10. Gender, Sex & Body: Diversity & Social Movements

Welcome to Section 10 of the subject "Culture, Body & Mind" at La Trobe University. This is an upper-level unit in a subfield of my discipline, known as Anthropology of Body & Mind.  In this course, we are studying what an anthropological perspective on body and mind might tell us about humanity.

Revision

The first half of this course was concerned with subject-object distinction. Taking an anthropological perspective (Section 1), we looked at the limitations of this model in understanding other cultures (Section 2 & Section 3). Then we turned to ideas derived from phenomenology, most significantly embodiment, as another frame for understanding (Sections 4-6). We finished off this excursion into the connection between culture and body by considering field theory and the idea of habitus (Section 7).

We then journeyed into another terrain in the Anthropology of Body & Mind. This was concerned with how control is exerted over bodies and minds. For this, we turned to the theories of Foucault (Section 8) and Agamben (Section 9).

This week

For the final part of this course, we turn to issues of gender, sex, and body. The starting questions include:

•  "Are bodies everywhere defined as male or female and variations on that? If so why?"
•  Either way, "how do human societies determine sex and gender?"

Studying these issues

 In studying these issues, much crossover between the disciplines can be ascertained. "Gender Studies", "Gender and Sexuality", "Queer Studies" and similar fields of study have been growing since the 1990s.  The concepts we have considered ("difference", "sexual dimorphism", "patriarchy" etc. ) have largely emerged from theses fields and have proven extremely useful for anthropologists in their studies of various societies. As a result, many anthropologists contribute to these fields of study. As might become apparent, the approach we take to gender in anthropology differs slightly from that of other disciplines, including the fields of study known as and so on.  Thus there is a large and productive interplay between these 'studies' and the discipline of anthropology.

 In this part of the unit, we also introduce ideas of social movements and activism.

Sexual dimorphism: variations on the theme

The first question posed was, "Are bodies always defined as male or female and variations on that?" The concept we'll use to describe the male-female sexual distinction is "sexual dimorphism". Many societies emphasize a distinction between men and women. But men and women are construed differently. So what kinds of variations of this theme of sexual dimorphism can we find?

Hogbin on Menstruating Men

Let us start with a society with a rigid distinction between males and females. Wogeo is an island off the northern coast of New Guinea. Local residents have produced extraordinary masks. On Wogeo, for example, men and women are separate. Women have an advantage over men, in that they menstruate naturally. 'Obviously' men need to menstruate too, but they have to go through the pain and bother of slicing their penis to release menstrual blood.

You can read the original here. 

I have also made a summary here. 

Wogeo men

The Wogeo example apparently presents us with an extreme example of sexual dimorphism. To the extent that men rule women, the term patriarchy might also be applied to Wogeo society. 

Sambia

To take another example from New Guinea, the Sambia try to maintain distance between adult males and females. They go to what would seem to be extraordinary lengths to avoid contact. However, this makes sense when the perceived 'polluting' nature of women's menstrual blood is taken into account. This is explained in a segment from an ethnographic film (n.b. anthropologists tend to call their 'documentaries' "ethnographic film"; might sound a little pretentious, but that's the phrase we use). 

This ethnographic film is called "Guardians of the Flutes". The film takes its name from the book by anthropologist Gilbert Herdt, Guardians of the Flutes. 

I think it could be said that in these two societies men are not naturally manly. Babies with penises are designated as boys, but men need to be made from boys. In fact, there is a great risk that men will be emasculated and become feminine by too much contact with women. (This could be contrasted with a perception that babies with penises are naturally more manly; will be kicking in the womb, stronger when they are born, etc)

For more information please read:
Herdt, GH 1981, Guardians of the flutes: Idioms of masculinity, McGraw-Hill, New York. (Read “Masculinity” pp. 203-253).

Required reading: Nanda, Travesti of Brazil

Until recently, at least, Western societies tended to define sexuality (ie. homo-, bi-, and hetero-sexuals; LGBTI) in terms of sexual, identity, orientation or attraction. But there are other ways to define sexuality. The Introduction and Chapter 3 (“Introduction”& “Men and Not-Men”) of Nanda S 2000, Gender Diversity: Crosscultural Variations are a great place to start studying this question from an anthropological perspective. In Brazilian culture, travestí or men who are anally penetrated by other men, are not understood in similar terms. How are they understood?  Along with women, they are considered as not-men. So, the basic gender division in lower-class Brazilian society:

• Penis people who penetrate = male
• People (whether they possess penis or vagina) who are penetrated = not male

Travesti

Tcherkezoff: Fa'afafine & Tomboys in Samoa

"Transgender in Samoa..." is a great reading Prof Helen Lee uses in her 1st-year anthropology course at La Trobe Univesity. It provides a good example of applying theory to gender variety in Samoa:

   ...fa‘afāfine are persons whose families and neighbors characterize them as boys at birth but who, later in life (usually in late childhood or early adolescence), are said to act “in the way of women” (fa‘a-fafine, the plural of the term being fa‘afāfine). However, they never introduce themselves as “fa‘afāfine,” but by their own given names. If queried about their gender, they reply that they are “girls.”
     ...another gendered category, which few in mainstream Samoan society are willing to talk about openly... is, girls or women who are said to be born as girls but who come to be viewed as acting in the way of men.... There are two differences between them and fa‘afāfine. First, they don’t claim to be of the other gender: they assert that they are girls, not boys. Second, there is no straightforward Samoan term that designates them as being “in the way of boys or men.” When Samoans refer to them, they use various circumlocutions (e.g., “exhibiting the behavior of boys or men”) or, more pithily, the English borrowing “tomboy.”...
     This contrast between fa‘afafine and tomboy is not just a matter of terminology but runs deeper, in that Samoans born as boys who act like girls have at their disposal a much broader range of identificational practices than Samoans born as girls who act like boys...this asymmetry works directly to the detriment of tomboys.

Fa'afafine

In other words, 'transgender' men are more accepted than 'transgender' women.

Similar findings from West Sumatra in Indonesia as discussed by Evelyn Blackwood in  "Tombois in West Sumatra: Constructing Masculinity and Erotic Desire".

Graham: 5 Genders of the Bugis in Sulawesi

Among the Bugis, there are male transexual priests, transgender women, transgender men, women, and men.  Graham (2001) sees these as 5 genders: 

The Bugis acknowledge three sexes (female, male, hermaphrodite), four genders (women, men, calabai, and calalai), and a fifth meta-gender group, the bissu.
     'Bissu' tends to be translated as 'transvestite priest', but this term is less than satisfactory. Transvestite implies cross-dressing, but bissu have their own distinctive clothing. Moreover, bissu do not go from one gender to another; they are a combination of all genders. To become a bissu, one must be born both female and male, or hermaphroditic. (To be precise, the Bugis believe that a bissu who appears externally male is internally female, and vice versa). This combination of sexes enables a 'meta-gender' identity to emerge.
     This brings us to calalai and calabai. Strictly speaking, calalai means 'false man' and calabai 'false woman'. However, people are not harrassed for identifying as either of these gender categories. On the contrary, calalai and calabai are seen as essential to completing the gender system. A useful analogy suggested to me by Dr Greg Acciaioli is to imagine the Bugis gender system of South Sulawesi as a pyramid, with the bissu at the apex, and men, women, calalai, and calabai located at the four base corners.
     Calalai are anatomical females who take on many of the roles and functions expected of men. For instance, Rani works alongside men as a blacksmith, shaping kris, small blades and other knives. Rani wears men's clothing and ties hir sarong in the fashion of men. Rani also lives with hir wife and their adopted child, Erna. While Rani works with men, dresses as a man, smokes cigarettes, and walks alone at night, which are all things women are not encouraged to do, Rani is female and therefore not considered a man. Nor does Rani wish to become a man. Rani is calalai. Rani's female anatomy, combined with hir occupation, behaviour, and sexuality, allows Rani to identify, and be identified, as a calalai.
     Calabai, conversely, are anatomical males who, in many respects, adhere to the expectations of women. However, calabai do not consider themselves women, are not considered women. Nor do they wish to become women, either by accepting restrictions placed on women such as not going out alone at night, or by recreating their body through surgery. However, whereas calalai tend to conform more to the norms of men, calabai have created a specific role for themselves in Bugis society. 
     Bissu, calalai, and calabai challenge the notion that individuals must conform to one of two genders, woman or man, and that one's anatomy must support one's gender. Bugis gender reveals the diverse nature of human identity.

For more of Graham's research on the 5 genders please refer to this 2001 article in Intersections or this 2001 article in the IIAS newsletter. Or,  more recently, another article on the 5 genders.

Summary on gender diversity

In this presentation, I try to revise the points from the above readings:

Sex, Gender, & Sexuality in Western countries

During my younger years, I went to school in four different countries (UK, US, Canada, & Australia). In my experience, the idea that men and women were separate and that women were somehow inferior seemed to prevail. For instance, it 1986, when I was in Year 8 my school, in its unerring wisdom, appointed a male teacher as something like "Sexual Equality Officer".  It was really just a label.  Mr. Brewer was a full-time woodwork and metalwork teacher sporting an impressive Marlboro-man mustache. He taught what in the USA is called "shop classes".  He was a popular teacher for the most part. The tough-guys liked him, but by-and-large he didn't approve of my form class as we took two languages and very little woodwork and metalwork. This made us suspicious in his eyes. In any case, after being appointed to his new position, he went around the school telling form classes about the role. He sat my form class down one day to give us a reassuring talk about 'sexual equality' and what it meant for our society. He was concerned not to alarm us. "I mean we're not going to be stupid about this," he explained, "of course we're not talking about women becoming pilots". For the preservation of Mr. Brewer's sense of dignity and assured superiority, it was lucky no budding feminists were present to prod him on this. But just to annoy him, one of the students, I think it was me, decided to press the question, "why can't women be pilots". "Well," he reasoned, "they are just too emotional. They wouldn't be able to manage in an emergency." Mr. Brewer's thinking about gender, sex, and sexuality what was called heteronormative.

Heteronormativity

A heteronormative approach holds on to gender binaries and takes heterosexual sex to be normal.  A heteronormative approach aligns biological 'sex', sexuality, gender identity, and gender roles. I don't think many people self-identify as 'heteronormative'. Rather it is term used among scholars and activists to characterize what are perceived as conservative views on sexuality. 

Male-male sex, for example, is considered 'deviant'; women are better at nurturing; men are naturally more aggressive and physical--all these are heteronormative attitudes. In another way, what he said fits into binaries of man-woman; rational-emotional; provider-nurturer.

Mr Brewer's view was classic 1980s heteronormativity. What is the current (2019) heteronormativity? Saskia Wieringa, academic activist who identifies herself as non-heteronormative, argues it's the ideal of the nuclear family: sure Mum might be working, Dad might be a stay-at-home father, but the nuclear family remains the dominant idea. It might work for Christian, Jewish, and Muslim conservatives. Gay couples probably don't fit into the current heteronormative idea.

Social Movements and Activism 

Now we need to turn to the idea of "social movements". By "social movement", I mean a conscious and organized attempt to change society.  The famous examples from anthropological literature include the Navaho Ghost Dance, which was supposed to bring the spirits of the ancestors to help Indigenous Americans of the Navaho and other nearby 'tribes'. In the Cargo Cults of Melanesia, mostly occurring in the Twentieth Century, people stopped working and producing food while trying to bring back ancestors and/or a Jesus-like figure. In both cases, a radical new plan for society was enacted by comparatively large numbers of people. In the West, 'traditional' social movements included the early followers of Christianity and Islam, the Crusades, and some of the Medieval 'heresies'. Modern 'social' movements include movements like the Bolsheviks, Suffragists, the Civil Rights Movements, and relevant to our discussion, a series of movements that began in the 1970s with the Gay and Lesbian Rights movements.

There haven't been social movements or activists associated with the other theorists studied in this unit. We have never seen Cartesian Dualists or phenomenologists demonstrating on the streets. But with gender studies, there have been attendant social movements, now commonly associated with the idea of LGBTI.

LGBTI-'normativity' or Customized Gender?

The acronym LGBTI derives from Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, and Intersex. This has been expanded in different formulations including LGBTQI (Q = Queer or Questioning) and even to "LGBTTQQIAAP", which you can look up. These terms recently emerged from what might be called 'gay and lesbian rights' activism in the West in the 1970s. This social movement has achieved a significant amount of success in reframing ideas around sex, gender, and sexuality. This received significant support on campuses in areas that evolved in the 1980s & 1990s in the form of (as I recall)  "Feminist Studies", "Gender Studies", and "Queer Studies". Which makes what is heteronormative different today than back in the 1980s.

For instance, back in the 1970s, if I had accidentally walked into a "female" washroom/toilet at an airport or restaurant I would have been mortified and the females might 'rightly' feel entitled to be indignant and offended. Now at my university and many other places formally designates washrooms as 'gender-neutral'.  So if you feel like a male you can use the male washroom, irrespective of your genetic make-up or whether you have a penis. So in certain locations, university campuses, inner-city cafes, a kind of LGBTI-normativity might be replacing heteronormativity.

Facebook, a decreasingly popular social network site at the time of writing, started off, as I recall, with male and female gender designation. By 2014, it had 71 different gender options. In early 2019, there was no 'drop-down' menu with 71 different gender options. Facebook let me simply customize my gender.

Gender & LGBTI Movements

Activism

In certain historical circumstances, rather than just accepting the world as we live in, people actively try to change it. As I write anti- and pro-LGBTI groups are engaged in a 'culture war' over the status of 'gays', 'transvestites', and other non-heteronormative categories in Indonesia.

On the other hand, in many places where people who identify as LGBTI or similar face significant persecution. Moreover, a strong counter-movement, we could label it 'social conservative', seeks to restrict what might be called 'LGBTI rights'. In the following presentation (c. 2015), I discuss actions by pro-LGBTI activism against growing intolerance in Indonesia:

It should be noted that in this presentation, I ditch using the usual anthropological relativism and rather take an activist, pro-LGBTI, stance. In other words take a prescriptive tone--describing how I think the world should) rather than simply describing the way the world is. This is typical of the field.  Often scholars within these fields of study are also activists, promoting gay rights, sexual equality and so on.

In the years since I gave this presentation, things have gotten even more violent. A large-scale, often legalized, persecution of gay and trans men and people who identify as LGBTI has emerged in Indonesia. The term "LGBTI" has been taken up as a kind rallying cry in parts of Indonesia, Russia, and Africa where Westerners like myself are seen as meddling in their business and forcing Western values and, I guess, a Western LGBTI-normativity on them. For them, it is cultural colonialism.

Take Indonesia as an example. The earthquake, tsunami, and ensuing avalanches in Sulawesi (where the people with 5 genders live) was blamed by religious conservatives on LGBT. They said LGBT in Sulawesi was  God's punishment. LGBT means Longsor (landslide) Gempa Bumi (earthquake) and Tsunami. Also words like "Lesbi", "Tomboi" and "Gay" have gained currency--partly at the instigation of gay and lesbian activists--in Indonesia. The social conservatives in Indonesia see that these terms are 'foreign', that is English sounding words.

Sexual desire, behavior, & identity

Leaving aside the above issues and challenges, the question of whether LGBTI is a useful anthropological concept emerges. Altman argues, this formulation confuses sexual desire, behavior, & identity:

 The term “LGBTI” combines sexuality (lesbian, gay, bisexual) with gender identity (trans) and gender characteristics (intersex).

So maybe LGBTI has limitations in its usefulness to analyze non-Western and even Western cultures. But what is clear from looking at other cultures, is that the 'hetero-norm' does not necessarily apply.

The 'Genderbread Person' provides more fluid definitions that allowed for by the term "LGBTI".
Part of the social movements that emerged from the 'Gay Rights' movement, activists, NGOs etc. produce materials like these. 

Summary

Emerging from the "Gay Rights" movement, social movements and activism in the West have struggled against heteronormativity. In spite of the hostility from 'conservative' counter-movements, they have made significant gains such as same-sex marriage, school curriculum reforms, and various legal rights. 

Following Gramsci's terminology, we could see this as a struggle for hegemony. In other words, intellectuals and activists from both 'sides' are battling over what will be accepted as the legitimate or authentic view of gender, sex, and body.

Discussion

There's insufficient space in this short blog to discuss the complexity of issues. I haven't, for example, discussed a variety of important concepts including "queer", "gender equality", and so on. Nor have I discussed the variety of positions on both 'sides'. For instance, pro-gender equality activists who see marriage as a conservative and antiquated social bond were opposed to same-sex marriage. Anthropology with its methodological commitment to relativism and its rejection of ethnocentrism would see both sides as making culturally specific, historically constructed ideas of authentic gender and sex. This leaves little room for activism. So when taking an activist role, anthropologists are forced to put these values to the sides. 

Conclusion

Using the anthropological perspective, we have considered a tiny sample of gender diversity from different human societies. We also analyzed social movements in the West struggling over what will be the 'norm', the authentic, version of gender, sex and body. One fascinating similarity is that in the different societies we considered and in the West, gender and sex was constructed in relation, or opposition, to a binary of male and female. We will now move on (in Section 11) to consider the usefulness of this binary.  

9. Controlling bodies & minds (ii): Bare life & killable bodies

Welcome to Section 9 of the subject Culture, Body, & Mind. This is a 3rd year subject in Anthropology at La Trobe University.

Revision

In Section 8, we focused on Foucault's idea that, in the modern era, we have become docile subjects. This transition has been marked by a transition from the punishment of bodies to disciplining minds.

Context of Agamben

This reading, from my book The Entangled State should give some context about Agamben (along with  Foucault).

2 kinds of life: civil & biological

We are accustomed to thinking of “life” in the West as a singular concept, but this might be misleading. According to Agamben, without realizing it, we conceive of life as being both “civil life” and “bare life”.  Even if you kill a person with bare life, you are not thought to be guilty of murder. Examples of bare life include people in vegetative states on life support machines, convicts on death row, a soldier killing an enemy soldier during a state of war. Of course the primary example is the killing of  Jews in Nazi Germany.

Public life and bare life

Zoe is the biological, bare life. Bios is the public, social life. For example, Jewish people had bios before Hitler came along. Hitler took this bios away; leaving Jewish people and others as bare life or killable bodies.

Homo Sacer

“Bare life”, which is encapsulated in the figure of the Homo Sacer, is a form of life which can be taken without incurring the guilt of murder. Homo sacer can be explained as follows:

 When his legion is losing battle, a Roman soldier volunteers for a kind of kamikaze mission. He says to his commander, "Consider me dead. Let me run amok among the enemy's rank and inflict as much damage as they can before they get me". The commander agrees. The solider is now known as homo sacer. And his life (in the sense of his public life) is given up to the Gods. All that is left on earth is his bare life. He then runs among the enemy soldiers brandishing his sword and, presumably, is killed.

 Homo Sacer is thus a form of bare life. I think introducing the term "Homo sacer" introduced an unnecessary complication in Agamben's argument, but as he and others use the concept, it's important for us to know.

Reading Agamben

Here is the Agamben reading

Agamben, G 1998, Homo sacer: Sovereign power and bare life, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California. (Read: “Introduction”, "Homo Sacer", “Sovereign Body and Sacred Body”; and “The Camp as Nomos”; “Threshold”). 

Here are my notes on Agamben.

Presentation on Agamben

Here are the notes from my presentation.

Exclusion / State of exception

So how does the state make certain bodies as killable? It is the power of exclusion; the power to deprive humans of their public, social life. This is the main fact of modern political life for Agamben. It's not that states have power, but the power to create a state of exception.

The camp

The concentration camp is the model for modern statecraft. This is because in the camp, the state of exception becomes the rule.

What Agamben's theory is not

Is bare life and the state of exception like Lord of the Flies, a mob mentality? Agamben would say "no". The book "Lord of the Flies" describes an acephalous society (state-less society); whereas in modern society, according to (Foucault and) Agamben, the state penetrates everyday life. 

Applying Agamben's ideas: Holocaust

In evaluating the application of Agamben's theory to the Holocaust, other theories of the Holocaust, including those of Primo Levi, Valentino, and Bauman should be considered.

Applying Agamben's ideas: other cases

Aside from what the Nazis did to Jews, what, according to Agamben, would be other examples of this power put in practice? Agamben provides a few examples mentioned above, people on life support or death row. But other possible applications of the theory present themselves. These include:

*Asylum seekers trying to gain Australian citizenship (bios), but they are excluded by the state [Australian govt] and placed in camps—confined and deprived of citizenship rights.
*Internment of suspected internal spies during WWII in Aust, US etc.
*With indigenous populations, we can adjust Agamben’s argument and state that Aboriginal Australians were never provided with Bios in the first place. They appeared to colonizers merely as Zoe—killable bodies.
* When the state allows people to be killed for crimes (e.g. felons, capital punishment) or because they are on life support (e.g. Karen Quinlan).

Evaluating Agamben ideas: Limitations

Anthropologists are concerned with all kinds of societies. From an anthropological perspective, Agamben and Foucault are only writing about one kind of society. Anthropologists get this insight from political anthropology. For example, we could use Service's model of 4 kinds of society:

1. bands (hunter-gatherers; e.g.prior to colonization among Inuits or in Central Australia,, there was no state, no kings, no chiefs, no leaders. It was a 'band' society. At most 'elders' have more say than younger people, but a consensus is prized. 
2. tribes (New Guinea, gardeners (horticulturalists working on their rain-fed gardens) or herders (pastoralists). No chiefs, but do have leaders.
3. chiefdoms (famously in Africa and North America but also elsewhere). No kings or presidents, no bureaucracy, but do have chiefs. 
4. states (contemporary Aust). Kings, presidents etc.

Societies of type 1-3 are 'acephalous', which means they don't have a state. Clearly. Agamben and Foucault are concerned only with 4. This is one kind of society—civilisations with states. This is probably already an obvious point to you, but let me underscore the point by saying that Foucault and Agamben could not possibly be writing about pre-contact Central Australian bands, the Kwakiutl tribe, or a Hawaiian chief. 

Evaluating Agamben's theory: Critiques

When analyzing Agamben, as an anthropologist,  try, initially at least, to put aside questions of whether capital punishment etc. is right or wrong. In the first case, try to understand whether Agamben provides us with an accurate model for understanding the world. (This is how you should approach all theories, by the way). I can think of several reasons that the theory is misguided:

Critique 1. The theory doesn’t account for agency. Agamben might respond, “Right, there isn’t much agency--that's the way the world is”.

Critique 2. The theory is far too simplistic. For example, political scientists demonstrate that power is not simply the preserve of the state. Other forces, such as the media (‘Fourth Estate’), capital (the market; money influences state), class (which controls the state), etc. etc. Agamben might respond: “I didn’t claim that I could explain how the whole system works; all I said was what matters is the power to make certain bodies killable.”

Critique 3. The theory lumps together cases that cannot be considered as similar. For instance, some social scientists insist that the Holocaust is unique (sui generis); nothing can compare. 

Critique 4. Alternatively we might say Holocaust is not unique, and allow other cases of mass killing are similar. These include the Armenian genocide, Rwandan genocide, Stalin's purges, Allied Bombing of Germany etc.. We might argue that these cases of mass killing are not the same as turning off a life support for a person in a vegetative state. Turning off life support might be the wrong decision, but at least it is intended for the benefit of the patient. Agamben might respond, "My theory isn't about what is right or wrong, it's only about the power to create exception, which has been arrogated by states in the modern era".

To elaborate, maybe Agamben can arguable, "look all I'm saying is that there are two kinds of life. Modern states might decide that an unborn foetus (e.g. abortion), a person with terminal illness (e.g. euthanasia), a vegetative person on life support (e.g. euthanasia) are a form of life that is killable".

Then we anthropologists might retort: "hey Agamben, there are many cultures in which killing people is acceptable for various reasons (e.g. various cases of war, head-hunting, cannibalism, infanticide); but this is explainable from local perspectives. Your overarching theory of bare life is unnecessary."

Agamben, getting frustrated, then could say: "look first of all, I'm only talking about modern states. Secondly, even in those cases you anthropologists are talking about you can see two kinds of life operating right? Killable and not-killable life!"

Questions

To what extent does contemporary Australia have kinds of life that could be defined as “zoe”? Are these bodies killable without being thought of as murder? Agamben claims that modern social science allows us to both “protect life and to authorize a holocaust”? Do you agree?

9. Controlling bodies & minds (i): Bodies, minds, & discipline

Welcome to Section 9 of "Culture, Body & Mind". A course in the Anthropology of Body & Mind at La Trobe University.

Revision: Embodiment & Habitus

In Sections 5-7, we studied the idea that bodies are socially and culturally formed. In Sections 5 & 6 we considered the anthropological take on phenomenology. The argument holds that culture shapes your body. You experience the world through your body. Anthropologists must thus focus on the body and lived experience in order to understand society and culture. Section 7 was concerned with another theory of body. Bourdieu's idea of 'habitus' is particularly useful in explaining different bodies within stratified society. 

From punishing the body to disciplining the mind 

Now we change tack entirely. Foucault assumes that the body-mind distinction is useful (the question simply doesn't arise in the Foucault I've read). Foucault sees modernity as a transition from punishing bodies to disciplining minds. In Western history, the demise of spectacle and torture coincided with the rise of control. Arbitrarily, a Medieval king could command “Off with his head!”, but he could not control the population. With the onset of the Modern period, the ruler could not openly and arbitrarily execute a ‘citizen’, but, paradoxically, had higher levels of control over the population. How do we explain this paradox? What is the ‘underbelly’ of democracy, constitution, and laws which protect citizens?

Required reading

Are you ready to begin what might be the most difficult and rewarding reading of your life so far? Read “Panopticism” pp. 195- in  Foucault, M 1991, Discipline and Punish: The birth of the prison, Penguin, Harmondsworth.

Here is an HTML version.

Or you can read this abridged version instead.

Comprehension Questions

Why, according to Foucault, do we keep tabs on ourselves in a disciplinary society? Why does Foucault refer to his book Discipline and Punish as “ ‘political economy’ of the body”, “a history of the modern soul on trial”? According to Foucault, rather than just recording and observing, the new techniques of actually constitute a new kind of political subject: the individual citizen. How does this happen?  What is the difference between Foucault’s vision of society and Orwell’s vision of Big Brother? OK if you've comprehended the ideas, it's time to see if you can apply and evaluate them.

Evaluating Foucault's theory

Having discussed how we might apply Foucault's theory, we should now turn to evaluating the idea. Obviously, we don't yet live in an era of complete governmentality. For example, according to Foucault, in the past, punishment and discipline were directed towards the body. In the modern era (c. 1600), it is directed towards the soul/mind. But in Australia, we still have police and courts. In America, incarceration rates seem to be on the rise. other words, in a modern society, there is still a threat of bodily punishment. But, in defense of Foucault's theory:

1. The treatment of prisoners etc. is mostly directed towards their souls and minds. Reforming their minds is the new goal.
2. Even with the rise in modern rates of incarceration, we can see that governmentality is not complete. It is still failing to operate completely. 

With complete governmentality, we won’t need police, courts, prisons, or outside surveillance. It would not be like 1984/Brave New World/Big Brother. We will all control ourselves, if Foucault is correct.

Critiquing Foucault: The Art of Not Being Governed

Famous anthropologist James Scott (2009) highlights the opposite effect. Instead of Foucault's Art of Government Scott has developed a concept which he calls the ‘art-of-not-being-governed’. He says you can find this 'art' being practiced in "Zomia".

The Zomia area. This is where, Scott believes, anarchists effectively
practice The Art of Not Being Governed

Zomia is a recently made-up term to cover an area around the southern area of China.  As my co-author, Winarnita, and I explain in our article "Seeking the State", the art of not being governed refers to:

how people work to avoid state rule. ...In Scott’s (2009) ethnographic example, different ethnicities have sought refuge in the hills and mountains of mainland Southeast Asia, eastern India and Southern China—an area called ‘Zomia’. Zomia consists in:
      virtually all the lands at altitudes above roughly three hundred meters all the way
      from the Central Highlands of Vietnam to northeastern India and traversing five
      Southeast Asian nations (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Burma) and
     four provinces of China (Yunan, Guizhou, Guangxi, and parts of Sichuan
      (2009: ix).
To avoid the state taxes and control associated with sedentary agriculture in the lowland areas of Southeast Asia, these upland people have turned to swidden cultivating and
hunter-gathering. These ‘anarchists’, as Scott styles them, number in the millions.

Woman in the hilly country that characterizes Zomia, far from Asia's urban centers.
She is presumably one of Scott's anarchists

So Scott presents us with an account that is quite at odds with Foucault's Art of Government.

Critiquing Foucault: Seeking the State

My own opinion is that people, in fact, try to emulate the state. They do this by their own will, not because of a panoptic scheme or a govern-mentality. In the article, "Seeking the State", my co-author Winarnita and I argued that in marginal areas of Southeast Asia, neither extreme of the Art of Government nor the Art-of-Not-Being-Governed seems to apply. Rather people seek out the state and adopt its practices and wealth in their everyday life. OK, that's enough of a digression.

Summary

Returning to the main theme of this course: body and mind. Foucault says, in really simple terms, that in the modern period we have moved from punishing the body to disciplining the mind. This is a self-imposed discipline; we all have an internal prison guard in our mind. We soon won't need prisons or even police as we all become disciplined, docile subjects. This is the new, modern subjectivity. We will now move on to Section 9 and another theory of how control is exerted; by depriving people of citizenship. 

Further Research

For more materials on Foucault see my blog "Governmentality: Care & Control".

8. Field Theory & Habitus

Welcome to Section 8 of Culture, Body, & Mind.

Revision: Phenomenology & Anthropology

After outlining the anthropological approach (Section 1), we embarked on this study by critically looking at the individual (Section 2) and Cartesian Dualism (Section 3). In a nutshell, Cartesian Dualism holds that mind is thinking subject and everything else in the universe, including the body, is a material object. Cartesian dualism effectively stripped the world of spirit, disenchanting the world. This allowed for an understanding that the universe was governed by 'laws of nature' rather than the will of God, spirits, deities or other personalized supernatural forces. This possibility was realized in Newton's physics and modern science.

Sections 4-7 could be seen as an anthropological response to the fundamental problems and limitations associated with Descartes' formidable philosophy. In a sense then, we have been searching for anthropological alternatives to the dominant Western perspective. As anthropologists, we need to respond because Cartesian Dualism underlies modern thought in the West, but, given the diversity of human cultures, we cannot assume cultures possess a subject-object distinction, nor, it has been argued, can we understand other cultures by using this framework. We saw how phenomenology and ontology presented a new way to understand a variety of cultures. Indeed by the end of Section 6, we questioned whether even 'modern' Western cultures are really characterized by Cartesian Dualism. So it seemed that phenomenology and ontology might also provide into Western cultures.

One observation that emerged from this excursion into phenomenology and ontology was the importance of the body; that knowledge, experience, and culture was embodied. So when we think of that body as culturally constituted, it follows that the experience of the self, and the world around the self, differs according to each culture.

Habitus: Class & society

We now investigate another dimension to the idea that body is 'cultured' and that your cultured body constitutes your experience of the world. We are familiar with embodiment, but we now turn to habitus. In general, this means we turn from pretty highfalutin and abstract theories to a more mundane reality; from other societies to the West; from a focus on person and culture to a critique class and society.

The way I talk, walk, dress, think, sing, dance, drink, drive etc. are differences of habitus. According to the concept, it's not just a result of my society, but also my class, sex, gender identity, etc. For instance, my habitus is very different from that of an 'oligarch' (millionaire) from Moscow, a first generation Somali teacher in Minnesota, an Indigenous Hawaiian surfer, obviously.  But it is also even an Australian farmer, lawyer, or computer 'geek'.

So the idea is that the body, society, and class are interconnected through habitus. This is a point, among several others, that we can take away from Mauss (1872-1950) in his famous "Techniques of the Body" a lecture given in French in 1934.

Swimming pool

Before you read this section, think about how you do breast-stroke and how you were taught. I think Mauss was taught to swim in the 1880s. He noted how the children of the 1930s, I guess, were taught breast-stroke according to a different technique.

Previously [in 1880s] we were taught to dive after having learnt to swim. And when we were learning to dive, we were taught to close our eyes and then to open them under water. Today [in the 1930s] the technique is the other way round. The whole training begins by getting the children used to keeping their eyes open under water. Thus, even before they can swim, particular care is taken to get the children to control their dangerous but instinctive ocular reflexes, before all else they are familiarised with the water, their fears are suppressed, a certain confidence is created, suspensions and movements are selected. Hence there is a technique of diving and a technique of education in diving which have been discovered in my day. And you can see that it really is a technical education and, as in every technique, there is an apprenticeship in swimming. On the other hand, here our generation has witnessed a complete change in technique: we have seen the breast-stroke with the head out of the water replaced by the different sorts of crawl. Moreover, the habit of swallowing water and spitting it out again has gone. In my day swimmers thought of themselves as a kind of steam-boat. It was stupid, but in fact I still do this: I cannot get rid of my technique. Here then we have a specific technique of the body, a gymnic art perfected in our own day. 

Digging trenches

For Mauss, swimming is just one example of many. Another is the way English troops dug trenches as opposed to French.

But this specificity is characteristic of all techniques. An example: during the War I was able to make many observations on this specificity of techniques. E.g. the technique of digging. The English troops I was with did not know how to use French spades, which forced us to change 8,000 spades a division when we relieved a French division, and vice versa. This plainly shows that a manual knack can only be learnt slowly. Every technique properly so-called has its own form. But the same is true of every attitude of the body. Each society has its own special habits…..

Then there is the female walking fashion in NYC compared to Paris.

A kind of revelation came to me in hospital. I was ill in New York. I wondered where previously I had seen girls walking as my nurses walked. I had the time to think about it. At last I realised that it was at the cinema. Returning to France, I noticed how common this gait was, especially in Paris; the girls were French and they too were walking in this way. In fact, American walking fashions had begun to arrive over here, thanks to the cinema. This was an idea I could generalise. The positions of the arms and hands while walking form a social idiosyncrasy; they are not simply a product of some purely individual, almost completely psychical arrangements and mechanisms. For example: I think I can also recognise a girl who has been raised in a convent. In general she will walk with her fists closed. And I can still remember my third- form teacher shouting at me: 'Idiot ! why do you walk around the whole time with your hands flapping wide open?' Thus there exists an education in walking, too.

Paris

To describe these differences, Mauss lands on the term habitus.

Hence I have had this notion of the social nature of the 'habitus' for many years. Please note that I use the Latin word-it should be understood in France-habitus. The word translates infinitely better than 'habitude' (habit or custom), the 'exis', the 'acquired ability' and 'faculty' of Aristotle (who was a psychologist). It does not designate those metaphysical habitudes, that mysterious 'memory', the subjects of volumes or short and famous theses. These 'habits' do not just vary with individuals and their imitations, they vary especially between societies, educations, proprieties and fashions, prestiges. In them we should see the techniques and work of collective and individual practical reason rather than, in the ordinary way, merely the soul and its repetitive faculties.

I tried to copy the skullls drawn on shirts depicted on this Suicidal Tendencies album cover.

Field Theory

Capital & Field

Popularizing and further developing the idea of habitus is the work of anthropologist Pierre Bourdieu. Like Merleau-Ponty, Bourdieu also emphasizes the body. Our focus still is social class within culture. But with Bourdieu, the ways of the body are merely a part of a larger theory about capital. There are four kinds of capital

1. Economic capital: This is wealth. It could be money, stocks/shares, gold necklaces, Lamborghinis (liquid assets) or wine, real estate, factories, etc.
2. Symbolic capital: You could have the title "Dr." or "Professor", "Sir". You could be a "sensei" at a karate dojo. Even being "BA" or BSc", or more valuable still "BA Hons or "BSc Hons"in Australia
3. Social capital: When we talk about getting a good job, the way "it's not what you know, it who you know". If you're good friends with the boss, you might have a better chance of getting the job.
4. Cultural capital: Can you eat with your mouth closed, can you do Double Windsor knot that will give you 'credit' in amongst the "old money" fields of Australia and the US. It won't do much if you're trying to make it in the Hip Hop scene in LA; you'll need other forms of cultural capital there. 

The main thing is that these different forms of capital have different values in different fields.

80s Crossover Thrash / Punk / Skate field

I don't know how the idea of combining thrash/hardcore music with skating arose, but it seems to have emerged in Southern California in places like Oxnard.

When I was a teenager (c.1987) I followed by big sister around and tried to be accepted in her thrash / punk /  skater scene. Several times I was asked, with much suspicion if my parents were rich. I strenuously underplayed any wealth we, a middle-class family, had. Real estate, and a title ("Sir"), and knowing the President of USA, and having a great backhand tennis shot would have provided you with negative status or 'street cred' in that field. Rather, in that field:

1. Economic capital was virtually valueless. If you could secretly use it to your advantage, e.g. by buying a Marshall amplifier that's OK, but you might have to tell your friends that you stole it. I guess economic capital could be legitimate if you were dealing in 'drugs', which basically meant cannabis in those circles.
2. Symbolic capital was also almost worthless. If you got good grades at school that would count against you. The symbolism of awards, trophies, titles, etc. was at odds with the ethic of the time.
3. Social capital was extremely valuable; if you knew important local skaters or thrash metal 'heads' then you were 'in'. 
4. Cultural capital was the most important.  You needed to wear an obscure thrash band T-Shirt, tight black jeans, Converse All-Stars (preferably in black). Nothing should new like you just bought it; that was 'inauthentic'. For a guy to be able to play lead guitar really fast; to get  'rad' skating on a halfpipe; to draw 'cool' skulls etc on your shirt.

Lacking in 3 and 4, my attempts to gain status were fruitless. But rejection wasn't too harsh; I turned to study! I guess I was a budding anthropologist because I wrote all about the different 'gangs' in this small community. I was fascinated by it.  I don't know what happened to those notes.

If I had known these guys, I might have got some social capital.

Actually, the 'scene' I tried unsuccessfully to crack into is what Bourdieu would call a field'. I prefer the analysis of  Weber. He would call  it a status group. Weber calls it such, because the values are not tied to money (for more see Weber's "Class, Status, Party").

Golf club field

A comedy movie that played on the ideas of habitus and capital at an exclusive golf County Club

Things would be quite different at an exclusive golf club. There:

1. Economic capital is crucial. Not only are membership rates exorbitant, but the mere fact of being rich confers status.
2. Symbolic capital is valuable. Having a title like "Dr." or "Sir" adds to prestige.
3. Social capital is crucial. You need other members to support your bid to be accepted into the club.
4. Cultural capital. Being a good golf player is worth something, but not much. Usually, the caddies at a prestige golf club are better than the average member. 

Like Merleau-Ponty, Bourdieu is so difficult to read that I make an exception to my usual rule about reading the original author. Instead of Bourdieu, we will read Thomson on Field Theory as a way to understand habitus:

Thomson, P 2008, 'Field', in M Grenfell (ed.), Pierre Bourdieu: Key Concepts, Acumen, Stocksfield, pp. 67-71. 

I have also made a dot point summary of Thomson's chapter.

Another comedy movie about golf and habitus

Habitus

Habitus is the ability to act, dress, talk etc. appropriate in each field. Habitus is when your body (not simply or even your mind) knows the rules of the game. Your body goes automatic mode. Karate students automatically bow when you enter dojo; businessmen can do a tie in almost literally "in their sleep", upper-class people 'naturally' don't lean over to pick up their spoon which has fallen on the ground.

We could just define habitus as ways of moving or techniques of the body. Habitus is can be distinguished with embodiment by its emphasis on class and field; i.e. sections of a society. Habitus naturalizes class hierarchies and is taken for granted. For instance, upper class (aristocratic; bourgeoisie) instill bodily ways into their children subtly (reminding children to 'mind their manners' at home) and more actively (deportment classes). This provides them with distinction and class.

I try to explain Bourdieu's ideas of habitus in this presentation:

Bourdieu's conception of the body fits into a larger theory about class hierarchies.

Ballet Dancers and their Capital

Now its time to take a more concrete example. We'll consider the field of ballet dancing and the different kinds of capital ballet dancers possess. What happens at the end of a dancer's career? This newspaper article describes the story of some Australian dancers.

So popular has Field Theory become that every researcher seems to want her/his own kind of capital. For instance, Wainwright and Turner add "bodily capital". In their chapter, they describe how older dancers in the Royal Ballet struggle with aging. The dancers discover they can not do what their minds tell them they can do, and what they love to do. But the end of performing does not mean the end of a career in ballet. The authors suggest ballet dancers lose their bodily capital but can 'cash in' on other forms of capital. How and what do dancers ‘cash in’ to continue their career? What does this tell us about body and society?

Wainwright, S, P. and Turner, BS 2004, "Narratives of Embodiment: Body, Aging, and Career in Royal Ballet Dancers", in Thomas H and Ahmed J (eds.), Cultural Bodies: Ethnography and Theory, Blackwell, Madden, MA, pp. 98-120.

Summary

The basic point is that our body adapts to the fields and class we belong to. It is so adapted to these human creations that it seems 'natural' to move in ways that are, in fact, highly cultural. And it's not just the way we move. It's also the way we dress, speak, and even think. All that is contained in the idea of habitus. In the next two sections, Sections 9 & 10, we move to a completely different way of thinking about the body. The ideas of 'bare life' and 'panopticon' are almost entirely separate from the conceptual framework which we have been using since Section 4.

References

     Mauss, M 1973, 'Techniques of the body', Economy and Society, vol. 2, no. 1, pp.71-73.

    Wainwright, S, P. and Turner, BS 2004, "Narratives of Embodiment: Body, Aging, and Career in Royal Ballet Dancers", in Thomas H and Ahmed J (eds.), Cultural Bodies: Ethnography and Theory, Blackwell, Madden, MA, pp. 98-120.

Further Reading

    Loïc Wacqaunt 1999. “Inside “the Zone”: the social art of the hustler in the American ghetto.” In P. Bourdieu et al The Weight of the World: Social suffering in contemporary society. Stanford University Press: Stanford, California, pp. 140-167.

7. Feminism and Phenomenology

Welcome to the final week of this section on phenomenology in anthropology 

As an undergraduate in the 1990s, the 'feminist theory', as it was called back then, which I studied was tied up with post-structuralist theories of language. We looked at difficult-to-read French theorists such as Lacan, Derrida, and Kristeva and came to the conclusion that the oppression of women and patriarchy were basically a linguistic problems. What I wasn't aware of was another approach to issues of gender which, focusing on the body, used Merleau-Ponty's ideas of phenomenology. 

Following from the previous blogs on embodiment and phenomenology, in this blog, I consider here two theorists, both writing in the 1980s, who have focused on the phenomenology of women's bodies. Young and Butler demonstrate--in different ways--how the experience of body connects with issues of gender.

Young: throwing like a girl [are my notes written on the article print out?

Analysing 1960s female bodies also demonstrates how embodiment (as envisaged by Merleau-Ponty) operates with regard to gender. In her "Throwing like a Girl" article, anthropologist Iris Marion Young (1980) shows how female bodies are 'limited' in three ways. First, ambiguous transcendence [two sentences]. Second, inhibited intentionality... [write two sentences]. Finally, discontinuous unity...[two sentences]. As useful as Young may be, she overlooks of class habitus (Bourdieu 199?) and race (Bourgios & Schoenberg 201?). Providing we keep this in mind, we could say that Young's three 'modalities' demonstrate how gender becomes embodied.

Butler and acting

Butler's "Performative Acts"
Butler goes further than Young. Simply put, Butler does not say "women act like women", but rather "there is no such thing as a woman to start with". 

What does this mean? For Butler woman is only constituted through acts. There is no being a woman without acts. These include:

• the doctor says "it will be a boy"
• a few days later, the parents enact a gender reveal after this news
• a few months later, relatives buy blue clothes and toys
• 20 years later the person speaks with lower voice is encouraged to be assertive 

For more, see these blogs

 and accompanying videos:

6. Phenomenology & Embodiment: Lived Experience

Welcome to Section 6 of "Culture, Body, and Mind" a course in the Anthropology of Body and Mind.

Revision

In Section 3, we looked one Western philosophical idea: body-mind distinction. This distinction was most famously elaborated by Descartes. The philosophical idea is phenomenology. In the mid-1900s at least, phenomenology was the ascendant philosophy in Europe. Anthropologists have been attracted to the ideas several ideas from  phenomenology, namely that we can understand the self:

• by paying extremely careful attention to our experience (Merleau-Ponty and 'bracketing off');
• as being existing alongside other beings in the world (Heidegger and da sein) and not a radically separate kind of being (as in Descartes' subject).
• as a body interacting with the world (as described my Merleau-Ponty).

Remonstrating with the referee, Anglo-Australian soccer player, Harry Kewell, points his finger. 

Phenomenology in Anthropology

So how did anthropologists make sense of this phenomenology? These presentation notes give some idea on how we might use phenomenology to anthropology.

Merleau-Ponty’s idea of embodiment implies that we see the world in relation to what our body can do in the world. Anthropologists have drawn on this idea, observing that what a body can and cannot do is different in different cultures and this significantly impacts on cultural phenomena and institutions.  In other words, the philosophical idea of "embodiment" provides a way forward for anthropologists to understand the body and culture. Anthropologists doing phenomenology have run with the idea that the body (which constitutes our world for us) is culturally shaped.

Azuri players use their fingers to remonstrate with ref Moreno in 2002 World Cup

Embodiment

The simplest way to approach this idea is to think that certain bodily practices (like how to handshake in Australia, how to kiss in France, how bow in Japan) become muscle memory. If you compile all your culturally specifically bodily practices these effectively change your muscles, possibly your mental process, and even the bones of your body. Now if your body is changed, your perception of the world is changed. In this presentation, I try to explain the anthropological take on embodiment:

Bateson, Why do Frenchmen?

A nice introduction to the idea of embodiment comes from before anyone in anthropology was even talking about it. Bateson is one of anthropology's more eccentric thinkers. The selection below comes from his 'metalogue' called "Why do Frenchmen". This is an imaginary dialogue between a daughter and her father:

Daughter: Daddy, why do Frenchmen wave their arms about?  
Father: What do you mean? 
D: I mean when they talk. Why do they wave their arms and all that?  
F: Well—why do you smile? Or why do you stamp your foot sometimes?
D: But that’s not the same thing, Daddy. I don’t wave my arms about like a Frenchman does. I don’t believe they can stop doing it, Daddy. Can they?
F: I don’t know—they might find it hard to stop…. Can you stop smiling?
D: But Daddy, I don’t smile all the time. It’s hard to stop when I feel like smiling. But I don’t feel like it all the time. And then I stop.
F: That’s true—but then a Frenchman doesn’t wave his arms in the same way all the time. Sometimes he waves them in one way and sometimes in another—and sometimes, I think, he stops waving them...What do you think? I mean, what does it make you think when a Frenchman waves his arms?                            D: I think it looks silly, Daddy. But I don’t suppose it looks like that to another Frenchman. They cannot all look silly to each other. Because if they did, theywould stop it. Wouldn’t they?
F: Perhaps—but that is not a very simple question. What else do they make you think?
D: Well—they look all excited…
F: All right—”silly” and “excited.”
D: But are they really as excited as they look? If I were as excited as that, I would want to dance or sing or hit somebody on the nose … but they just go on waving their arms. They can’t be really excited.
F: Well—are they really as silly as they look to you? And anyhow, why do you sometimes want to dance and sing and punch somebody on the nose?
D: Oh. Sometimes I just feel like that.
F: Perhaps a Frenchman just feels “like that” when he waves his arms about.
D: But he couldn’t feel like that all the time, Daddy, he just couldn’t.
F: You mean—the Frenchman surely does not feel when he waves his arms exactly as you would feel if you waved yours. And surely you are right.
D: But, then, how does he feel?
F: Well—let us suppose you are talking to a Frenchman and he is waving his arms about, and then in the middle of the conversation, after something that you have said, he suddenly stops waving his arms,  and just talks. What would you think then? That he had just stopped being silly and excited?
D: No… I’d be frightened. I’d think I had said something that hurt his feelings and perhaps he might be really angry.
F: Yes—and you might be right.

What would you think if a Frenchman stopped waving his arms? Why don’t Americans wave their arms in the same way?

Leenhardt on Canaque space

Read Synott & Howes' summary of Leenhardt on Canaque notions of space and body

 These earlier anthropologists, Bateson and Leenhardt, were not explicitly influenced by theories of phenomenology. Nevertheless, their writing appears to have stumbled upon a phenomenology independently.

Stoller on Listening to Songhay Music

Stoller’s teacher, the healer Sorko Seyni, rebuked him: “You listen, but you do not hear.” Stoller realised that recording and translating Songhay spells was not enough. He had to learn how their sounds were experienced—as forces capable of penetrating bodies, affecting spirits and transforming events.

The Songhay, or Songhai, are a major West African ethnic group living mainly along the Niger River in present-day Mali and Niger. During the 1400s and 1500s, their ancestors built one of Africa’s largest empires. Today, most Songhay are Muslim, while spirit possession and other healing traditions also remain important. To treat illness, Songhay healers may use medicinal substances, spoken spells and music.

Songhai empire

Let's skip the medicinal substances and focus on spells first. Anthropologist Paul Stoller learned that he had to move away from just focusing on the meaning of words.  He also had to learn to experience the phenomenon of spoken words, how they sound to us and to spirits rather than what they mean. 

Image in Stoller (1984, p. 565)

Instruments like the godji (a one-string fiddle) “cry” in ways that stir deep feeling, while the rhythms of the gasi drum create an irresistible soundscape for spirit possession. For Stoller, to understand Songhay music you must listen phenomenologically — attending to how sound is felt in the body, how it organises space, and how it works in ritual.

So to be able to really hear the spells and instruments of Songhay healers, Stoller found that he needed to get away from a Western obsession with sight and things:

“Thee eye and its " gaze, " to use the apt term of Foucault (1975 ), has had a lockhold on Western thought. ... Zukerkandi (1958 ) suggests that the majesty of vision in the epistemology of Western thought stems from our traditional stress on the observation of material things within a field of vision. From Aristotle on we have been conditioned to see colored illuminated things, not colors or light. We feel hard or smooth things, not hardness or smoothness....The gaze of Western thought has seemingly ignored the dimension of sound. “

Vision tends to position the world “out there,” as a collection of objects to be observed. Sound is different: it travels towards us, enters us and passes through our bodies. The godji “cries,” the gasi drum “clacks” and “rolls,” and praise-names are shouted into a medium’s ear. Together, these sounds connect people with their ancestors and draw spirits into human bodies.

To capture this, anthropologists need to focus on our bodily experience itself. This is the experience that philosopher Merleau-Ponty wrote about:

 Merleau-Ponty (1964:164), writes that the “quality, light, color, and depth which are there before us are there only because they awaken an echo in our body and because the body welcomes them.” 

As anthropologists, we used to focus more on actions or their meanings, but phenomenology exhorts us to attend to the feeling.

Jackson, Lighting a fire

Jackson, more than any other figure, is the proponent of phenomenology in anthropology.

Imagine you are an anthropologist analyzing people going to church. Taking a functional approach, you might say that going to church functions to provide solidarity to the group of church-goers and to provide a sense of psychological calm to each person (this is referred to as "function" below). Taking symbolic approach, you might interpret what Christ's sacrifice or Mother Mary's caring nature means to the church-goers  (this is referred to as "ethnographic interpretation" and "exegesis" below).

But Jackson does not want you to do either of these things.  He wants you, as an ethnographer, to look do what people do and copy or imitate it ("practical mimesis"). He wants you to acquire their skills and bodily habits. By doing this, you obtain a practical embodied knowledge of the culture, which escapes ready explanation. He explains this in relation to lighting a fire among the Kuranko of Sierra Leone.

      . When I first lived in a Kuranko village I used to light my own fire to boil water for drinking or bathing. But I regarded such a mundane chore as having little bearing on my research work, and my way of building a fire was careless and wasteful of wood. It was a task to get done quickly so that I could get on with what I took to be more important things. Villagers joked about my fire-lighting, but did not criticise or censure me, which was remarkable considering the scarcity of firewood and the time consumed in gathering it. Then one day, for no reason at all, I observed how Kuranko women kindled a fire and tended it, and began to imitate their technique which involved never using more than three lengths of split wood at one time, laying each piece carefully between the firestones, and gently pushing them into the fire as the ends burned away. When I took pains to make a fire in this way I found myself suddenly aware of the intelligence of the technique, which maximised the scarce firewood (women have to split and carry it from up to a mile and a half away), produced exactly the amount of heat required for cooking and enabled instant control of the flame.     
    This 'practical mimesis' afforded me insight into how people economised both fuel and human energy; it made me see the close kinship between economy of effort and grace of movement; it made me realise the common sense which informs even the most elementary tasks in a Kuranko village. Many of my most valued insights into Kuranko social life have followed from comparable cultivation and imitation of practical skills: hoeing on a farm, dancing (as one body), lighting a kerosene lantern properly, weaving a mat, consulting a diviner (see Jackson I978b). To break the habit of using a linear communicational model for understanding bodily praxis, it is necessary to adopt a methodological strategy of joining in without ulterior motive and literally putting oneself in the place of another person: inhabiting their world.     
    Participation thus becomes an end in itself rather than a means of gathering closely-observed data which will be subject to interpretation elsewhere after the event. Devereux has shown that one's personality inevitably colours the character of one's observations, and that the 'royal road to an authentic, rather than fictitious, objectivity' is perforce the way of informed subjectivity (I967:  xvi- xvii). In my view, subjective determinations are as much somatic as psychological in character. Thus, to stand aside from the action, take up a point of view, and ask endless questions, as I did during the female initiations, led only to a spurious understanding and increased the phenomenological problem of how I could know the experience of the other.  By contrast, to participate bodily in everyday practical tasks was a creative technique which often helped me grasp the sense of an activity by using my body as others did. This technique also helped me break my habit of seeking truth at the level of disembodied concepts and decontextualised sayings. To recognise the embodiedness of our Being-in-the-world is to discover a common ground where self and other are one. For by using one's body in the same way as others in the same environment,  one finds oneself informed by an understanding  which may then be interpreted  according  to one's own custom or bent, yet which remains grounded in a field of practical activity and thereby remains consonant with the experience of those among whom one has lived.     
    While words and concepts distinguish and divide, bodiliness unites and forms the grounds of an empathic, even a universal, understanding.  This may be why the body so often takes the place of speech and eclipses thought in rituals, like Kuranko initiation, whose point is the creation of community. The practical and embodied nature of Kuranko thought is thus to be seen as an ethical preference, not a mark of primitiveness or speculative failure. Likewise, practical mimesis may mediate many insights in anthropological fieldwork. And, because one's body is 'the nearest approach to the universe' which lies beyond cognition and words, it is the body which in so many esoteric traditions forms the bridge to universality, the means of yolking self and cosmos. The way that learning to light a fire disclosed new understanding for me suggests that we might recognise a reality revealed through what we do which is at once the matter and measure of what we say and think. After all, as the Kuranko adage says: 'The word fire won't burn down a house'.

Words are important, but so are actions. So see if you can analyze Jackson’s use of the idea of “habitus” and “embodiment”

Downey on Capoiera

Capoeira is a Brazilian activity which incorporates music, dance, and martial arts among other things. The music is produced by several instruments including a berimbau. Practitioners say they need the music to perform their moves properly; the sound and the body work together as Downey expalins in his article on Capoiera. 

In it, we see how many of our most natural or automatic ways of moving are meaningful and reflect our cultural background. By considering the way Capoeira practitioners hear music, we examine the argument that cultural ‘muscle memory’ is necessary to be able to perceive the world by considering the way Capoeira practitioners hear the music. In this phenomenology of listening, how, according to Downey, can one hear capoeira music? 

Helliwell on Longhouses

Like all anthropologists entering a new fieldsite with a radically different culture, Helliwell took some time to adjust. She was doing fieldwork in Borneo, among the Gerai. The Gerai were still living in longhouses. She lived in one of their longhouses but found herself initially:

....bewildered and overwhelmed by the cacophony of sound that characterises longhouse life...
    Eventually I, too, was able to appreciate and make sense of this tapestry of sound, and to recognise individual voices as they wovetogether with others in the air and flowed through the spaces of different apartments. These voices will never raise as a dialogue moved across four or even five petitions, but they’re very muted must reinforced the sense of membership in an intimate, privileged world. Conversations were taken up at will...according to the demands of work or body; they were never forced, never demanding a participation, but always both gentle and generous in the reminder of a companionship constantly attend. Even now, the memory of such conversations fills me with emotion; it is they which most clearly define long house life for me and wish distinguish that from from the Australian one to which I have since returned.
    Light also flows along the length of the longhouse particularly at night when the structure is demarcated from the surrounding blackness by the tiny lights glowing up-and-down its length. In explaining why they sow seeds of a plant bearing red flowers in the rice seed, Gerai people told me that once in bloom, the flowers serve as "lights" for the growing rice: "Just as human beings in the long house at night like to see many lights around them and so know that they have many companions in the same way the rice sees the flowers at night and does not feel lonely" . In the long house at night, one is aware of the presence of neighbours by the glow of the lights and the hearths. If a light is not showing in any apartment, its absence is source of concern and investigations...
     While longhouse partition may demarcate the space of each household, then, they simultaneously incorporate the household into a larger community space divided by the movement of sound and light. This movement continually reaffirms – – to any individual household as well as to those on either side of it – – its status as part of the longhouse, and thereby of the community of neighbours that is encapsulated within that long house. It is the  character of these petitions as they are lived and used – – the flimsiness and permeability – – which allows for the creation of community in this way, a point which Gerai people themselves are perfectly well aware. Thus, my attempts, in the early days of residence in my own apartment, to create privacy for myself by filling in some of the gaps in my two petitions with strategically placed pieces of cardboard and bark, were viewed with extreme disapproval by my neighbours. They saw such behaviour as constituting a denial of not only my own "need" for community, but also of their needs in this respect, since by blocking up my participants I was effectively stopping or reducing the flows of sound and light which linked them into the larger longhouse neighbourhood.

Longhouse in Borneo

You can see how Helliwell's anthropology be characterized as phenomenological anthropology. As a method, Helliwell pays close attention to the sensory experience of living in a longhouse; especially focusing on light and sound in this case.

Anthropology & Lived Experience

Anthropologists used to focus on actions and meaning. We'd look at a cock fight in Bali and try understand what it means to the Balinese, for instance.  Phenomenology directs anthropologists to focus on feeling rather than meaning. 

For anthropologists,  the simple 'take away' point is "lived experience". Phenomenology in anthropology means focusing on lived experience. I hear the phrase so often that it sounds like a cliche. But if we tie the idea of lived experience to the phenomenological theories above, I think it qualifies as a profound concept. Strangely enough, anthropologists do not need to be steeped in the theory of phenomenology to do a fairly decent job of phenomenological anthropology. What is necessary though is as anthropologists to carefully attend to:

1. Ourselves: our own experience when we are doing fieldwork; sights, smells, feelings, fears, etc.
2. Others: the experience of the people we are doing fieldwork with. In other words, we put aside what nationalism means to Polish citizen, and rather focus on how they feel when they hear the national anthem.

If you are acutely observant of experience and can express through your writing, the chances are you can write about 'lived experience' and your research might even be regarded as phenomenological anthropology.

Limitations

What are the limitations of the school of Phenomenology and the idea of embodiment? As the ideas emerge from Philosophy we can be sure that they have been heavily scrutinized in that discipline. Sometimes, anthropologists just move on to new approaches rather than engage in direct criticism of the old model.   Just like jeans, at the time of writing, have been fashionable apparel for decades, phenomenology still remains 'in vogue'

Further Research

For more please see the brilliant Ken Lieberman and his Seminar on Social Phenomenology.

I've summarised Helliwell's chapter in this blog. 

References

    Downey, G., Dalidowicz, M. and Mason, P. H. (2015) ‘Apprenticeship as method: embodied learning in ethnographic practice’, Qualitative Research, 15(2), pp. 183–200
    Downey, G 2002, 'Listening to Capoeira: Phenomenology, Embodiment and the Materiality of Music', Ethnomusicology, vol. 46, no. 3, pp. 487-509.
    Helliwell, C., 1996. Space and sociality in a Dayak longhouse. Things as they are: New directions in phenomenological anthropology, pp.128-48. 
    Jackson, M. (1983). Knowledge of the Body. Man, 18(2), 327-345.

    STOLLER, P. (1984). sound in Songhay cultural experience. American Ethnologist, 11(3), 559–570.