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In his most recent contribution, Bruce Reyburn writes, 'Anthropologists are
craftspeople who develop parts of their mind and Being by transcending the
local limitations which we call "culture". These limitations are not
absolute...I do not understand why Feldman is intent on insisting that they
are unable to transcend their 'own' culture - and I call on him to respond
to this point.'
Anthropologists are individuals trained, within the traditional academic
establishment, to use certain sets of heuristic and analytical procedures
that have been developed to examine societies, to determine particular
traits of those societies, ideally without imposing any extrinsic framework
on their description, and to construct hypotheses that will test existing
theories of social organisation. When existing theories fail to account
for carefully described social phenomena, anthropologists attempt to
refine, and sometimes replace them.
'Personally,' Bruce informs us, 'I don't see anthropology as a science.
Nor do I think it should seek to emulate science...Rather, I see
anthropology as a dialogue between the people of the world.' In relating
this vision, he fails to argue his point convincingly. Rather, he appears
to advocate the replacement of anthropology by some kind of diplomacy.
While some do argue that anthropology and other 'social sciences' are not
sciences, at all, they are *scientific* insofar as they construct
theoretical models and test them against empirical data, often using
sophisticated statistical techniques.
The ability to apply a heuristic procedure, in such a way that the cultural
categories of one's native culture do not interfere with accurate
description, does *not* amount to 'transcendence' of one's own culture.
This is not to deny the existence of the phenomenon of biculturalism.
There *are* those who function as integral components of more than one
society. But I don't think this is particularly widespread among
anthropologists.
More to the point, the discipline of anthropology, or indeed any academic
compartmentalisation of knowledge, is peculiar to what we refer to as
Western society, and perhaps two or three other highly complex societies -
Indian, Chinese, and Arab societies spring to mind. Organised scientific
inquiry and scientific methodology are equally culture-specific. Certainly,
these phenomena are absolutely foreign to the autochthonous societies of
Australia.
Anthropologists, who I think we can comfortably identify as those who work
within the discipline of anthropology, as long as they engage in observing
and describing societies, in other words, as long as they act as
anthropologists, are fully immersed in the Western culture that spawned
their discipline. To 'transcend' that culture, if such a thing were
possible, would necessarily entail practising something other than
anthropology.
'There are academic anthropologists,' Bruce claims, 'who do not completely
embrace the establishment values...They, too, are mystified by what is an
extremely confusing situation in Australia.'
Yes, there are such anthropologists. Not only do they 'not completely
embrace... establishment values', they reject them outright. Pretending to
be mystified by the complexities of their own society, unwilling to
understand the causes of war, environmental destruction, and so forth, such
anthropologists glorify the traditional societies they study. In this way
they abandon cultural relativism and return to an inverted form of 19th
Century 'social darwinism', the anthropological approach that justified
contemporary genocidal policies towards indigenous peoples. By singling
out for admiration those societies that have retained most of their
traditional culture, who have suffered the impact of colonialism least,
they make their own unique contribution to the division between
'traditional' and 'assimilated' Aboriginal people and to racism.
Other anthropologists reject such pretences and are sincerely committed to
the welfare of those they study. Some go so far as to reject the
'traditional'/'assimilated' division. Yet their work is inevitably placed
at the service of the forces that oppress Aboriginal people, as is amply
demonstrated in the Warumungu Land Claim chronicled in Bruce's original
contribution.
Finally, Bruce asserts that, 'Our "own" culture comprises that of the
world, not just of the neighbourhood.' But whatever 'our "own" culture'
refers to, the mechanism that has spread it around the world is nothing
other than colonialism.
As I argued in my critique of Bruce's original contribution, anthropology
came into being as a direct result of colonialism, it has always served the
interests of colonialism, and continues in many ways to do so today.
Bruce's vision of a 'people's anthropology' that serves people's interests
will come into being only when ordinary people control society. Australian
society as we know it is well and truly in the hands of a ruling class
motivated exclusively by the thirst for profits. Bruce tells us,
'Anthropology will not always remain the handmaiden of colonialism.' But as
long as colonialism persists, anthropology will serve colonial interests.