SOC1016A-Lecture

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SOC1016A-Lecture

• Modes of Thought

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Last time

• Witchcraft among the Azande
• Functional explanations
• 2. Symbolic dimension.
• Making sense of life
• A different logic?

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More on alternative rationalities

• How can we make sense of the acts and emotions
  of distant peoples (in space, in time)? Is it
  possible? Is it right?
• Cannibalism
• The killing of Captain James Cook

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Cannibalism

• The discourse of cannibalism in the ancient
  world (Strabo) and in early modern Europe (early
  colonialism).

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• William Arens, The man-eating myth anthropology
  and anthropophagy (1979)
• Evidence of cannibalism as a custom is scarce,
  and arguments in favour of its existence
  unusually sloppy.
• Universal attribution of cannibalism to
  different/enemy peoples.
• Cannibalism accompanied the colonial expansion
  of the Western powers.

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• Arens criticised
• 1. Ecological explanations (e.g. lack of
  proteins)
• 2. Symbolic explanations (Atzec rituals)
• What is interesting is our fascination with
  cannibalism, and its continuous presence in
  anthropological writings. In other words, its
  ideological use.

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A case-study the kuru

• Deadly neurological disorder.
• Recorded in Papua New Guinea.
• How is the infection transmitted?
• Cannibalism seems an obvious explanation
  (Gajdusek, Nobel Prize in 1976).

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Conclusions

• Universal phenomenon idea of others as cannibals
  (i.e. non-human)
• Uses of the discourse of cannibalism in order to
  establish form of cultural/political hegemony.
• Today? See articles in the Guardian
• Anthropologists needed anthropophagy to mark a
  radical difference.
• (Disagreement on this point see Keesing on the
  Atzec and kuru).

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The killing of Captain Cook

• Opposite ways of assessing cultural difference
• Marshall Sahlins
• Gananath Obeyesekere

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Sahlins interpretation

• There are 2 distinct cultural systems at work
  here. We need to refer to them to make sense of
  actions.
• Cook arrives at the time of Makahiki ceremony. He
  is believed to be the god Lono.
• He has entered a specific web of ideas and
  practices. His final move breaks the pattern and
  creates a cosmological disorder/political
  upheaval. He is killed to keep the structure
  intact.

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Obeyesekeres interpretation

• The deification of Cook is a Western myth, a myth
  of conquest and imperialism.
• Hawaiians were acting out of a universal
  practical rationality (? Bloor and Winch).
• There were pragmatic, intelligible reasons
  (internal politics)
• Political motivations Sri Lankan / Polynesians

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Sahlins response

• Obeyesekere is the real imperialist here, as he
  attributes Hawaiians a Western way of reasoning.
• He is denying the Hawaiians the right to speak
  for themselves.
• He shares the same presuppositions as Levy-Bruhl
  (primitive mentality).

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Conclusions

• What divides them is not matters of fact but the
  way in which we should understand cultural
  difference
• Substantial phenomenon (Sahlins)
• 2. Superficial phenomenon (Obeyesekere)
• Which takes us to where we started today the
  nature of cultural difference, how to understand
  it and the moral / political implications of this
  task.

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• Review by C. Geertz in The New York Review of
  Books (30 Nov. 1995)