), it became evident that the
237
bank had to address grass-roots issues. This could not be done without
turning to anthropology, which focuses on such microstudies.
Anthropological expertise needs to be deployed to save Africa
from the threatening economic holocaust. The environment, popula-
tion, nutrition, health, education, national integration, sociocultural
change, community development and so forth require unique an-
thropological insights, methods and approaches, Let us look at
three areas:
Environment. Desertification, deforestation, soil erosion and the lower-
ing of the water-table can be handled successfully if knowledge of
local perceptions is harnessed for a more sustainable local manage-
ment. Ethnographic surveys can determine alternative approaches.
Understanding the social behaviour and attitudes of local people
towards major environmental issues is vital for any meaningful
policy and management. Incorporating peoples attitudes, tradi-
tions, customs and behaviour into environmental policy design
and implementation may save our planet.
Nutrition. It is estimated that about 150 million Africans live on the
verge of starvation (United Nations, 1987). Sociocultural barriers
to improving food production, consumption and land manage-
ment are equally formidable. To overcome these barriers, local
populations must be the main agents of change. Ethnographic sur-
veys can indicate the best approaches in confronting the problems.
Why are millions of African women malnourished? Nutrition
strategies cannot be directed towards overcoming poor dietary
habits and specific deficiencies unless we know what these habits
and deficiencies are (World Bank, 1989).
Population. Early marriage and high fertility enable the average Afri-
can household to have at least seven children. With the average
population increasing at 3 per cent per annum, it is estimated that
any African country that has such an increase needs to invest 6 per
cent of its GNP each year to meet the increase without in any way
improving living standards (Rosen and Jones, 1980: 148). With
such a rapid population increase, the net capacity to meet the de-
mands progressively diminishes. Anthropological research should
indicate how appropriate family-planning methods could be intro-
duced; how socio-economic barriers to family planning can be
handled; and how indigenous decision-making processes and in-
formation can be used to achieve family-planning strategies and
goals.
238

PATHWAYS TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
The African masses have been excluded from participating in the devel-
opment process. The involvement of the local people through appro-
priate institutional mechanisms such as direct functional democracy is
essential as a take-off point for Africa (Arthorpe, 1976: 27; Cochraine,
1976; Husain, 1976). African populations with their sociocultural
diversities need to be well understood. Ethnographic surveys are most
appropriate for use in project implementation. Such projects can only
be sustainable if the local people are part of the process.
Given this perspective, development should emerge as a logical
outcome of individual communities efforts, and external assistance
should only reinforce this. The Global Coalition for Africa (Freud,
1992) shares this view when it states that its concern is based on the
premise that Africa can grow only from within, but that to do so, it
needs sustained and well-co-ordinated outside support and a stronger
working partnership with Northern donors.
If the essence of development today is peoples participation in the
improvement of their quality of life, anthropological research should
focus on strategies to maximize this participation. In this endeavour,
attention should be paid to the role and improvement of the status of
women, African social stratification and leadership patterns, local in-
dustry and competition, co-operative movement, rotating credit asso-
ciations, empowerment of local populations, agricultural production
and marketing, kinship networks and collective responsibility.
While targeting ways of improving popular participation, anthro-
pological research should also aim at: (a) identifying incentives for
participation; (b) identifying cultural values that can enhance produc-
tivity; (c) determining gender roles and their relevance to participation
in development; (d) identifying the decision-making process within the
family set-up and its implications for family planning; (e) studying
traditional land tenure and its effects on development; (f) identifying
local priority projects and their possible impact on living standards of
the local populations; (g) identifying the local decision-making process
and its implications for development policy and strategies, and
(h) highlighting strategies through which the local savings and invest-
ment habits of the people can be improved.
Ethnographic information will certainly help development project
designers avoid pitfalls. In short, projects must be elaborated by the
local people, for the people, and be executed by the people. Individual
239
pride and communal self-esteem need to be enhanced in development

projects; failing this, local populations will continue to be estranged
and will only reluctantly participate in any development efforts.
As Africa looks towards the twenty-first century, hope for a better
future can only be built on the lessons learned. The emphasis must shift
from economic surpluses, heavy industries, machinery and incentives
for investment to a people-based approach. Africa can have all these
things without necessarily becoming culturally poor and alienated.
Japans status as an economic giant has not been achieved at the ex-
pense of its culture. Can African countries achieve economic growth
and development levels using their own cultural values? How many Af-
rican children have to struggle to master sciences in a language that is
foreign to them? They use English, French, Portuguese and Spanish in
school and local languages at home. How can African countries
achieve socio-economic independence if they continue to use and rely
on languages that are not theirs?
Development is essentially people-based. Involvement and com-
mitment of people are enhanced by their aspiration to better living
standards and by the amount of infrastructure the society disposes of.
AAF-SAP is an expression of this common concern. The Arusha Con-
ference on the Economic Recovery of Africa was devoted to finding
ways to usher in an era of popular participation in the continent. Put-
ting People First emerged as one outcome of the conference (Adedeji,
1990): it stressed reliance on the peoples cultural values and norms for
meaningful development strategies.
A people-oriented approach to development using grass-roots-
oriented disciplines is a definite possibility. This chapter has shown
that anthropology can play the role of a handmaiden and enhance the
utilitarian values the discipline formerly highlighted during the colo-
nial period. If the development of Africa is to move forward, anthropo-
logical insights, methods and orientations in confronting major
development issues will be critical. Anthropology must focus on re-
gional and local economic and political domains.
The present anthropological approach advocates empowering
people both politically and economically. Local governments and de-
velopment agencies should assist local populations to make their
choices regarding development needs. Acting as counselors, govern-
ments should be catalysts, not determining factors, in choice-making
by local communities.
At the global level, multilateral and bilateral donors need to revise
240

and reorient their aid policies towards African countries. Development

assistance to African governments by the donor community, especially
by former colonial powers, must be seen as a duty and not as a favour.
Rich and powerful developed nations have to realize that, to a large ex-
tent, their wealth comes from long years of colonial exploitation. Each of
the developed nations well knows how much Africa has contributed to
boosting its economy. From a global standpoint the world has a moral
responsibility to help Africa move forward; the present-day world
powers are responsible in part for the continents underdevelopment.
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243
C HAPTER 1 3
Anthropology and global science:
a multidisciplinary perspective
Paul T. Baker
The traditional scientific process of research confined within discipli-

nary lines has rapidly broken down during the last twenty years. This
breakdown has produced organizational problems in universities and
other traditional scientific organizations, such as academies of science
and international science organizations, including the International
Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences. The breakdown
can be attributed in large part to the nature of the research being
undertaken. Thus, as problem-oriented research has become more im-
portant and the traditional description of natural phenomena has
declined in significance, it has become apparent that a rigid subject-
matter orientation to research cannot provide the information needed.
Instead, to solve such broad-scale problems as those related to the bio-
sphere, human behaviour and human health, a very broad spectrum of
specialized information and research approaches must be applied.
No individual can command the breadth of knowledge required
even to formulate a research approach for understanding and coping
with such problems as the possible consequences of continued human
population growth, changes in the earths atmospheric gas composi-
tion, the possibility of a rise in global temperatures, or the conse-
quences of the cultural panmixia that is rapidly occurring. These
problems are not nationally bound, discipline specific or likely to be
solved by the research and actions of a few countries. Consequently,
there has been a proliferation of developing international research pro-
grammes dedicated to some of these specific topical problems.
The International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) is promot-
ing the International Geosphere Biosphere programme whereas the
Social Science Council, with the assistance of the Sector of Social and
245
Human Sciences of UNESCO, has established a programme entitled

the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change. In addition
to these new programmes, there is a twenty-year-old UNESCO pro-
gramme entitled Man and the Biosphere (MAB) dedicated to similar
problems, while several other United Nations agencies and individual
governments are making more specialized efforts.
Anthropology is the only traditional science that claims to encom-
pass a social, biological and temporal approach to our species. The
discipline has also focused on both the cultural and biological diversity
of humans on a worldwide basis. Given these interests, one would as-
sume that anthropologists had played a major role in the formulation
and pursuit of both past and present research efforts. In fact, very few
anthropologists have been part of the initial planning in any of the pro-
grammes, and only a small percentage have been involved in the actual
research efforts. I believe that greater involvement of anthropologists
in these international research programmes would not only enhance
the development of the discipline but improve the quality of the pro-
grammes. Such involvement will not be easy for a number of reasons.
To make this clear I shall first examine the problems anthropologists
have encountered in formulating and participating in some of the
multidisciplinary field research that has been undertaken during the
last thirty years as part of international programmes.
Multidisciplinary programmes, 1962-90

The first programme that involved anthropologists was the Interna-
tional Biological Programme (IBP) established by ICSU at the begin-
ning of the 1960s. The project that involved anthropologists was called
Human Adaptability. It was in large measure the result of the efforts of
Professor Joseph Weiner, who had been trained in both biological an-
thropology and physiology. Since anthropology was not a part
of ICSU, it was only through Weiners position in physiology that he
was able to introduce this project. He visualized it as being two-faceted
(Weiner, 1966, 1977). The first objective was to organize a series of
worldwide surveys on traditional populations to determine the human
population variation in such characteristics as genetic structure,
physiological work capacity and human growth. The second aim was
to initiate studies on traditional human population groups with the in-
tent of not only describing the biological characteristics of such groups
246
Anthropology and global science: a multidisciplinary perspective
in detail, but also in the hope that these studies would elucidate how
these characteristics helped the groups adapt to their environmental
niche.
To increase the probability of detecting such adaptations, Weiner
encouraged studies of groups that had remained removed from mod-
ern culture and/or lived in extreme environments. Although initial
plans in the large multinational and multidisciplinary project were
never completely realized, a remarkable number of such studies were
conducted and integrated in some form of published synthesis (Collins
and Weiner, 1977).
The detailed planning for the Human Adaptability Project was
completed in seven international meetings with between twenty and
forty participants. These included human geneticists, physiologists, bi-
ological anthropologists, cultural anthropologists and psychologists.
The background papers assembled into several books provided the
basis for the projects rationale and its direction (IBP, 1968; Baker and
Weiner, 1966; Yoshimura and Weiner, 1966). As a participant in four
of these seven conferences, I know how difficult it was to reach an
agreement on the rationale and structure for projects. The geneticists
and biological anthropologists agreed on theory but differed on re-
search strategies. The physiologists believed in precise measurements
but were unconcerned with sample sizes or individual variability. Most
of the cultural anthropologists involved also felt that survey ap-
proaches were unimportant but some went further by doubting the im-
portance of environment or biology to human population differences
in behaviour. Despite these differences, a number of integrated multi-
disciplinary projects were developed and completed as part of IBP.
In each instance, it is reasonable to conclude that the projects were
initiated because the project initiators needed information that could
not be generated without participants from several disciplines. On the
other hand, additional professionals later joined the effort to obtain
specific information they found difficult to access without the financial
and other types of support from the larger project.
The beginning of the International Biological Programme was
rapidly followed by the MAB programme, which is continuing,
whereas the IBP officially ended in 1975. Although both of these pro-
grammes were concerned with assessing the worlds environmental
conditions, there was a major difference in both the types of problems
emphasized and the kind of planning structure utilized for the research
programmes. The research agenda for the IBP was established
247
primarily by scientists in non-governmental positions and overseen by

an ICSU-appointed international committee. Individual national aca-
demies of science controlled the national participation. Thus, United
Nations agencies and national governments had limited control over
the programme.
The MAB programme was developed by UNESCO and national
committees formed by governmental structures, For example, the
United States MAB committee functions through the United States
Department of State. As is true of most other national MAB pro-
grammesd, as a research programme it has been more applied in objec-
tive than the national IBP projects. A clear advantage for the
worldwide MAB programme has been the high-quality technical and
background information that has been generated by UNESCO. Thus,
a natural resources research series has been published covering the
worlds ecosystems, and a technical note series covers research design
and methods. In a 1984 congress organized by the UNESCO MAB
programme, an attempt was made to provide a worldwide assessment
of ecosystems management problems and the social responses to these
(Di Castri et al., 1984). In some countries, such as the United States,
non-governmental projects have been funded, but in general much of
the research has been carried out by governmental agencies. Compari-
son of these major international programmes suggests that the non-
governmental programmes encourage basic research interests and
heterogeneity in perspective. Governmental and intergovernmental ef-
forts are more applied in objective and more likely to be carried out by
permanent government employees.
Anthropologists in multidisciplinary research

Some of the major international projects that biological and cultural
anthropologists initiated or participated in over the past thirty years
are shown in Figure 1. A number of these were directed by biological
anthropologists, but human geneticists, physiologists and epidemio-
logists directed seven of the seventeen, while the ongoing Turkana pro-
ject is jointly directed by a biological anthropologist and an ecologist.
It is clear that most of the multidisciplinary projects extended over a
very long period of time. Even though publication and synthesis are
shown in this figure as resulting in what was often a multi-author
book, the data from even the earliest projects continue to be utilized in
248
Project 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990
(1) Kalahari Research

Group
(2) Andean Biocultural

Studies (IBP)
(3) International Studies

of Circumpolar Peoples
(IBP)
(4) Population Genetics
of the American Indian
(IBP)
(5) Tokelau Island Migrant
Study (IBP)
(6) Solomon Islands Project

(IBP)
(7) The Israel Study (IBP)
(8) Central African Pygmies

Project (IBP)
(9) Papua New Guinea

Project (IBP)
(10 Japanese Migration

Project (IBP)
1
(11)Northen Algonkian
Project
,<
(12) Multinational Andean ,:;
Genetic and Health
Project (MaB)
(13) Samoan Migrant Project
(MaB)
(14) Black Carib (Garafuna) .~j

Project
(15) Gainj New Guinea ...

Project
(16) South Turkana

Ecosystem Project
(17) Ituri Forest Project ,+.!

,,,::
~., :,:> , ;,:.s>. ,..s,. . . .

it. - ,,).,:~
Planning
Fieldwork and data-gathering
Publication and synthesis
FIG. 1. Multidisciplinary projects that entailed substantial

anthropological involvement, 196292 (modified from Little et al., 1991).
scientific articles. Figure 1 demonstrates that most of the projects were

developed as part of the IBP and MAB programmes. Funding for
these projects was aided by identification with the international pro-
grammes. Nevertheless, some of the projects were developed and
funded independently of international programmes and many had
origins that preceded their designation as part of IBP or MAB.
To illustrate in more detail some of the advantages and problems
that arise in such multidisciplinary research, I shall examine two of
these projects. As director of the Andean Biocultural Studies over its
fifteen-year life-span, I am most familiar with its successes and prob-
lems. For the second project I have chosen the Tokelau Island Migrant
Study. It was directed by Dr Ian Prior, an epidemiologist from New
Zealand, and involved cultural anthropologists and medical sociolo-
gists from the first project.
The Andean Project

The Andean Project originated while I was at the University of Cuzco,
Peru, on a United States Fulbright grant. Previous research suggested
that the high-altitude inhabitants of the Andes have a better ability
than others to work and otherwise tolerate the reduced partial press-
ure of oxygen found in high-altitude regions of the Peruvian Andes. I
teamed up with a United States environmental physiologist, the direc-
tor of the Instituto de Estudios Andinos, and a Peruvian professor of
human nutrition, and together we obtained funds for a four-year set of
studies on the population of a district of the Peruvian altiplano, which
had a minimum altitude of 4,000 metres.
After this initial four-year period, additional funds were found from
various sources including a long-term United States National Institute
of Health training grant. Thus, the field data collection programme
was extended for four more years, and the synthesis volume published
four years after data collection ended (Baker and Little, 1976). I do not
know the total number of resulting scientific publications, but I believe
it has been in excess of 300.
I do not intend to describe the scientific content of this project and its
results, rather I shall focus on the benefits and difficulties investigators
encountered as part of the multidisciplinary effort. The four profes-
sionals involved in starting the project remained active participants to
varying degrees during its lifetime, while other professionals from demo-
250
graphy, psychology, child development, physiology and cultural an-

thropology participated to varying degrees. More than thirty pre- and
post-doctoral students were involved in various aspects of the project.
In the course of the field research, the physical stress associated
with the altitude, cold and isolation, in addition to hypoxia-caused
poor health, contributed to chronic social stresses. Intellectual conflict
between students and professionals was common, as were disagree-
ments based on academic background. Perhaps surprisingly, this often
improved relationships when the same individuals were in post-field-
work situations. The principal difficulties arose in regard to proprie-
tary rights to data. Graduate students tended to feel that they had
exclusive rights to the data they collected, while some of the data col-
lected by professionals were never made available to the central data
repository. There were, of course, also difficulties in assigning author-
ship for publications.
On the plus side, all of the participants had easier access to funding.
For the professionals, the broad base of expertise enhanced the quality
of the proposals they prepared. Graduate students were more likely to
be supported by the funds generated and had more personal interac-
tion with the professionals than normally occurs in an academic set-
ting. Of great importance for the professionals was the breadth of
information available. Thus, in a study of child growth and the causes
of its variability, an array of specialized data on community character-
istics such as nutrition, infant mortality and social status were avail-
able. The data bank also provided useful information for later studies
of temporal changes in both the social and biological characteristics of
the population.
The many pre-doctoral and few post-doctoral students who par-
ticipated in the project found that the multidisciplinary research ex-
perience also opened a variety of new occupational possibilities for
them both in academic departments and in research institutions. Many
former students are continuing in their current professional positions
to test and extend the findings from this project.
The Tokelau Project

The Tokelau Project began as a consequence of a Pacific hurricane
and some research previously conducted by Dr Ian Prior. During pre-
vious health studies, Professor Prior had observed that on remote
251
islands where the people continued to live in a traditional fashion, non-

insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) was not found, blood
pressures did not increase with age, and obesity was rare. The opposite
was occurring among the more modernized Polynesians in New Zea-
land and Raritonga. Prior sought to find what caused this difference.
An opportunity to explore this problem in depth developed when a
large hurricane hit the Tokelau Island group in the South Pacific. The
consequent food shortage and general environmental destruction
stimulated a large government-aided out-migration to New Zealand.
Thus it became possible to examine how rapid immersion in the New
Zealand cultural and natural milieux affected various health and social
characteristics, and, at the same time, continue to study the Toke-
lauans who remained in their low-reef island environment. Fortu-
nately, good baseline health and social data were available on the
individuals before migration. A research team consisting of an epi-
demiologist, a medical sociologist and cultural anthropologists was
developed to examine both the social and health consequences of the
migration and social disruption. Active co-ordinated research began
in 1968. A series of studies on Tokelauans in their island home and the
migrants to New Zealand continued until the early 1980s. A final syn-
thesis was published in 1992 (Weesen et al., 1992).
This study was managed by professionals and the data were col-
lected primarily by professionally employed personnel. In-depth sur-
veys were conducted on three occasions over fifteen years, while the
total project life was twenty-four years. As might be expected, there
was considerable turnover in personnel during the projects life, but
the anthropologists and epidemiologists who began the project re-
mained through the final synthesis.
I do not know the exact benefits that accrued to the professionals
involved or what drawbacks they encountered because of their partici-
pation, but the findings from their study are of major importance for
understanding the possible causes of allergic and degenerative dis-
eases. During the 1950s and 1960s, an increasing number of health
studies on traditional tribal agriculturalists and pastoralists showed
that many of these groups did not develop such middle-aged problems
as hypertension, obesity and NIDDM. Many populations also seemed
free of the middle-aged cardiovascular mortality related to atheroscle-
rosis. Researchers variously attributed these healthy characteristics to
such dietary factors as low salt intake, low fat intake, high activity lev-
els and even low psychological stress. The Tokelau study has shown
252
conclusively that attribution of any of these particular health dif-

ferences to a single specific nutritional, behavioral or social character-
istic is undoubtedly erroneous and that an interactive set of
contributing variables is involved. Further, along with other multidis-
ciplinary studies, the Tokelau study data indicate that genetic as well
as cultural differences between populations contribute to the frequency
and severity of the various health problems people encounter when
they adopt the lifestyle found in industrialized countries.
Both of the described research projects were able to go beyond de-
scription and speculative theory because they utilized natural experi-
ments. That is to say, natural events occurred such that human
populations and subgroups of the same genetic and cultural back-
ground could be compared in contrasting environments and/or popu-
lations and subgroups.
I have briefly described selected aspects of these two projects to
highlight several points. First, such multidisciplinary projects are the
best way to solve complex scientific problems relating to human biol-
ogy and behaviour. Second, participation in such projects is usually a
Iong-term commitment for the professional. Third, to participate effec-
tively the individual investigators must share common objectives, data
and authorship with the other participants. Finally, most such projects
require an understanding of research design and quantitative statisti-
cal analysis.
The future
The most pressing problems in the world today are the changes now
occurring in the worlds atmosphere and biosphere. These changes
bode ill for our future as well as for the future of other life on the planet.
Coping with the problems calls for data on the rates of change, the
cause of change and the consequences of change. As stated in the intro-
duction, I believe that anthropologists should be substantially in-
volved in this process, including the advanced planning of research
and policy. Unfortunately, only a few have been involved to date.
In 1992 the United States National Academy of Sciences (NAS)
published two major reports on environmental change. The first was
Policy Implications of Greenhouse Warming: Mitigation, Adaptation and
the Science Base, a more than 900 page report requested by the United
States Congress (NAS, 1992). This study was the work of four panels
253
made up of fifty scientists and engineers. Only one panellist was an an-
thropologist. The second report was Global Environmental Change: The
Human Dimensions (Stern et al., 1992). This book provides a back-
ground on the importance of the social sciences in understanding both
the human cause for and responses to environmental change. It also de-
velops a proposed national research programme. The book was pre-
pared by a sixteen-person committee with the aid of a staff of four. Only
one of the committee members was an anthropologist.
It is not clear why anthropology was so poorly represented on pa-
nels that will have a strong influence on the future directions of United
States research. It would be inappropriate to criticize the contents of
these reports in detail, but it is apparent that they do not significantly re-
flect anthropological theory and method. In the past, anthropology has
been presented as a science that, by integrating information about our
cultural and biological past, has much to offer in explaining present
human biology and behaviour. While the data sources for archaeolog-
ists and biological anthropologists interested in reconstructing the past
remain, the traditional isolated human groups that formed the major re-
source in cultural anthropology are now disappearing. Thus, I suggest
that if cultural anthropology is to remain as a research science, its pres-
ent and future practitioners must go beyond the present tendency to de-
scribe, theorize and apply. Instead, they need to join the other social and
biological sciences in co-operative endeavors based on theories amen-
able to quantitative testing and subject to repeatable verification.
References
BARER, P. T.; LITTLE, M. A. (eds.). 1976. Man in the Andes: A Multidisci-
plinary Study of High Altitude Quechua. Stroudsburg, Pa., Dowden,
Hutchison & Ross.
BAKER , P. T.; WEINER , J. S. (eds.). 1966. The Biology of Human Adapta-
bility. Oxford, Clarendon Press.
COLLINS, K. C.; WEINER, J. S. 1977. Human Adaptability: A History and
Compendium of Research in the International Biological Programme.
London, Taylor & Francis.
DI CASTRI , F.; BAKER , F. W. G.; HADLEY , M. (eds.). 1984. Ecology in
Practice. Dublin, Tycooly International Publishing. 2 vols.
IBP (INTERNATIONAL BIOLOGICAL PROGRAMME ). 1968. Problems in
Human Adaptability. Materialy i prace anthropologizne 75. Wroclaw,
Polskiej Academii Nauk.
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LITTLE , M. A.; LESLIE , P. W.; BAKER , P. T. 1991. Multidisciplinary

Studies of Human Adaptability: Twenty-five Years of Research.
Journal of the Indian Anthropological Society 26 (1 and 2): 9-29.
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 1992. Panel on Policy Implications of
Greenhouse Warming. Policy Implications of Greenhouse Warming:
Mitigation, Adaptation and the Science Base. Washington, D. C., Na-
tional Academy Press.
STERN , P. C.; YOUNG , O. R.; DRUCKMAN, D. (eds.). 1992. Global Environ-
mental Change: The Human Dimensions. Washington, D. C., National
Academy Press.
W EESEN , A. F.; HOOPER , A.; HUNTSMAN , J.; PRIOR , I. A. M.; SAL -
MOND, C. E. 1992. Migration and Health in a Small Society. Oxford,
Clarendon Press.
WEINER, J. S. 1966. Major Problems in Human Population Biology. In:
Baker and Weiner (eds.), The Biology of Human Adaptability 2-24.
Oxford, Clarendon Press.
.1977. The History of the Human Adaptability Section. In: Collins
and Weiner (eds.], Human Adaptability: A History and Compendium of
Research in the International Biological Programme. London, Taylor
& Francis.
YOSHIMURA, H.; WEINER, J. S. (eds.). 1966. Human Adaptability and its
Methodology. Tokyo, Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science.
255
Contributors
Lourdes Arizpe (Mexico) is Assistant Director-General for Culture

at UNESCO. As President (198893) of the International Union of
Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, she organized the thir-
teenth International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological
Sciences (ICAES) and the session at which the papers constituting this
book were presented. Her research has focused on rural development,
migration, rural women, culture and global change. Her recent publi-
cations include Culture and Global Change: Social Perceptions of De-
forestation in the Lacandn Rainforest (University of Michigan, in
press]; Population and Environment: Rethinking the Debate with
M. P. Stone and D. C. Major (Oxford, Westview Press, 1995).
Paul T. Baker (United States) is Evan Pugh Professor Emeritus of
Anthropology at the Pennsylvania State University. His research has
focused on the biological and behavioral adaptations of human
populations to environmental and cultural stress. His publications in-
clude Human Biology with G. A. Harrison, J. M. Tanner and
D. R. Pilbeam (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1988); The Changing
Samoans (cd.), with J. M. Hanna and T. S. Baker (New York, Oxford
University Press, 1986); and The Biology of High-altitude Peoples (cd.)
(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1978).
Fredrik Barth (Norway) is currently Research Scholar under the
auspices of the Norwegian Ministry of Culture. His anthropological
work has embraced human ecology, comparative economics, politics,
ethnicity and religion. His publications include Nomads of South Per-
sia (Oslo, Oslo University Press, 1961); Ethnic Groups and Boundaries
(Oslo, Universitetsforlaget, 1969); Cosmologies in the Making (Cam-
bridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987); and Balinese Worlds (Chi-
cago, University of Chicago Press, 1993).
257
Roberto Cardoso de Oliveira (Brazil) is Professor of Anthropology

at the State University of Campinas (Unicamp), an Honorary Fellow
of the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI), and current President of
the Associaco Latino-Americna de Antropologia (ALA). He has
worked in ethnic relations and epistemology of anthropology. His
publications in Portuguese include Urbanizao e tribalismo (1968),
Asociologia do Brasil indgena (1972), Identidade, etnia e estrutura so-
cial (1976) and Sobre o pensamento antropolgico (1988).
Maurice Godelier (France) is Professor of Social Anthropology at
the cole des Hautes tudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. He carried out
intensive fieldwork in Papua New Guinea (196769) and on many other
occasions up to 1988. He was awarded the French Academy Prize
in 1982 and the International Von Humboldt Prize in Social Sciences
in 1990. His many writings include Rationality and Irrationality in Econ-
omics (1966), The Making of Great Men (1982), The Mental and the Ma-
terial (1984) and Transitions and Subordinations to Capitalism (1991).
Karl-Eric Knutsson (Sweden) is Professor of Anthropology at the
University of Stockholm. He has been President of the Swedish Agency
for Research Co-operation with Developing Countries (SAREC), Re-
gional Director in Africa and Asia for UNICEF and has served as Assis-
tant Secretary-General of the United Nations. His publications include
Authority and Change (Gothenburg, 1967), Research for Development
(Stockholm, 1975) and Eco-logic and Eco-knowledge; On People, Envi-
ronment and Development (Stockholm, 1994).
David Maybury-Lewis (United States) is Professor of Anthropo-
logy and Director of the Program on Nonviolent Sanctions and Cultu-
ral Survival in the Center for International Relations, both at Harvard
University. He is also Founder and President of Cultural Survival, a
human-rights organization that works on behalf of indigenous peoples
worldwide. He has written extensively on ethnicity and the indigenous
peoples of the Americas.
Paul Nchoji Nkwi (Cameroon) is Professor of Social Anthropology
at the University of Yaound I. He has worked principally in the fields
of ethnohistory and colonial penetration. His publications include
Traditional Government and Social Change (University of Fribourg,
1976), Elements for a History of the Western Grass fields (Yaound,
University of Yaound, 1982) and The Germans in the Western Grass-
fields of Cameroon (Leiden, African Studies Centre, 1986).
Michael Redclift (United Kingdom) is Professor of Rural Socio-
logy at Wye College, University of London. He has long-established
258
Contributors
research interests in the environment and developing countries and is

author of several works including Sustainable Development (Rout-
ledge) and Social Theory and the Global Environment (Routledge).
Helen I. Safa is the author of The Urban Poor of Puerto Rico and
co-author of In the Shadows of the Sun: Caribbean Development Alter-
natives and U.S. Policy, and The Myth of the Male Breadwinner:
Women and Industrialization in the Caribbean, on which her chapter is
based. She is currently Professor of Anthropology and Latin American
Studies at the University of Florida.
Philip Carl Salzman (Canada/United States) is Professor of An-
thropology at McGill University (Montreal). Having long carried out
research among nomadic and pastoral peoples, he has been driven by
observations made in the field to turn his attention to the impact and
significance of the mass media. Recent publications include Nomads in
a Changing World with John G. Galaty (Naples, Istituto Universitario
Orientale, 1990), Kin and Contract in Baluchi Herding Camps (Naples,
Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1992), Baluch no-
mads in the Market, in C. Chang and H. A. Koster (eds.), Pastoralists
at the Periphery (Tucson, University of Arizona Press, 1994), The
Lone Stranger in the Heart of Darkness, in R. Borofsky (cd.), Assess-
ing Cultural Anthropology (New York, McGraw-Hill, 1994) and Mass
Media in A. Barnard and J. Spencer (eds.), The Encyclopedic Dic-
tionary of Social and Cultural Anthropology (London, Routledge, in
press).
Valery A. Tishkov (Russian Federation) is Professor of History and
Anthropology and Director of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthro-
pology, Russian Academy of Sciences. He is the author of many books
and of numerous articles in leading scholarly journals. They include So-
cial Movements in Colonial Canada (Moscow, Nauka, 1978), A History
of Canada (Moscow, MisL, 1982), History and Historians in the USA
(Moscow, Nauka, 1985), Indigenous Peoples of North America in the
Contemporary World (Moscow, Nauka, 1991) and, as coauthor, Eth-
nicity, Nationalism and Conflict in and after the Soviet Union (in press).
Eric R. Wolf (United States) is Distinguished Professor Emeritus,
H. Lehman College, City University of New York. His main research
interest has been in the integration of tribal and peasant groups into
larger systems. His publications include Sons of the Shaking Earth
(Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1959), Peasants (Englewood
Cliffs, Prentice-Hall, 1966) and Europe and the People without History
(Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1982).
259

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Edited by Lourdes Arizpe

Culture and Development Series

Published in 1996 by the United Nations Educational,

ISBN 92-3 -103238-0

Introduction Lourdes Arizpe 11

1 Global cultural diversity in a full world economy,

2 Global perspectives in anthropology: problems

3 Ethnicity: what chance global ethics?, Roberto Cardoso

4 Is the West the mirror or the mirage of the evolution

5 Living with ethnicity: the need for a new paradigm,

6 Scale and interaction in cultural processes: towards

7 Social field and cultural constellations: reflections

8 Women and industrialization in the Caribbean:

9 Nationalities in post-Soviet global changes,

10 In our image: the environment and society

13 Anthropology and global science: a multidisciplinary

AAF-SAP African Alternative Framework for the Structural Adjust-

ISSC International Social Science Council

Culture will undoubtedly be one of the major issues of sustainability,

The cultural dimensions of global change

environment in Canada, by Michael Redclift; television in the Me-

observations and perceptions of society and nature, and expand the

The cultural dimensions of global change

vindicate the indigenist discourse when it comes to defending the right

The cultural dimensions of global change

is that Russian political borders do not correspond to ethnic boun-

The cultural dimensions of global change

victimized by the arrival of television, while larger communities may

An empty world economy

The cultural dimensions of global change

Global cultural diversity in a 'full world economy

1. I am focusing entirely on the material consequences that affect environment

The cultural dimensions of global change

number of other consequences c3cn are disregarded and could be ig-

A full world economy

Global cultural diversity in a 'full world economy

The mystification caused by commodity prices

The cultural dimensions of global change

through ecosystem recycling and dissipation. In a full world, on the

The Polluter pays principle

Global cultural diversity in a 'full world economy

and allocate environmental surcharges on all productive activities: this

Where does anthropology come in?

3. We as anthropologists know this from a synergy of so many kinds of infor-

basically changes and options in human behaviour that we are speak-

A more adequate transcultural morality

Global cultural diversity in a full world economy

functions that diffuse globally - through the atmosphere, oceans and

The contradictions inherent

development efforts are to be judged in terms of all their material

Addressing the issues at home

Global cultural diversity in a 'full world economy

new skills in the analysis of global comparisons and trends; and we

At present, it is important to explore the possibilities of an anthropo-

of human beings to each other, and in the operations of humankind.

Global perspectives in anthropology: problems and prospects

on existing societies and cultures as integrated systems answering to

Global perspectives in anthropology: problems and prospects

asymmetry in markets and power between metropolitan powers

The cultural dimensions of global change

only in terms of class, it also downplayed the possibility of competitive

Global perspectives in anthropology: problems and prospects