Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object

Contents Preface and Acknowledgments

.

LX

Chapter 1: Time and the Emerging Other

I

From Sacred to Secular Time: The Philosophical 2 TraveLer From HiJtory to Evolution: Th,. Naturalization of Time Some Uses of Time in Anthropological Disc(JUTse

1J

21

Taking Srock: A thropotogical Discourse and the Denial rff Coroniness 25 Chapter 2: Our Time, Their Time, No Time:

37

Coevalness Denied

38

Circumventing Coevalness: Cultural Relativit)' Prumpting Coeval:ness: Cultural Taxcmom),

52

Chapter 3: Time and Writing Aoout the Other

Contradiction: Real or Apparent TemjxJraiiUltion:

lH

eam or End?

71

72 74

Time and Tense: The Ethrwgraphic Present

80

In My Time: Ethnography and the Autobiographic Past 87 Politics if Time: The Tempoml Wolf in Taxonomic Sheep's Clothing 97 Chapter 4: The Other and the Eye: Time and the Rhetoric of Vision

105

VIII

Contents

MttJwd and ViJiol1

106

Space and Memory: Topo; of Discourse

109

Logic ar .'\rml1gtmenl: Kn(m:ltdge Visib/€

Vide et lmpem: The Other

a.s

Object

114

118

"T/u Symbol Btlongs to the Orient": Symbolic Anthropology in Hegel's Aesthetic 12} The Other as leon: The Care of "Symholu Anthropology" 131

Chapter 5: Conclusions Retrospect and S ummary

Issues/or Debate

v'

143 144

152

Coeualness: Points of Departure

156

Notes

167

References Cited

183

Index

·199

Preface and Acknowledgments "YOIl Set, m} fnmd," Mr. BOW1derby pld in

,

"we

art the

ltind of pwple who knuw the val1M of time, and you art' tht ltind oj people who dQ71't know the vallU! of fi�," "/ MUll not," retorted Mr. Childers, 'after m11it)'mg him frmn huul

ifyou mean tho.t you can makt mort lIumq of your time than I can of mim, I slwuldjudgefrom your appearance that )'OU art about to foot, "/he h01Wur of Imtr.,JJ ing JOu--but

right. "

Charles Did.ens Hard Tinw

WHEN THEY APPROACH the problem of Time. certain philosophers feel the need to fortify themselves with a ritual incantation. They quote Augustine: "What is time? If no one asks me about it, I know; if I want to explain it to the one who asks, I don't know" (Confessions, book XI). In fact, I have just joined that chorus. It is difficult to speak about Time and we may leave it

to philosophers to ponder the reasons. It is not difficult to show that we speak, fluently and profusely, through Time.

Time, much like language or money, is a carrier of signifi­ canet:, a form through which we define the contt!nt of rda­ tions between the Self and the Other. Moreover-as the conversation between Mr. Bounderby, the factory owner, and Mr. Childers, the acrobat, reminds us-Time may give form to relations of power and inequality under the condi­ tions of capitalist industrial production. It occurred to me that this could be the perspective for a critique of cultural anthropology. These essays, then, are offered as studies of "anthropology through Time." The

x

Preface and Acknowledgments

reader who expects a book on the anthropology of Time­ perhaps an ethnography of "time-reckoning among the primitj\'es"-will be disappointed. Aside from occasional references to anthropological studies of cultural concep­ tions of Ti� e, he will find nothing to satisfy his curiosity 'about the Time of the Other. I want to examine past and (present uses of Time as ways of construing the object of our 'discipline. If it is true that Time belongs to the political . economy of relations between individuals. classes, and na­ .tions, then the construction of anthropology's object through , temporal concepts and devices is a political act; there is a "Politics of Time." [ look an hislOncal approach in order to demonstrate the emergence, transfonnation, and differentiation of uses of rime. This runs counter to a kind of critical philosophy � whICh condemns recourse to history as a misuse of Time. According to a famous remark by Karl Popper, "The his­ toricist does not recognize that it is we who select and order the facts of history" (1966 2:269). Popper and other theo­ rists of science inspired by him do not seem to realize that the problematic element in this assertion is not the consti­ tution of history (who doubts that it is made, not given?) but tbe nature of the we. From tbe point of view of anthro­ pology, that �, �� subject of history, cannot be presup­ posed or left Implicit. Nor should we let anthropology sim­ ply be used as the provider of a convenient Other to the we (�s exempli�ed by P? p� r on the first page of the Open So­ . . opposed to the "tribal" or aety where . our avihzauon', IS "closed sociel),," 1966 I, I). Critical philosophy must inquire into the dialectical constitution of the Other. To consider that relation dialec­ tically means to recognize its concrete temporal, historical, and political conditions. Existentially and politically, critique of anthropolog}' starts with the scandal of domination and exploitation of one part of mankind by another. Trring to make sense of what happens---in order to overcome a state of affairs we have long recognized as scandalous-we can in the end not be satisfied with explanations which ascribe Western imperialism in abstract terms to the mechanics of power or aggression, or in moral terms to greed and

Preface and Acknowledgments

XI

wickedness. Aggression, one suspects, is the alienated bour­ geois' perception of his own sense of alienation as an inevi­ table, quasi-natural force; wickedness projects the same ine"itability inside the person. In both cases, schemes o f ex­ planation are easily bent into ideologies of self-justification. 1 will be searching--and here 1 feel close to the Enlighten­ ment philosophes whom I shall criticize laler on-for an "error," an intellectual misconception, a defect of reason which, even if it does not offer the ex planation, may free our self-questioning from the double bmd of fate and evil. That error causes our societies to maintain their anthropo­ logical knowledge of olher societies in bad faith. We con­ stantly need to cover up lor a fundamental contradiction: On the one hand we dogmatically insist that anthropology rests on ethnographic research involving personal, pro­ longed interaction with the Other. But then we pronounce upon the knowledge gained from such research a discourse which conStrues the Other in terms of distance, spatial and temporal. The Other's empirical presence turns into his theoretical absence, a conjuring trick which is worked with the help of an array of devices that have the common intent and function to keep the Other oUlside the Time of anthro­ pology. An account of the many ways in which this has been done needs to be given even if it is impossible to propose, in the end, more than hints and fragments of an alternative. The radical contem oraneit· of mankind is a �t. The­ oretical re ectJon can Identl y 0 stades; only changes in the praxis and politics of anthropological research and ""Tiling can contribute solutions to the problems that will be raised. Such are the outlines of the argument I want to pursue. It lies in the nature of this undertaking that a great mass of matelial had to be covered, making it impossible always to do justice to an author or an issue. Readers who are less familiar with anthropology and its history might first want to look at the summary pro"ided in chapter 5. 1 don't want to give the impression that this project was conceived principally by way of theoretical reasoning. On the contrary, it grew out of my ordinary occupations as a teacher working mainly in institutions involved in the re­ production of Western society, and as an ethnographer

xu

Preface and Acknowledgments

trying to understand cultural processes in urban·industrial Africa (see Fabian L971 , 1979). [0 the act of producing eth­ nagraphic knowledge. the problem of Time arises con­ cretely and practically, and many anthropologists have been aware of the temporal aspects of ethnography. But we have rarely considered the ideological nature of temporal con­ cepts which inform our theories and our rhetoric. Nor have wr.: paid much atlt;lIlioli Lo illlt::l-subjt!t:live Tillie, which does not measure but constitutes those practices of communica­ tion we cuslOmarily call fieldwork. Perhaps we need to pro­ tect ourselves by such lack of reAection in order to keep our knowledge of the Other at bay, as i t were. After all, we only seem to be doing what other sciences exercise: keeping ob­ ject and subjeCl apart. Throughout, I have tried to relate my arguments to ex­ isting work and to provide bibliographic references to fur­ ther sources. \'\". Lepenies' essay the "End of !\"atural His­ tory" (1976) is closely related to my views on (he uses of Time in earlier phases of anthropology (although we seem to differ on what brought about the phenomenon of "tem­ poralization"); P. Bourdieu has formulated a theory of Time and cultural practice (1977) in which I found much agree­ ment with my own thought. H. C. Reid has been, to my knowledge, one of the few social scientists to employ the notion of "politics of time" (see 1972). My indebtedness to the work of Gusdorf, Moravia, Benveniste, Weinrich, Yates, Ong, and others is obvious and, I hope, properly acknowl­ edged. I made an attempt, within the limitations of libraries at my disposal, to read up on the lOpic of Time in general. The literature I consulted ranged from early monographs on primitive time reckoning (:"Jilsson 1920) to recent studies or Limeph LichurWn-g I

Ofwur� tJu history and prae-histtJr) of man laM tiltlr PTopnplaces in 1M gClaal schtl1lt ofImfTJ)kdgr. Of course fhe doctriru of the wm-ld-lcrtg nJoIuticm � civiiJa J twn i5 ont which phiitJsophic minds will lake up with tagn inltT· tst, as a themt ojabstract safflet. Bu! beyond this, such rt· SLlJrch Iuu its prlUlKai si&, as a JOurct ofpower thstifILd /0 inJlueru:e the COUTU of nuxkrn iJhos and actioru. Edw<Jrd Btlrntlt r,1or Z KKOWLEDGE [S POWER. That commonplace applies to

anthropology as much as to any other field of knowledge. But commonplaces usually cover up for not-SQ-common truths. In this first chapter] want to set down some of the tt"lms for an arb'umenr 1.0 he pursued throughout these es­ says: An..!p !:ro ?!ogy's claim to power originated at its roots. , h belongs to Its essence and IS not a matier of accidental misuse. Nowhere is this more clearly visible.. a t least once we look for it, than in the uses of Time anthroJXllogy makes when it strives to constitute its own object-the savage, the primitive, the Other. It is by diagnosing anthropology's temporal discourse that one rediscovers the obvious, namely that there is no knowledge of the Other which is not also a temporal, historical, a political act.

2

Time and the Emerging Other

Time and the Emerging Other

Perhaps this covers too much ground; political can mean anything from systematic oppression to anarchic mutual recognition. The epigrams chosen for this chapter are to indicate that our attention will mostly be directed to the op­ pressive uses of Time. Anthropology's alliance with the forces of oppression is neither a simple or recent one, as some moralizing critics would have it, nor is it unequivocal. The brief sketches of some of the historical contexts m which anthropologicaJ uses of Time developed have the main pur­ pose of recounting a slOry whose conclusion is open-ended and contradictory. Anthropology may, during the period covered here, have succeeded in establishing itself as an ac­ ademic discipline; it failed to come to a rest vis-a.-vis a clearly defined Other.

From Sacred to Secular Tit7re: The Philosophical Traveler In the Judeo-Christian tradition Time has been conceived as the medium of a sacred history. Time was thought, but more often celebrated, as a sequence of specific events that befall a chosen people. Much has been said aoout the linear character of that conception as opposed to pagan, cyclical views of Time as an eternel retour.3 Yet such spatial meta­ phors of temporal thou�ht lend to obscure something that IS of more immediate significance in an attem pt to sketch the ancestry of Time's anthropological uses: Faith in a cov­ enant between Divinity and one people, trust in divine providence as it unfolds in a history of salvation centered on one Savior, make for sacred conceptions of Time. They stress the specificity of Time, its realization in a given cul­ tural ecology-the Eastern Mediterranean, 'first, and the circum-Mediterranean with Rome as its hub, later. Decisive steps towards modernity, those that permitted the emergence of anthropological discourse, must be sought, not in the invention of a Jjnear conception, but in a succes­ sion of attempts to secularize Judeo-Christian Time by gen­ eralizing and universalizing it. Different degrees of universalizing Time had of course been achieved in an abstract form by earlier philosophical

3

thought. In fact, "universal Time" was probablv established concretely and fKllitically in the Renaissance in' response to both classical philosophy and to the cognitive challenges presented by the age of discoveries opening up in the wake of the earth's circumnavigation. Nevertheless, there are gcxxl reasons to look for decisive developments, not in the mo­ ments of intellectuaJ rupture achieved by Copernicus and Galileo nor for that matter, by Newton and Locke, but in the century that elaborated the devices of discourse we now recogni7.. e as the foundations of modem anthropology-the Age of Enlightenment.'" If we follow G. Gusdorf we rna)' locate the starting point of these developments, a sort of barrier that had to be bro­ ken through, in one of the last attempts during the seven­ teenth century to write a universal history from the Chris­ tian yiew?