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Pierre Bourdieu Outline of A Theory of Practice Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology 1977
Pierre Bourdieu Outline of A Theory of Practice Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology 1977
OF A
TFIEOFY
OF
PRACTICE
Pierre Bourdieu
ER N EST
ST E PH E N
G U D EM A N .
G EL LN ER ,
JACK
M IC H A E L
JO N A T H A N
GOODY,
HERZFEI.D,
PARRY
16
O U T L I N E OF
A T H E O R Y OF P R A C T I C E
O U T L I N E OF
A T H E O R Y OF P R A C T I C E
P IE R R E
B O U R D IE U
T r a n s la t e d b y
RICHARD NICE
ffiS C a m b r i d g e
U N IV E R S IT Y P R E S S
P u b lis h e d b y th e P r e s s S y n d ic a t e o f th e U n iv e r s it y o f C a m b r id g e
T h e P it t B u ild in g , T r u m p in g t o n S tr e e t, C a m b r id g e C B 2 1R P
4 0 W e s t 2 0 th S tr e e t, N e w Y o r k , N Y 1 0 0 1 1 - 4 2 1 1 , U S A
1 0 S ta m fo r d R o a d , O a k le ig h , M e lb o u r n e 3 1 6 6 , A u str a lia
In t h e E n g lis h la n g u a g e e d it io n C a m b r id g e U n iv e r s it y P r e s s 1 9 7 7
T h e o r ig in a l e d it io n , e n t it le d E sq u isse d 'u n e th e o rie d e la p r a ti q u e , p r e c e d e d e tr o is
e tu d e s d e th n o lo g ie k a b y le , w a s p u b lis h e d b y L ib r a ir ie D r o z S .A . in S w itz e r la n d
L ib r a ir ie D r o z , 1 9 7 2
F ir s t p u b lis h e d in E n g lis h tr a n sla tio n 1 9 7 7
R e p r in te d 1 9 8 5 1 9 8 6 1 9 8 7 1 9 8 8 1 9 8 9 1 9 9 0 1991 1 9 9 2 1 9 9 3 1995
P r in t e d in G r e a t B r ita in at th e
U n iv e r s it y P r e s s , C a m b r id g e
L ib r a r y o f C o n g re ss C a ta lo g u in g in P u b lic a tio n D a t a
B o u r d ie u , P ie r r e .
O u tlin e o f a th e o r y o f p r a c tic e .
(C a m b r id g e s t u d ie s in so c ia l a n th ro p o lo g y '; 16)
T r a n s la tio n w ith r e v is io n s o f E s q u is s e d u n e
th e o r ie d e la p r a tiq u e .
I n c lu d e s b ib lio g r a p h ic a l r e fe r e n c e s a n d in d e x .
1. K a b y le s - A d d r e s s e s , e s sa y s, le c tu r e s.
2. E t h n o lo g y . I. T i t le .
D T 2 9 8 .K 2 B 6 9 1 3
3 0 1 .2
7 6 -1 1 0 7 3
I S B N 0 521 2 9 1 6 4 X
Contents
Section i: A n alyses
3
10
16
22
30
32
33
38
52
58
72
72
78
&7
43
' .
page vii
ST R U C T U R E S, H A B IT U S, POWER: BASIS
96
97
^ 109
114
124
130
132
140
143
FOR A
T H E O R Y OF S Y M B O L I C PO W E R
159
159
N otes
In d ex
171
183
198
240
T ranslators foreword
Vl l l
Translator's fo rew o rd
be the last to regret the shedding of all that the text was immediately and
tacitly granted, inasmuch as it bore the social marks which signal a product
conforming to the local standards: the signs of recognition eliciting the
recognition of already converted readers, the dignifyingreferences, theoretical
allusions, stylistic effects, have indeed every likelihood of remaining dead
letters once outside the magic circle of belief.
But much more besides the value set on the text is at stake when it
circulates beyond its field of production. The most autonomous work contains
implicit reference to an intellectual universe whose cardinal points are
scientific (and political) positions symbolized, in a given state of the field,
by the names of authors or schools of thought or by " is m s which may cover
totally different realities in different national traditions. These are the
structures of the field of production, its divisions into antagonistic groups and
rival schools, which, internalized, function as unexamined principles of
perception and appreciation. When these bearings are removed the text
becomes open to misreading.
T h u s nothing guarantees that, for some readers, this work, written against
the currents at present dominant in France, "structuralism or "structuralM arxism , will not be merged with the very tendencies it combats. Less
pessimistically, there is still reason to fear that the frequent references made
to the Anglo-American philosophical tradition - a heaven-sent weapon against
the theoreticism which so strongly characterizes French social science, from
Durkheim to Levi-Strauss - may, when returned to their original universe,
take on a significance very different from the one they were given in a context
in which that tradition is disdained or unknown, and be seen as a sign of
allegiance to positivism (if not as an ingratiating gesture towards the intellec
tual establishment).
The fact remains that a text which seeks to break out of a scheme of
thought as deeply embedded as the opposition between subjectivism and
objectivism is fated to be perceived through the categories which it seeks to
transcend, and to appear contradictory or eclectic (except when forcibly
reduced to one or the other alternative). T he provisional eclecticism which
can juxtapose Wittgenstein with the young M arx finds its justification in the
fact that all the resources of a tradition which from the beginning has made
practice the negative obverse of theory are needed in order to think the
unthinkable.
R. N.
I
The objective limits of objectivism
SECTION
I:
ANALYSES
T h e practical privilege in which all scientific activity arises never more subtly
governs that activity (insofar as science presupposes not only an epistemological break but also a social separation) than when, unrecognised as privilege,
it leads to an implicit theory of practice which is the corollary of neglect of
the social conditions in which science is possible. T h e anthropologists
particular relation to the object o f his study contains the makings of a
theoretical distortion inasmuch as his situation as an observer, excluded from
the real play of social activities by the fact that he has no place (except by
choice or by way of a game) in the system observed and has no need to make
a place for him self there, inclines him to a hermeneutic representation of
practices, leading him to reduce all social relations to communicative relations
and, more precisely, to decoding operations. Charles Bally remarked that
linguistic research takes different directions according to whether it deals with
the researchers mother tongue or with a foreign language, emphasizing in
particular the tendency to intellectualism implied in observing language from
the standpoint of the listening subject rather than that of the speaking
subject, that is, as a "m ean s of action and expression : "th e listener is on
the side of the language, it is with the language that he interprets sp eech .1
And exaltation of the virtues of the distance secured by externality sim ply
transmutes into an epistemological choice the anthropologists objective
situation, that of the "im partial spectator , as Husserl puts it, condemned
to see all practice as a spectacle.
It is instructive to glance at the case of art history, which, never having really broken
with the tradition of the amateur, gives free rein to celebratory contemplation and finds
in the sacred character of its object every pretext for a hagiographic hermeneutics
superbly indifferent to the question of the social conditions in which works are
produced and circulate. Panofsky, for example, w T i t i n g on Abbot Suger and the
invention of Gothic architecture, only exceptionally and almost accidentally aban
dons the point of view o f the interpreter who, more concerned with the opus
operatum than the modus operandi, represses the question of artistic production under
the concept of the "objective intention o f the work and reduces immediate com pre
hension to a decoding that is unaware that it ii a d e c o d i n g . T o treat a work of plastic
art as a discourse intended to be interpreted, decoded, by reference to a transcendent
code analogous to the Saussurian " langue is to forget that artistic production is always
also - to different degrees d e p e n d i n g on the art a n d on t h e historically variable styles
[ i]
of practising it - the product of an " art ," pure practice without theory , as Durkheim
says,2 or to put it another way, a mimesis, a sort of sym bolic gym nastics, like the rite
or the d ance; and it is also to forget that the work of art always contains som ething
ineffable, not by excess, as hagiography would have it, but by default, som ething which
com m unicates, so to speak, from body to body, i.e. on the hither side of words or
concepts, and w hich pleases (or displeases) without concepts.
S o lon g as h e rem ains unaware of the lim its inherent in his point of view
on the object, the anthropologist is con d em ned to adopt unw ittingly for his
ow n u se the representation of action w hich is forced on agents or groups w hen
th ey lack practical m astery of a h ighly valued com p eten ce and have to provide
th em selves w ith an exp licit and at least sem i-form alized su bstitute for it in
the form of a repertoire of rules, or of what sociologists con sid er, at best, as
a " r o le , i.e. a predeterm ined set of discourses and actions appropriate to a
particular Mstage-part .3 It is significant t h a t" culture is som etim es described
as a m a p ; it is the analogy w h ich occurs to an outsider w ho has to find his
w ay around in a foreign landscape and w ho com p en sates for his lack of
practical m astery, the prerogative o f the native, by the use o f a m odel of all
p ossible routes. T h e gulf b etw een this potential, abstract space, devoid of
landm arks or any privileged centre - like gen ealogies, in w h ich the ego is as
unreal as th e starting-point in a Cartesian sp ace - and the practical space of
journeys actually m ade, or rather of journeys actually b ein g m ade, can be seen
from the difficulty w e have in recogn izin g fam iliar routes on a m ap or tow n-plan
u ntil w e are able to bring together the axes of th e field of potentialities and
the "system o f axes linked unalterably to our b odies, and carried about w ith
u s w herever w e g o , as Poincare puts it, w hich structures practical space into
right and left, up and d ow n , in front and b eh in d .
H ence it is not sufficient for anth rop ology to break w ith native experience
and the native representation of that ex p er ie n c e: it has to m ake a second break
and question the p resup position s inherent in the p osition of an outside
observer, w ho, in his preoccupation w ith interpreting practices, is inclined to
introduce in to th e object th e p rinciples o f h is relation to the object, as is
attested by the special im portance he assigns to com m un icative functions
(w hether in language, m yth, or m arriage). K n o w led g e does not m erely
d ep en d, as an elem entary relativism teaches, on th e particular standpoint an
observer "situated in space and tim e takes u p on the object. T h e "know ing
su b jec t, as the idealist tradition rightly calls h im , inflicts on practice a m uch
m ore fundam ental and p ernicious alteration w h ich , b ein g a constituent
con d ition of th e cognitive operation, is b oun d to pass u n n oticed : in taking
up a point of view on the action, w ithdraw ing from it in order to observe
it from above and from a d istance, he con stitu tes practical activity as an object
o f observation an d analysis, a representation.
hum anism levels at scientific objectification in the nam e o f " lived exp erience
and the rights o f " su b je ctiv ity . In reality, the theory of practice and o f the
practical m ode of know ledge inherent in all practice w hich is the precondition
for a rigorous scien ce o f p ractices carries out a new reversal o f the p roblem atic
w hich objectivism has to con stru ct in order to con stitu te the social w orld as
a system of objective relations in depend en t o f individual con sciousnesses and
w ills. Just as ob jectivist k n ow led ge p oses the question of the con d ition s of
the p ossib ility of prim ary exp erience, thereby revealing that th is experience
(or the phenom enological analysis of it) is fundam entally defined as not posing
this q uestion, so the theory of practice puts objectivist know ledge back on
its feet by p osin g the q u estion of the (theoretical and also social) conditions
w hich m ake su ch know ledge p o ssib le. Because it produces its scien ce o f the
social w orld against the im p licit presup position s o f practical know ledge of the
social w orld, objectivist k now ledge is diverted from construction o f the theory
o f practical know ledge of the social w orld, of w hich it at least produces the
lack.
O bjective analysis of practical apprehension of the fam iliar w orld is not a
n ew form of sacrificial offering to the m ysteries o f su bjectivity, but a m eans
o f exploring the lim its of all ob jective exploration. It teaches us that we shall
escape from the ritual eith er/or ch oice b etw een objectivism and su bjectivism
in w hich the social scien ces have so far allow ed them selves to be trapped only
if w e are prepared to inquire into the m ode o f production and fu n ction in g
of the practical m astery w h ich m akes possib le both an objectively intelligible
practice and also an ob jectively enchanted experience o f that practice; m ore
precisely, that w e shall do so o n ly if we subordinate all operations of scientific
practice to a theory of practice and of practical know ledge (w hich has n oth ing
to do w ith p henom en ological reconstitution of lived exp erience), and
inseparably from this, to a theory o f the theoretical and social con d ition s of
the possibility o f objective apprehension - and thereby to a theory o f the lim its
o f this m ode of know ledge.
A sin gle exam ple w ill suffice to sh ow how this sort o f third-order know ledge
d oes not cancel out the gains from objectivist know ledge but conserves and
transcends them by integrating the truth of practical experience and o f the
practical m ode of k now ledge w hich this learned know ledge had to be
constructed against, that is to say, inseparably, the truth o f all learned
know ledge. It will b e rem em bered that L evi-S trau ss, criticizing M au sss
" p h en om en ological approach to gift exchange, makes a com p lete break w ith
native experience and the native theory of that experience, p ositing that it
is the exchange as a con stru cted object w hich " constitu tes the primary
p henom en on, and not the in dividu al operations into w hich social life breaks
it d o w n ,5 or, in other w ords, that the "m echanical la w s o f the cycle of
couscous (with a piece of cheese, when they mark a cow s first milk) and follow the
course of minor family celebrations - the third or seventh day after a birth, a babys
first tooth or first steps, a b oys first haircut, first visit to the market, or first fast;
linked to events in the life-cycle of men or the earth, they involve those wishing to impart
their joy, and those invited to take part in that joy, in what is nothing less than a
fertility rite: when the dish which contained the present is taken back, it always
contains, "for good lu ck ( el fa l), what is som etim es called thiririth (from er, to give
back), that is to say, a little corn, a little sem olina (never barley, a female plant and
symbol of fragility), or, preferably, som e dried vegetables, chick peas, lentils, etc.,
called ajedjig "flower, given "so that the boy [the reason for the exchange] will
flourish , so that he will grow tall and be fruitful. T hese ordinary gifts (which include
som e of those they call tharzefth, which are visiting-presents) are sharply opposed to
extraordinary gifts, Ikhir or lehna, given for the major festivals called thimeghrivnn
(sing, thameghra) - w eddings, births, and circum cisions - and a fortiori to Iw'ada, the
obligatory gift to a saint. A nd indeed, the little gifts between relatives and friends are
opposed to the present of m oney and eggs which is given by affines remote both in
space and in the genealogy, and also in time - since they are seen only intermittently,
on the "great occasions - and whose importance and solem nity make them a sort of
controlled challenge in the same way that marriages within the lineage or neighbour
hood, so frequent and so closely w oven into the fabric of ordinary exchanges that they
pass unnoticed, are opposed to the more prestigious but infinitely more hazardous
extraordinary marriages between different villages or tribes, som etim es intended to
set the seal on alliances or reconciliations and always marked by solemn ceremonies.
10
ii
accordance w ith inform ation received on the reception o f inform ation trans
m itted and on th e effects produced by that inform ation. It can be seen that
the tvpical herm eneutic paradigm of the exchan ge o f w ords is perhaps less
appropriate than the paradigm of the exchan ge of b low s used by G eorge H .
M ead .10 In d og-fights, as in the fighting o f children or boxers, each m ove
triggers off a cou n ter-m ove, every stance o f the body becom es a sign pregnant
with a m eaning that the op p on en t has to grasp w hile it is still in cip ient,
reading in th e b egin nings of a stroke or a sid estep the im m inent future, i.e.
the blow or the d u m m y. A nd the d u m m y itself, in b oxin g as in conversa
tion, in exchanges of honour as in m atrim onial transactions, presupposes an
opponent capable of preparing a riposte to a m ovem en t that has barely
b eg u n and w ho can th u s be tricked in to faulty anticipation.
It is sufficient to carry out a sim ilar reversal of perspective in order to see
that one can, for exam ple, produce practically or reproduce theoretically all
the honour con d ucts actually observed (or p otentially ob servab le), remarkable
at once for their inexhaustible diversity and their quasi-m echanical n ecessity,
w ithout p ossessing the "filing-cabinet of prefabricated represen tation s, as
Jakobson puts it ,11 that w ou ld enable the agent to " se le c t the conduct
appropriate to each situ ation , and w ith ou t having to construct at great
expense of effort a " m ech a n ica l m odel w hich w ould at best be to the man
of honou rs regulated im provisation w hat an etiq u ette handbook is to the art
of living or a harm ony treatise to m usical com p osition . T h e scien ce of
practice has to construct the principle w hich m akes it possible to account for
all the cases observed, and on ly those, w ith ou t forgettin g that th is con stru c
tion, and the generative operation of w hich it is the basis, are on ly the
theoretical equivalent of the practical sch em e w hich enables every correctly
trained agent to produce all the practices and jud gm ents of honour called for
by the ch allenges of existence.
T o make som eon e a challenge is to cred it him w ith the dignity o f a man
of honour, sin ce th e challenge, as su ch , requires a riposte and therefore is
addressed to a man d eem ed capable of playing the gam e of honour, and of
playing it w ell. From the principle of m utual recognition of equality in h onour
there follow s a first corollary: the challenge confers h onour. " T h e m an w ho
has no e n em ie s, say th e K ab yles, "is a d o n k ey (th e sym bol of passivity).
T h ere is n oth in g w orse than to pass u n n oticed : thu s, not to salute som eon e
is to treat him like a th in g, an anim al, or a w om an. T h e challenge, conversely,
is ' a high point in the life o f the man w ho receives i t . It is the chance to
prove o n e s m anliness (thirugza) to others and to on eself. A second corollary
is this: he w ho ch allenges a man incapable of taking up the ch allenge, that
is, incapable of pursuing the exch an ge, d ishon ou rs h im self. T h u s elbahadla,
12
13
oclaim ing that revenge was accom plished, so that all m ig h t see h ow a fam ily
of honour prom ptly restores its prestige and so that the o p p o sin g fam ily sh ould
be left in no d ou b t as to th e source o f its m isfortune.
C hoosing th e other alternative m ay take on different and even op posed
m eanings. T h e offender m ay, in term s o f h is p hysical stren g th , h is prestige,
or the im portance and authority of the group to w h ich he b elo n g s, be superior,
equal,
or
the recognition of an ideal equality in h onou r, the popular con sciou sn ess is
nonetheless aware o f actual in eq ualities. T h e m an w h o declares " I ve got a
m oustache, t o o is answ ered w ith the proverb " T h e m oustache o f the hare
is not that o f the l i o n . . . T h is is the basis o f a w h ole sp ontaneous casuistry.
Let us take the case w here the offended party has, at least ideally, the m eans
to riposte; if h e proves incapable of taking u p the challenge (w hether a gift
or an offence), if from pusillanim ity or w eakness he sid estep s it and renounces
the chance o f ripostin g, he is in a sen se ch oosin g to be the author o f h is ow n
dishonour, w hich is then irrem ediable. H e con fesses h im self d efeated in the
gam e that he ou gh t to have played d esp ite everyth ing. But n on-reply can also
express the refusal to reply: the m an w h o has suffered an offence refuses to
regard it as su ch , and through his d isd ain , w hich he m ay m anifest by calling
in a hired killer, he cau ses the offence to recoil on its perpetrator, w h o is
thereby d ishon ou red . Sim ilarly in the case of the gift, th e recipient may
indicate that he ch ooses to refuse the exch an ge, either by rejecting the gift
or by p resen tin g an im m ediate or su b seq u en t cou n ter-gift identical to the
original g ift. H ere, to o , the exchange sto p s. In sh ort, w ithin th is logic, only
escalation, ch allenge an sw ering challenge, can sign ify the op tion o f playing
the gam e.
In th e case w here the offender is clearly superior to the offend ed , only the
fact o f avoiding the ch allenge is held to be blam ew orthy, and the offended
party is not required to trium ph over th e offender in order to be rehabilitated
in the eyes of p ub lic op in ion : the d efeated m an w h o has d o n e his duty incurs
no blam e. T h e offend ed party is even able to throw back elbahadla on his
offender w ithou t resorting to a riposte. H e on ly has to adopt an attitude of
h um ility w h ich , by em p h asizin g his w eakness, h igh lig h ts the arbitrary and
im m oderate character of the offence. T h is strategy is, o f cou rse, only ad m is
sib le so lon g as, in the eyes of the grou p , th e disparity b etw een th e tw o
antagonists is u nequ ivocal; it is a natural course for those individuals socially
recognized as weak, clien ts (ya d h itsumuthen, those w h o lean o n ), or m em bers
o f a sm all fam ily.
F in ally, in the case w here the offender is inferior to the offend ed , the latter
m ay riposte (th u s transgressing the third corollary) b u t if he unfairly exp loits
his advantage, he exp oses him self to th e d ishon ou r w hich w ould otherw ise
14
have rebounded on to the p resum ptuou s offend er. W isdom advises him rather
to abstain from any reply and to play the " c o n te m p t gam bit: sin ce failure
to riposte cannot be im pu ted to cow ardice or w eakness, th e d ishon ou r recoils
on to the attacker. A lth ou gh each of th ese " th eo retica l cases cou ld be
illustrated w ith a host of observations and stories, th e fact rem ains that the
differences b etw een the tw o parties are never clear-cut, so that each can play
on the am bigu ities and eq u ivocation s w hich this indeterm inacy len d s to the
co n d u ct. T h e distance b etw een failure to riposte o w in g to fear and non-reply
b espeaking con tem p t is often infinitesim al, w ith the resu lt that d isdain can
alw ays serve as a mask for pusillanim ity.
Every exchange con tains a m ore or less dissim ulated ch allenge, and th e logic
o f ch allenge and riposte is b ut the lim it tow ards w h ich every act of
com m un ication ten d s. G en erou s exchan ge tends tow ards overw h elm in g
g en er o sity ; the greatest gift is at the sam e tim e the gift m ost likely to throw
its recipient into d ishon ou r b y p roh ibitin g any cou n ter-gift. T o redu ce to the
fun ction o f com m un ication - albeit by th e transfer of borrow ed co n cep ts p henom en a such as the d ialectic o f ch allenge and riposte and, m ore generally,
th e exchange of gifts, w ord s, or w o m en , is to ignore th e structural am bivalen ce
w hich predisposes them to fulfil a political function of d om in ation in and
through perform ance o f th e com m u n ication fun ction .
If th e offence d oes not necessarily bear w ith in it d ishon ou r, the reason is
that it allow s the p ossib ility of riposte, w h ich is recognized b y the very act
o f g iv in g offen ce .14 But p otential d ishon ou r becom es m ore and m ore real the
longer vengeance is d elayed. T h erefore th e tim e-lag b etw een the offence and
the reparation m ust be as sh ort as p ossib le; a large fam ily has in deed
sufficient fightin g m en not to have to w ait lon g. T h e reputation o f its nif, its
sen sitivity and d eterm in ation, lead it to appear as capable of rip ostin g the very
instant an offence is com m itted . T h e respect inspired b y a good fam ily is
exp ressed in the saying that it can "sleep and leave th e door o p e n . T h e m an
o f honour, o f w h om p eop le say that he fulfils " h is role as a m a n ( thirugza),
is alw ays on his g u a rd ; h en ce h e is im m u n e from even th e m ost reckless attack,
and "even w hen he is aw ay, there is som eon e in his h o u s e . But th in g s are
n ot so sim p le. It is said that D jeh a, a legendary figure, asked w h en h e had
aven ged his father, replied , "A fter a hundred years had g o n e b y . T h e story
is also told o f th e lion w ho alw ays walks w ith m easured p a ces: " I d o n t know
w here m y prey i s , he said. " I f its in fron t o f m e, on e day I ll reach it; if
its b eh ind m e, itll catch up w ith m e .
H ow ever close it m ay com e to the logic o f practices (and to the extent that
it d o es), the abstract diagram w h ich has to be constructed in order to account
for that logic is liable to ob scu re the fact that the drivin g force of the w hole
m echanism is not som e abstract principle (th e principle of iso tim y , eq u ality
*5
in h onou r), still less the set o f rules w hich can be d erived from it, but the
sense o f h onou r, a d isp osition inculcated in the earliest years of life and
constantly reinforced b y calls to order from th e grou p , that is to say, from
the aggregate of the in dividu als en d ow ed w ith the sam e d isp o sitio n s, to w hom
each is linked b y h is d isp osition s and in terests. N if, literally the n o se, is very
closely associated w ith virility and with all the d isp ositio n s, incorporated in
the form o f bodily sch em es, w hich are held to m anifest v ir ility ; th e verb qabel,
com m only used to design ate the fundam ental virtu es of the m an o f honour,
the m an w h o faces, ou tfaces, stand s up to others, looks th em in the ey es, knows
how to receive as a host and to d o his gu est h on ou r, also m eans to face the
east (elqibla) and the future (qabel), th e m ale orientation par ex cellen ce. T h is
is sufficient to rem ind us that the point o f honour is a perm anent d isp osition ,
em bedded in the agen ts very bodies in the form o f m ental d ispositions,
schem es of p ercep tion and th ou gh t, extrem ely general in their application,
such as those w h ich d ivid e up th e w orld in accordance w ith th e op position s
betw een the m ale and th e fem ale, east and w est, future and past, top and
bottom , right and left, e tc ., and also, at a d eep er level, in th e form o f bodily
postures and stances, w ays o f standing, sittin g , look in g, sp eak ing, or w alking.
What is called the sense o f honour is n oth in g other than the cultivated
disposition, inscribed in the b ody schem a and in th e sch em es of thou ght,
w hich enables each agent to en gen d er all the practices co n sisten t w ith the
logic o f ch allenge and riposte, and on ly su ch p ractices, by m eans o f cou n t
less in ven tion s, w h ich th e stereotyped u n fold in g o f a ritual w ould in no w ay
dem and. T h e fact that there is n o " c h o ic e that cannot be accounted for,
retrospectively at least, d oes not im ply that su ch practice is perfectly predic
table, like the acts inserted in the rigorously stereotyped seq u en ces of a rite;
and this is true not on ly for the observer b ut also for the agen ts, w ho find
in the relative predictability and u np redictab ility o f the p ossib le ripostes the
op portu nity to put their strategies to work. But even the m ost strictly
ritualized exchan ges, in w h ich all th e m om ents o f th e action , and their
u n fold in g, are rigorously foreseen, have room for strategies: th e agents rem ain
in com m and of the interval b etw een th e ob ligatory m om ents and can therefore
act on their o p p on en ts b y p layin g w ith th e tempo o f the exch an ge. W e know
that returning a gift at o n ce, i.e . d oing away w ith the interval, am ounts to
breaking off the exch an ge. L ikew ise th e lesson con tained in the parables of
D jeha and the lion m ust be taken seriou sly; the m astery w h ich defines
ex cellen ce finds exp ression in th e play m ade w ith tim e w h ich transform s ritual
ized exchan ge in to a confrontation of strategies. T h e skilled strategist can turn
a capital of provocations received or con flicts su sp en d ed , w ith the potential
ripostes, ven gean ces, or con flicts it con tains, into an in stru m ent o f power,
b y reserving the capacity to reopen or cease h ostilities in his ow n good tim e.
i6
ow ner the value o f the stolen anim al, w h eth er the theft w as by night or by
d a y , from inside a house o r outside, and w hether the anim als belong to the
householder o r to someone else .17 T h e sam e b asic sch em es, alw ays fu n ctio n in g
in the im p licit state, ap ply in th e case of braw ls, w h ich togeth er w ith th efts
norm ally occu p y a con sid erab le place in cu sto m ; there are th e sam e
o p p osition s, b u t som etim es w ith n ew im p licatio n s, b etw een the h ouse and
other p laces (th e m urder of a person cau gh t in o n es h o m e , for exam p le,
en tailin g no sa n ctio n ), n igh t-tim e and d aytim e, feast days and ordinary days;
and there are also variations accord in g to th e social status of th e aggressor
and the victim (m an /w om an , ad u lt/ch ild ) and th e w eap on s or m eth od s used
(w h eth er it w as b y treachery - if, for exam p le, the victim w as asleep - or in
m an-to-m an com b at) and the extent to w h ich the deed w as carried o u t (m ere
threats or actual v io le n c e). T h er e is every reason to think that if the basic
17
tions o f th is im plicit axiom atics w ere sp elled out m ore co m p letely than
Pr
1S
A hv
co^
m m itted
d av). together w ith the law s by
- w h ich th ev are com b ined
ding on the case, tw o p rop osition s m ay either be added togeth er or
ncel each other ou t, w h ich , w ith in the logic of th e rule, can o n ly be
d e scrib ed as an ex c ep tio n ), it w ould be p ossib le to reproduce all th e provisions
of all the custom ary law s w h ich have b een collected and even to produce the
co m p lete universe of all the acts of jurisprudence con form in g to th e "sen se
of ju stice in its K ab yle form .
T h u s the p recepts o f cu sto m , very close in this resp ect to sayin gs and
proverbs (such as th ose w h ich govern th e tem poral d istrib u tion of activ ities),
have noth ing in com m on w ith the tran scend en t rules of a juridical code:
everyone is able, not so m uch to cite and recite them from m em o ry , as to repro
duce them (fairly accurately). It is because each agent has the m eans of acting
as a judge of others and of h im self that cu stom has a hold on h im : in d eed , in
social form ations w here, as in K abvlia, there exists no judicial apparatus
endow ed w ith a m on op oly of physical or even sy m b o lic v io len ce and w here
clan assem b lies fu n ction as sim p le arbitration tribunals, that is, as m ore or
less expanded fam ily cou n cils, the ru les of cu stom ary law have so m e practical
efficacy on ly to the ex te n t that, sk ilfully m anip ulated b y the h olders of
authority w ithin the clan (th e " gu aran tors), th ey "aw a k en , so to speak, the
schem es of perception and appreciation d ep osited , in their incorporated state,
in every m em ber of the grou p , i.e . the d isp o sitio n s o f the h abitus. T h e y are
therefore separated on ly b y d ifferen ces o f degree from th e partial and often
fictitious exp licit statem en ts of the g ro u p s im p licit axiom atics through w hich
individual m ore-or-less " a u th o r ize d agen ts seek to cou n ter the failures or
hesitations of th e h abitus by stating th e so lu tio n s appropriate to difficult cases.
Talk of rules, a eu p h em ized form of legalism , is n ever m ore fallacious than
w hen applied to the m ost h om o g en eo u s societies (or the least codified areas
of differentiated so cieties) w here m ost p ractices, in clu d in g th o se seem in g ly
m ost ritualized, can b e abandoned to the orchestrated im provisation of
com m on d isp osition s: the rule is never, in th is case, m ore than a secon d -b est
in tend ed to m ake g ood the occasional m isfirings o f the co llectiv e enterprise
of in cu lcation ten d in g to p rod uce h abitus that are capable o f gen erating
practices regulated w ith ou t exp ress regulation or any in stitu tion alized call to
ord er .18
It go es w ith o u t sayin g that th e im p licit p h ilo so p h y o f practice w hich
pervades the anthropological tradition w ould n ot have su rvived all th e d en u n
ciations of legalist form alism if it had not had an affinity w ith the p resu p p o si
tions in scrib ed in th e relation ship b etw een the ob server and th e o b ject of his
stu d y, w h ich im p ose th em selv es in the very con stru ction o f his ob ject so lon g
i8
as they are not exp licitly taken as an ob ject. N ative exp erience o f the social
w orld never ap preh en ds th e system o f ob jective relations other than in
profiles, i.e . in th e form o f relations w h ich present th em selv es o n ly on e by
on e, and h en ce su cc essiv ely , in the em ergen cy situ ation s of everyday life. If
agents are p ossessed by th eir h abitus m ore than th ey p ossess it, this is
because it acts w ith in th em as the organ izing p rin cip le of their action s, and
because th is modus operan di in form in g all th ou g h t and action (including
th o u gh t o f action ) reveals itself only in th e opus operatum . In v ited b y the
a n th rop ologists q u e stio n in g to effect a reflexive and quasi-theoretical return
on to h is ow n practice, th e b est-in form ed in form an t p rod uces a discourse which
compounds tw o opposing system s o f lacunae. Insofar as it is a discourse of
fa m ilia rity , it leaves u n said all that g o es w ith o u t sayin g: the inform ants
remarks - like the narratives or com m en taries o f those w h o m H eg el calls
'original h isto ria n s (H ero d o tu s, T h u c y d id e s, X en o p h o n , or Caesar) who,
liv in g "in the sp irit o f the e v e n t ,19 take for granted the p resu p p o sitio n s taken
for granted b y the historical agen ts - are in evitab ly subject to the censorship
inherent in their h abitus, a sy ste m o f sch em es of p erception and th o u g h t w hich
cannot g iv e w hat it d oes g iv e to b e th o u g h t and perceived w ith ou t ipso facto
p rod ucing an unthin k able and an u nn am eable. Insofar as it is an outsideroriented discourse it ten ds to ex c lu d e all direct reference to particular cases (that
is, virtually all in form ation d irectly attached to p ro p er names ev o k in g and
su m m arizin g a w h ole sy stem of previous in form ation ). B ecau se th e native is
that m uch less in clin ed to slip in to the language o f fam iliarity to th e extent
that his q u estion er strikes him as unfam iliar w ith th e u n iverse of reference
im plied b y his discou rse (a fact apparent in the form of the q u estio n s asked,
particular or general, ign oran t or in fo rm ed ), it is u nderstandable that
an th rop ologists sh ould so o fte n forget the distance b etw een learned recon
stru ction of the native w orld and the native exp erience of that w orld, an
exp erience w hich finds ex p ressio n on ly in the silen ce s, ellip ses, and lacunae
of the language o f fam iliarity.
F in ally, th e in form an ts discou rse ow es its b est-h id d en properties to the
fact that it is the p rod uct o f a sem i-theoretical d isp o sitio n , inevitab ly induced
b y any learned q u estio n in g . T h e rationalizations prod uced from this sta n d
p oin t, w h ich is no longer that of action, w ith ou t b ein g that of scien ce, m eet
and confirm
form alism to w hich his o w n situ ation in clin es the observer. T h e relationship
b etw een inform ant and an th rop ologist is som ew h at an alogous to a p edagogical
relation ship , in w hich the m aster m u st b rin g to th e state of ex p licitn ess, for
the p urposes of tran sm ission , the u n con sciou s sch em es o f h is practice. Just
as the tea ch in g o f ten n is, th e vio lin , ch ess, d an cin g , or b o x in g breaks dow n
into in dividu al p osition s, ste p s, or m oves, p ractices w h ich in tegrate all these
artificia
activity,
19
" c u sto m d e m a n d s . .
of the logic of practice in th e very m ovem en t in w h ich it tries to offer it. For
exam ple, th e id eological u se m any so cieties m ake o f th e lineage m o d el and,
m ore gen erally, of gen ealogical represen tation s, in order to justify and le g iti
m ate the estab lish ed order (e .g . b y ch o o sin g the m ore orthodox of tw o
p ossible w ays o f classifyin g a m arriage), w ou ld d o u b tless have b eco m e appar
en t to an th rop ologists at an earlier date if the theoretical u se th ey th em selv es
make of this theoretical co n stru ct had not p revented th em from in q u irin g in to
the fu n ction s o f g en ea lo g ies and genealogists, and thereby from se ein g the
gen ealogy as th e theoretical cen su s of th e u niverse o f theoretical relationships
w ithin w hich in d ivid u als or grou p s d efine the real space o f (in b oth sen ses)
practical relation ship s in term s of their conjunctural in terests.
T h e im p osition and in cu lcation o f the stru ctures is n ever so p erfect that
all ex p licitn ess can b e d isp e n sed w ith . A nd in cu lcation is itself, togeth er w ith
in stitu tio n alizin g, w h ich is alw ays accom pan ied by a certain am oun t of
20
21
t on of the p rin cip les g o v er n in g th em . B etw een the areas that are
C rently " fr e e st b ecau se g iv e n over in reality to th e regulated im provisaa.PPa ^ {he h abitus (such as th e d istrib u tion of a ctivities and ob jects w ith in
the^internal space of th e h o u se) and th e areas m ost strictly regulated by
ustom ary norm s and u p h eld b y social san ction s (su ch as the great agrarian
rites) there lies the w h ole field of practices su b jected to traditional p recep ts,
custom ary recom m en dation s, ritual p rescrip tion s, fu n ctio n in g as a regulatory
device w hich orien ts practice w ith o u t p rod u cin g it. T h e ab sen ce o f a g en u in e
law - the product of th e w ork of a b od y of sp ecialists exp ressly m andated to
produce a coh eren t corp u s of juridical norm s and ensure resp ect for its
application, and fu rn ish ed to th is en d w ith a co ercive p ow er - m ust not lead
us to forget that any socially recogn ized form ulation con tain s w ith in it an
intrinsic pow er to rein force d isp o sitio n s sym b olically.
Our approach is th u s radically o p p o sed , on tw o essen tial p oin ts, to th e
interactionism w h ich redu ces th e con stru ctio n s of social sc ien ce to " c o n s
tructs of the secon d d egree, that is, con stru cts o f th e co n stru cts m ade by th e
actors on the social s c e n e , as S ch u tz d o e s ,23 or, like G arfinkel, to accoun ts
of the accounts w hich agen ts p rod uce and through w hich they p rod uce the
m eaning of th eir w o rld .24 O ne is en titled to undertake to g iv e an "accou n t
of accounts , so lo n g as on e d o es not p ut forw ard o n e s co n trib u tio n to th e
scien ce of pre-scien tific representation o f the social w orld as if it w ere a
science o f the social w orld . But th is is still too gen ero u s, b ecau se th e pre
requisite for a scien ce o f co m m o n se n se represen tation s w h ich seek s to b e m ore
than a co m p licito u s d escrip tion is a sc ien ce o f th e stru ctu res w h ich govern
both practices and th e con co m ita n t rep resen tation s, th e latter b ein g the
principal obstacle to th e con stru ction o f su ch a sc ie n c e .25 O n ly by co n stru ctin g
the objective stru ctu res (price cu rves, ch an ces o f access to h igh er ed u ca tio n ,
law s of th e m atrim onial m arket, e tc .) is on e able to p ose the q u estion of the
m echanism s through w hich th e relation ship is esta b lish ed b etw een the
structures and th e practices or th e rep resen tation s w h ich accom pan y th em ,
instead of treating th ese " th o u g h t o b je c ts as " r e a so n s or " m o tiv e s and
m aking them th e d eterm in in g cau se o f the practices. M oreover, th e co n stitu
tive pow er w hich is granted to ordinary lan guage lies not in th e lan guage itself
but in the grou p w h ich au th orizes it and in vests it w ith au th ority. Official
language, particularly th e sy stem of co n cep ts b y m ean s o f w hich th e m em bers
of a given group p rovid e th e m se lv e s w ith a representation o f th eir social
relations (e.g . th e lin eage m odel or the vocabulary of h o n o u r), sa n ctio n s and
im p oses what it states, tacitly layin g d ow n th e d iv id in g lin e b etw een the
thinkable and th e u n th in k ab le, th ereb y con trib u tin g tow ard s the m ainten an ce
of the sy m b olic order from w h ich it draw s its au th ority. T h u s officialization
is on ly one asp ect of th e ob jectify in g p rocess through w h ich th e group
22
teaches itself and con ceals from itself its ow n tru th , in scrib ing in o b jectivity
its representation o f w hat it is and thu s b in d in g itself b y th is p u b lic
d eclaration .26
T h e agent w h o " reg u la rizes his situ ation or puts h im self in the right is
sim p ly b eating the group at its ow n gam e; in abiding by th e ru les, fallin g
in to line w ith good form , he w in s the group over to h is sid e b y o sten tatiou sly
h onou rin g the values the grou p h on ou rs. In social form ations in w h ich the
exp ression o f m aterial in terests is heavily censored and political au th ority
relatively u n in stitu tion alized , political strategies for m obilization can be effec
tive only if the values they pursue or propose are presented in the m isrecognizable gu ise o f th e valu es in w hich the grou p recogn izes itself. It is therefore
not sufficient to say that th e rule d eterm in es practice w h en there is m ore to
-b e gained b y ob ey in g it than b y d isob eyin g it. T h e ru les last trick is to cause
it to be forgotten that agents have an interest in o b ey in g th e rule, or m ore
precisely, in being in a regular situation. Brutally m aterialist redu ction enables
on e to break w ith th e n aiveties o f th e sp on tan eou s theory of p ra ctice; b u t it
is liable to m ake on e forget the advantage that lies in ab iding b y the ru les,
w h ich is the principle of the secon d-ord er strategies through w hich the agent
seeks to p u t him self in the right.27 T h u s, q u ite apart from the d irect profit
derived from d o in g w hat the rule prescribes, perfect con form ity to the rule
can bring secondary benefits su ch as the prestige and respect w hich alm ost
invariably reward an action apparently m otivated b y n o th in g other than p u re,
disinterested resp ect for the rule. It follo w s that strategies d irectly o rien ted
tow ards th e prim ary profit o f practice (e .g . th e prestige accruing from a
m arriage) are alm ost alw ays accom pan ied b y secon d-ord er strategies w h o se
purpose is to give apparent satisfaction to th e d em an d s of the official ru le,
and th u s to com p oun d th e satisfaction s o f en ligh ten ed self-in terest w ith the
advantage of ethical im peccability.
23
operations w hereby Saussure con stitu tes lin gu istics as a scien ce b y con stru ct
ing language as an au ton om ou s ob ject, d istin ct from its actu alization s in
sp eech , in order to bring to ligh t the im p licit p resu p p o sitio n s o f any m ode
culture).
Finding them selves in a position of theoretical dependence on linguistics, structural
ist anthropologists have often involved in their practice the epistemological unconscious
engendered by unm indfulness of the acts through w hich linguistics constructed its
own object. Heirs to an intellectual heritage which they did not make for them selves,
they have too often been satisfied with literal translations of a term inology dissociated
from the operations of which it is the product, sparing them selves the effort of an
epistemological critique of the conditions and limits of validity of transposing the
Saussurian construction. It is notew orthy, for exam ple, that w ith the exception of
Sapir, who was predisposed by his dual training as linguist and anthropologist to raise
the problem of the relations between culture and language, no anthropologist has tried
to bring out all the im plications of the hom ology (w hich Leslie W hite is virtually alone
in formulating explicitly) between the two oppositions, that betw een language and
speech on the one hand, and on the other hand that betw een culture and conduct or
works. When Saussure constitutes language as an autonom ous object, irreducible to
its concrete realizations, that is, to the utterances it makes possible, or w hen, by a
procedure similar in every respect, Panofsky establishes that what he calls, follow ing
Alois Riegl, Kunstuollen - that is to say, roughly,- the objective sense of the work is no more reducible to the " w ill of the artist than it is to the "w ill of the a g e or
to the experiences the work arouses in the spectator, they are perform ing an operation
with regard to these particular cases w hich can be generalized to all practice. Just as
Saussure show s that the true m edium of com m unication betw een two subjects is not
discourse, the im mediate datum considered in its observable materiality, but the
language, the structure of objective relations making possible both the production and
the deciphering of discourse, so Panofsky show s that iconological interpretation treats
the sensible properties of the work of art, together with the affective experiences it
arouses, as mere *'cultural sy m p to m s, which yield their full m eaning only to a
reading armed w ith the cultural cipher the artist has engaged in his work.
Saussure first m akes the p oin t that sp eech appears as th e precondition for
language, as m uch from the in dividu al as from the co llectiv e p oin t o f v iew ,
because language cannot be ap prehended ou tsid e o f sp eech , because language
is learnt through sp eech , and because sp eech is the so u rce of in novation s in
and transform ations o f language. T h is is so even th o u g h on e m ight invoke
the ex isten ce o f dead languages or d u m b n ess in old age as provin g the
p ossib ility o f losin g sp eech w h ile con servin g language, and even thou gh
language m istakes reveal the language as the ob jective norm o f sp eech (w ere
!t otherw ise, every language m istake w ould m od ify th e language and there
24
w ould be no m istakes any m ore). But h e then ob serves that the priority of
sp eech over language is p urely ch ron ological and that the relationship is
inverted as soon as on e leaves the d om ain o f individual or co llective history
in order to in qu ire into the logical conditions for d ecip h erin g. F rom this p oin t
o f view , w hich is that of ob jectivism , language is the precond ition for th e
in telligibility o f sp eech , b ein g th e m ed iation w h ich en su res the id en tity o f the
so u n d -con cep t associations m ade b y th e speakers and so guarantees m utual
com p reh en sion . T h u s, in th e logical order o f in telligibility, sp eech is th e
p rod u ct o f lan gu age .28 It follo w s that, because it is con stru cted from th e
strictly intellectualist stan d p oin t of d ecip h erin g , Saussurian lin g u istics privi
leges the structure of sign s, that is, th e relation s b etw een th em , at the ex p en se
of th eir practical functions, w hich are never redu cible, as structuralism tacitly
assu m es, to fu n ction s of com m u n ication or k now ledge.
T h e lim its o f Saussurian ob jectivism are never m ore clearly v isib le than
in its in ability to con ceive o f sp eech and m ore generally o f practice other than
as execution ,29 w ith in a logic w h ich , th o u g h it d oes not use th e w ord , is that
of th e rule to b e ap plied . O b jectivism con stru cts a theory of practice (as
execu tio n ) b ut on ly as a negative b y-p rod u ct or, on e m ig h t say, w aste
p rod u ct, im m ediately discarded, o f the con stru ction o f the sy stem s of o b je c
tive relations. T h u s, w ith th e aim of d elim itin g , w ithin th e b ody o f lin g u istic
data, the "terrain o f th e la n g u a g e and o f extracting a " w ell-d efin ed o b je c t ,
"an ob ject that can be stu d ied se p a r a te ly , " o f h om o g en eo u s n a tu re ,
Saussu re sets aside " th e physical part of co m m u n ica tio n , that is, sp eech
as a preconstructed ob ject, liable to stan d in the w ay o f con stru ctin g th e
lan guage; he then isolates w ithin the " sp eech c ir c u it w hat he calls th e
"ex ecu tiv e s id e , that is, sp eech as a con stru cted ob ject defined by th e
actualization of a certain sen se in a particular com b ination of so u n d s, w hich
he finally elim inates on the grou n ds that " execu tion is never the w ork of th e
m a ss, b ut "alw ays in d iv id u a l . T h u s the sam e co n cep t, sp eech , is d iv id ed
by theoretical con stru ction into an im m ed iately observable preconstructed
datu m , p recisely that against w hich th e operation of theoretical con stru ction
is carried ou t, and a constructed object, the negative p rod uct o f the operation
w h ich con stitu tes the language as su c h , or rather, wrhich produces b oth
ob jects by p rod ucing th e relation o f o p p o sitio n w ith in w h ich and b y wrh ich
th ey are d efined. It w ou ld not be difficult to sh ow that th e con stru ction o f
th e con cep t of culture (in the cultural an th rop ology sense) or social structure
(in RadclifTe-Browns sen se and that o f social anthropology) sim ilarly im p lies
th e con stru ction of a n otion o f co n d u ct as execu tion w'hich coexists w ith th e
prim ary notion of con d u ct as sim p le behaviour taken at face value. T h e
extrem e con fu sion of debates on the relation ship b etw een " cu ltu re (or " social
stru ctu r es) and con d u ct generally arises from the fact that the con stru cted
25
som etim es under new n am es, accept the fundam ental p resu p p o sitio n s o f its
theoretical con stru ction . C red itin g the sp eak ing subject w ith a potentially
in finite generative cap acity m erely p ostp on es the Saussurian d ifficulty: the
BOT
26
background; all these considerations may affect my choice of expressions and lead me
to avoid what might discourage, offend, or hurt. If need be, my language becomes
reserved an d prudent; it becom es indirect and euphem istic, it slides over the surface
instead of in sistin g.*32 Hence com m unication is possible in practice only when accom
panied by a practical spotting of cues w hich, in enabling speakers to situate others
in the hierarchies of age, wealth, power, or culture, guides them unw ittingly towards
the type of exchange best suited in form and content to the objective situation between
the interacting individuals. T h is is seen clearly in bilingual situations, in w hich the
speakers adopt cne or the other of the two available languages according to the
circum stances, the subject of conversation, the social status of their interlocuter (and
thus his degree of culture and bilingualism ), etc. T h e whole content of the
com m unication (and not just the language used) is unconsciously modified by the
structure of the relationship between the speakers. T he pressure of the socially
qualified objective situation is such that, through the mediation of bodily mim esis,
a whole way of speaking, a type of joke, a particular tone, som etim es even an accent,
seem to be objectively called for by certain situations, and, conversely, quite excluded
from others, whatever efforts are made to introduce them .
But the linguists and anthropologists w ho appeal to " co n tex t n r " situ ation in
order, as it were, to "correct what strikes them as unreal and abstract in the
structuralist model are in fact still trapped in the logic of the theoretical model which
they are rightly trying to supersede. T he m ethod known as situational analysis,33
which consists of "observing people in a variety of social situ ation s in order to
determ ine "the way in which individuals are able to exercise choices within the lim its
of a specified social structure,34 remains locked within the framework of the rule and
the exception, which Leach (often invoked by the exponents of "situational analysis)
spells out clearly: "I postulate that structural system s in which all avenues of social
action are narrowly institutionalized are im possible. In all viable system s, there must
be an area where the individual is free to make choices so as to manipulate the system
to his advantage.35 In accepting as obligatory alternatives the m odel and the situation,
the structure and the individual variations, one condem ns oneself simply to take
the diametrically opposite course to the structuralist abstraction which subsum es
variations - regarded as sim ple variants - into the structure. T h e desire to "integrate
variations, exceptions and accidents into descriptions of regularities and to show " how
individuals in a particular structure handle the choices with which they are faced as individuals are in all so cieties36 - leads one to regress to the pre-structuralist stage
of the individual and his choices, and to miss the very principle of the structuralist
error.37
N o t the least of C hom sky's m erits is to have reopened d iscu ssion on the
d istinction betw een syntax and sem an tics (and secondarily, b etw een syntax
and pragm atics) and, m ore p recisely, on the dep en dence or in d ep en d en ce of
th ese different levels o f discou rse relative to the situ ation , by affirm ing the
in d ep en d en ce of th e structural properties o f linguistic exp ression s relative to
their uses and fu n ction s and the im p ossib ility of m aking any inference from
analysis of their form al structure - a p osition w hich has sim p ly adopted
exp licitly the p ostu lates im plied in th e Saussurian lan guage/sp eech
distinction.
In short, failing to con stru ct practice other than n egatively, ob jectivism is
con d em ned either to ignore the w h ole question o f th e principle u nd erlyin g
27
the p ro d u ctio n o f the r e g u la r itie s w hich it then con ten ts itself w ith recording;
to reify abstractions, by th e fallacy of treating the ob jects constructed by
s c i e n c e , w hether " c u ltu r e , " structures , or "m od es of production , as
realities en d ow ed w ith a social efficacy, capable o f actin g as agents responsible
for historical actions or as a power capable of con strain in g p ra ctices; or to
save appearances by m eans of con cep ts as am bigu ous as the notions of the
ruie or the u n con sciou s, w h ich make it p ossib le to avoid ch oosin g betw een
incom patible theories o f practice. T h u s L evi-S trau ss s use o f the notion of
the unconscious m asks th e contradictions generated b y the im plicit theory o f
practice w hich "structural a n th rop ology accep ts at least by d efau lt, restoring
the old en telech ies of the m etaphysics o f nature in th e apparently secularized
form of a structure structured in the absence of any stru cturin g p rin cip le .38
When one is reluctant to follow D urkh eim in p ositin g that none of the rules
constraining su bjects "can b e found en tirely reproduced in the applications
made o f them b y in dividu als, since they can exist even w ithou t b ein g
actually a p p lied ,39 and u n w illin g to ascribe to th ese rules th e tran scend en t,
perm anent existen ce h e ascribes (as S aussu re d oes to language) to all collective
" realities, the only w ay to escape the crudest naivities o f the legalism w hich
sees practices as the p rod uct of o b ed ien ce to the rules is to play on the
p olysem ous nature of the w ord rule: m ost often u sed in th e sen se of a social
norm expressly stated and explicitly recogn ized , like m oral or juridical law ,
som etim es in the sen se o f a theoretical model, a con stru ct d ev ised b y scien ce
in order to accoun t for practices, the w ord is also, m ore rarely, used in the
sense o f a scheme (or p rin cip le) im m anent in practice, w h ich sh ou ld be called
im plicit rather than u n con sciou s, sim p ly to indicate that it exists in a practical
state in agents' practice and not in their con sciou sn ess, or rather, their
discou rse .40
Clearly a case in point is C hom sky, w h o h old s, sim u ltan eou sly, that the
rules of gram m ar are in scrib ed in n euro-physiological m ech a n ism s ,41 that they
are system s o f norm s of w hich agents have a certain aw areness, and lastly that
they are in stru m en ts for description o f language. But it is also instructive to
reread a paragraph from L evi-Strau sss preface to th e secon d edition of L es
structures elementaires de la parente (E lem entary Structures o f K in sh ip) , in w h ich
one m ay assu m e that particular care has b een taken w ith the vocabulary of
norm s, m od els, or rules, sin ce th e passage deals w ith the d istin ction b etw een
preferential sy s te m s and "prescriptive sy s te m s : " C on versely, a system
which recommends m arriage w ith the m oth ers brothers daughter m ay be called
p rescriptive even if the rule is seld om ob served , sin ce w hat it says m ust be
d one. T h e q u estion of h ow far and in w hat proportion the m em bers of a given
so ciety respect the norm is very interesting, but a d ifferen t q u estion to that
of w here th is society sh ou ld properly be placed in a typ o lo g y . It is sufficient
28
to ack n ow led ge the lik elih ood that awareness of the rule in flects choices ever
so little in the prescribed d irection , and that the percentage of conventional
m arriages is higher than w ou ld be the case if m arriages w ere m ade at random,
to be able to recogn ize w hat m igh t be called a m atrilateral *operator at work
in th is so c iety and actin g as a p ilot: certain alliances at least fo llo w th e path
w h ich it charts out for th e m , and th is suffices to im print a sp ecific curve in
the gen ealogical space. N o d ou b t there w ill be not just on e cu rve but a great
n um ber o f local cu rves, m erely in cip ien t for th e m ost part, h ow ever, and
form in g closed cycles o n ly in rare and excep tion al cases. But the structural
ou tlin es w h ich em erge h ere and there w ill be en ou gh for the sy stem to b t
used in m aking a p rob abilistic version o f m ore rigid sy stem s the notion o f w hich
is com p letely theoretical and in w hich m arriage w ou ld con form rigorously to
a n y rule the social group pleases to enunciate 42
T h e d om in an t ton ality in th is passage, as in the w h ole p reface, is that of
th e norm, w hereas S tructu ral A nthropology is w ritten in the language of the
model or, if you like, th e structure; n ot that su ch term s are en tirely ab sen t here,
sin ce th e m ath em atical-p hysical m etaph ors organ izin g th e central passage
(" o p erator , " c u r v e in "genealogical s p a c e , " str u c tu re s) evok e the logic
o f th e th eoretical m od el and of the eq u ivalen ce, at on ce declared and repudia
ted , o f th e model and the norm : " A preferential sy stem is p rescriptive w hen
en visaged at th e m odel lev el, a p rescriptive system m ust b e preferential w hen
en visaged on th e level of reality .43 B ut for the reader w h o rem em bers the
passages in S tructu ral A n thropology on th e relation ship b etw een language and
kinship (e .g . '" K in sh ip sy s te m s , like 'p h o n em ic sy s te m s , are b uilt up by
the m ind on the level o f u n c o n scio u s th o u g h t )44 and th e im perious way in
w hich "cultural n o rm s and all the " ration aliza tio n s or "secon d ary argu
m e n ts p roduced b y the n atives w ere rejected in favour of th e " u n co n scio u s
stru ctu r es , not to m en tion passages assertin g th e u niversality o f th e fun da
m ental rule of exo gam y, th e co n cession s m ade here to "aw areness o f the r u le
and the d issociation from rigid system s " th e n otion of w hich is entirely
th e o re tic a l' m ay com e as a surprise, as m ay th is further passage from the sam e
preface: " I t is n on eth eless true that th e em pirical reality o f so-called
p rescriptive system s o n ly takes on its full m ean in g w hen related to a theoretical
m odel w orked out b y the natives themselves prior to e th n o lo g ists ,45 or again:
" T h o se w h o practise th em know fu lly that th e spirit of su ch system s cannot
be redu ced to the tautological prop osition that each grou p ob tain s its w om en
from 'g iv e r s and gives its daughters to 'ta k e rs. T h ey are also a w a re that
m arriage w ith th e m atrilateral cross co u sin (m o th ers b roth ers daughter)
p rovid es th e sim p lest illustration of th e rate, th e form m o st likely to guarantee
its su rv iv a l. O n the other h and , m arriage w ith the patrilateral cross cou sin
(fathers sisters daughter) w ould violate it irrevocab ly .46
29
tical stance w h ich m akes it p ossib le to estab lish that tr u th :47 " W'hat do
an th rop ology w h ich o b jectivism en gen d ers w h en , w ith the aid of w ords that
obscure the d istin ction b etw een " th e th in g s of lo g ic and the logic o f th in g s!)
it p resen ts th e ob jective m ean in g o f p ractices or w orks as the subjective
p urpose o f th e action of the producers o f th ose practices or w orks, w ith \\^
im p ossib le
h is d ecisio n -m a k in g to ration*;
calcu lation, its actors p erform in g roles or actin g in co n fo rm ity w ith m odels
or its sp eak ers " s e le c tin g from a m on g p h on em es.
3i
of m arriage as th e excep tion (or the " a b erra tio n ) w h ich proves
|ile or to rearrange th e categories o f th ou gh t w h ich m ake it p o ssib le in
^
h
of
th ou gh t
w h ich
have
p rod u ced
this
" u n th in k a b le
on each o f its m em bers a social id en tity eq u ally d istin ct and p erm an en tly fix e d :
and o n the other hand, the n otion o f rules and rule-governed behaviour in the
tw o fo ld s e n s e of b eh aviour con form in g ob jectively to rules and d eterm in ed
bv o b e d ie n c e to rules.
32
legal are assu m ed to con trol b eh aviour in the sam e w ay as legal ru les?**
F in a lly , can w e m ake th e gen ealogical d efin ition of gro u p s th e o n ly means
o f d ifferen tiatin g b etw een social u n its and of a ssign in g agen ts to th e se group 8
w ith o u t im p licitly p ostu la tin g that th e agen ts are d efined in every respect
and for all tim e by their b elo n g in g to the g rou p , and th a t, in sh o rt, die group
d efin es th e agen ts and th eir in terests m ore th an th e agen ts d efine groups
in term s of their interests?
33
0f this mo
34
35
ved to the most em inent kinsman of the young man by the most
0f men and conv ^
kinsm en, w ho has been asked to support the proposal. As
eminent of t ^
an(j begin to look successful, official kin may w ell take the place
negotiations pr ^ hierarchy with respect to utility being alm ost the exact opposite
0f practica
*
reSpect to genealogical legitim acy. T here are various reasons
of the hierarL ^ ^ ^ advisable to " c o m m it in the early stages kin w h o because of
for this, r i
social position m ight com prom ise their principals too dpeplv the^ gene2
^ sjtuation of conjunctural inferiority, w hich is often associated w ith
particu^j s^perjorjty (because the man is marrying beneath h im ). Secondly, not
structur
^ asked to put him self in the position of a supplicant liable to receive
eVe?usa^ and a fortiori to take part in negotiations w hich w ill bring no glory, w hich
3 ^often*painful, and som etim es bring dishonour on the tw o parties (like the practice
thaj'alts which consists of paying m oney to secure the intervention of som e o f the
*soective brides kin). Finally, the search for maximum efficiency in the practical
hase of negotiations directs the choice towards persons know n to com m and great skill,
to enjoy particular authority over the fam ily in question, or to be on good term s with
someone in a position to influence the d ecision . And it is natural that, in the official
phase, those who have actually " m a d e the marriage should have to make do with
the place assigned to them not by their usefulness but by their position in the
genealogy; having played their parts as "utility m e n , they m ust make way for the
"leading actors.
3^
37
may Put
t^ie attribution of the name in order to give it to one of his
eldest
|nSteacj 0f leaving it for the son of one of his younger brothers, thus
Sran - a genealogical level. But it may also happen, on the other hand, that for lack
^
male descendants, a name threatens to escheat, at which point the responsibility
reviving it falls first on the collaterals, and then on the group as a w hole, which
bv demonstrates that its integration and its wealth o f men enable it to reuse the
a m e s of all direct ancestors and, m oreover, to make good any gaps that may appear
elsewhere (one of the functions of marriage with the daughter of the 'amm w hen the
latter dies w ithout male heirs, being to allow the daughter to see to it that her father's
name does not disappear).
op posed to the network of b eaten tracks, of paths m ade ever m ore practicable
by con stant u se. T h e gen ealogical tree con stru cted b y th e an th rop ologist, a
spatial diagram that can be taken in at a gla n ce, uno intuitu, and scanned
indifferently from any p oint in any d irection , causes the co m p lete network
of kinship relations over several gen erations to exist as on ly theoretical objects
exist, that is, tota sim ul, as a totality p resen t in sim u lta n eity .71 Official
relationships w h ich d o not receive con tin u ou s m aintenance ten d to becom e
w hat th ey are for the gen ealogist: theoretical relationships, like abandoned
roads on an old m ap. In sh ort, the logical relations of kinship to w hich the
structuralist tradition ascribes a m ore or less com p lete au ton om y w ith respect
to econ om ic d eterm in ants, and correlatively a near-perfect internal co
herence, exist in practice on ly through and for the official and unofficial uses
m ade o f th em b y agents w hose attachm ent to keeping them in w orking order
and to m aking th em work in ten sively - h en ce, through constant u se, ever
m ore easily - rises w ith the degree to w h ich they actually or p otentially fulfil
fu n ction s in dispensab le to th em or, to put it less a m b ig u o u sly , the exten t to
w hich th ey do or can satisfy vital m aterial and sym bolic interests.72
O fficializing strategies
By th e m ere fact o f talking o f en d ogam y and o f tryin g, ou t o f a laudable desire
for rigour, to m easure its d egrees, on e assu m es the ex isten ce o f a purely
gen ealogical definition of th e lin eage. In fact, every adult m ale, at w hatever
level on th e genealogical tree, represents a p oint of potential segm entation
w h ich m ay b ecom e effective for a particular social purpose. T h e further back
in tim e and genealogical space w e place th e p oint o f origin - and n othing
forb ids a regression to in finity in th is abstract space - the m ore w e push back
the boundaries o f the lineage and th e m ore th e assim ilative pow er of genealogical
ideology grow s, but on ly at the exp en se o f its distinctive pow er, w hich
increases as w e draw nearer th e p oint o f com m on origin . T h u s the kind of
use w h ich can be m ade o f the exp ression ath (" th e d escen d an ts o f, th e people
o f . . . ) o b eys a positional logic altogether sim ilar to that w h ich accord in g to
Evans-Pritchard characterizes th e u ses o f the w ord ciengy th e sam e person
b ein g able, d ep en d in g on circum stance, situ ation , and interlocutor, to call
h im self a m em ber o f the A th A bba (th e h ou se, akham ), of the A th Isa'd
( takharrubth), of the A th O usseb'a (adh ru m )t or of the A th Y ahia ('arch). T h e
absolute relativism w hich b esto w s upon the agents th e pow er to m anipulate
w ith ou t lim it their ow n social id en tity (or that o f th e adversaries or partners
w h om they assim ilate or exclu d e b y m anip ulating the lim its o f the classes they
each b elo n g to ), w ould at least have the m erit of repu d iating the naive realism
o f those w h o cannot characterize a grou p other than as a popu lation defined
O fficializing strategies
3 9
4o
In the
O fficializing strategies
4i
ivjjeged arena for th e d ia lec tic of th e official and th e u sefu l: in their efforts
^ draw th e g ro u p s d eleg a tio n upon th e m se lv e s and w ith d ra w it from their
rivals, the agen ts in co m p etitio n for p olitical p ow er are lim ited to ritual
s tr a te g ie s
in te r e sts
sym bolic capital in th e form of c o llec tiv ely reco g n ized credit - m u st n ot lead
us to forget th e n ecessarily h id d en o p p o sitio n b etw een th e official and th e
unofficial. C o m p etitio n for official p ow er can be se t up o n ly b etw een m en ,
while the w o m e n m ay en ter in to com p etitio n for a p ow er wrh ich is b y d efin itio n
condem ned to rem ain unofficial or ev en cla n d estin e and o cc u lt. W e find in
fact in the p olitical sp h ere th e sam e d iv isio n o f lab ou r w h ich en tru sts relig io n
- p u b lic , official, so le m n , and co llec tiv e - to th e m en , and m agic - secret,
clandestine, and private - to th e w o m e n . In th is co m p e titio n th e m en have
the w hole official in stitu tio n o n their sid e , startin g w ith th e m vth ico-ritu al
representations and th e rep resen tation s o f k in sh ip w h ic h , b y red u cin g the
opposition b etw e en th e official and th e private to the o p p o sitio n b etw een the
outside and th e in sid e, h en ce th e m ale and th e fem a le, esta b lish a sy stem a tic
hierarchization c o n d e m n in g w o m e n s in te rv e n tio n s to a sh a m e fu l, secret, or,
at b est, unofficial ex iste n c e . Even w h en w o m e n d o w ield th e real p ow er, as
is often th e case in m atrim onial m atters, th e y can ex ercise it fu lly o n ly on
condition that th e y leave th e appearance o f powrer, that is, its official
m anifestation, to th e m e n ; to have any p ow er at all, w o m e n m ust m ake do
with th e unofficial p ow er o f th e eminence grise, a dom in ated p o w e r w h ich is
opposed to official p ow er in that it can op erate o n ly b y p ro x y , u n d er th e cover
of an official au th o rity , as w ell as to th e su b v ersiv e refusal o f th e rule-breaker,
in that it still serves th e au th ority it u ses.
T h e true statu s o f kin relatio n sh ip s, p rin cip les of stru ctu ration of th e social
world w h ich , as su c h , alw ays fulfil a p olitical fu n ctio n , is m o st clearly seen
in the d ifferen t u ses wrh ich m en and w o m e n can m ake o f th e sam e field of
genealogical rela tio n sh ip s, and in particular in th eir d ifferen t " r ea d in g s and
u s e s o f gen ea lo g ica lly am b ig u o u s k in sh ip ties (w h ich are relatively freq u en t
on accou n t of the narrow area of m atrim onial c h o ic e ).
In all cases o f genealogically am biguous relationship, one can always bring closer
the most distant relative, or m ove closer to him , by em phasizing what unites, w hile
one can hold the closest relative at a distance by em phasizing wrhat separates. What
ls at stake in these m anipulations, w hich it w ould be naive to consider fictitious on
the grounds that no one is taken in, is in all cases nothing other than the definition
of the practical lim its of the group, w hich can be redrawn by this m eans so as to go
beyond or fall short of an individual one w ants to annex or ex clu d e. An idea of these
subtleties m ay be got from considering the uses of the term khal (strictly, m others
42
Moussa
A,aA
Koula (
Ahmed
Ahccne
Ardjab
i
k.- Mohand
A thm an
/
K hedoudja
Ahmed
Case i
Case 2
F ig . i.
b roth er): used by a m arabout to a com m on, lay peasant, it expresses the desire to
distinguish oneself, w ithin the lim its of courtesy, by indicating the absence of any
legitim ate kin relationship; whereas between peasants, it m anifests the intention of
setting up a minimal relationship of familiarity by invoking a distant, hypothetical
affinal relationship.
It is the official reading that the an th rop ologist is accep tin g w h en , w ith his
in form an ts b lessin g , he assim ilates to parallel-cousin m arriage the relation
sh ip w h ich u nites, for exam p le, secon d -d egree patrilateral parallel cou sin s
w hen on e o f them is h im self th e ch ild o f a parallel-cousin m arriage, and a
fo rtio ri w h en b oth are ch ild ren of su ch m arriages (as in th e case o f an
exchan ge o f w om en b etw een the son s of tw o b rothers). T h e m ale, that is to
say, the d om in an t reading, w h ich im p oses itself w ith particular in sisten ce in
all p u b lic, official situ a tio n s - in sh ort, in all honou r relation ship s in w hich
one m an of h onou r is sp eak in g to another - p rivileges th e n oblest asp ect,
the aspect m ost w o rth y o f p u b lic p roclam ation, of a m ulti-faceted relation ship ,
lin k ing each of th e in d ivid u als w h o are to be situated to his patrilineal
forebears and, th rou gh th e latter, to the patrilineal forebears th ey have in
co m m o n . It represses the other p ossib le pathw ay, alb eit so m etim es m ore
direct and often m ore co n v en ien t p ractically, w h ich w ou ld reckon through
the w om en . T h u s , gen ealogical prop riety requires on e to con sid er Z oubir as
having m arried in A ldja his fath ers fath ers b rothers so n s d augh ter, or his
fath ers b roth ers d a u gh ters daughter, rather than h is m o th ers b roth ers
daughter, even if, as h app en s to be the case, th is latter relation ship lies at
the origin o f the m arriage (see fig. i, case i) ; or again, to cite another case
from the sam e gen ea lo g y , that K h ed oud ja sh ould b e seen as her husband
43
^ot for m a g ic, w h ich , like in su lts, d esign ates its victim as " his m o th ers son
and not h is fath er's son
i.e . in a w o m a n s
con versatio n s w ith her father and his brothers or her h u sb an d , her so n s, or
even p erh ap s her h u sb an d s b rother, taking on th en the value of an affirm ation
of th e in tim a c y o f the grou p of in terlocu tors as w ell as at least the sy m b o lic
participation in that in tim acy of th e person th u s d esign a ted . T h e an th rop olo
gist is in d eed the on ly person to undertake pure, d isin terested research into
all p o ssib le routes b etw een tw o p o in ts in gen ealogical s p a c e : in p ractice, the
ch oice o f one route rather than an oth er, the m ale or the fem ale, w h ich orients
the m arriage tow ards on e or the oth er lin eage, d ep en d s on the pow er relations
w ith in the d om estic u n it and ten ds to rein force, b y leg itim a tin g it, the
balance o f pow er w h ich m akes th e ch oice p ossib le.
44
m arriage in native accoun ts and, co n seq u en tly , in eth nograph ic accoun ts, is
d u e to the fact that it is the m arriage m ost p erfectly co n sisten t w ith the
m yth ico-ritu al representation of th e sexual d iv isio n of labour, and m ore parti*
cularly o f th e fu n ction s assigned to the m en and the w o m en in inter-group
relations. F irst, it con stitu tes the m ost ab solute affirm ation of the refusal to
recogn ize the relation ship of affinity for w hat it is, i.e. w hen it does not appear
as a sim p le duplication of the relationship o f filiation: there is praise for the
result peculiar to a m arriage b etw een parallel co u sin s, the fact that the
resu lting ch ild ren (" th ose w h ose extraction is u n m ix ed , w h o se b lood is p u r e )
can be attached to th e sam e lineage through their father or their m oth er ("he
took his m aternal u n cles from the place w here he has his r o o ts*- ichathel,
ikh aw el, or in A rabic, " h is m aternal u n cle is h is paternal u n c le - khalu
ram m u). O n the other hand w e know that the husband is free (in theory) to
repudiate his w ife, and that a w ife co m in g from ou tsid e is a virtual stranger
until sh e has p roduced a m ale d escen dan t and so m etim es even b eyon d that
tim e. W e know too the am bivalen ce of the relationship b etw een n ep h ew and
m aternal uncle ( khal): " h e w h o has no en em ies need o n ly await his sister's
s o n (that is, the person w h o , in con tem p t o f h onou r, can alw ays claim his
m oth ers in heritan ce p ortion ).
But the refusal to recogn ize the affinity relationship (" th e w om an neither
u n ites or se p a r a te s, tham attuth u r th a zed d i ur theferreq) finds reinforcem ent,
if not a basis, in the m yth ical representation of w om an as the sou rce from
w hich im pu rity and d ishon ou r threaten to en ter the lin eage. N o th in g entirely
g ood can com e fom a w om an : sh e can bring n o th in g but evil or, at b est, the
lesser of tw o ev ils, her w ick ed n ess on ly b ein g com p en sated for by her weakness
(" G od knew what he w as creating in the d o n k ey ; he d id n t g iv e him any
h o rn s) . T h is lesser ev il, th is g ood in evil, alw ays arises in w om en through
the corrective and p rotective action o f a m an. "S h am e is th e m a id e n - aVar
thaqchichth - the proverb says, and th e son -in -law is so m etim es called setter
la y u b " th e veil cast over sh a m e .76 It fo llo w s that a w om an is n ever w orth
m ore than the w orth o f the m en of her lin eage. It fo llo w s to o that the best,
or least bad, of w om en is the on e w h o is sp ru n g from the m en o f th e lineage,
the patrilateral parallel cou sin , the m ost m ascu lin e of w om en - th e extrem e
in stance o f w h ich , the im p ossib le figm en t of a patriarchal im agin ation , is
A th en e, born o f Z e u s head. "M arry the daughter o f you r 'amm; even if she
ch ew s yo u , sh e w o n t sw allow y o u . T h e patrilateral parallel co u sin , a cu l
tivated, straightened w om an , is op posed to th e m atrilateral parallel cou sin ,
a natural, tw isted , m aleficen t, im pu re w om an , as the m ale-fem ale is op posed
to the fem ale-fem ale, i.e . in accordance w ith the stru cture (o f the ty p e
a :b : : b j : b 2) w h ich also organ izes the m yth ic space o f the h ouse and o f the
agrarian calen dar .77 M arriage to the fathers brothers daughter is the m ost
45
46
strengthen the hold of a brother already dom inant (by age or prestige), by agreeing
to take his daughter (patrilateral parallel cousin).
47
of the family who feel obliged to purchase but cannot afford to, and
t^lSe xrhn have lesser duty-rights to purchase but could afford to.
m e m b e rs
those
In practice, parallel-cousin m arriage d oes not take on the ideal sign ifican ce
and function w hich th e official accou n ts attribute it, excep t in th o se fam ilies
which are sufficiently stron gly integrated to wrant th is rein forcem en t o f their
integration. It on ly im p oses itself, at least in an ab solu te wray, in extrem e
circum stances, su ch as the case of the daughter of the am engur, the m an w ho
has " fa iled , w h o has n ot had a m ale heir. In this case in terest and d uty
com cide to require the m arriage of the parallel cou sin s, sin ce the amengur's
brother and his ch ild ren w ill in any case inherit not on ly the land an d the
house of the " fa ile d m an but also his ob ligation s w ith regard to his
daughters (particularly in the case o f w id ow h ood or rep u d iation ), and sin ce
this marriage is, m oreover, the on ly wray o f avoid in g the threat w'hich m arriage
to a stranger (aw rith ) w ou ld pose to the h onou r of th e grou p and perhaps
to its patrim ony.
T h e obligation to m arry the parallel cou sin also im p o ses itself w h en a
daughter has not fou n d a h usb and , or at least not fou n d on e w orth y o f her
family: " H e wrh o has a daughter and d oes not marry her off m u st bear her
sh am e ; " T h e m an w h ose daughter grow s up w ith ou t m arrying w ould be
better off dead than a liv e . T h e relation ship b etw een brothers is su ch that
a man cannot w ith h old his daughter w h en his b rother, esp ecially an elder
brother, asks for her for his son . In th is lim itin g case, in w hich the taker is
also the giver, in asm uch as he is the eq u ivalen t of and su b stitu te for the father,
shirking the obligation is scarcely thinkable, as w h en an u n cle asks for his
niece on behalf of so m eon e to wrh om he has prom ised her; it w ould m oreover,
be a serious sligh t to a m an s b rothers to marry off his daughter w ithou t
inform ing and co n su ltin g th e m , and a b roth ers disapproval, o ften g iven as
a reason for refusin g, is not ahvays a ritual p retext. T h e d em an d s o f solidarity
are even m ore b in d in g , and refusal is unthin k able wrh en , g o in g against all
propriety (it is alw ays the m an w ho " a sk s for the w om an in m arriage),
the girls father offers her for h is n ep h ew , h in tin g at it as d iscreetly as
possible, thou gh to con travene cu stom in th is w ay on e has to be able to co u n t
n a relationship as stron g as that b etw een twro closely u n ited brothers. T h e
fact rem ains that, sin ce honou r and d ishon ou r are held in co m m o n , th e tw o
brothers have the sam e in terest in "coverin g u p the sham e before it is
un v eile d , or, in the language of sy m b o lic in terest, before the fam ily finds
that its sy m b olic capital has been d evalu ed b y the lack o f takers for its
aughters on the m atrim onial m arket .80 S o , even in th ese lim itin g situ ation s
where the ch oice of th e parallel co u sin im p oses itself writh extrem e rigour,
ere is no need to appeal to ethical or juridical rules in order to a cco u n t for
Practices w hich are th e result of strategies co n sciou sly or u n co n scio u sly
48
49
the fam ilies in the social stru ctu re. It m ay be the best kind o f m arriage
( akham irgazen if akham izgaren). T h e pre-em inent position of this line is shown by
the fact that it has been able to take over the first nam es of the rem ote ancestors of
the family and that it includes A hcene, who represents the group in all major external
encounters, w hether conflict or cerem onies, and A hm ed, the "wise m a n who by his
mediation and counsel ensures the unity of the group. T h e girls father (Y oucef) js
totally excluded from power, not so m uch on account of the difference in age separating
him from his uncles (A hcene and A hm ed), since A h m ed s sons, although much
younger than he, are associated w ith the decisions, but above all because he has cut
him self off from com petition betw een m en, from all exceptional contributions, and
even to a certain extent from work on the land. (A n only son, and, moreover, "son
of the w id o w , coddled by a w hole set o f w om en (m other, aunts, etc.) as the only
hope of the lineage, kept away from the gam es and work of the other children in order
to go to school, he has kept in a marginal position all his life. After a period of army
service and then agricultural labour abroad, he takes advantage, now that he is back
in the village, of his favourable position as possessor of a large share of the patrimony
with only a few m ouths to feed, restricting him self to the work of overseeing,
gardening, and tending (m ills, gardens, and fig-driers) - those tasks w hich require the
least initiative and entail the few est responsibilities, in short, the least male of male
jobs.) T h ese are som e of the elem ents which m ust be taken into account in order to
understand the internal and external political function of the marriage betw een Belaid
- t h e last son of Amar, him self the son of A hm ed, the uncle of Y oucef - and Y ou cefs
daughter Yasmina, his classificatorv parallel cousin (fathers fathers brothers sons
daughter). T h is marriage, arranged by A hm ed and A hcene, the holders of p o w e r as usual w ithout consulting Y oucef, and leaving his w ife to protest in vain against a
union bringing little profit - reinforces the position of the dom inant line, strengthening
its links w ith the line rich in land, w ithout in any way com prom ising its external
prestige, since the structure of dom estic power is never declared outwardly, and
because even its m ost im poverished mem ber nevertheless shares in the brilliance of
the lineage. T h u s the com plete truth about this marriage resides in its tw ofold truth.
T he official im age, that of a marriage betw een parallel cousins in a large family
anxious to demonstrate its unity by a marriage able to reinforce it at the sam e time
as displaying its adherence to the m ost sacred of the ancestral traditions, coexists
without contradiction, even am ong strangers to the group, w ho are always sufficiently
well inform ed never to be taken in by the representations they are given, with
knowledge of the objective truth about a union w hich sanctions the forced alliance
between tw o social units sufficiently attached to one another negatively, for better or
for w orse, i.e. genealogically, to be forced to unite their com plem entary riches.
Endless exam ples could be given of this sort of collective bad faith.
It is u nd erstan dab le that, faced w ith su ch accom plished p rod ucts o f the
art of m asking con strain ts and in terests u nd er exp ressio n s capable o f sidetrack
ing sp on tan eou s h erm en eu tics tow ards the less real but m ore presentable
m otives o f m orality and d u ty , the collectiv e ju d gem en t should h esitate. But
there is n o case in w hich th e ob jective m ean in g o f a m arriage is so strongly
marked as to leave n o room for sy m b o lic transfiguration. T h u s th e marriage
of the so-called mechrut, by w h ich a m an w h o has no male d escen d an ts gives
his d augh ter in m arriage to an " h e ir (aw rith ) on con d ition that he com es
to live in his fath er-in -law s h ou se, is en cou n tered on ly in tales or anthropology'
books in the form o f th e sort of purchase of a son -in -law , recruited for his
n fo r m a n ts
52
recognition of it. T h is is how the second-order strategies - w hich all tend to transform
useful relationships into official ones and hence to ensure that practices which in fact
obey altogether different principles appear to be deduced fom the genealogical
definition - achieve in addition an unexpected result, in giving a representation of
practice seem ingly designed to confirm the representation the structuralist anthro
pologist has of practice.
53
niost perfect m yth ically, and m arriage u n itin g the h ead m en o f tw o trib es or
two different clans, the m o st perfect p olitically.
Thus, the tale, a sem i-ritualized didactic narrative, a sim ple paraphrase in parabolic
form of the proverb or saying w hich serves as its moral, only ever relates marked,
marking marriages. First, there are the different types of parallel-cousin marriage,
whether intended to preserve a political heritage or to prevent the extinction of a
lineage (in the case of an only daughter). T h en there are the most flagrant misalliances,
like the marriage of the tawny ow l and the eagles daughter - a pure m odel of upward
marriage (upward socially, but also m ythically, up being opposed to dow n as day,
light, happiness, purity, honour are opposed to night, darkness, m isfortune, im purity,
and dishonour) between a man at the bottom of the social ladder, an aw rith and a
woman of a fam ily of higher rank, in w hich the traditional relationship o f assistance
is inverted by the discrepancy betw een the partners positions in the social and sexual
hierarchies. It is the one w ho g iv es, in this case the higher, w ho must g o to the aid
of the one who has taken his son-in-law, the tawny ow l, on his back, to spare him
a humiliating defeat in com petition with the young eagles - a scandalous situation
denounced in the proverb " giving him your daughter and corn to o *.
Contrary to th ese official represen tation s, observation and sta tistics estab
lish that, in all the groups ob served , the m ajority of the m arriages b elo n g to
the class of ordinary m arriages, generally arranged by th e w o m e n , w ithin the
area of the practical k insh ip or practical relation ship s w hich m ake them
possible and w hich they help to stren g th en .85 T h e m arriages contracted w ithin
this area, b etw een fam ilies u n ited by frequ en t and ancient ex ch an ges along
age-old b eaten paths con tin u ou sly kept op en for gen eration after gen era tio n ,
are those about w hich n o th in g is said, as w ith everyth in g wfhich can be taken
for granted because it has ahvays been as it is - th ose w hich have no other
function, apart from b iological rep rod u ction , than the reprodu ction of those
social relationships w hich m ake them p o ssib le .86 T h e se m arriages, w hich are
generally celebrated w ith o u t cerem on y, stand in the sam e relation ship to
extra-ordinary m arriages, wTh ich are con clu d ed b y the m en b etw een different
villages or tribes, or m ore sim p ly , ou tsid e practical k insh ip , and for th is
reason alw ays sealed by solem n cerem on ies, as th e exchan ges o f everyday
life, th e little presen ts (thuntichin) exchan ged by w om en to " b in d them in
friendship , stand to th e extra-ordinary exchan ges on special o cca sio n s, the
solemn gifts solem n ly p roclaim ed (Ikhir) w h ich are exp ected b etw een official
kin .87
Extra-ordinary m arriages ex clu d e the w om en , as d o es parallel-cousin marnag e, wrhich differs in th is respect - alone 88 - from ordinary m arriages, w hich
54
55
alth is presented, brings together only the m ost im portant representatives o f the
* * fafnilies being allied (perhaps tw enty m en) ; the brides trousseau ( la d ja z) is
limit** to three dresses, tw o scarves, and som e other item s (a pair o f shoes, a haik) ;
the sum agreed upon as the bridew ealth, negotiated in advance in relation to what
the girls parents have to buy in the market to dower their daughter (a m attress, a
illow, a trunk, as well as the blankets which are the fam ilys own work and are handed
down from m other to daughter), is presented w ithout m uch cerem ony, and w ithout
bluff or pretence; as for the w edding-feast expenses, they are m inim ized by arranging
for the feast to coincide w ith the A id: the sheep traditionally sacrificed on that
o c c a s io n is sufficient for the requirem ents of the w edding, and the guests are more
likely to be kept at hom e at that time and present their excuses.
Compared with these ordinary marriages, w hich the old peasant morality eulogizes
(in contrast to marriages w h ich , like w id ow s daughters m arriages, go beyond
the socially recognized lim its of each fam ily), extra-ordinary marriages differ in every
wav. T o conceive the am bition of seeking a wife at a distance, one has to be
predisposed to do so by the habit of keeping up relationships that are out of the
ordinary, w hich im plies possession of the skills, especially the linguistic ones, indis
pensable in such circum stances; one also needs a large capital of very costly distant
relationships, w hich are the only source of reliable information and of m ediators
necessary to the success of the project. In short, to be able to m obilize this capital
at the right m om ent, it is necessary to have invested a lot and for a long tim e. For
example, to take only one case, the heads of marabout fam ilies who have been asked
to act as mediators are paid back in countless ways: the taleb of the village, or a fortiori
the religious figure of higher rank who takes part in the procession of iqafafen, is
given new clothes and shoes by the "m aster of the w ed d in g , and the gifts he
traditionally receives, in cash at the tim e of religious feasts and in provisions at harvest
time, are in a sense proportionate to the services rendered ; the A id sheep he is given
that year is sim ply com pensation for the " sh a m e ( ihachem udhmis, he has covered
his face with sham e) he has incurred in going to solicit a layman (w ho, whatever his
power, does not "hold in h is heart Koranic know ledge) and consecrating the
marriage writh his faith and know ledge. O nce the agreem ent is reached (possibly
involving the paym ent of thaj'alts to one or another of the girls close relatives), the
ceremony of " p led gin g ( asarus, the laying dowrn of the pledge, thimristh)y which
functions as an appropriation rite (a'ayam , nam ing, or a'allam , marking, comparable
to that of the first plot of land ploughed; or m ore exactly am lak, appropriation on
the same term s as land) is in itself alm ost a w'edding. Presents are brought not only
for the bride (w ho receives her " pledge , a jew'el of value, and m oney from all the men
who see her on that day - tiz r i) , but also for all the other w om en o f the house; the
visitors also bring provisions (sem olina, honey, butter) and som e cattle, to be
slaughtered and eaten by the gu ests or added to the brides capital. T h e men of the
amily demonstrate how num erous they are w ith the noise of their rifle volleys, as on
the wedding day. A ll the feasts w hich take place betw een this feast and the w edding
are opportunities to bring thislith her " sh are (el haq): great fam ilies at a great
istance from each other cannot be content with exchanging a few dishes of couscous;
Presents appropriate to the persons they unite are added. T hough granted, that is to
g iv e n , "appropriated, and "recalled to m in d by the m any " sh ares she has
received, the girl is not yet a cq u ired : a point o f honour is set on allowing her fam ily
e time it w ishes to wait and to keep one waiting.
T he celebration of the marriage is obviously the high point of the sym bolic
confrontation of the two grou p s, and also the m om ent of the greatest expense, T h e
glrl s fam ily is sent thaqufats, at least tw o hundred kilos of sem olina, fifty kilos of flour,
56
abundant meat (on the hoof) - w hich the senders know will not all be eaten - honev
(twenty litres) and butter (tw enty litres). T h e case was mentioned of a marriage in
which the girls family was taken a calf and five live and one slaughtered sheep. The
delegation of iqafafen consisted, it is true, of forty rifle-bearing m en, together with
all the kinsmen and notables exem pted by their age from shooting - fifty men in all.
T h e brides trousseau w hich may in such cases consist of up to thirty item s, is
matched by a similar number of item s given to the various other w om en of the family.
And if one often hears it said that betw een great fam ilies there are no chrut (conditions
laid dow n by the father for his daughter before he grants her hand), it is because the
status of the fam ilies is in itself a guarantee that the "con d ition s explicitly stated
elsewhere will here be surpassed. Although the value of the bridewealth is always
subject to strict social supervision, exceptional marriages may ignore the lim its tacitly
set by the group. T h e proof may be seen in phrases nowadays used as challenges:
" Who do you think you are? T h e woman of fourteen [am arba'tach] ? - an allusion
to the fourteen reals paid for the most expensively bought w ife w ho became the
mistress of the house of the family which was richest and the most endow ed with men.
For w om en married around 1900-1910, the same expression speaks of a payment of
forty duros, w hich, according to the popular notion of equivalence ("W e got her for
the equivalent of two pairs of oxen*, elhaq nasnath natsazwijin) , must have
corresponded to the price paid for two pairs of oxen; just before the Second World
War, a typical bridewealth was worth around tw o thousand old francs (20). A
prestigious marriage celebrated with great cerem ony in 1936, to w hich virtually all the
m en of the tribe were invited (together with a troupe of tbal who performed for three
days and nights) cost the organizer in addition to all his liquid assets, the value of
one of his best pieces of land (four days ploughing for one m an). T o feed his guests
he had to slaughter tw o oxen, a calf, and six sheep.
In fact the econom ic cost is probably insignificant in comparison with the symbolic
cost of imensi. T h e ritual of the cerem ony of presenting the bridewealth is the
occasion for a total confrontation betw een the tw o groups, in w hich the econom ic stakes
are no more than an index and pretext. T o dem and a large paym ent for ones
daughter, or to pay a large sum to marry off ones son, is in either case to assert ones
prestige, and thereby to acquire prestige: each side intends to prove its own "worth ,
either by show ing what price men of honour, w ho know how to appreciate it, set on
alliance w ith them , or by making a brilliant dem onstration of their estim ation of their
ow n value through the price they are prepared to pay in order to have partners worthy
of them . By a sort of inverted haggling, disguised under the appearance of ordinary
bargaining, the two groups tacitly agree to step up the amount of the payment by
successive bids, because they have a com m on interest in raising this indisputable index
of the sym bolic value of their products on the matrimonial exchange market. And no
feat is more highly praised than the prowess of the brides father w ho, after vigorous
bargaining has been concluded, solem nly returns a large share of the sum received.
T he greater the proportion returned, the greater the honour accruing from it, as itin crow ning the transaction w ith an act of generosity, the intention was to make an
exchange of honour out of bargaining which could be so overtly keen only because
the pursuit of maximum material profit was masked under the contests of honour and
the pursuit of maxim um sym bolic profit.91
T h e m ost distant m arriages are p erfectly u nequ ivocal sin ce, at least until
recent tim es, it w as im possible to marry at a d istance for negative reasons, for
lack of anyone to marry near at hand. L ik e all close m arriages, p a rallel-co u sin
m arriage, the on ly type o f ordinary m arriage to b e p ositively and officially
57
marked, often occurs in the poorest lin eages or the poorest lin es o f the
dominant lineages (th e clien ts), w h o , in resorting to th is, th e m ost econom ical
type of u nion, release the group in the m ost satisfactory wray (if only by
avoiding m isalliances) from the obligation to marry off tw o of its particularly
disadvantaged m em bers. B ut at the sam e tim e, because it alw ays has the
objective effect of rein forcin g the integration of th e m inim al unit and,
consequently, its d istin ctiven ess vis-a-vis other u n its, it is likely to b e th e tactic
of groups characterized by a strong desire to assert their distinction. T h u s its
am biguity p redisposes it to play the role of th e poor m an s p restige m arriage:
it offers an elegant w ay ou t for all those w h o, like the ruined n oblem an unable
to indicate other than sym b olically his refusal to derogate, seek in the
affectation o f rigour the m eans o f affirm ing their d istin ctio n , su ch as a lineage
cut off from its original group and an xious to m aintain its originality, a fam ily
aiming to affirm th e d istin ctive features of its lineage b y g o in g on e better in
purism (alm ost alw ays the case w ith on e fam ily in a m arabout co m m u n ity ),
a clan seeking to mark its d istin ction from the o p p o sin g clan b y stricter
observance of the traditions (like th e A it \la d h i at Ait H ich em ), and so on.
Because it can appear as the m ost sacred and, under certain co n d ition s, the
most " d istingu ish ed m arriage, it is the ch eap est form of extra-ordinary
marriage, obviating exp en d itu re on the cerem on y, hazardous negotiations,
and a costly b ridew ealth. A nd thu s there is no m ore accom plished w ay of
making a virtue of n ecessity and of p u ttin g o n eself in lin e w ith the rule.
H ow ever, any particular marriage is m ean ingfu l o n ly in relation to the
totality of sim u ltan eou sly p ossib le m arriages (or, m ore con cretely, in relation
to the range o f potential p artners); in other w ords, it is situated som ew h ere
on a con tinu um ru n nin g from parallel-cousin m arriage to m arriage b etw een
members of different trib es, the m ost risky b ut m ost p restigious ty p e, and
is therefore necessarily characterized from both stan d p oin ts, by the extent
to which it rein forces integration and by th e exten t to w h ich it exp an ds
alliances. T h ese tw o typ es o f m arriage represent the p oints of m axim um
intensity of the tw o valu es w hich all m arriages seek to m axim ize: on the one
hand the integration of the m inim al unit and its secu rity, on th e other hand
alliance and prestige, that is, op en in g up to th e ou tsid e w orld, tow ards
strangers. T h e ch oice b etw een fission and fusion, the in sid e and the ou tside,
security and adventure, is posed anew w ith each m arriage. If it en su res the
Maximum of integration for the m inim al group, parallel-cousin m arriage
duplicates the relation ship o f filiation w ith a relationship of alliance, sq uan
dering by th is redundancy the op p ortu n ity of creating new alliances w hich
n^arriage represents. D istant m arriage, on the other hand, sccu res p restigious
aHiances at the cost of lineage integration and the bond b etw een brothers,
* e foun dation of the agnatic u n it. N ative discou rse repeats th is o b sessively.
3
BOT
58
T h e centripetal thrust - exaltation of the in tern al, of secu rity , autarky, the
ex cellen ce o f th e b lo o d , agnate solidarity - alw ays calls forth, if o n ly to oppose
it, the centrifugal thrust, exaltation of th e p restigiou s alliance. T h e categorical
im perative alw ays m asks calcu lation of the m axim u m and the m in im u m , the
search for th e m axim u m of alliance com p atib le w ith the m ainten an ce or
rein forcem ent o f in tegration b etw een brothers. T h is can be seen from the
in form an ts syn tax, w h ich is alw ays that of preference: " I t is b etter to protect
your p oint o f honou r [nif\ than reveal it to o th e r s. " I d o n t sacrifice adhrum
[th e lineage] to aghrum [ w h e a t c a k e ] " T h e in sid e is b etter than the o u tsid e .1
"F irst m ad n ess [daring, risky ste p ]: to g ive the daughter of 'amm to other
m en . S econ d m adness to g o p en n iless to m arket. T h ird m ad n ess: to vie with
the lions on th e m oun tain to p s . T h is last sayin g is the m ost significant,
because u n d er the gu ise o f ab solute con d em n a tio n of d istant m arriage, it
expressly recogn izes the logic in w h ich it b elon gs, that o f th e ex p lo it, prow ess,
prestige. It takes great p restige and w ild audacity to go to m arket w ithout
any m oney in ten d in g to b u y th in g s, just as it takes en orm ou s cou rage to take
on lion s, th e cou rageous strangers from w h om the foun ders of the villages
had to w in back their w iv es, accord in g to m any leg en d s o f origin.
(in the w id est sen se) econ om ic axiom atics b ein g th e precondition
for p rod u ction o f the p ractices regarded as " rea so n a b le w ith in th e group
and p ositively san ction ed b y the laws o f th e m arket in m aterial and sym bolic
g ood s.
59
6o
61
order to w ipe ou t the sta n d in g insult to the group's h o n o u r .93 Just as, in the
logic of challenge and riposte, th e best land b oth techn ically and sy m b olically
is that m ost closely tied to the p atrim ony, so the m an through w hom on e can
M en con stitu te a political and sy m b o lic force on w h ich d ep en d the p rotec*,Qn and exp an sion of th e p atrim on y, the d efen ce o f the grou p and its good s
against the en croach m en ts of violen ce, and at the sam e tim e the im p osition
its dom in ance and th e satisfaction of its in terests. C o n seq u en tly , th e o n ly
reat to the pow er of th e grou p , apart from th e sterility of its w o m e n , is the
62
63
1 * more frequent and more natural am ong the w om en, w ho w ill borrow and
certai .
.
jor any pUrpose; it follow s that the econom ic truth, held back in
lend
c joser t0 t he surface in fem ale exchanges in w hich there may be specific
svvaP o r r e p a y m e n t (" when m y daughter gives birth ) and precise calculation of the
quantities lent.
lan assem b lies or th e m ore excep tion al g a th erin gs o f tribal n otab les, etc .
nt to m en tion th e fact that th ese d u ties have the effect of e x e m p tin g
tta person w h o assu m es th em from th e ex ig en cie s o f th e daily w ork
rou tine.
64
ped agogic action) p rod uces a h om ogen ization of d isp o sitio n s and in terests
w h ich , far from exclu d in g com p etition , m ay in so m e cases en g en d er it by
in clin in g th ose w h o are the product of th e sam e co n d itio n s of production to
recogn ize and pursue the sam e g o o d s, w h ose rarity m ay arise en tirely from
this com p etitio n . T h e d om estic u n it, a m o n o p o listic grou p ing defined, as
W eber said, b y the exclu sive appropriation o f a determ in ate type o f goods
(land , nam es, e tc .) is the locus o f a co m p etitio n for th is capital, or rather,
for con trol over th is capital, w hich co n tin u o u sly threatens to d estroy the
capital b y d estroyin g th e fundam ental con d itio n of its p erp etu ation .
T h e relationship b etw een brothers, k eystone o f the fam ily structure, is also
its w eakest p oint, w hich a w h ole series o f m echan ism s are d esign ed to
su pp ort and stren gth en ,100 startin g w ith parallel-cousin m arriage, the ideolo
gical resolu tion, som etim es realized in practice, o f the specific contradiction
o f this mode o f reproduction. If p arallel-cou sin marriage is a m atter for m e n ,101
con sisten t w ith the m en s in terests, that is, the h igher interests of th e lineage,
o ften arranged w ith o u t the w om en b ein g in form ed , and against their w ill (w hen
th e tw o b rothers w iv es are on bad term s, on e not w anting to a d m it the others
d augh ter to her h ou se and th e other n o t w ish in g to place her daughter under
her sister-in -law s au th ority), the reason is that it is in tend ed to counteract,
p ractically, d ivision b etw een the m en . T h is is taken so m uch for granted that
th e fathers ritual advice to h is son (" D o n t listen to your w iv es, stay united
am ongst y o u r se lv e s!) is naturally taken to m ean "M arry you r ch ild ren to
o n e a n oth er.
E verything takes places as if th is social form ation had had to grant itself
officially a p ossib ility rejected as in cestu o u s by m ost so cieties, in order to
resolve id eologically the ten sion w h ich is at its very centre. P erhaps the
exaltation of m arriage w ith the ben'amm (parallel cou sin ) w ould have been
better u nd erstood if it had been realized that ben amm has co m e to designate
th e en em y , or at least, the in tim ate en em y , and that en m ity is called
thaben'ammts "that of th e ch ildren of the paternal u n c le . In fact, the forces
o f ideological coh esion are em b od ied in the elder, djedd, w h ose authority based
o n the pow er to d isin h erit, on the threat of m aled iction , and above all on
adherence to the values sym b olized b y th adjadith, can secu re equilibrium
b etw een th e b rothers o n ly by m aintain in g th e strictest eq u ality b etw een them
(and their w iv es) both in w ork (th e w o m e n , for exam p le, taking turns to do
th e h ousew ork, prepare the m eals, carry w ater, etc .) and in co n su m p tio n . It
is no accid en t that crisis so often coin cid es w ith the disappearance of this
p ositive coh esive factor, arising w h e n the father d ies leaving adult so n s n on e
o f w h om w ield s a clear estab lish ed au th ority (b y virtue o f th e age gap or
any
other p rin c ip le ). But the extrem ely variable relative strength of the te n d e n c ie s
to fu sion or fission d ep en d s fu n d am en tally, at th e level o f the d o m estic u n it
65
it tem p ora rily thw arts, that o f th e rivalry b etw een agnates. S o , from the
u n d ivid ed fam ily up to th e largest political units., the co h esio n en d lessly
exalted b y the m yth ological and genealogical ideology lasts no lon ger than the
pow er r ela tio n s capable o f h o ld in g in dividu al in terests togeth er.
H avin g restated the p rin cip les w hich define the system s of in terests of the
different ca te g o r ie s of a gen ts in the d om estic pow er relations w h ich result in
the d efin itio n o f a co llectiv e m atrim onial strategy, if w e now p o sit that the
more th e w orking o f th e sy stem serves the agen ts in terests, the m ore they are
inclined to serve the w orking of the system , w e are able to u nd erstan d the
fundam ental p rin cip les o f th e strategies w h ich are con fron ted o n the occasion
of a m a rria g e.103 T h o u g h it is true that marriage is on e of th e principal
o p p ortu n ities to con serve, in crease, or (b y m isalliance) d im in ish the capital
of au th ority conferred b y stron g integration and th e cap ital of p restige
stem m in g from an ex ten siv e netw ork o f affines ( nesba), the fact rem ains that
the m em b ers of the d om estic u nit w h o take part in arranging th e marriage
do not all id e n tify their o w n interests to the sam e degree w ith th e collective
interest o f the lineage.
As the products of elaborate strategies, of which more is expected than sim ple
biological reproduction, i.e. external or internal alliances intended to reproduce the
domestic and political power relations, marriages are a sort of short-term and long-term
investment in, am ong other th in gs, the quality of the "maternal u n cles they procure.
It is understandable that they cannot be lightly dissolved, the most long-standing and
prestigious relationships naturally being best protected against an ill-considered break.
If repudiation becom es inevitable, then all sorts of subterfuges are resorted to so as
to prevent the total loss of the capital of alliances. T h e husbands relatives may go and
heg the w ifes relatives to give her back, attributing the divorce to the youth,
recklessness, thoughtless ch oice of w ords, and irresponsibility of a husband too young
to appreciate the value of alliances; it is pointed out that he did not pronounce the
ormula three tim es, but only once, im petuously, and without w itnesses. T h e divorce
ecomes a case of thutchha (the wife w ho lost her temper and w ent home to her
relatives); there may even be th e offer of a new w edding (w ith imensiand a trousseau).
the repudiation proves to be final, there are several ways of "separating : the
greater the importance and solem nity of the marriage, the more one has " in v ested
*n,
*he more one has therefore an interest in preserving relations w ith those from
Whorn one is separating (either out of kinship or neighbourhood solidarity, or out
tK Se^ *nterested calculation), and the greater the discretion of the break; return of
e bridewealth is not dem anded im m ediately, nor is the return refused (" free
66
repudiation - battal - being a grave in su lt); it m ay not even be expected until the
woman remarries; not too m uch attention is paid to the precise am ount, and witnesses
especially outsiders, are kept away from the divorce settlem ent.
67
0ver each in ten d ed m arriage. T h e lin ea g es in terest, i.e . the m ale in terest,
requires that a m an sh o u ld n ot b e placed in a su b ord in ate p o sitio n in th e fam ily
bv b e in g m arried to a girl of m arkedly h igh er statu s (a m an, they say, can
raise a w om an , b u t n ot th e o p p o site; y o u give - a d augh ter - to a su perior
or an e q u a l, yo u take - a d au gh ter - from an in ferior). It has m ore chance
of assertin g itself if th e m an w h o has th e resp on sib ility (at least th e official
responsibility) for th e m arriage has not h im self b een m arried ab ove h is sta tu s.
In fact, a w h ole set of m ech an ism s, in clu d in g th e b rid ew ealth and th e
w ed d in g exp en ses, w h ich rise in p rop ortion to the p restige o f th e m arriage,
tend to ex clu d e alliances b etw een grou p s too u nequ ally m atched in term s of
econ om ic and sy m b o lic capital (th e freq u en t cases in w h ich the fam ily o f on e
sp ouse is rich in on e form o f capital - e .g . in m en - w hereas th e other
p o ssesses rather th e other form of w ealth - e .g . land - are n o ex c ep tio n s to
widh m'adhalen).
68
- to ordinary marriages, generally set up by the w om en, w ithin their own network
of relationships. T h is change in m atrimonial policy coincided w ith the deaths of the
two eldest brothers (H ocin e and L aid ), the long absence of the oldest men (w ho had
gone to France), and the weakening of the authority o f thamgarth, who had become
blind, with real power passing into the hands of Boudjemaa and, intermittently,
A thm an. Because it is not clear w ho is to succeed thamgarth, the wom an who imposes
order and silence ( ta'a n thamgarth, da susm i"obedience to the old wom an is silen ce )
the structure of relations betw een the wives reflects the structure of relations between
the husbands, leaving vacant the position o f m istress of the house; in such c ir c u it
stances, marriages tend to go tow ards the w om ens respective lin eages.107
69
seS to arrange hasty marriages (such marriages are unlikely to remain stable, which
plains why som e men seem " con d em n ed to marry many tim es). But there is great
avssymmetry on this point too: a man, divorced or w idow ed, is expected to remarry,
'hereas a divorced wom an is devalued by the failure of her marriage, and a w idow ,
even a very young on e, is excluded from the m atrimonial market by her status as a
pother expected to bring up her husbands ch ild , especially if it is a boy ("a woman
c a n n o t remain - a w idow - for the sake of another woman is the saying applied to
a w id o w w ho, only having daughters, is encouraged to remarry, whereas a mother
0f 50ns is praised for her sacrifice, which is all the more meritorious if she is young
a n d thus liable to have to live as an outsider am ong her husbands sisters and her
h u s b a n d s brothers w ives). But her situation varies further depending on whether she
h a s "left her children with her deceased husbands fam ily or gone back to her own
family with her children (in which case she is less free and hence harder to marry
o f f ) - A n interesting option arises: she may either be taken to w ife by som eone in her
h u s b a n d s fam ily (the official practice, particularly recom m ended if she has sons) or
be found a new husband by her fathers fam ily (w hich happens more often w hen she
is childless) or by her husband's fam ily. It is difficult to establish the universe of
v a r ia b le s (doubtless including local traditions) determ ining the " ch o ice of one or
the other of these strategies.
70
js
inatc
*n f
wlt
^
7 i
anotnei
2
S tru c tu re s and the h ab itu s
[ 72 1
73
7 4
75
ral opacity of the thing. W ithin this logic, "objective sociology can grasp only
X ? s o c ia lit y of inertia, that is, for exam ple, the class reduced to inertia, hence to
tence, class as a thing, an essence, " co n g ea led in its being, i.e . in its "having
1 ' >. Class seriality makes the individual (w hoever he is and whatever the class)
being who defines him self as a hum anized t h i n g .. .T h e other form of class, that
* the group totalizing in a praxis, is born at the heart of the passive form and as
Its negation.12 T h e social w orld, the site of these com prom ises betw een thing and
meaning which define "objective m ean in g as m eaning-m ade-thing and dispositions
as meaning-made-body, is a positive challenge to som eone who can only live in the
mire transparent universe of consciousness or individual praxis. T h e only lim it this
artificialism recognizes to the freedom of the ego is that which freedom sets itself by
the free abdication of a pledge or the surrender of bad faith, the Sartrian name for
alienation, or the subm ission im posed on it by the alienating freedom of the alter ego
in the Hegelian struggles betw een master and slave. S eeing "in social arrangments
onlv artificial and more or less arbitrary com b in ation s, as Durkheim puts it ,13
without a second thought he subordinates the transcendence of the social - reduced
to "the reciprocity of constraints and autonom ies - to the " transcendence of the ego ,
as the early Sartre used to put i t : " In the course of this action, the individual discovers
the dialectic as rational transparency, inasm uch as he produces it, and as absolute
necessity inasmuch as it escapes h im , in other w ords, quite sim ply, inasm uch as others
produce it; finally, precisely insofar as he recognizes him self in overcom ing his needs,
he recognizes the law which others im pose on him in overcom ing their own (recognizes
it: this does not mean that he subm its to it), he recognizes his ow n autonom y
(inasmuch as it can be used by another and daily is, bluffs, m anoeuvres, e tc .) as a
foreign power and the autonom y of others as the inexorable law which allows him
to coerce th em .1,1 T h e transcendence of the social can only be the effect of
recurrence, that is to say, in the last analysis, o f number (hence the importance
accorded to the " series), or of the "m aterialization of recurrence in cultural
objects;15 alienation consists in the free abdication of freedom in favour of the
demands of "worked upon m atter : "the 19th century worker makes himself w hat he
is, that is, he practically and rationally determ ines the order o f his expenditure hence he decides in his free praxis - and by his freedom he makes him self what he
was, what he is, what he m ust be: a m achine w hose wages represent no more than
its running c o s t s .. . C lass-being as practico-inert being com es to men by m en through
the passive syntheses of worked upon m atter.16 Elsewhere, affirmation o f the " logical
primacy of "individual praxis, constituent R eason, over history, constituted Reason,
leads Sartre to pose the problem of the genesis of society in the same terms as those
employed by the theoreticians of the social contract: "H istory determ ines the content
f human relationships in its totality and these relationships. . .relate back to every
thing. But it is not H istory w hich causes there to be human relationships in general,
t is not the problem s of organization and division of labour that have caused relations
to be set up betw een those initially separate objects, m en .17 Just as for D escartes
creation is con tin u ou s, as Jean Wahl puts it, "because tim e is n o t and because
extended substance does not contain w ithin itself the power to subsist - God being
^vested w ith the ever-renewed task of recreating the world ex nihilo by a free decree
0 his w i l l - s o the typically Cartesian refusal of the viscous opacity of "objective
potentialities and objective m eaning leads Sartre to entrust to the absolute initiative
c mdividual or collective "historical a g en ts, such as the Party, the hypostasis of the
subiect t^Le indefinite task of tearing the social w hole, or the class, out of
e inertia of the " practico-inert . At the end o f his im m ense imaginary novel of the
eath and resurrection of freedom , with its tw ofold m ovem ent, the "externalization
76
It is, o f cou rse, never ruled ou t that the resp onses o f the h abitus m ay be
accom pan ied b y a strategic calculation ten d in g to carry on quasi-consciously
th e operation th e habitus carries on in a q u ite d ifferen t w ay, nam ely an
estim ation o f ch an ces w h ich assu m es the transform ation o f the past effect into
the exp ected o b jectiv e. But the fact rem ains that these resp on ses are defined
first in relation to a system o f ob jective p oten tialities, im m ed ia tely inscribed
in the presen t, th in g s to d o or not to d o , to say or not to say, in relation to
a forthcom ing reality w hich - in contrast to th e future co n ceiv ed as " absolute
p o ssib ility ( absolute M oglich keit), in H e g e ls sen se, projected by the pure
project o f a " n egative fr e e d o m - p u ts itself forw ard w ith an u rg en cy and a
claim to existen ce exclu d in g all d elib eration . T o elim in a te the n eed to resort
to 'r u le s , it w o u ld b e necessary to estab lish in each case a com plete
d escrip tion (w h ich invocation o f rules allow s one to d isp en se w ith ) of the
relation b etw een th e h abitus, as a socially con stitu ted sy stem of co g n itiv e and
m otivatin g stru ctu res, and th e socially stru ctured situ a tio n in w h ich the
a g en ts interests are d efin ed , and w ith th em the o b jectiv e fu n ctio n s and
su bjective m otivation s o f their p ractices. It w ould th en b ecom e clear that,
as W eber in d ica ted , the juridical or custom ary rule is never m ore than a
secondary p rin ciple o f the d eterm in ation of p ractices, in terv en in g w hen the
prim ary p rin cip le, in terest, fa ils .19
S ym b o lic - that is, conventional and conditional - stim u la tio n s, w h ich act
on ly on co n d itio n th ey en cou n ter agen ts co n d itio n ed to perceive th em , tend
to im pose th e m se lv e s u n con d ition ally and n ecessarily w h en in cu lcation of the
arbitrary ab olish es the arbitrariness of b oth the in cu lca tio n and th e sign ifica
tio n s in cu lcated . T h e w orld of u rgen cies and of goals already ach ieved , of
u ses to b e m ade and path s to be taken, o f ob jects en d o w e d w ith a "permanent
teleological ch a ra cter, in H u sse rls phrase, tools, in stru m en ts and institu*
tion s, the w orld o f practicality, can grant on ly a co n d itio n a l freedom - liberet
si liceret - rather like that of the m agnetic n eed le w h ich L eib n iz im agined
77
tid ily en joyed tu rn in g northw ards. If one regularly o b serves a very close
rrelation betw een the scien tifically co n stru cted objective probabilities (e .g .
the chances of access to a particular g o o d ) and subjective aspirations (" m o tiv a
tions or " n e e d s) or, in other term s, b etw een the a posteriori or ex post
probability know n from past exp erien ce and the a p rio ri ox ex ante probability
attributed to it, this is not becau se agen ts co n sc io u sly adjust their aspirations
t0 an exact evaluation o f their ch an ces o f su c c e ss, like a player regulating his
bets as a function of perfect inform ation as to h is ch an ces o f w in n in g, as one
im plicitly p resup poses w h en ever, forgettin g th e "every th in g takes place as
if, one proceeds as if gam e theory or the calcu lation of p rob abilities, each
seek in th e scien tific theory of p rob abilities (or strategies) not an an th rop olo
gical m odel of practice, but the elem en ts o f a negative description o f the im p licit
logic of th e spontaneous interpretation o f statistics (e .g . the p rosp en sity to p rivilege
early exp erien ces) w h ich th e scien tific theory necessarily con tain s becau se it is
explicitly con stru cted against that log ic. U n lik e th e estim a tio n o f p rob abili
ties w hich scien ce con stru cts m eth od ically on th e basis of con trolled ex p eri
ments from data estab lish ed according to precise rules, practical evaluation
of the lik elihood o f the su ccess o f a given action in a g iv en situ ation brings
into play a w'hole b ody of w isd om , sayin g s, com m o n p la ces, ethical p recepts
("thats not for th e likes of u s ) and, at a d eep er lev el, the u n co n scio u s
principles of the ethos w h ich , b ein g the p rod u ct of a learn ing p rocess d o m i
nated by a d eterm inate typ e of ob jective regularities, d eterm in es" rea so n a b le
and ''u n reason ab le con d u ct for every agen t su b jected to th o se regu larities .20
"We are n o soon er acquainted w ith the im p o ssib ility o f sa tisfy in g any d esire ,
says H u m e in A T reatise o f H um an N a tu re, " th an the d esire itself v a n ish e s.
And Marx in the Economic and Philosophical M anuscripts: " If I have n o m oney
for travel, I have no need, i.e . no real and self-realizin g n eed , to travel. If
I have a vocation to stu d y , b u t n o m on ey for it, I have no vocation to
study, i.e . no real, true v o ca tio n .
Because th e d isp o sitio n s durably in cu lcated b y ob jective co n d itio n s (w h ich
science ap preh en ds through statistical regularities as the p rob abilities ob jec
tively attached to a grou p or class) en gen d er asp iration s and practices ob jec
tively com p atib le w ith th ose ob jective req u irem en ts, the m ost im probable
practices are ex clu d ed , eith er totally w ith o u t exam in a tio n , as unthinkable, or
at the co st o f the double negation w hich in clin e s agen ts to m ake a virtu e of
necessity, that is, to refuse wrhat is an yw ay refu sed and to love th e in evitab le.
T h e very co n d ition s of p rod uction o f the e th o s, necessity m ade into a virtu e,
^ e su ch that the ex p ectation s to w hich it g ives rise ten d to ignore the
78
jg
8o
81
are m ore and b etter h arm onized than th e agen ts know or w ish , it is becau se,
Leibniz puts it, " fo llo w in g on ly [his] ow n la w s, each " n o n e th e less agrees
%
vith the o th e r .27 T h e h ab itu s is p recisely th is im m an en t law , lex in sita, laid
j 0wn in each agent by h is earliest u p b rin gin g, w hich is th e p recon d ition not
onlv for the co-ord in ation of p ractices b u t also for practices o f co-ord in ation ,
ince th e correction s and ad ju stm en ts the agen ts th em selv es co n scio u sly carry
out presuppose their m astery o f a co m m o n code and sin ce u nd ertak ings o f
collective m ob ilization cannot su cceed w ith o u t a m in im u m o f con cordan ce
between the h ab itu s o f th e m o b ilizin g agen ts (e .g . p rop h et, party leader, e tc .)
and the d isp o sitio n s o f th o se w h o se aspirations and w o rld -v iew th ey exp ress.
So it is becau se th ey are th e p rod u ct o f d isp o sitio n s w h ich , b ein g th e
internalization o f th e sam e ob jective stru ctu res, are ob jectiv ely con certed that
(he practices of the m em b ers o f th e sam e grou p or, in a differen tiated so c iety ,
the sam e class are en d ow ed w ith an ob jective m ean in g that is at on ce unitary
and system atic, tran scen d in g su b jective in ten tion s and co n sc io u s projects
whether in d ivid u al or c o lle c tiv e .28 T o d escrib e th e p rocess o f ob jectification
82
83
tegrating past ex p erien ces, fu n ctio n s at every m o m en t as a m atrix o f percep*n its ap p rec^ ons* an(* a c*ins an^ rnakes p ossib le th e a ch iev em en t o f infini11 diversified tasks, thanks to analogical transfers o f sc h e m e s p erm ittin g the
olution of sim ilarly sh aped p ro b lem s, and thanks to the u n cea sin g correction s
of the results ob tain ed , d ialectically p rod u ced by th ose resu lts, and on th e
other hand, an objective even t w h ich exerts its action of co n d itio n a l stim u lation
calling for or d em a n d in g a d eterm in ate resp on se, on ly on th o se w h o are
disposed to con stitu te it as su ch b ecau se th e y are en d ow ed w ith a d eterm in ate
type o f d isp osition s (w h ich are am en able to red u p lication and rein forcem en t
by the 'aw akening of class c o n sc io u sn e ss , that is, b y th e d irect or in direct
possession of a d iscou rse cap ab le o f secu rin g sy m b o lic m astery o f th e practi
cally m astered p rin cip les o f th e class h a b itu s). W ith ou t ever b ein g totally
co-ordinated, since they are th e p rod uct o f "causal s e r ie s characterized by
different structural d uration s, th e d isp o sitio n s and th e situ a tio n s w h ich
com bine syn ch ron ically to co n stitu te a d eterm in ate co n ju n ctu re are n ever
whollv in d ep en d en t, sin ce th ey are en gen d ered by th e o b jectiv e stru ctures,
that is, in th e last an alysis, b y th e eco n o m ic bases o f th e social form ation in
question. T h e h ysteresis o f h ab itu s, w h ich is in h eren t in th e social co n d itio n s
of the reproduction of th e stru ctures in h ab itu s, is d o u b tless on e of the
foundations of th e structural lag b etw een op p ortu n ities and th e d isp o sitio n s
to grasp them w h ich is th e cau se of m issed op p ortu n ities and, in particular,
of the frequ en tly ob served in cap acity to thin k historical crises in categories
of perception and th o u g h t oth er than th o se o f th e p ast, a lb eit a revolu tionary
past.
If one ignores th e dialectical relation ship b etw een the o b jectiv e stru ctures
and the cogn itive and m otivatin g stru ctu res w h ich th ey p rod u ce and w h ich
tend to reproduce th em , if o n e forgets that th ese ob jectiv e stru ctures are
them selves products o f historical practices and are co n sta n tly reprodu ced and
transformed by h istorical practices w h o se p rod u ctive p rin cip le is itself the
product o f the stru ctures w h ich it co n seq u en tly ten d s to rep rod u ce, then on e
is condem ned to redu ce th e relation sh ip b etw een th e d ifferen t social agen cies
( instances), treated as " d ifferen t tran slation s o f th e sam e s e n te n c e - i n a
Spinozist m etaphor w h ich con tain s th e truth of th e o b jectiv ist lan guage of
articulation - to th e logical form ula en a b lin g any on e o f th e m to b e derived
from any other. T h e u n ify in g p rin cip le o f practices in d ifferen t d o m a in s w h ich
objectivist
analysis
w ou ld
assign
to
separate " s u b -s y s te m s , su ch
at,
84
S 5
The h abitus is the p rod uct o f the w ork of in cu lca tio n and appropriation
necessary in order for th o se p rod u cts of co llec tiv e h istory, th e ob jective
structures (e .g . o f lan gu age, e c o n o m y , e tc .) to su cceed in rep ro d u cin g th e m
selves m ore or less co m p letely , in th e form o f d urable d isp o sitio n s, in the
organisms (w h ich on e can, if o n e w ish es, call in d ivid u a ls) lastingly su b jected
to the sam e co n d itio n in g s, and h en ce placed in th e sam e m aterial co n d itio n s
f existence. T h er efo re so c io lo g y treats as id en tical all th e b io lo g ica l in d iv i
duals w h o, b ein g the p rod uct o f th e sam e o b jectiv e co n d itio n s, are the
supports o f th e sam e h ab itu s: social class, u n d erstood as a sy stem o f o b jective
determ inations, m u st be b rou gh t in to relation not w ith th e in d iv id u a l or w ith
" c la ss as a popu lation , i.e . as an aggregate of en u m erab le, m easurable
86
*7
88
89
etc ) which require the b oys to set to w ork, in th e m ode o f " le ts p retend , the
chetfies gen erating the strategies of h on ou r .37 T h e n there is daily participation
in gift exchan ges and all their su b tleties, w h ich the b o y s derive from their
role as m essengers an d, m ore especially, as interm ediaries b etw een th e fem ale
xvofld and the m ale w orld . T h ere is silen t ob servation o f th e d iscu ssio n s in
the mens assem b ly, w ith their effects o f elo q u en ce, their rituals, their
s t r a t e g ie s ,
their ritual strategies and strategic u ses o f ritual. T h ere are the
system appropriate to the sym m etrically op p o site p o sitio n . T h ere are the
lexical and gram m atical com m u tation s ( " I and " y o u d esig n a tin g the sam e
person accord in g to the relation to the speaker) w h ich in stil the sen se o f the
interchangeability o f p osition s and of reciprocity as w ell as a sen se of the lim its
of each. A n d , at a d eep er level, there are th e relation ship s w ith the m oth er
and the father, w h ich , b y their d yssym m etry in an tagon istic co m p lem en tarity,
constitute one of th e op p ortu n ities to in tern alize, inseparably, the sch em es
90
gov ern s practices and represen tation s - far b eyon d the frequ en tly described
rough d ivision s b etw een the m ale w orld and the fem ale w orld , th e assembly
and the fou n tain , p ub lic life and in tim acy - and thereby con trib utes to the
durable im p osition of th e sc h e m e s o f p ercep tion , th o u g h t, and action, it j8
necessary to grasp the dialectic o f objectification and em b o d im en t in the
p rivileged locu s o f th e sp ace of th e h ouse and the earliest learn ing processes.
T h is analysis of the relation sh ip b etw een the ob jectified sch em es and the
sch em es incorporated or b ein g incorporated p resu p p o ses a structural analysis
of the social organization of th e in tern al sp ace of the h ouse and th e relation
of th is internal space to external sp ace, an analysis w h ich is not an end in
itself but w h ich , p recisely on accou n t of the (dan gerous) affinity betw een
ob jectivism and all that is already objectified, is the on ly m eans o f fully
grasping the stru cturin g stru ctu res w h ich , rem aining ob scu re to them selves,
are revealed on ly in the ob jects th e y stru cture. T h e house, an opus operatum,
len d s itself as su ch to a d ecip h erin g , b u t on ly to a d eciph ering w h ich does
not forget that the " b o o k from w h ich th e ch ild ren learn their v isio n of the
w orld is read w ith the b o d y , in and through the m o v em en ts and displacem ents
w h ich make the space w ith in wrh ich th ey are enacted as m uch as they are
m ade by it.
T h e interior of the Kabyle house, rectangular in shape, is divided into two parts
by a low w all: the larger of these tw o parts, slightly higher than the other, is reserved
for human use; the other side, occupied by the anim als, has a loft above it. A door
w ith tw o w ings gives access to both room s. In the upper part is the hearth and, facing
the door, the w eaving loom . T h e low er, dark, nocturnal part of the house, the place
of damp, green, or raw objects - water jars set on the benches on either side of the
entrance to the stable or against the "wall of darkness , w ood, green fodder - the place
too of natural beings - oxen and co w s, donkeys and m ules - and natural activities sleep, sex, birth - and also of death, is opposed to the high, light-filled, noble place of
humans and in particular of the guest, fire and fire-made objects, the lam p, kitchen
utensils, the rifle - the attribute of the manly point of honour ( tiif) w hich protects
fem ale honour ( hurma) - the loom , th e sym bol of all protection, the place also of
the tw o specifically cultural activities performed w ithin the house, cooking and
weaving. T he m eaning objectified in things or places is fully revealed only in the
practices structured according to the sam e schem es which are organized in relation
to them (and vice versa). T h e guest to be honoured (qabel, a verb also m eaning "to
stand up t o , and "to face the east ) is invited to sit in front of the loom . T h e opposite
wall is called the wall of darkness, or the wall of the invalid: a sick persons bed is
placed next to it. T h e washing o f the dead takes place at the entrance to the stable.
T h e low dark part is opposed to the upper part as the fem ale to the m ale: it is the
m ost intim ate place w ithin the world o f intim acy (sexuality, fertility). T h e opposition
betw een the male and the female also reappears in the opposition betw een the " master
beam and the main pillar, a fork op en skywards.
T h u s, the house is organized according to a set of hom ologous oppositions fire: water :: cook ed : raw :: h ig h : low :: lig h t: shade :: d a y : night :: m a le: fem ale
nif: hurma:: fertilizing: able to be fertilized. But in fact the same oppositions are
established between the house as a w hole and the rest of the universe, that is, the
91
w o r l d , the place of assem bly, the fields, and the market. It follow s that each
^ th e s e two parts of the house (and, by the sam e token, each of the objects placed
it a n d each of the activities carried out in it) is in a sense qualified at two degrees,
If t as female (nocturnal, dark, etc.) insofar as it partakes of the universe of the
U Se an<! secondarily as male or fem ale insofar as it belongs to one or the other
0 f the divisions of that universe. T h u s, for exam ple, the proverb "M an is the lamp
o f the outside, wom an the lamp o f the in sid e 99 m ust be taken to mean that man is
the true light, that of the day, and wom an th e light of darkness, dark brightness;
an d we a*s0 knowr that she is to the m oon as man is to the sun. But one or the other
o f the two system s of oppositions which define the house, either in its internal
o r g a n i z a t i o n or in its relationship w ith the external w orld, is brought to the fore
g r o u n d , depending on whether the house is considered from the male point of viewr
o r the female point of view : whereas for th e man, the house is not so m uch a
nlace he enters as a place he com es out of, m ovem ent inwards properly befits the
30
woman.
All the actions p erform ed in a space con stru cted in this way are im m ediately
qualified sym b olically and fu n ctio n as so m a n y structural ex ercises through
which is b u ilt up practical m astery of th e fun dam en tal sch e m e s, w h ich
organize m agical practices and rep resen tation s: g o in g in and co m in g ou t,
filling and em p ty in g , o p en in g and sh u ttin g , g o in g leftw ards and g o in g righ t
wards, g oin g w estw ard s and g o in g eastw ard s, etc. T h ro u g h the m agic of a
world of ob jects w hich is th e p rod u ct o f th e ap plication o f th e sam e sch em es
to the m ost d iverse d om ain s, a w orld in w h ich each th in g speaks m etaph ori
cally of all th e others, each practice co m e s to be in vested w ith an ob jective
m eaning, a m ean in g w ith w h ich practices - and particularly rites - have to
reckon at all tim es, w h eth er to evoke or revoke it. T h e con stru ction of the
world of ob jects is clearly not the so vereign operation o f c o n scio u sn ess w h ich
the n eo-K antian tradition co n ce iv e s of; the m ental stru ctures w h ich con stru ct
the world o f ob jects are con stru cted in th e practice of a w orld o f ob jects
constructed accord in g to th e sam e stru ctu r es .40 T h e m ind born o f th e w orld
of objects d oes not rise as a su b jectiv ity con fron tin g an o b jectiv ity : the
objective u niverse is m ade u p of ob jects w h ich are the p rod u ct o f ob jectifyin g
operations structured according to th e very stru ctures w h ich th e m in d applies
92
9 3
00
!f matic op portu nity to exp erien ce all th e fu n d am en tal o p p o sitio n s o f m yth olC practice, can n ot be fou n d as the b asis of the acq u isitio n o f the
P nCiples of th e stru ctu rin g of th e ego and th e w orld, and in particular o f
very hom osexual and h eterosexu al relation sh ip , excep t insofar as that initial
relation is set u p w ith ob jects w h o se sex is d efin ed sy m b o lica lly and not
biologically. T h e ch ild co n stru cts its sexual identity, th e m ajor elem en t in its
social id en tity, at the sam e tim e as it con stru cts its im age of th e d iv isio n of
orfc betw een th e se x es, o u t o f th e sam e socially d efined set o f inseparably
biological and social in d ices. In other w ord s, the aw akening o f co n scio u sn ess
of sexual id en tity and th e in corporation of th e d isp o sitio n s associated w ith
9 4
thinking. T h e oppositions w hich m ythico-ritual logic makes betw een the male ancj
the fem ale and w hich organize the w hole system o f values reappear, for exam p le ^
the gestures and m ovem ents of the b od y, in the form of the opposition between the
straight and the bent, or betw een assurance and restraint. " T h e Kabyle is like th
heather, he w ould rather break than b e n d . T h e man of honours pace is steady and
determ ined. H is way of walking, that of a man w h o know s w here he is goin g and knovv8
he will arrive in tim e, w hatever the obstacles, expresses strength and resolution, 35
opposed to the hesitant gait (th ikli thamahmahth) announcing indecision, half-hearted
prom ises ( a v a l amahmah), the fear of com m itm ents and the incapacity to fulfil them
At the sam e tim e it is a measured p a ce: it contrasts as m uch with the haste of the man
w ho "throw s his feet up as high as his h ea d , "walks along w ith great strides
" dances - running being weak and frivolous conduct - as it does w ith the sluggishness
of the man w ho "trails a lo n g . T h e m anly man stands up straight and honours the
person he approaches or w ishes to w elcom e by looking him right in the eves; ever
on the alert, because ever threatened, he lets nothing that happens around him escape
him , whereas a gaze that is up in the clouds or fixed on the ground is the mark of
an irresponsible m an, w ho has nothing to fear because he has no responsibilities in
his group. C onversely, a w om an is expected to walk with a slight stoop, looking down,
keeping her eyes on the spot where she w ill next put her foot, especially if she happens
to have to walk past the thajma'th; her gait m ust avoid the excessive sw in g of the hips
which com es from a heavy stride; she m ust always be girdled with the thimehremth,
a rectangular piece of cloth w ith yellow , red, and black stripes worn over her
dress, and take care that her headscarf does not com e unknotted, revealing her hair.
In short, the specifically fem inine virtue, lahia, m odesty, restraint, reserve, orients
the w hole fem ale b ody dow nwards, tow ards the ground, the inside, the house,
whereas male excellence, nif, is asserted in m ovem ent upwards, outwards, towards
other m en.
If all so c ietie s and, sign ifican tly, all the "totalitarian in stitu tio n s , in
G off m an s p hrase, that seek to produce a n ew m an through a process of
" d ec u ltu ra tio n and " r ec u ltu ra tio n set su ch store on the se em in g ly most
in sign ifican t d etails of dress, bearing, p hysical and verbal manners, th e reason
is th at, treatin g th e b ody as a m em ory, they en tru st to it in ab breviated and
practical, i.e . m n em o n ic, form th e fu n d am en ta l p rin cip les o f th e arbitrary
co n ten t of th e cu ltu re. T h e p rin cip les em -b o d ied in th is w ay are p laced beyond
th e grasp of co n sc io u sn e ss, and h en ce cannot b e to u ch ed b y voluntary,
d elib erate tran sform ation , can n ot even be m ade ex p licit; n o th in g se em s more
in effab le, m ore in co m m u n ica b le, m ore in im ita b le, and, th erefo re, more
p reciou s, than th e v alu es g iv en b o d y , m ade b o d y b y th e transubstantiation
ach ieved b y th e h id d en p ersuasion of an im p licit p ed a g o g y , capable of
in stillin g a w h o le co sm o lo g y , an eth ic, a m etap h y sic, a p olitical p h ilosop h y,
through in ju n ction s as in sign ifican t as " stand u p straigh t or " d o n t hold your
knife in you r left h a n d .44 T h e lo g ic of sc h e m e transfer w h ich m akes each
tech n iq u e o f th e b ody a sort o f pa rs totalis, p red isp osed to fu n ctio n in
accordance w ith th e fallacy p a rs p ro totot and h en ce to evok e th e w h o le system
o f w h ich it is a part, gives a very general sco p e to the se em in g ly m ost
circu m scrib ed and circu m stan tial ob servan ces. T h e w h o le trick o f p edagogic
95
reason I*68 precisely in the w ay it extorts th e essen tial w h ile se em in g to dem and
the in sign ifican t: in o b tain in g th e respect for form and form s o f resp ect w h ich
constitute th e m ost v isib le and at th e sam e tim e th e b est-h id d en (b ecau se
most * n a tu ra l) m an ifestation o f su b m issio n to th e esta b lish ed order, th e
in c o r p o r a t io n
possibilities , that is, all th e eccen tricities and d evia tio n s w h ich are th e sm all
change o f m ad n ess. T h e co n cessio n s o f politeness alw ays con tain p o litica l
c o n c e s s io n s .
and seem su ch
products - th ou gh ts, p ercep tio n s, exp ressio n s, action s - w h o se lim its are set
bV the h istorically and socially situated co n d itio n s o f its p ro d u ctio n , the
conditioned and con d ition al freed om it secu res is as rem ote from a creation
u npredictable n ovelty as it is from a sim p le m ech an ical reprodu ction of
the initial c o n d itio n in g s .48
3
G e n e ra tiv e sch em es an d p ractical lo g ic :
in ve n tio n w ith in lim its
O b jectivism co n stitu tes the social w orld as a sp ecta cle p resen ted to an observer
w h o takes up a " p o in t of v ie w on th e action , w h o sta n d s back so as to
ob serve it an d, tran sferrin g in to th e ob ject th e p rin cip les o f h is relation to
th e o b ject, c o n ce iv e s of it as a to ta lity in te n d ed for co g n itio n alo n e, in which
a ll
on e afforded b y h ig h p o sitio n s in th e social stru ctu re, from w h ich the social
w orld appears as a rep resen tation (in the sen se of idealist p h ilo so p h y b u t also
as u sed in p ain tin g or the th eatre) and p ractices are n o m ore than " e x e c u tio n s ,
stage parts, perform an ces of scores, or the im p lem en tin g o f p lans. W ith the
M arx o f the Theses on Feuerbach, th e th eory of practice as p ractice insists,
against p o sitiv ist m aterialism , that th e ob jects of k n o w led g e are constructed,
and against idealist in tellectu a lism , that th e p rin cip le o f th is co n stru ctio n is
practical a ctiv ity orien ted tow ards practical fu n ctio n s. It is p o ssib le to a b a n d o n
th e sovereign p oin t o f view from w h ich o b jectiv ist id ealism ord ers th e w orld,
w ith o u t b ein g forced to relin q u ish th e "active asp ect o f ap p reh en sio n o f the
w orld by red u cin g co g n itio n to a m ere record in g: it suffices to situ ate on eself
w ithin "real activity as s u c h , i.e . in th e practical relation to th e w o rld , the
q u a si-b o d ilv " a im in g w h ich en tails no rep resen ta tio n o f eith er th e b o d y or
th e w orld , still less o f their relation sh ip , that a ctiv e p resen ce in th e w orld
th ro u gh w h ich th e w orld im p o ses its p resen ce, w ith its u rg en cies, its th in gs
to b e d o n e or said , th in g s " m a d e to be said and said "to be d o n e , w hich
[ 961
97
spectacle.
The a rgu m en ts that have d ev elo p ed as m u ch am on g a n th ro p o lo g ists (eth n o science) as am on g so c io lo g ists (eth n o m e th o d o lo g y ) around classification s
and classificatory sy stem s have on e th in g in co m m o n : th ey forget that th ese
98
io o
"th e door of the y ea r ( thabburth usugas), w h ich marks th e entry in to the wet
p eriod, after the d o gd ays o f sm aim and at the b eg in n in g of la k h rif: on that
day, each fam ily sacrifices a cock, and associations and con tracts are renewed.
But for other in form an ts, th e " d oor of the y e a r is th e first day o f ploughing
( lahlal natsharats or lah lal n thagersa), the m ost d ecisiv e tu rn in g -p o in t of the
transitional period.
T h e tillage period (u su ally called lah lal, but so m etim es hartadem ) begins
w ith the first d ays p lo u g h in g (azvdjeb), after an ox b o u g h t co llectiv ely has
been sacrificed ( thimechret) and the m eat shared out am ongst all the m em bers
of the co m m u n ity (adhrum or villa g e). P lou gh in g and so w in g , w h ich begin
im m ediately after the inaugural cerem on y (w h ich is also a rain-m aking rite),
as soon as the land is su fficien tly m o ist, m ay go on u n til m id -D ecem b er or
even lon ger, d ep en d in g on th e region and the year.
It is doubtless incorrect to speak of lahlal as a p erio d : this term , and the
corresponding tem poral unit, are defined practically, within the universe of the wet
season, in opposition to lakhrif (ploughing and sow ing being opposed to the picking
and drying of the figs, gardening work in thabhirth, the sum m er garden, and w ith la la f,
the special attention given to th e oxen weakened by treading ou t, so as to prepare them
for ploughing) ; but w ithin th e same universe it may also be defined in opposition to
lyali, the slack m om ent in w inter. W ithin a quite different logic it can also be
contrasted w ith all the other periods held to be licit for a particular type of work which
w ould be haram (the illicit) if done outside those periods: for exam ple, lahlal lafth,
the licit period for sow ing turnips (from the seventeenth day of autum n, the 3rd of
Septem ber in the Julian calendar), lahlal yifer, the licit period for stripping the fig-trees
(the end of Septem ber), etc.
10 1
ransition from w in ter to sp rin g (essba't or essubu', the " s e v e n s ); and from
et a n o t h e r point of v iew , th e se are th e "great n ig h ts (ly a li kbira) as op posed
^ t h e l e s s er n ig h ts (ly a li esghira) o f February and M arch, to th e " sh ep h erd s
nights a n d to the " n igh ts o f H a y a n . T h e first day of ennayer (January),
in the depth o f w in ter, is m arked by a w h ole set o f renew al rites and taboos
(in particular on sw eep in g an d w ea v in g ), w h ich som e inform an ts extend to
the w hole period of issemaden (th e cold d ays) ru n n in g from late D ecem b er
to early January.
T h e end of ly a li is m arked by the ritual celebration of el'a zla gennayer,
s e p a r a t io n
from ennayer: life has em erged on the face of the earth, th e first
10 2
the N egro, seven intensely cold days d uring w hich work is su sp en d ed , and ahgQtl
hari, the hayan of the freem an, seven days in w hich everything on earth comesK u
to life .
D u rin g " hayan w eek (th e first w eek of M arch), life com p letes its work. Man m
not disturb it by goin g into the fields or orch ard s.12 T h e anim als too seem to ^
com pleted their grow th: w eaning (el h iya z) is carried out at the end of hayan weej.'
on the day of the spring eq u in ox (a d h w a l gitij, the len gth en in g o f the su n ). A tin ca^
is struck to make a noise w hich w ill prevent the oxen - w ho can understand human
speech on that day - from hearing what is said about " th e len gth en in g of t h e davg
for if they heard it, they w ould take fright at having to work harder. By virtue o f
position, husum (or hayan) is endow ed w ith an inaugural - and augural - character very
sim ilar to that conferred on the m orning, in th e cycle of the day (for e x a m p l e , if
does not rain, the wells w ill not be full all year; if it rains, that is a sign o f p le n ty if there is snow at the b egin n in g, there will be m any partridge e g g s ); it is th e r e f o r e
an occasion for acts of propitiation (alm sgivin g) and divination.
10 3
and ripenin g; w ith ibril, a p articu larly b en eficen t m on th (" A p ril is a dow'nw'ard
slope), a trou b le-free p eriod o f relative p len ty b eg in s. W ork o f all sorts starts
up again: in th e field s, wThere th e critical p eriod o f g ro w th is ov er, th e m en
can start th e h o ein g , the o n ly im p ortan t activ ity (w h ich u sed to b e in augu rated
by the a b d u ction of M ata, th e " brid e o f th e field , a rite in te n d ed to call dow n
the rain n eed ed for th e ears of th e corn to d e v e lo p ) ; in th e gard en s, th e first
beans are p ick ed . D u r in g th e p eriod o f nisany w h o se b en eficen t rain, b rin gin g
fertility and p rosp erity to every liv in g th in g , is in vok ed writh all so rts o f rites,
the sh eep are sh orn and th e n ew lam b s are b ran d ed . T h e fact that nisan, like
all transitional p erio d s (n atah , for e x a m p le ), is an a m b ig u o u s p erio d , ill
defined in relation to th e o p p o sitio n b etw e en th e dry and th e w e t, is here
expressed not in a d iv isio n in to tw o p eriod s, o n e a u sp icio u s an d the other
inauspicious, b u t b y th e ex iste n c e o f in a u sp icio u s m o m e n ts ( eddbagh , th e 1 st
of M ay, at a m ysterio u s h our k n ow n to n o n e ), m arked b y various taboos
(pruning or graftin g, celeb ra tin g w e d d in g s, w h ite w a sh in g h o u se s, settin g up
*he lo o m , se ttin g eg g s to b e h atch ed , e t c .) .
A s th e p eriod k n ow n as ize g za w e n " th e green d a y s co m e s to an en d , th e
last traces o f g reen ery fade from th e la n d sc a p e ; th e cerea ls, wrh ich had b een
as 'te n d e r ( th aleqaqth ) as a n ew -b o rn b a b y , n ow b eg in to tu rn y e llo w . T h e
changing ap pearan ce o f th e corn field s is in d icated b y th e n a m es of th e ten
or seven -d ay p erio d s in to wTh ich th e m o n th o f magu (or m ayu) is d iv id e d . A fter
l*egzaw en co m e iw ragh en , th e yellow* d a y s, im ellalen, th e w h ite d a y s, and
tquranen, th e dry d ays. S u m m e r (anebdhu) has b eg u n . T h e ch aracteristic tasks
104
are th e n
sacrificed,
are sim p ly
(in sp ite o f th e trou b le and tim e th ey have co st) w ere it not that, as w ith ,
jn an oth er order, the statistical an alysis o f g en ea lo g ies, th ey have the effect
0 f fo rcin g
io 6
opposite of the attitude involved practically in the ordinary use of tem poral terms
Q uite apart from the form w hich the questioning m ust take so as to elicit an ordered
sequ en ce of answ ers, everything about the inquiry relationship itself betrays the
interrogator's "theoretical (i.e . "non-practical ) disposition and invites th e interrogatee to adopt a quasi-theoretical attitude: the situation in w hich the interrogation is
carried on rules out any reference to the use and conditions of use of th e temporal
guide-m arks; the interrogation itself tacitly substitutes for d iscontinuous marks
intended to be used for practical ends, the calendar as an object o f thought, predisposed
to becom e an object o f discourse and to be unfolded as a totality ex istin g beyond
its "applications and independently of the needs and interests o f its u sers. This
explains w hy inform ants w ho are invited to give the calendar often start by setting
out the scholarly series of successive units, such as mtvalah, rw alah, and fw atah , or
izegzazven, iwraghen, imellalen, and iquranen. A nd also w hy, w hen they do not send
the anthropologist (w hom they always see as a scholar) to other scholars w ith his
scholars questions, they endeavour to produce the form s o f learning w hich seem to
them w orthiest of being offered in reply to scholarly interrogation, su b stitu tin g for
the guides w hich really organize their practice as m uch as they can m obilize of the
series of the constructed calendar, the m onths of the M oslem calendar or the
" h o u ses.20 In short, by tacitly excluding all reference to the practical interest which
a socially characterized agent - a man or a w om an, an adult or a shepherd, a farmer
or a sm ith, etc. - may have in dividing up the year in such-and-such a w ay, and in
using such-and-such a tem poral gu id e, one unw ittingly constructs an object which
exists only by virtue of this unconscious construction of both it and its operations.
by step .22
D epending on the precision w ith w hich the event considered has to be localized,
on the nature of the event, and on the social status of the agent concerned, different
svstems o f oppositions are seen to em erge: for exam ple, the period known as ly a li,
far from being defined - as in a perfectly ordinate series - in relation to the period
which preceded it and the period w hich follow s it, and only in relation to them , can
be opposed to smaim as well as to el husum or thimgharine\ as we have seen , it can
also be opposed, as " lya li o f D ece m b e r, to " lyali of January, or, by a different logic,
be opposed as the "great n ig h ts to the "lesser nights of fu ra r and the "lesser nights
of maghres (the sam e com binative logic w hich leads to the oppositions betw een " essba't
of w inter and "essba't of sp rin g ; betw een " es-ba't of late sp rin g , w ith the Mgreen
days and the "yellow d a y s, and " essba't of su m m er, w ith the "w hite d a y s and
the "dry d ays ; and betw een smaim of sum m er and smaim of autum n). T h e same
informant may at one m om ent, thinking in term s of ritual practices, oppose lakhrif
taken as a w hole ("autum n is w ithout d iv isio n s) to lahlal, the licit period for
ploughing; and the very next m om en t, thinking in term s of the cycle of the fig
harvest, oppose lahlal to achraw , w hich is the end of lakhrif and one o f the activities
of thaqachachth, through w hich it is im plicitly opposed to thissemtith (the first figs),
or achakh (the ripeness of the figs).
When one knows that m any other oppositions could be produced, one sees the
artificiality and indeed unreality of a calendar w hich assim ilates and aligns u nits of
different levels and of very unequal im portance. G iven that all the d ivisions and
sub-divisions w hich the observer may record and cum ulate are produced and used
ln different situations and on different occasions, the question of h ow each of them
relates to the unit at a higher level, or, a fortiori, to the divisions or sub-divisions of
the " p eriods to w hich they are op p osed , never arises in practice. If another seem ingly
ethnocentric analogy' be perm itted, one m ight suggest that the relation betw een the
constructed series obeying the laws of succession, and the tem poral oppositions put
mto practice successively so that they cannot be telescoped into the sam e spot, is
hom ologous with the relation betw een the continuous, hom ogeneous, political space
of graduated scales of op in ion , and practical political positions, w hich are always taken
UP in response to a particular situation and particular interlocutors or opponents and
make d istinctions and divisions of greater or lesser refinem ent depending on the
Political distance betw een the interlocutors (le ft:r ig h t::left o f the left:righ t o f the
left:: left of the left of the le f t: right of the left o f the le ft: :e tc.) so that the sam e agent
io 8
may find him self successively on his own right and on his ow n left in the " absolute
space of geom etry, contradicting the third law o f succession.
T h e same analysis applies to the term inologies serving to designate social units:
ignorance of the uncertainties and am biguities w hich these products of a practical lo g ic
ow e to their functions and to the conditions in w hich they are used leads to the
production of artefacts as im peccable as they are unreal. Perhaps no anthropologist
has been more sensitive than Edm und Leach to "the essential difference betw een the
ritual description of structural relations and the anthropologists scientific description ,
or, in particular, to the opposition betw een the "com pletely unam biguous terminology of *he anthropologist, with his arbitrarily devised concepts, and the concepts
which agents use in ritual actions to express structural relations. Indeed, nothing is
more suspect than the ostentatious rigour o f the diagram s of the social organization o f
Berber societies offered by anthropologists. Jeanne Favret provides an exam ple in a
recent article in w hich she follow s Hanoteau on to a " field on which her general ideas
are most redolent of generals ideas, as Virginia W oolf would have put it. If her taste
for provocative paradox had not led her to rehabilitate the worthy brigadier-generals
"wild [sauvage] ethnography against professional ethnology (which happens to be
somewhat under-professionalized in this area), M s Favret w ould not have gone to the
"innocent and m eticulous ethnography of Hanoteau and L etourneux for the basis
of the pure, perfect taxonom y of political organization which she opposes to the
anthropological tradition, accusing the latter both of being "m erely more sophisticated
and more ignorant of its lim its than the generals military anthropology and of failing
to observe the distinctions which his work makes it possible to draw.23 A more
penetrating reading of the texts in question, produced in the main by administrators
and soldiers (or law professors), w ould show that the vagueness of the social term inolo
gies they offer could only result from a certain familiarity with K abyle reality
com bined w ith ignorance of the theoretical traditions and of the corresponding pre
tensions to theoretical system aticitv. W ithout entering into detailed discussion of
M s Favrets schem atic presentation o f the term inology collected by Hanoteau, one can
only restate certain basic points of the description of the structure of the village of
A lt H ichem 24 which perhaps erred only by excessive "rationalization of native
categories. T hough the vocabulary of social divisions varies from place to place, the
fact remains that the hierarchy o f the basic social units, those designated by the words
thakharubth and adhrum, is alm ost always the opposite of what M s Favret, following
Hanoteau, says it is. A few cases can be found in w hich, as Hanoteau maintains,
thakharubth includes adhrum, probably because term inologies collected at particular
times and places designate the results of different histories, marked by the splitting
up, the (no doubt frequent) disappearance, and the annexation of lineages. It also
often happens that the words are used indifferently to refer to social divisions at the
same level; this is the case in the Sidi Alch region, in w hich the terms used, starting
with the m ost restricted and hence most real unit, are (a) el hara, the undivided family
(called akham, the house, akham n A it A li, at Ait H ichem ), (b) akham, the extended
fam ily, covering all the people bearing the name of the same ancestor (as far as the
third or fourth generation) - A li ou X , som etim es also designated by a terra probably
suggested by the topography, since the path bends as one passes from one akham to
another: thaghamurth, the elbow , (c) adhrum, akharub (or thakharubth), or aharumy
bringing together the people w hose com m on origin goes back beyond the fourth
generation, (d) the suff, or sim ply "those a b ove or "those b elow , (e) the village,
a purely local unit, in this case including the tw o leagues. T h e synonym s, to which
must be added tha'rifth (from 'arf, to know one another), a group of acquaintances,
equivalent to akham or adhrum (elsew here, thakharubth) may not have been used
Econom y o f logic
since they emphasize either integration and internal cohesion ( akham or
adhrum) or the contrast with other groups ( taghamurth, aharum). Su/f, used to suggest
a n " a r b i t r a r y unit, a conventional alliance as opposed to the other term s which denote
n d i v i d u a l s bearing a com m on name (A it. . . ) , is often distinguished from adhrum,
with which it coincides at A il H ichem . Everything takes place as if one passed by
in s e n s i b l e gradations from the patriarchal fam ily to the clan {adhrum or thakharubth),
th e f u n d a m e n t a l social unit, with the intermediate units corresponding to m ore-or-less
a r b i t r a r y points of segm entation (w hich would explain the inform ants uncertainty with
v o c a b u l a r y they often indequatelv m aster). T h ese points becom e especially apparent
w h e n conflict arises ( b y virtue of the fact that the units are separated only by
d i f f e r e n c e s of degree, as can be seen, for exam ple, in the different shades of obligation
in t h e c a s e of m ourning, with the closest relatives offering the meal, and the others
m a k in g their own small contribution, by helping w ith the cooking, bringing jars of
w a t e r o r som e vegetables, and the m ost distant relatives - or friends from another clan
- g i v i n g a m e a l for the fam ily of the deceased after the m ourning is over); and they
a r e s u b j e c t to constant change: the virtual lim its may becom e real ones w hen the group
e x t e n d s itself (thus at A it H ichem , the Ait M endil, who were originally united,
c o n s t i t u t e tw o thakharubth) and the real lim its may disappear (the Ait Isaad group
t o g e t h e r several reduced thakharubth in a single thakharubth). In short, the system atic
p i c t u r e of interlocking units, presented by " w ild or civilized anthropologists from
H a n o t e a u through Durkheim to Jeanne Favret, ignores the unceasing dynam ism of
u n i t s which are constantly form ing and reform ing, and the fuzziness which is an
i n t e g r a l part of native notions inasmuch as it is at once the precondition and the
p r o d u c t of their functioning. What is true of genealogical and political taxonom ies is
equally true of the tem poral taxonom ies of the agrarian calendar: the level at which
t h e oppositions actually m obilized are situated depends fundam entally on the situation
-th a t is to say, on the relationship betw een the groups or individuals who are to be
demarcated by m eans of taxonom ies.
^ g p h a z a rd ly ,
Econom y o f logic
Sym bolic sy stem s ow e their practical coherence, that is, their regularities, and
also their irregularities and even in coh eren ces (b oth eq u ally necessary b ecause
inscribed in the logic of their gen esis and fu n ctio n in g ) to the fact that they
are the p rod uct o f practices w hich can n ot perform their practical fu n ctio n s
except insofar as th ey brin g into play, in th eir practical state, p rin cip les w hich
are not on ly coh eren t - i.e . capable of en gen d erin g in trin sically coh eren t
practices com p atib le w ith the ob jective co n d itio n s - b u t also practical, in the
sense o f con v en ien t, i.e . im m ediately m astered and m anageable because
obeying a " p o o r and econom ical logic.
O ne th u s has to acknow ledge that practice has a logic w h ich is not that of
logic, if on e is to avoid asking of it m ore lo g ic than it can g iv e, thereby
con d em n in g o n ese lf either to w rin g in coh eren ces out of it or to thrust upon
*t a forced c o h er en ce .25 A nalysis of the various b u t clo sely interrelated asp ects
f the theorization effect (forced sy n ch ron ization of the su cc essiv e, fictitious
totalization , n eutralization o f fu n ction s, su b stitu tio n o f th e sy stem of products
1 10
for the system of p rin cip les o f p rod u ction , e tc .) brings o u t, in negative form (
certain properties of th e logic o f practice w h ich by definition escape theoretical
ap p reh en sion , sin ce they are con stitu tive of that ap preh en sion. Practical logic
- practical in both sen ses o f the w ord - is ab le to organize the totality of an
agent's th ou gh ts, p ercep tions, and action s by m eans of a few generative
p rin cip les, th em selves redu cible in the last analysis to a fundam ental dicho
to m y , on ly because its w hole econ om y, w h ich is based on th e principle of
the econ om y of logic, p resu p p oses a loss of rigour for th e sake o f greater
sim p licity and generality and because it finds in " p oly th esis the conditions
required for the correct use of p olysem y.
T h an k s to " p o ly th e sis, the " con fu sion of sp h e r e s, as the logician s call
it, resu lting from the highly econ om ical, b ut necessarily approxim ate,
application of the sam e sch em es to different logical u niverses, can pass
u nn o ticed because it entails no practical co n seq u en ces. N o one takes the
trouble to system atically record and com pare th e su ccessiv e products o f the
application of the generative sch em es: th ese discrete, self-su fficien t u n its owe
their im m ed iate transparency not on ly to th e sch em es w hich are realized in
them , b u t also to the situation ap p reh en d ed through th ese schem es and to the
a gen ts practical relation to that situ ation . T h e p rin cip le of the ec o n o m y of
lo g ic, w hereby no m ore logic is m ob ilized than is required by the n eed s of
p ractice, m eans that th e universe of d iscou rse in relation to w hich this or that
class (an d therefore the com p lem en tary class) is co n stitu ted , can rem ain
im p licit, because it is im plicitly defined in each case in and b y the practical
relation to th e situ ation . G iven that it is unlikely that tw o contradictory
ap p lication s of the sam e sch em es w ill be b rou ght face to face in w hat w e m ust
call a universe o f practice (rather than a universe of d isco u rse), the sam e thing
m ay, in different u niverses of practice, h ave d ifferent th in gs as its com p lem en t
and m ay, therefore, receive differen t, even o p p o sed , properties, according to
the u n iv e rse .26 T h e h ou se, for exam p le, is glob ally defined as fem ale, dam p,
e tc ., w h en con sid ered from o u tsid e , from th e m ale p oin t of v iew , i.e . in
o p p o sitio n to the external w orld , b ut it can be d ivid ed in to a m ale-fem ale part
and a fem ale-fem ale part w hen it ceases to be seen by reference to a universe
o f practice co exten sive w ith the u niverse, an d is treated instead as a universe
(of practice and d iscou rse) in its ow n righ t, w hich for the w o m en it indeed
is, especially in w in te r .27
T h e fact that sym b olic ob jects and practices can enter w ith ou t contradiction
in to su ccessiv e relation ship s set up from different p oin ts of v iew m eans that
they are subject to overdeterm ination through indetermination: the application
to the sam e ob jects or practices of different sch em es (such as o p en in g /clo sin g ,
g o in g in /co m in g ou t, g o in g u p /g o in g d o w n , e tc .) w h ich , at the d egree of
p recision (i.e . o f im precision ) w ith w hich th e y are d efined, are all practically
Econom y o f logic
e q u iv a le n t, is
r e la tio n s h ip s in
iii
a good n um ber of th e system 's fundam ental op p o sitio n s - th e full and the
empty, the fem ale and th e m ale, n ight and day, etc. - w hich are also fo u n d ,
with only sligh t d ifferen ces, in relation ship s as accessary in appearance as those
between the cook in g-p ot and the w heatcake griddle or the stable and the
kanun.
T he m ost sp ecific properties o f a ritual corpu s, th ose w h ich define it as a
system coh eren t in practice, cannot be perceived or ad eq uately understood
unless the corpu s is seen as th e product (opus operatum ) of a practical m astery
(modus operandi) ow in g its practical efficacy to the fact that it m akes
connections based on w hat Jean N ico d calls overall resemblance. 28 T h is m ode
of apprehension never ex p licitly or system atically lim its itself to any on e aspect
of the term s it links, b ut takes each on e, each tim e, as a w h o le, exp lo itin g
to the full the fact that tw o " d a ta are never entirely alike in a ll respects but
are always alike in som e resp ect, at least in directly (i.e . through the m ediation
of som e com m on term ). T h is exp lain s, first, wrhy am ong the d ifferen t aspects
of the at on ce u n d eterm in ed and overdeterm in ed sy m b o ls it m anipulates,
ritual practice never clearly op p oses asp ects sym b olizin g so m eth in g to aspects
sym bolizing n o th in g and h en ce disregarded (such as, in the case o f the letters
of the alphabet, the colou r or size of the strokes, or, in a page of w riting,
the vertical wro rd -ord er). For exam p le, although on e of the d ifferen t aspects
through w h ich a " d a tu m like gall can be con n ected w ith other (equally
equivocal) data - viz. b ittern ess (it is eq u ivalen t to oleander, wormwrood, or
tar, and op posed to h o n e y ), green ness (it is associated w ith lizards and the
colour green ), and h o stility (inherent in the p revious tw o q ualities) necessarily com es to th e forefront, the other aspects do not th ereb y cease to
be perceived sim u ltan eou sly; the sym b olic chord m ay be so u n d ed eith er in
its fundam ental form , w h e n th e fun dam en tal quality is em p h a sized , or in its
inverted form . W ithou t w ish in g to p ush the m usical m etaph or too far, one
m ight n on eth eless su g g est that a n um ber of ritual seq u en ces can b e seen as
Modulations: occurring w ith particular frequ en cy because the sp ecific principle
f ritual action , th e desire to stack all the od ds on one's ow n s id e , is con d u cive
to the
redundancy, these m od u lation s play on the harm onic p rop erties o f ritual
sym bols, w h eth er d u p licatin g on e of th e th em es w ith a strict eq u ivalen t in
all respects (gall evok in g wrorm w ood, w h ich , like gall, u n ites b itterness and
greenness) or m od u latin g in to rem oter tonalities by playing on th e associations
f the secondary h arm onics ( l i z a r d t o a d ).29
112
Ritual practice effects a fluid, "f u z z y abstraction, b rin gin g th e sam e sym bol
in to different relations through different aspects or b rin gin g d ifferen t aspects
o f the sam e referent in to th e sam e relation o f o p p o sitio n ; in other w ords, it
ex clu d es th e S ocratic q u estion o f the respect in which th e referent is appreh en ded (shap e, colour, fu n ctio n , e t c .) , thereby ob v ia tin g the need to define
in each case th e prin cip le g overn in g the ch oice o f the aspect se lec te d , and,
a fo rtiori, the n eed to stick to that p rin cip le at all tim es. B ut in relating objects
and selectin g asp ects, this practical taxon om y ap plies, su ccessiv ely or
sim u ltan eou sly, prin cip les w h ich are all in directly redu cible to on e another,
and this en ab les it to classify the sam e " d a ta from several different stand
p o in ts w ith ou t classifyin g them in different w ays (w h ereas a m ore rigorous
sy stem w o u ld m ake as m any classification s as it fou n d p rop erties). The
u n iv erse th u s u n d ergoes a d ivision w h ich can be said to be logical, though
it seem s to break all the rules of logical d ivision (for ex a m p le, by making
d ivision s w hich are n eith er exclu sive nor ex h a u stiv e), for all its dichotom ies
are in d efin itely redu n dan t, b ein g in th e last analysis the product of a single
principium division is. B ecause the p rin cip le o p p o sin g the term s w h ich have
b een related (e .g . the su n and th e m oon ) is n ot d efined and u sually com es
d o w n to a sim p le contrariety (w hereas con trad iction im p lies a prelim inary
analysis) analogy (w h ic h , w h en it d oes not fu n ction purely in its practical state,
is alw ays exp ressed ellip tically - "w om an is the m o o n ) estab lish es a
h o m ology b etw een o p p o sitio n s (m a n :w o m a n ::su n :m o o n ) set up in accor
dance w4th tw o in d eterm in ate, overd eterm in ed p rin cip les ( h o t : c o ld : : m ale:
fe m a le ::d a y :n ig h t::e tc .) w h ich differ from the p rin cip les gen eratin g other
h o m ologies in to wTh ich either o f the tw o term s in q u estio n m ig h t enter
(m a n :w o m a n ::e a st:w e st or s u n : m o o n : : d r y : w e t). In other w ords, fluid
abstraction is also false abstraction. B ecau se the properties d istin g u ish in g one
" d a tu m from another rem ain attached to n on -p ertin en t p rop erties, the
assim ilation is com p reh en sive and com p lete even w hen fun dam en tally m oti
vated in on ly on e resp ect. T h e aspect o f each o f the term s w h ich is (im p licitly)
selected from a sin gle stan d p oin t in any particular con n ectio n m ade betw een
them rem ains attached to th e other asp ects through w h ich it can su b seq u en tly
be o p p osed to oth er asp ects of an oth er referent in other co n n ectio n s. T h e same
term cou ld th u s en ter in to an infinite n um ber o f co n n ectio n s if the num ber
of w ays of relating to wrhat is not itself w ere not lim ited to a few fundamental
o p p o sitio n s. Ritual practice p roceed s n o differen tly from th e ch ild who
drove A ndre G id e to despair b y in sistin g that th e o p p o site o f "blanc
w as " b la n c h e and the
Econom y o f logic
"3
ii4
A nother exam ple occurs in a w ell-known tale, the story of Heb-H eb-er-Rem m an.
A girl who has seven brothers falls foul of the jealousy of her sisters-in-law. T h ey make
her eat seven snakes eggs, concealed in dum plings: her belly sw ells and people think
she is pregnant; she is driven from the house. A w ise man discovers the cause of h e r
ailm ent: to cure her, a sheep must be slaughtered and its meat roasted, with a lot
of salt. T h e girl m ust eat it and then be suspended by her feet with her m outh open
over a pan o f water. When this is done, the snakes com e out and they are killed. T h e
girl marries; she has a child whom she calls H eb-H eb-er-R em m an "pomegranate
se e d s. She goes back to her brothers, who recognize her when she tells them h e r
story, show ing them the seven snakes which she has dried and salted. It can
im m ediately be seen that to produce this narrative, or to decode (at least in an
approxim ate form) its significance, it is sufficient to possess the set of schem es which
are at wrork in the production of any fertility rite. T o fecundate is to penetrate, to
introduce som ething which sw ells and/or causes sw elling: the ingestion of food, and
of food w hich sw ells ( ufthyen) is hom ologous with sexual intercourse and ploughing.31
But here there is a false fecundation: the snakes, a sym bol of the male life-principle,
of sem en, o f the ancestor w ho must die in order to be reborn, and thus of the dry,
are ingested in the form of eggs, i.e. in their fem ale state, and return to maleness
inopportunely, in the girls stom ach (in a fertility rite reported by Westermarck, it
is the heart - a male part of the snake - that is eaten ). T h e sw elling which results from
this inverted procreation is sterile and pernicious. T h e cure is logically self-evident.
T he dry m ust be made to move in the opposite direction, from the high to the low
- the girl sim ply has to be turned upside dow n - and from the inside to the outside
- which cannot be done by a sim ple mechanical operation: the dry must be further
dried, parched, by adding to it what is pre-em inently dry, salt, and reinforcing its
propensity tow ards the moist, which in normal fecundation - procreation or sowing
- carries it towards the inside, towards the damp w om b of woman or of the earth opened
by the ploughshare. At the end of the story, the w om ans fecundity is proved by the
birth of H eb-H eb-er-R em m an 'pom egranate se e d s (the sym bol par excellence of
female fecundity, identified with the w om b ), i.e. the many sons born (or to be born)
from the fertile wom b of a woman herself sprung from a wom b prolific of m en (her
seven brothers). And the seven snakes end up dried and salted, i.e . in the state to
w hich they are structurally assigned as sym bols o f male seed, capable of grow ing and
m ultiplying through the cycle of im m ersion in the wet follow ed by em ergence towards
the dry.
1 15
the m ystical participation of the great initiates of the g n o stic trad ition. T h e
objectivist reduction w h ich b rings to ligh t the so-called ob jective fu n ction s
0f m yth s and rites (for D u rk h eim , fu n ction s of m oral in tegration ; for L eviStrauss, fu n ction s o f logical integration) m akes it im p o ssib le to understand
bow these fu n ction s are fu lfilled , b ecau se it brackets th e agents' ow n repre
sentation o f th e w orld and o f their practice. " P a rticip a n t anth rop ology,
on the other hand - w h en it is not m erely inspired b y nostalgia for the
agrarian paradises, th e prin cip le of all con servative id eo lo g ies - regards the
human invariants and the u niversality o f th e m ost basic exp eriences as
sufficient justification for seek in g eternal answ ers to the eternal q u estio n s of
the cosm ogon ies and co sm o lo g ies in the practical answ ers w h ich the peasants
of K abylia or elsew h ere have given to th e practical, h istorically situated
problem s w h ich w ere forced on th em in a determ in ate state o f th eir in stru
m ents o f m aterial and sy m b o lic appropriation of th e w o rld . Even w hen they
are asym ptotic w ith scien tific tru th , the inspired in terp retation s fostered by
such a d isp osition are never m ore than the in version o f th e false objectification
performed b y colonial an th rop ology. By cu ttin g practices off from their real
conditions o f ex iste n c e, in order to credit them w ith alien in ten tio n s, by a
false g en erosity con d u civ e to stylistic effects, the exaltation o f lost wrisd om
dispossesses th em , as su rely as its o p p osite, o f everyth in g that co n stitu tes their
reason and their raison d'etre, and locks th em in the etern al essen ce of a
" m en ta lity. T h e K ab yle w om an settin g up her loom is not perform ing an
act o f cosm ogon y; sh e is sim p ly settin g up her loom to w eave clo th in tend ed
to serve a techn ical fu n ctio n . It so happ en s that, given the sy m b o lic eq u ip m en t
available to her for th in k in g her ow n activity - and in particular her language,
which con stantly refers her back to the logic of p lou g h in g - sh e can on ly think
what sh e is d oin g in th e en ch an ted, that is to say, m y stified , form w hich
spiritualism , thirsty for eternal m ysteries, finds so en ch a n tin g .
R ites take place b ecau se and o n ly b ecau se they find th eir raison d'etre in
the co n d ition s of ex isten ce and the d isp o sitio n s o f a gen ts w h o cannot afford
the luxury of logical sp ecu la tio n , m ystical effu sion s, or m etaph ysical anxiety.
It is not sufficient to rid icu le the m ore naive form s of fu n ctio n a lism in order
to have d one w ith th e q u estion o f the practical fu n ctio n s o f p ractice. It is clear
that a universal d efinition of the fu n ction s of m arriage as an operation
intended to en su re th e b iological reproduction of the g ro u p , in accordance
with form s approved b y the grou p , in n o w ay exp lain s K ab yle marriage ritual.
But, contrary to appearances, scarcely m ore u n d erstan d in g is d erived from
a structural analysis w h ich ign ores the sp ecific fu n ctio n s of ritual practices
and fails to inquire in to the eco n o m ic and social co n d itio n s o f the p roduction
f the d isp o sitio n s gen eratin g both these practices and also th e co llective
definition of th e practical fu n ction s in w h ose service th e y fu n ctio n . T h e
n6
K abyle peasan t d oes not react to " ob jective c o n d itio n s but to th e practical
in terp retation w hich he prod uces of th o se con d itio n s, and the principle
of wfh ich is the socially con stitu ted sc h e m e s of his h abitus. It is th is inter
pretation w h ich has to be con stru cted in each case, if w e w ant to give an
account of ritual p ractices w h ich w ill d o justice b oth to their reason and
to their raison d'etre, that is, to their inseparably logical and practical
n ecessity .
T h u s , tech n ical or ritual practices are d eterm in ed b y the m aterial conditions
of ex isten ce (that is, in this particular case, by a certain relation ship between
the clim atic and ecological con d ition s and th e available tech n iq u es) as treated
in p ractice b y agents endowred w ith sc h e m e s of p ercep tion of a determ inate
sort, wrh ich are th em selv es d eterm in ed , n egatively at least, b y th e material
co n d itio n s of existen ce (th e relative au to n o m y o f ritual b ein g a ttested by the
invariant features fou n d th rou gh ou t the M agh reb, d esp ite the variations in
th e clim a tic and econ om ic co n d itio n s). It is in a particular relationship
b etw een a m ode of p rod uction and a m o d e of p ercep tion that th e specific
contradiction of agrarian a ctivity is defined as the hazardous or even sacrilegious
con fron tation of antagonistic p rin cip les, togeth er w ith th e ritual apparatus
w h ose fu n ctio n it is to resolve that con trad iction . It is through th e m ediation
o f th e fu n ctio n thereby assigned to tech n ical or ritual p ractice that the
relation sh ip observed b etw een the eco n o m ic system and the m ythico-ritual
sy stem is estab lish ed p ractically .32
R ites, m ore than any other typ e of practice, serve to u n d erlin e the mistake
of en clo sin g in con cep ts a logic m ade to d isp en se w ith co n cep ts; of treating
m o v em en ts o f the body and practical m an ip u lation s as purely logical opera
tio n s; o f speaking of an alogies and h om o lo g ies (as on e so m etim es has to, in
order to understand and to con vey that u nd erstan ding) w h en all that is
in v o lved
is
th e
practical transference
of
incorporated,
quasi-postural
117
oUt directly in th e form of b odily gym n astics w ith ou t p a ssin g through the
express ap preh en sion of the " a s p e c ts selected or rejected , of the sim ilar or
dissimilar " p r o f i l e s T h e lo gicism inherent in th e ob jectivist stand point leads
those w h o adopt it to forget that scien tific con stru ction cannot grasp the
principles o f practical lo g ic w ith ou t ch an gin g th e nature o f th ose p r in c ip le s:
when m ade exp licit for objective stu d y, a practical su ccessio n b eco m es a
Just as, in th e tim e of L ev y -B ru h l, there w ould have b een less am azem ent
at the od d ities of the " p rim itive m en ta lity if it had b een p ossib le to con ceive
that the logic of m agic an d " p articip ation m igh t have so m e con n ection w ith
the experience o f em o tio n , so now adays th ere w o u ld b e le ss aston ish m en t at
the '"logical feats of th e A ustralian ab origin es if the "savage m in d had not
been u nconsciously cred ited , b y a sort of inverted eth n o cen trism , w ith the
relation to the w orld that in tellectu alism attributes to ev ery " c o n scio u sn e ss
and if an th rop ologists had not rem ained silen t about th e transform ation
ii8
h o m ogen eou s sp ace of geom etry as the practical sp ace of practice, w ith it$
d y ssym m etries, its d isco n tin u ities, and its d irectio n s co n ceiv ed as substantial
p rop erties, left and righ t, east and w est. W e m ay say that gym n astics or
d a n cin g are geom etry so lo n g as w e d o n ot m ean to say that the gym nast and
th e dancer are geom eters. Perhaps there w ou ld be less tem p tation to treat the
agent im p licitly or exp licitly as a logical operator if (w ith o u t en terin g into the
q u estion o f chron ological priority) on e w en t back from the m y th ic logos to
th e ritual praxis w h ich en acts in th e form o f real action s, i.e . b o d y m ovem ents,
the op eration s wrh ich ob jective an alysis d iscovers in m y th ic d isco u rse, an opus
operatum con cealin g the co n stitu tin g m om en t of " m y th o p o eic practice under
its reified sign ification s. L ike th e acts of jurisp ru dence, ritual practice owes
its practical coherence (w h ich m ay be recon stitu ted in th e form o f an objecti
fied diagram of op eration s) to the fact that it is th e p rod uct of a sin g le system
of conceptual schemes im m anent in practice, organ izing not on ly th e perception
o f ob jects (and in this particular case, the classification o f th e possible
in stru m en ts, circum stances - place and tim e - and agents of ritual action) but
also th e p rod u ction of p ractices (in this case, the g estu res and m ovem ents
co n stitu tin g ritual a ctio n ). P erform ing a rite p resu p p o ses so m eth in g quite
different from the co n scio u s m astery o f th e sort of catalogue o f oppositions
that is draw n up b y acad em ic com m en tators striv in g for sy m b o lic mastery
o f a dead or d y in g tradition (e .g . the C h in ese m and arin s tables o f eq u iva
len ces) and also by an th rop ologists in the first stage of their w ork. Practical
m astery of p rin cip les n either m ore com p lex nor m ore n u m erou s than the
prin cip les o f solid statics ap plied w h en u sin g a w heelb arrow , a lever, or a
nutcracker 34 m akes it p ossib le to p rod uce ritual action s that are com patible with
the en d s in view ( e .g . ob tain in g rain or fertility for the livestock ) and
intrinsically (at least relatively) coherent, that is, co m b in a tio n s o f a particular
ty p e o f circu m stan ces (tim e s and p la ce s), in stru m en ts, and agen ts an d, above
all, o f d isp lacem en ts and m o vem en ts ritually qualified as p rop itiou s or
u n p rop itiou s. T h e se in clu d e g o in g (or th row in g so m eth in g ) upw ards or
eastw ards, d ow n w ard s or westwrards, togeth er w ith all the eq u ivalen t actions
- p u ttin g so m eth in g on the roof o f th e h ou se or th ro w in g it tow ards the kanun\
b u ryin g it on the th resh old or th ro w in g it tow ards the stable; g o in g or
th row in g to th e left or w ith the left hand, and g o in g or throw ing to the right
or w ith the right hand; tu rn in g so m eth in g from left to right, or right to left;
clo sin g (or tyin g) and o p en in g (or u n ty in g ), etc. In fact, an analysis of the
universe of m yth ically or ritually defined ob jects, startin g w ith th e circum
stan ces, in stru m en ts, and agen ts of ritual action , m akes it clear that the
co u n tless o p p o sitio n s ob served in every area o f ex isten ce can all be brought
d o w n to a sm all n um ber o f cou p les wrh ich appear as fundam ental, sin ce, being
linked to one an oth er on ly by w eak analogies, th ey can n ot be redu ced to one
ll9
another excep t in a forced and artificial w ay. A n d alm ost all prove to b e based
0n m ovem en ts or p ostu res o f the hum an b o d y , su ch as g o in g u p and com in g
down (or g o in g forw ards and g o in g b ackw ards), g o in g to the left an d g o in g
12 0
fth
12 1
zdy,
u ff,
fth,
increase
u n ite (tran s.) - u n ite (in tran s.) - be in u n ity (th e h o u se " fu ll of
122
as is evid en ced b y the n u m erou s sen ses recorded in the d iction aries, the
m ean ing o f each adjective, and of its relation ship w ith its an ton ym , is
sp ecified in each case in term s o f the logic of each of the fields in w hich it
is a p p lie d : fro id m ay be sy n on ym ou s w ith calm e or indifferent, b ut also with
frig ide or g ra v e, or again w ith austere and d istan t, d u r (hard) and sec (dry),
p la t (flat) and tem e (d u ll), d ep en d in g on w h eth er it is applied to a m an or
a w o m an , a head or a heart, a m elod y or a ton e of v o ice, a tin t or a work
of art, a calcu lation or a fit of anger, e t c .; and it w ill have as m any antonym s
as it has different sen ses: chaud (h ot) or cou rse, but also ardent or emporte
(ira scib le), sensuel or chaleureux (cord ial), brillan t or expressif, eclatant (dazz
lin g) or piq u a n t (p u n g en t), etc. It follow s th at, con sid ered in each of their
u ses, the pairs o f qualifiers w h ich as a sy stem co n stitu te the eq u ipm en t of
-th e ju d g m en t of taste are extrem ely " p o o r , quasi-in determ in ate, and
ex trem ely rich, their in d efin iten ess p red isp osin g th em to inspire or express
the sen se of th e indefinable: on the on e h an d , each use o f on e o f these pairs
is on ly m ean in gfu l in relation to a universe o f practice w hich is different each
tim e, u su ally im p licit, and alw ays self-su fficien t, ru lin g out the p ossib ility of
com p arison w ith other universes. O n the oth er hand, the m ean in g w h ic h these
pairs are giv en in a particular field has for h arm onics all the m ean ings w hich
they th e m selv es, or any o f the cou p les that are interchangeable w ith them
to w ith in a m atter of nuan ces, m ay be giv en in other fields, i.e . in slightly
different con texts.
This is true, for example, of the way in which the opposition between in front
and " behind functions in ritual practice: behind is where things one wants to get
rid of are sent44 (e.g. in one of the rites associated with the loom, these words are
uttered: "May the angels be before me and the devil behind me"; in another rite,
a child is rubbed behind the ear so that he will send evil "behind his ear); behind
is where ill fortune comes from (a woman on her way to market to sell the products
of her industry, a blanket, yarn, etc., or the produce of her husbandry, hens, eggs,
etc., must not look behind her or the sale will go badly; the whirlwind - thim siw ray
-attacks from behind the man who faces the qibla to pray); "behind is naturally
associated with "inside , with the female (the eastern, front door is male, the western,
back door is female), with all that is private, hidden, and secret; but it also is
associated with that which follows, trailing behind on the earth, the source of fertility,
abru \ the train of a garment, an amulet, happiness: the bride entering her new house
strews fruit, eggs, and wheat behind her, symbolizing prosperity. These meanings
interweave with all those associated with "in front, going forward, confronting
(qabel ), going into the future, going eastward, toward the light, and it would not be
difficult to reconstruct the quasi-totality of Kabyle ritual practices from this one
scheme.
T h is p lurality of m ean ings at on ce different and m ore or less closely
interrelated is a product of scien tific co llec tio n . Each o f th e significations
co llected exists in its practical state on ly in th e relationship b etw een a schem e
123
(or th e product o f a sc h e m e , a w ord for exam p le) and a sp ecific situ ation .
T h is is w h y it is n ot legitim ate to speak o f the different m ea n in g s o f a sym bol
UIje s s it is borne in m ind that th e assem b lin g o f th ese m ea n in g s in sim u ltan eity
(or o n th e sam e page o f a dictionary, in the case o f w ord s) is a scientific
artefact and that they n ev er exist sim u ltan eou sly in practice. O n the on e hand,
as V endryes p oin ted o u t, a w ord cannot alw ays appear w ith all its m eanings
at once, w ith ou t tu rn in g d iscou rse into an en d less play on w o r d s ; on the other
hand, if all the m ean in gs a w ord is capable of taking w ere perfectly
independent of the basic m ean in g, no play on w ord s w ould ever b e p o ssib le.
T h is is eq u ally true o f th e sy m b o ls o f ritual. A m on g the fo rm s w h ich a basic
opp o sitio n m ay take, there are alw ays som e w h ich fu n ctio n as " sw itc h e rs,
concretely estab lish in g th e relation ship b etw een the u n iv erses of practice:
here, fo r exam p le, the relation sh ip b etw een " b e h in d and " in s id e , w hich
provides the passage from " b e h in d to fem ale p rosp erity, i.e . fe r tility male prosperity b ein g lin k ed to "in fr o n t through the in term ed iary of the
bond b etw een "in fr o n t , th e fu tu re, and ligh t. T h e ob jectified path of th ese
passages is som etim es m arked o u t b y sayin gs w h ich state th e an alogies ("the
m aiden is th e wall of d a rk n ess , or "w om an is the w e s t , or "w om an is the
m o o n ) b etw een the d ifferen t series.
T h e universes of m ean in g corresp ond ing to different u n iv erses o f practice
are at on ce self-con tain ed - h en ce protected from logical con trol through
system atization - and objectively con sisten t w ith all the o th ers, insofar as they
are the loosely system atic prod ucts o f a system o f m ore or less com p letely
integrated gen erative p rin cip les fu n ction in g in a structurally invariant w ay in
the m ost d iverse fields o f practice. W ithin the " f u z z y logic o f approxim ation
which im m ed iately a ccep ts as eq u ivalen ts " fla t, "dull*, and " in sip id ,
favourite valu e-ju d gm en t term s o f th e F rench aesth ete or teach er, or, in the
Kabvle trad ition, " f u ll, " c lo se d , " in s id e , " u n d ern ea th , wTh ich on closer
inspection are p erfectly in com m en su rab le, the generative sc h e m e s are in ter
changeable p ractically; th is is w h y th ey can only generate products that are
indeed system atic but are so b y virtue o f a fu zzy sy stem a ticity and an
approxim ate lo g ic wrh ich cannot w ithstand the test o f rational system atization
and logical criticism .45 L ack in g sym b olic m astery o f the sc h e m e s and their
products - sch em es w h ich th ey are, p rod u cts w h ich th ey d o - th e only w ay
m w hich agents can ad eq u ately m aster th e p rod uctive apparatus w hich
enables th em to gen erate correctly form ed ritual p ractices is b y m aking it
operate .46 T h is is wrhat the observer is likely to forget, b ecau se he cannot
recapture th e logic im m an en t in th e recorded prod ucts of th e apparatus excep t
by con stru ctin g a m odel w h ich is p recisely th e su b stitu te requ ired w hen one
does not have (or n o lon ger has) im m ed iate m astery of th e apparatus.
Every su ccessfu lly socialized agen t thu s p ossesses, in th eir incorporated
52
124
Union an d separation
T o th e foregoin g list sh ou ld b e added w hat m igh t b e called th e sense o f limits
an d o f the legitim ate transgression o f lim its, w h ich is th e basis at o n ce o f the
ordering of th e w orld (k n ow n , sin ce P arm enides, as diakosmesis) and o f the
ritual action s in tend ed to au th orize or facilitate the necessary or unavoidable
breaches o f that order. " T h e w orld is based on th e lim it [thalasth] , said an
old K a b y le. " H eaven and earth are separated by th e lim it. T h e ey es have an
en closure [zerb ], T h e m ou th has a lim it. E veryth in g has a lim it. T o bring
order is to brin g d istin c tio n , to d ivid e the u n iv erse into o p p o sin g entities,
w h ich the p rim itive sp ecu lation o f the P yth agoreans set out as tw o "columns
o f co n tra ries (sustoichiai) ,47 B u t the n ecessities o f practice d em and the
reunion of th in g s w h ich practical logic has su nd ered - in m arriage or ploughin g, for exam p le - and on e fu n ctio n o f ritual is precisely to eu p h em ize, and
th u s to m ake licit, th ese u navoid able tran sgression s of the b oun dary. N ot
su rp risin gly, it proved difficult to find a p lace in the "colu m n s of contraries
for an op p osition as p rod u ctive as that of th e odd and the even , and more
gen erally, for all the sy m b o lic ob jects and action s w h ich can be generated from
the sch em e unite (tran s.) - unite (in tran s.) - be in unity (the root z d y ) and its
I2 5
n o site separate (tran s.) - separate (in tran s.) - be separated (th e root f r q , or
cUt - be sharp, and all the roots associated w ith them from the p oint of
riew of ritual m ean in g, close - b e closed , extin gu ish - be ex tin g u ish ed , kill,
logic, in w h ich u nion and d ivision do in deed figure, but in a v ery su blim ated
form - wrords as load ed as p h th ora, corru p tion , or genesis, gen eration, and for
the secon d, m ixis, w h ich can also be translated as u n io n , but th is tim e in the
sense of m arriage, he p o in ts to th e p rin cip le o f th e practical logic of rite, w'hose
operations are in sep arab ly logical and b iological, as are th e natural p rocesses
which it reproduces, w'hen th ou gh t in accordance w ith the sch em es of
magical th o u g h t .49
It is th u s p ossib le to d escrib e th e w h ole system of ritual sy m b o ls and
actions by m ean s of a sm all n um ber of antagonistic sym bols (th e paradigm of
which is the op p o sitio n b etw een the sex es, and w h ich are p roduced from a
small num ber o f sch em es) and a sm all num ber o f (logical and b iological)
practical operators w h ich are n oth in g other than natural p rocesses culturally
constituted in and through ritual p ractice, su ch as m arriage and p lo u gh in g
seen as the union o f contraries and m urder or h arvestin g seen as the separation
of contraries (p rocesses w h ich the logic of ritual mimesis, as su ch , rep rod u ces).
Because the u n ion of contraries d oes not d estroy th e op p o sitio n (wrhich it
p resupposes), th e reun ited contraries are just as m uch o p p o sed , but nowTin
a quite d ifferen t w ay, th ereb y m anifestin g th e d u ality of th e relationship
between th em , at on ce antagonism and com p lem en tarity , neikos and p h ilia ,
which m igh t appear as th eir ow n tw ofold " n a tu r e if th ey w ere con ceived
outside that relation sh ip . T h u s the h ou se, wrh ich has all th e n egative charac
teristics o f the dark, n octurnal, fem ale w orld , and is in this respect the
equivalent o f th e tom b or the m aiden, ch an ges its d efinition w h en it becom es
what it equally is, the place par excellen ce o f coh ab itation and of the m arriage
of contraries, w h ich , like th e w ife, " th e lam p of th e in s id e , en clo ses its ow n
light. W hen the roof has b een put on a n ew h ou se, it is the m arriage lam p
that is called u p o n to bring the first ligh t. Each th in g th u s receives different
properties accord in g as it is apprehended in th e state o f u n io n or th e state
f separation, but it is not p ossib le to con sid er eith er of th ese states as its
objective tru th , w ith the other b ein g regarded as an im p erfect, m utilated form
of that tru th . T h u s cu ltivated nature, th e sacred of th e left h and, the
^ a le-fem a le, or m ale-d om in ated fem ale, for exam p le m arried w om an or
12 6
arated - but also and esp ecially to natural nature, w h ich is still w ild and
u ntam ed - fallow land and th e m aid en - or has returned t o th e twisted
m aleficen t naturalness in to w h ich it falls o u tsid e m arriage - th e harvested field
or th e old w itch , w ith th e cu n n in g and treachery w h ich relate her to the
jackal .50
T h is opposition betw een a fem ale-fem ale and a m ale-fem ale is attested in countless
ways. T h e fem ale wom an par excellen ce is the wom an w ho d oes not depend on
any m an, who has escaped from the authority of her parents, her husband, and her
husbands fam ily, and has no children. Such a wom an is w ithout hurm a: "she is bad
w o o d ; " she is tw isted w o o d . S h e is akin to fallow land, the w ilderness; she has
affinities w ith the dark forces of uncontrolled nature. M agic is her b usiness (thamgarth
thazemnith, the old w itch; settuth, the w itch in the tales). A sterile -woman must not
plant in the garden or carry seed s. Every wom an partakes of the diabolic nature of
the fem ale w om an, especially during m enstruation, w hen she m ust not prepare meals,
work in the garden, plant, pray, or fast (elkhalethf the collective noun for
" w om anhood is also em p tin ess, the void, the desert, ruin). A n d conversely, the
unbridled, sterile old w om an w ho no longer has any " restraint brings the virtualities
inherent in every wom an to their full realization. Like the young sh o o t w hich, left
to itself, tends to the left and has to be brought back to the right (or the upright)
at the cost of a " k n o t, "wom an is a knot in the w o o d (thamttuth d iriz). T h e "old
w om an is in league w ith all that is tw isted (a 'w a j, to tw ist) and all that is warped
or warping: she is credited w ith thi'iw ji, the m aleficent, suspect craftiness w hich also
defines the smith ; she specializes in the magic w hich uses the left hand, the cruel hand
(a "left-handers b lo w is a deadly b low ), and turns from right to left (as opposed to
m an, w ho uses the right hand, the hand used in sw earing an oath, and turns from
left to right); she is adept in the art of slyly "tw isting her g a z e (abran w alan) away
from the person to w hom she w ishes to express her disapproval or annoyance (abran,
to turn from right to left, to make a slip of the tongue, to turn back to front, in short,
to turn in the wrong direction, is opposed to geleb, to turn on es back, to overturn,
as a discreet, furtive, passive m ovem ent, a female sid estep p in g, a " tw iste d move,
a magical device, is to op en , honest, straightforward, male a g gression ).51
Union an d separation
12 7
128
129
rupture, m ust be u n d erstood . T h e w hole o f nature - the earth w ith its buried
seed, but also the w om b - is th e scen e of a stru ggle sim ilar to that betw een
the cold and darkness of w in ter, an evil, sterile old w om an , and th e springtim e
forces of light w ith w h ich m an is in league. In all th e legen d s of th e borrow ed
days (am erdil, th e loan ), w h ich are perhaps m ore than just a way o f accoun ting
for the u nexpected return o f bad w eather, a b ein g partaking o f th e nature
130
features of su m m er in their pure state, i.e . w ith ou t adm ixture or attenuationit is to the year w hat a z a l (th e h ottest tim e o f the day) or, m ore exactly, the
m id d le of a z a l (thalm asth uzal)> is to th e cycle of th e day. L ike a z a l, smaim,
the desert ( lakh la) of the h arvested fields, th e tim e o f iron and fire, violence
and death (th e tim e of th e sw ord -ed ge, semm) is the m ale tim e par excellen ce.
resembles th e battle fou gh t ou t every m orn in g b etw een darkness and light,
can only be that of an xious on lookers: h en ce perhaps, a m on g other sig n s, the
m ultitude o f calendar term s alm ost all d escrib in g the state of th e w eather
or the crops. In th is tim e of w aitin g, w hen the fate of the seed lin g s d ep en d s
on a fem ale, am b igu ou s nature, and m an can n ot in tervene w ith o u t danger,
the virtual cessation o f activity reflects his lim ited con trol over the processes
of germ ination and gestation ; it falls to w om an to play th e part of a m id w ife
and to offer nature a sort of ritual and tech n ical assistance (h o e in g , for
exam ple) in its lab o u r .66
T h is tim e o f rupture and separation has the sam e role in the cycle of the
grain as that played in the cycle of life b y th e rites in ten d ed to en su re the
progressive virilization o f the g row in g boy (initially a fem ale b e in g ), b eg in n in g
at birth and alw ays in volvin g fire or in stru m en ts m ade w ith fire .67 A ll the
characteristic features of this d ifficult transition are in a sense concentrated
in the series of critical moments, like husum and natah, tim es of crisis w h en
all the evil p ow ers o f w in ter seem to revive and to endanger g row th and life
one last tim e, or nisan, w h ich th ou gh regarded as b en ignan t is not exem p t
from threats - am b igu ou s p eriods w h ich , even at their w orst, con tain th e hope
of the b est and, even at their b est, the threat of the w orst. E veryth in g takes
place as if each of th em bore w ith in it th e conflict w h ich o v ersh ad ow s the
w hole season - and also th e u ncertain ty ab out the future w h ich cau ses th ese
inaugural p eriods (esp ecially husum or th e first day o f sp rin g ) to b e , like
m orning, tim es for the rites of progn ostication and inaugural p ractices.
T h e am bigu ity is in sp rin g it s e lf : sp rin gtim e m eans grow th and ch ild h o o d ,
to be celebrated w ith jo y , like the inaugural day o f the sea so n , b u t it also
m eans the vu lnerab ility and fragility o f all b eg in n in g s. S p rin g is to su m m er
as green and raw ( a ze g za w ) and ten der ( th alaqaqth ) th in g s - th e u n rip e corn
or the baby, and green p rod u ce, the eatin g of w h ich is seen as u n tim ely
destruction ( a d h a m ) - are to fu ll-grow n , y ello w (iw ragh en ), ripe, dry, har
dened p ro d u ce .68 T h e w om en are logically charged w ith all th e tasks in v o lv in g
the protection o f th in g s that grow and sh o o t, that are green and ten der; it
is the w o m e n s d u ty to w atch over th e grow th of the y o u n g h um ans and
anim als, the m orn in g of life. A s w ell as h oein g, th e w o m en s w ork in clu d es
gathering herbs and vegetab les in the garden, look in g after the co w , m ilk ing
*t, and m aking b u tter, a fem ale p rod uct w h ich is op p o sed to oil as th e inside
and the w et to th e ou tsid e and th e dry.
T h e precise locu s of the th resh old , w h ere th e order of th in g s turns u p sid e
I 32
*33
3).69
h
X
w
ca -s*.
S
Id
iJ 4
fm O
i.'
*35
136
brates the m arriage of the sky and the earth, the p lough sh are and the furrow
b y the collectiv e en actm en t o f a w h ole range o f m im etic practices, including
hum an m arriage.
T h e return to the ordinary order is also m arked b y the reassertion of the
prim acy of th e stren gth en in g of kin-group u n ity over the p ursuit of distant
alliances, w ith thimechret, th e sacrifice o f an ox at th e door of the year; its
throat is cu t, its b lood is sprinkled on the grou n d , callin g dow n rain, and the
consecrated m eat is shared ou t am ong all m em b ers o f th e co m m u n ity . This
sacrifice, in ten d ed to sanction th e im p osition o f the hum an order on fecund
but w ild nature (sym b o lized b y the jackal, " w h o has n o h o u s e and feeds
on raw flesh - a z e g z a w - and b lo o d ), is a m eal o f alliance. In solem nly
reaffirm ing th e b on d s of real or official b lood k inship w h ich u n ite all living
m em bers of th e adhrum ( thaym ats) in and through th e original com m unity
(th a d ja d ith ), that is, the relation to com m on ancestors, the source of all
fecu n d ity, th is act of sacred com m en sality p roclaim s th e specifically human
(i.e . m ale) order o f the oath of loyalty, against nostalgia for the struggle of
all against all, again em b od ied in the jackal (or w om an , the source of division)
and his sacrilegiou s cu n n in g (th ah raym ith ). L ike th e natural w orld , within
w h o se d om esticated fertility lie the o n ly half-tam ed forces of a w ild nature
(th ose em b od ied and exp loited b y th e old w itc h ), the social order sp ru ng from
the oath w h ich tears the assem b ly o f m en from the disorder of individual
interests rem ains haunted b y con scio u sly repressed nostalgia for the state of
nature.
T h i s p h ilo s o p h y o f h is to ry , im p lic it in th e w h o le ritu a l c a le n d a r, is ex p resse d in
a ta le : " T h e a n im a ls o n c e m e t to g e th e r in an assembly a n d swore n ot to p re y on one
a n o th er a n y lo n g e r , a n d to liv e on e arth in p e a c e . T h e y c h o se the lio n to be th eir
k i n g . . . d e v is e d la w s, a n d d e fin e d s a n c t io n s . . . T h e a n im a ls liv e d in p e a c e . . . L ife
w o u ld h a v e b e e n fin e if J a c k a l, th e lio n s c o u n s e llo r, had n ot ru in ed e v e r y th in g . He
w a s an o ld h a n d at e v e ry s o rt o f treachery . . . a n d h e re g re tte d th e fo rm e r state o f affairs;
th e sm ell o f fresh meat and warm blood , w h ic h w e re n o w fo rb id d e n , u se d to se n d him
in to a f r e n z y . . . H e d e c id e d to re s o rt to guile ( thahraymith ) and s e c re tly to in cite the
c o u rtie rs to d is o b e y , on e a fte r a n o th e r - th e w o rk o f a d e m o n .76 In th e sam e tale,
th e jackal eats th e a n im a ls h e is s u p p o s e d to b u r y . H e h a s th e ta sk of fe tc h in g w ater.
A n o th e r fe a tu re h e sh a re s w ith w o m a n is th a t he is twisted: " t h e y p u t a ja c k a ls tail
d o w n a rifle b a rr e l fo r fo r t y d a y s , a n d w h e n th e y to o k it o u t a g a in , it w a s ju s t as b e fo r e .
M o re o v e r, lik e w o m a n , he divides, a n d d o e s so b y h is c u n n in g .
'37
ublic denial (as in all b elief), rite neutralizes the dangerou s forces con tained
jn the w ild , u n tam ed , natural nature of w om an or the earth, as w ell as those
that may be u n leash ed b y violation of its haram , tran sgression o f th e sacred
lim it -77 E nacted in this w ay. collectiv ely and p u b licly , th ro u g h th e in ter
mediary o f an authorized d elegate, in accordance w ith the arbitrarily pre
scribed rules of a ritual, sacrilege is sym b olically d en ied in th e very act in
which it is p erform ed. A ctin g as a delegated representative of the grou p , and
also as a scapegoat d esignated to con fron t the cu rse of the earth, th e m an to
whom it falls to op en th e p lou gh in g, "th e m an of the w e d d in g 78 as he is
som etim es k now n, solem n ly reprodu ces, w ith h is p lough sh are b o m of a
thunderbolt, th e m arriage o f sky and earth, th e archetypal fecun dation w hich
is the con d ition of the su ccess of all hum an acts o f fecu n d a tio n .79 M ale and
female, w et and dry, are in a sen se separated o n ly so as to be reu n ited , sin ce
only their u n ion - in p lou gh in g or m arriage - can free them from th e negative
properties (n egative on ly in the respect in q u e stio n , that of fecu n d ity ) that
are associated w ith them so long as th ey rem ain in th e odd-num bered, imperfect
state of sep a raten ess .80 T h e ploughshare, an in stru m en t wrhich is forged in
another reunion o f contraries, the tempering of iron, and has th e sam e nam e
as the th u n d erb olt, thagursa, is in itself dry and sterile, like the seed it
introduces in to th e earth: it is a source o f fertility on ly through th e v io len ce
it inflicts. A s for the earth, left to itself it returns to sterilitv or the w ild
fecundity of fallow land, w h ich , tw isted and m align ant like th e m aid en , cannot
produce all its b en efits u nless it is forced and violated , and also raised and
straightened.
T h e rites of p lou g h in g ow e th eir com p lex ity to th e fact that th ey m ust not
only sanction the u nion of op p osites but also facilitate that state o f th e u n ion
of contraries in w h ich suprem acy tem porarily p asses to the fem ale p rin cip le:
the seed tem porarily con d em ned to d ryn ess and sterility returns to life only
through im m ersion in fem ale w e tn e s s ;81 b u t the future o f the grain (for the
earth, like the ew e, m ay fail to b rin g forth - tham azgults, from zgel, to m isfire)
depends on fem ale pow ers w hich the act o f fecu n d atio n has had to force. T h e
door of th e y e a r is not the m o m en t w hen th e year b eg in s (it has no
b egin ning, b ein g an everlasting b eg in n in g a n e w ); it is the m om en t w h en , like
the h o u se, w hich m ust rem ain op en to the fecu n d atin g ligh t of th e su n , the
year o p en s up to the m ale principle w h ich fecu n d ates and fills it. P lou ghin g
and so w in g mark the cu lm in ation of the m ov em en t of the o u tsid e in to the
m side, the em p ty in to th e full, th e dry in to th e w et, su n lig h t in to earthly
shadow s, the fecu n d atin g male in to the fertile fem ale.
M arriage rites and p lou gh in g rites ow e their n um erous sim ilarities to the
fact that their objective intention is to san ction the u n io n of contraries w hich
is th e co n d itio n of the resurrection of th e grain and th e reproduction of the
objects and actions b ein g th ose wrhich com p oun d the various properties.
83
S u ch are the egg, the sym b ol par excellen ce of that w hich is full and pregnant
w ith life, or th e pom egranate, w'hich is at on ce fu ll, sw o llen , and m ultip le,
and of w hich on e riddle says, " Granary upon granary, the corn in sid e is red ,
and another: " N o bigger than a p ou n d in g-ston e, and its ch ild ren are more
*39
pomegranates, etc. T h e bride breaks the eggs on the head of the mule that bears her,
wipes her hands on its mane, and throws the sieve behind her, and the children who
have follow ed her scram ble (num ber = abundance) to pick up the titbits it contained.
Similarly, the ploughing siev e w hich, depending on the local traditions, may be
carried by various persons (the ploughm an, his w ife) at various tim es (in the morning,
when the ploughm an leaves the house, or on his arrival in the fields, when he yokes
the oxen, or at the tim e of the m idday m eal), always contains pancakes, dried beans,
wheat, and a pomegranate, w hich the ploughm an throws into the furrows over the
oxen and the plough, and which the children scram ble for (with countless variants,
such as th e s e : the ploughm an breaks tw o pomegram ates, a few wheatcakes, and som e
fritters on the ploughshare, and distributes the rest among those present; the offerings
are buried in the first furrow'). Endless exam ples could be given of features com m on
to the tw o rituals: the bride (and her procession) are sprinkled with milk and she
herself often sprinkles water and milk as she enters her new house, just as the mistress
of the house sprinkles the plough with water or milk as it leaves for the fields. T he
bride is presented with a key with which she strikes the lintel of the door (elsewhere
a key is put under her clothes as she is being d ressed ); a key is put in the bag of seed
corn and som etim es thrown into the furrow. T h e bridal procession is preceded by
a woman bearing a lamp ( mesbah) which represents sexual union, with the clay, the
oil and the flame of w hich it is com posed sym bolizing the constituent parts of the human
being - the body, the dam p, fem ale, vegetative soul, nefs (a word som etim es used as
a euphemism for the genitals, the seat of the "bad in stin cts - thinefsith) and the dry,
male, subde soul, ruh (a euphem ism for the penis) ;M and on the first day of ploughing,
a lamp is taken to the fields and kept alight until the first delim ited plot of land
(thamtirth) has been sow n. T h e bride m ust not wear a girdle for seven days, and on
the seventh day her girdle m ust be tied by the m other of many sons; the woman w ho
carries the seed corn must avoid tyin g her girdle too tight and she m ust also wear
a long dress which trails behind in a lucky train ( abrur). T h e brides hair must remain
untied for the first seven days; the woman w ho carries the seed corn always lets her
hair hang loose. A lso com m on to both rituals are: rifle shots (in even num bers),
stone-throwing, and target-shooting, all of w hich frequently figure in the rain-making
rites as sym bols o f male sprinkling w hich have the power of untying that which is tied .85
T he brides life continues in this way under the sign of fertility: on the seventh day,
when she com es out of the house to go to the fountain for the first tim e, before
drawing water sh e throws into the spring the grains of corn and the beans which had
been placed under her bed; the first work she does is to sift the wheat, the noble task
Par excellence.
140
14 1
With this example we draw near the principle of practical logic, wrhich functions
142
practically only by taking all sorts of liberties w ith the m ost elem entary principles of
logical logic: thus the sam e sym bol can relate to realities that are opposed even frorri
the standpoint of the axiom atics of the system - or rather, w e m ust include in that
axiom atics the fact that the system does not exclude contradiction. If being able to
write out the algebra of practical logics is not a p rio n unthinkable, it can be seen that
the precondition of doing so w ould be the know ledge that logical logic, which only
ever speaks of them negatively in the very operations through which it constitutes itself
by denying them , is not prepared to describe them w ithout destroying them . It would
sim ply be a question of constructing the m odel of this pa rtia lly integrated system of
generative schem es w hich, p a rtia lly mobilized to deal with each particular situation,
in each case produces, w ithout acceding to discourse and the logical verifiablity which
it makes possible, a practical d efin ition of the situation and of the functions of the
action - alm ost always m ultiple and overlapping - and, in accordance w ith a combina
tive logic at once com plex and inexhaustible, generates the appropriate actions to fulfil
these functions given the m eans available. M ore precisely, one only has to compare
the diagrams corresponding to the different dom ains of practice - the agrarian year,
cooking, the w om en s work, the day - to see that these different series spring from
different schem es: the oppositions betw een the wret and the dry, the cold and the hot,
and the full and the em pty, in the case o f the agrarian year; betw een the w et and the
dry (in the form of the boiled and the roast, tw o form s o f the cooked), the bland and
the spiced, in the case of cooking; betw een the dark and the light, the cold and the
hot, the inside (or the closed) and the outside in the case of the day; betw een the
fem ale and the male, the tender (green) and the hard (dry), in the case of the cycle
of life. T h en one w ould only have to add other structured universes, such as the space
inside the house or the parts of body, to see other principles at w'ork: above and below,
east and w est, etc. T h ese different schem es are at once partially independent and more
or less closely interconnected: thus the opposition dry/w et (or drying/soaking) can
be used to generate practices or sym bols that cannot be produced directly from the
opposition inside/outside or darkness/light, and vice versa; on the other hand, there
is a direct passage from hot/cold to dry/w et, whereas hot/cold is connected with
inside/outside only through the intermediary of light/darkness, and the path to
oppositions like standing up/lying dow n, em p ty/fu ll, or above/below is even longer.
In other w ords, each of the oppositions constituting the system can be linked with
all the others, but along paths o f varying length (w hich may or may not be reversible),
i.e. at the end of a series of equivalences which progressively em pty the relationship
of its content (e .g . w aking/sleeping ~ outside/inside ~ standing u p /lyin g down ~
east/w est ~ light/darkness ~ hot/cold ^ sp iced/bland); m oreover, each opposition
can be linked with several others in different respects by relations of differing intensity
and m eaning (e.g . spiced/bland can be directly related to m ale/fem ale and less directly
to strong/w eak or em p ty/fu ll, through the intermediary, in the latter case, of
m ale/fem ale and dry/w et, them selves interconnected). It follow s that all the opposi
tions do not have the same role in the system ; it is possible to distinguish secondary
oppositions w hich specify the principal oppositions in a particular respect and have
a low yield on account of this (yellow /green, a sim ple specification of d ry/w et), and
central oppositions (such as m ale/fem ale or dry/w et) strongly interconnected w ith all
the others by logically very diverse relations w hich constitute arbitrary cultural
necessity (e .g . the relations betw een fem ale/m ale and inside/outside or left/right,
tw isted/straight, below /ab ove). G iven that, in practice, no more than one particular
sector of the system of schem es is m obilized at any one tim e (w ithout all the
connections with the other oppositions ever being entirely severed) and that the
T he habitus an d homologies
*43
sc h e m e s .90
T h e habitus an d homologies
T he presence of sym b olically identical ob jects or acts in the rituals associated
4) on e on ly has to g o to th e
*44
T he habitus a n d homologies
r45
gteam ed, or raised w ith leaven (fritters), op eration s w hich all m ake th e food
##//; and on th e other sid e there are th e raw, green , or fresh fo o d s (three
m eanings of th e w ord a z e g z a w , associated w ith sp rin g and u nripe corn) w hich
are eaten r a w (as ten d s to b e th e case in sp rin g) an d /or boiled or grilled (on
the griddle, bufrah) and h ea v ily sp iced (as in su m m er ).92 A nd th e variations
0bServed are fu lly accoun ted for w hen on e has n oted that the first com b in ation
is characteristic of late au tu m n and w in ter, the period w h en the dry is
m oistened and the fertilized earth and w om an are ex p ected to s w e ll, w hereas
the second is associated w ith sp rin g, a tran sitional season, and su m m er, the
period of d esiccation o f th e w et and separation from the fem ale, w hen
evervthing that has d ev elo p ed in w ard ly, like grains of w heat and beans
(ufthyen) m u st op en out and ripen in th e ligh t o f d a y .93
Without entering into a description - strictly speaking, an interm inable one, ow ing
to the innum erable variants - o f the feast-day dishes w hich in a sense concentrate the
characteristic properties o f the cooking associated w ith the various periods, it is
nonetheless possible briefly to indicate their pertinent features, bearing in mind that
the dishes differ not so m uch in their ingredients as in the processes applied to them ,
which strictly define cooking (so that certain " polysem ous item s reappear at different
times of the year and in very different rites: for exam ple w heat, of course, but also
broad beans, which figure in the meals of p loughing tim e, the first day of January,
harvest tim e, funerals, e tc .). On ploughing days, the meal eaten outside in the fields
is, as always, m ore m ale, i.e. " d rier, than the food of autum n and winter as a w hole,
which is boiled or steam ed, like th e food eaten at the tim e of w eddings or burials; but
the meal taken in the evening after the first days ploughing always consists of boiled
cereals, with num erous variants, or a coarse-grained, unspiced couscous, a dish
explicidy excluded from the m eal of the first day of spring (" because the ants would
multiply like the grains of sem o lin a ) or ufthyen, made from grains of wheat and beans
cooked in wrater or steam , or abisar, a sort of thick bean puree, the food o f the dead
and of resurrection (these dish es are always associated w ith m anv-seeded fruit,
pomegranates, figs, grapes, n u ts, or sw eet foods, honey, dates, e tc ., sym bols of
"easiness). W heatcake, the dry, male food par excellence, m ust not be cooked during
the first three days of p lo u g h in g ; it is even said that if roast meat were eaten (the meat
of the thimechretox is eaten b oiled ), the oxen would before long be injured in the neck.
The couscous (berkukes) eaten on the first day of ennayer contains poultry, typically
female (am ong other reasons because the fowl are the w om en s personal property).
But it is no doubt on the eve of th is day (som etim es called the "old w o m e n of
ennayer) that the schem e generating w inter food, that of m oistening the dry, shows
through m ost clearly: on that day, people must eat nothing but boiled, dry grains
(som etim es with fritters), and m ust eat their fill; they must not eat m eat ("so as not
to break the b o n e s) or dates (" so as not to expose the sto n e s). T h e meal eaten on
the first day of ennayer (A chura) is very similar to that of the first day of ploughing:
it is always substantial (being an inaugural rite) and consists of abisar or berkukes and
fitte r s , or boiled cereal. From the first day of spring, as well as the traditional
elem ents of fertility-giving food (couscous cooked in the steam o f adhris, thapsia, which
causes sw elling, hard-boiled eg g s, which m ust be eaten to satiety), the diet includes
grilled cereals (w hich the children eat outdoors), raw, green produce (beans and other
146
vegetables) and milk (warmed or cooked). W ith the return of a za l, dry pancakes dipped
in hot milk, and sem olina with butter, announce the dry, male food of sum m er. The
com bination characterizing the feast-day m eals of the dry season is wheatcake and
grilled meat with or w ithout couscous (depending mainly on whether it is eaten in
the fields or in the h o u se ); more ordinary m eals consist of wheatcake dipped in oi7
(a dry, male food contrasting w ith wet, fem ale butter) and dried figs and also, f0r
indoor meals, grilled fresh vegetables.
n sl,
unm arried girls m u st not sit astride th e thread, m arried w o m en m ay; the
cro ssin g o f the thread is called ruh, th e so u l .95 W eaving is th e w in te r
a ctivity, w'hich en d s w ith the w et season, in M ay. Just as the last sh eaf is often
cut b y hand, by the m aster o f the field, so it falls to the m istress of the house
to unfasten the w o v en clo th , w ithou t th e u se o f iron and after sprinkling it
w ith w ater, as is d on e to th e dead. Care is taken not to perform this
d angerou s operation in the presence of a m an: every birth b ein g a rebirth,
the law' o f th e eq u ivalen ce o f lives, a " s o u l for a " s o u l, is capable of
ex a ctin g th e death o f a hum an b ein g as the price o f the birth of the c lo th .96
W h en th e cloth has been rem oved , the loom is d ism antled and p ut awray for
the d uration of "the death o f the fie ld .
W ool and potter)', natural products, have much the same cycle. Pottery, being
derived from the earth, partakes of the life of the field ; the clay is collected in autumn,
but it is never worked in that season, nor in w inter, when the earth is pregnant, but
in spring. T h e unfired (azegzaw ) pottery dries slowly in the sun (w et-dry) w hile the
ears o f corn are ripening (the wet-dry p eriod). S o long as the earth bears the ears,
it cannot be baked; it is only after the harvest, when the earth is bare and no longer
producing, and fire is no longer liable to dry up the ears (the drv-dry period) that
baking can be carried out, in the open air (dry-dry).
[.5 . The
cycle
^ p o rtin g
1 4 7
148
dry season , w hen the m istress of the house brings the fire out into the
courtyard and ligh ts the kanun in thim etbakth, there is an abrupt changeover
to a m ore com p lex rh ythm , defined by the d ou b le departure and return of
the f l o c k s t h e y g o out for the first tim e at daw n and com e back as soon
as the heat b ecom es b u rd en som e, that is, around eddoha\ the seco n d departure
co in cid es w ith the m idday prayer, eddohor, and they return at nightfall.
Just as the year runs from au tu m n tow ards su m m er, m o v in g from w est to
east, so th e day (as) runs from th e ev en in g tow ards m idd ay: although the
w hole system is organized in accordance wTith the perfect cycle of an eternal
recurrence - even in g and au tu m n , old age and d eath, b ein g also the locu s of
procreation and sow in g - tim e is n on eth eless orien ted tow ards the culm inating
p oint represented b y m idd ay, su m m er, or m ature age (see fig.
7). N ig h t, in
Dry s e a s o n
5 a.m .
el fjar
flo c k g o e s o u t
(to fie ld s a n d m a r k e t)
m en go o u t
a .m .
7 a.m.
8 a.m .
9 a.m.
eddoha
- flo c k r e t u r n s i s t t i m e -
i o a.m.
lm e k li (m e a l) ^
flo c k g o e s o u t
m e n go o u t
( to f ie ld s a n d m a r k e t)
azal re st
*
( le m q il) *
A
thanalth (snack)
1 p .m .
flo c k g o e s o u t 2 n d t i m e .
cddohor
A
pm .
d e c lin e o f a za l
P-m .
t h a n a l t h (s n a c k )
flo c k
4 p .m .
returns
el aser
tim e spent
resting outdoors
I
F ig . 7. S tru c tu re
of the dry-scason
day
ansaf ass
(middle ot the day)
1 5 0
T h e habitus an d homologies
perform ed, and the break is m ade w ith darkness, ev il, and d eath, so that
0ne m ay "be in the m orn in g , i.e . op en to th e lig h t, the g o o d , and th e luck
that are associated w ith it (th is is, for exam p le, the m o m en t w h en the
semolina left overnight near the head o f a jealous baby, or on e afflicted by
transferred ev il - aqlab - is p ou red over h im ). E very m orn in g is a birth.
jylorning is the tim e for g o in g o u t, th e opening o f the day and an o p en in g up
to light (fa ta h , to o p en , b lo sso m , is sy n o n y m o u s w ith sebah} to be in the
m orning). It is an o p en in g first in the sen se that th is is the m o m en t w h en
the day is born ( thallalith w a ss, the birth o f th e d a y ), w h en " th e ey e of the
light {th it antafath) o p en s an d th e h o u se and th e village, w h ich had clo sed
in upon th em selv es for th e n ig h t, pour out their m en and their flocks into
the fields. A n o p en in g too in the sen se of " b e g in n in g : m o rn in g is an
inaugural m om en t w h ich m en w orth y of the nam e feel it right to b e present
at and take part in ( esbah, to be p resen t, to b e alive in th e m o rn in g ).
" M orn in g, it is said, " m ean s fa c ility . T o get u p early is to place on iself
under favourable au spices ( leftah, o p en in g , good a u gu ry). T h e early riser is
safe from the en cou n ters w h ich b rin g m isfortu n e; w hereas the m an w h o is
last to set ou t on the road can have n o other com p an ion than th e on e-eyed
man (associated, like th e b lin d , w ith n igh t) w h o w aits for broad d ayligh t before
setting o u t, or th e lam e m an w h o lags b eh in d . T o rise at cockcrow is to put
ones days in the p rotection o f th e an gels of th e m o rn in g and to d o them
honour; it is, so to speak, to put on eself in a state o f grace, to act in such
a way that " th e an gels d ecid e in o n e s s te a d . In fact the m orn in g, an
inaugural tim e b lessed by th e return of ligh t and life, is the best m o m en t for
making d ecisio n s and u n d ertak in g action : the inauguration rites w h ich mark
the days o f transition are p erform ed at daybreak, w h eth er it be the w aking
of the cattle at the w in ter so ls tic e , the renew al rites on the first day o f the
year (ennayer), th e sh ep h e rd s departure to gather p lants on the first day of
spring, the flock s g o in g ou t on the return o f a z a l, etc.
T h e m orn ing, like the h o m o lo g o u s period in th e agrarian year or hum an
life, sp rin g or ch ild h o o d , w o u ld be en tirely favourable - sin ce it m arks th e
victory of ligh t, life, and th e future over n ig h t, d eath, and the past - d id not
its p osition confer on it th e fearful pow er to d eterm in e th e future to w h ich
it b elon gs and w h ich it g overn s as th e inaugural term of the s e r ie s :100 thou gh
intrinsically b en eficent, it is frau ght w ith th e danger o f m isfortu n e, inasm uch
as it can d ecid e, for good or for ill, th e fate of the day. W e m ust take a closer
look at th is lo g ic , that of m agic, w h ich has perhaps never b een fully
und erstood , b ecau se it is all too easily half u nd ersto o d on th e basis o f the
quasi-m agical exp erien ce o f th e wrorld w h ich , u nd er th e effect o f em o tio n , for
exam p le, im p o ses itself even on th ose w h ose m aterial co n d itio n s of ex isten ce,
*52
and an in stitu tion al en viron m en t ten d in g to discourage it, best p rotect thein
against th is " regression
101 whose
startin g-p oin t is its cau se, w hat h app en s in the w orld and w hat people do
govern w hat w ill happen and w hat w ill be d o n e. T h e future is already
inscribed in the p resen t in th e form of o m e n s .102 M en m ust d eciph er these
w arnings, not in order to su b m it to th em as a d estin y (like the em otion which
accepts th e future an n ou n ced in th e p resen t) but in order to be able, if
n ecessary, to ch an ge th em : this is on ly an apparent con trad iction , since it is
in the nam e o f th e h yp o th esis o f the fatal system that a m an w ill try to remake
the future an n ou n ced in the p resen t by m aking a n ew present. M agic is fought
w ith m agic: th e m agical p oten cy o f the om en -p resen t is fought w ith conduct
aim ing to ch an ge th e startin g-p oin t, in th e nam e of the b elief, w hich was
the w h ole stren gth o f th e o m en , that th e sy ste m s starting-point is its cause.
M orning is the time w hen everything becom es a sign announcing good or ill to come.
A man who m eets som eone carrying milk sees a good om en in the encounter; a man
who hears the shouts of a quarrel w hile he is still in bed draws a bad om en from them.
Men anxiously watch for the signs (esbuh, the first encounter of the morning,
portending good or ill) through w hich evil forces may announce their im m inence, and
an effort is made to exorcize their effect: a man w ho m eets at dawn a blacksmith, a
lame man, a one-eyed m an, a wom an w ith an em pty goatskin bottle, or a black cat
must "remake his m orn in g, return to the night by crossing the threshold in the
opposite direction, sleep again, and remake his "going o u t. T h e w hole day (and
som etim es the wThole year or a m a n s w hole life, w hen it is the m orning of an inaugural
day) hangs on his know ing how to defeat the malignant tricks of chance. T h e magical
potency of words and things works w ith particular intensity here, and it is more than
ever necessary to use the euphem ism s which replace baleful words: of all the words
tabooed, the most dreadful are those expressing term inal acts or operations shutting, extinguishing, leaving, spreading - w hich m ight invoke an interruption, an
untim ely destruction, em ptiness (e.g . "T here are no dried figs left in the sto re, or
the mere word "n o th in g ) or sterility.103
T he habitus an d homologies
*53
dry a n d the sterile, sh ou ld be stron gly associated w ith the d esert (lakhla) of
the harvested field.
Eddohor, th e secon d prayer, roughly coin cid es w ith the en d of the a z a l rest:
this is the start of " th e d eclin e o f a z a l , the en d o f th e fiercest heat (a zg h a l),
when for th e seco n d tim e the flocks set out for the fields and th e m en go
0ff to w ork. W ith the third prayer, eVasar, a z a l en d s and thameddith (or
thadugwalh) b e g in s : n ow " the m arkets have em p tied an d n ow too the taboos
of the ev en in g take effect. T h e d eclin e of th e sun ( agh aluy itij), w h ich " slop es
to the w e s t , is in a sen se the paradigm of all form s o f d eclin e, in particular
old age and all kind s of political d ecad en ce ( yeghli itij-is, his su n has fallen)
or physical decay (yegh li Iwerq-is): to g o w estw ard , tow ards the se ttin g sun
(ghereb, as op p o sed to cherraq, to go tow ards the risin g su n ), is to go tow ards
darkness, n ight, d eath, like a h ouse w h ose w estw ard -facin g door can o n ly
receive sh adow s.
Pursuing the analysis o f the different fields o f application of the system
of generative sch em es, w e could b uild up a sort of sy n o p tic diagram of the
cycle o f life as stru ctured by the rites of passage: birth (w ith the practices
associated w ith th e cu ttin g o f th e um b ilical cord b y the qabla and th e rites
intended to p rotect the ch ild against evil s p e lls ) ; n am e-g iv in g on the third
or seven th day; the first tim e th e m oth er and ch ild co m e out of th e h ou se,
on the fortieth day (w ith , in the m ean tim e, all th e rites of "the breaking of
the link w ith the m o n th , thuksa an-tsucherka w a y u r , on th e third, sev en th ,
fourteenth, th irtieth , and fortieth d ays, to "break the association w ith the
month - to drive ou t evil and also to separate the ch ild p rogressively from
the fem ale wo rld ); the "first v en tu r es (in to th e courtyard, away from the
fam ily); the first haircut, a purificatory ritual o ften associated w ith the first
visit to th e m arket; circu m cision , m arriage, and burial. T h e cycle of th e rites
of passage is in fact subordinated to th e agrarian calendar w h ich , as w e have
seen, is itself n o th in g other than a su ccession o f rites o f passage.
This is primarily because in a number of cases the rites of passage are more or less
ex p lic itly associated with particular moments in the year, by virtue of the homology
betw een them a n d the moment in question; thus, for example, a birth is auspicious
*f it c o m e s at lahlal (or in the morning), ill omened if it comes at husum or in sla (or
th e afternoon betw een eVasar and el maghreb); early afternoon is the best time for
circum cision, but not w inter, and eVazla gennayer is the propitious m om ent for the
first haircut; autum n and spring (after eVazla) are the right tim es for marriage, which
ruled out on the last day of the year, at husum and nisan, and in May and June.
The springtim e rites (and in particular those of the first day of spring and the return
f azal) set to work a sym bolism which applies as m uch to the unripe corn, s till,e bound,
fettered, k notted (igan), as to the lim bs of the baby w hich cannot yet walk ( aqnan
lfadnis) and remains in a sense attached to the earth .106 T h o se rites of passage that
are not linked to a particular period of the year always ow e som e of their properties
BO T
1 54
to the ritual characteristics of the period in w hich they are perform ed, a fact which
explains the essential features o f the variants observed. For exam ple, the beneficent
water of ntsan, a necessary com ponent in the rites specific to that period (like the
first milk in spring, the ears o f the last sheaf in sum m er, e tc .), also appears as
a supplem entary elem ent in the rites of passage w hich happen to take place at that
tim e.
Thus
T he habitus an d homologies
I 55
fatherhood
Bs bi rth
s .
vV
. O'
A s b irth
th ey try to
con stru ct
and
asym m etrical, tran sitive, " c o n n e c te d relation ship s w h ich R ussell g iv es the
word in his Introduction to M ath em atical Philosophy)
the su p erim p osition of the various series b eyon d a certain d egree o f refine
m ent, b eh in d the fun dam en tal h o m ologies (b rou gh t together in fig.
9),
156
practice and b y ex p loitin g th e m agic o f the w ritin g w hich tears practice and
discou rse o u t o f the flow' o f tim e .109 It is only w hen practical m etaphor,
schem e-tran sfer effected on the h ith er sid e of d iscou rse, b eco m es metaphor
or analogy that it is p ossib le, for exam p le, to w ond er like Plato w hether "it
was the earth that im itated w om an in b ecom in g pregnant and b rin gin g a being
in to the w orld , or w om an that im itated the e a r th (.Menexenus,
238a).
'57
.
O
reU^ . p u blic)
, . ' 5AC#ED
ft ,
' %
_0^'
fire, su n , g o ld
^ Q jl
*
eag le, lig h t, sky
r a h (h e a rt), n if, red
^
k a n u n , roast, s p ic c d , rip e , w h eatcak e, sek su , w h e a t, salt
k nife, rifle, p lo u g h sh a re , sick le, c a rd in g c o m b , uttinex
^
*2^
m aturity
h a rv e s t ( m j r d e r )
c u tt i n g w o v en c lo th
DRY
old age
ft?
/5:
w all o f d a rk n e s s
O P E N IN G O U T k
G O IN G O U T
E
T
N TH RESH OLD S I
^ / ' s Ns \vall o f w eav in g lo o m
^
^
rfi
S,
O P E N IN G F U L L (sw ellin g )
E N T E R IN G
C L O S E D (d ifficu lt, e n c lo su re)
ia m p , p lo u g h in g
I N S I D E (h o u se , g a rd e n , fo u n ta in , w o o d )
b e a n , egg, snake
s ta r t o f w eaving
B E L O W (ly in g d o w n , m ain b e a m )
ox , oil
g re e n , raw
co w . grass
m ilk, b u t te r
u n rip e corn
W ET
*
^
q
c h ild h o o d
g e sta tio n
.^
w o m b , p o m e g ra n a te , p a rtrid g e , h en
th a m g h a rth , p a ra lle l c o u sin , sc cre t, b lac k
co o k in g -p o t, b o ile d m e a t, g ru el, sw e e t, b la n d
<J
b lo o d , n e fs (liv e r), h u rm a
*V^i ~
sta b le , sle e p (d e a th ), e a rth
OjTfj
to m b , d a rk n e s s , m o o n
^
c tl
JO
o f e '%<&*
A o^ T H - n ig h t - v
( u n o f f ic i a l, m a g i c * 1 oT^
,^ 0
b irth
- -s
s p r in g
S TH RESH OLD N -
vail o f d o o r
d e a th = fec u n d a tio n
h* i n
between WET
l ,CT
o
>
c
c*.
%
z
<"
A B O V E (m a s te r b eam )
*
*r?
*58
4
Structures, habitus, power: basis for
a theory of symbolic power
D o rn , orthodoxy, heterodoxy
There is, perhaps, n o b etter w ay of m aking f e ltth e real fu n ctio n o f classificatory
sy stem s than to evok e as con cretely as p ossib le th e abrupt and total transfor
159]
i6 o
Structures , habitus , po w er
by the
unin terrup ted tread o f th e o u tg o in g flocks, and then by the clatterin g hooves
o f the asses ridden or led b y the m en goin g off to th e fields or the fo rest. A bout
the tim e of eddhoha, the sh ep herd brings back his flock and som e o f th e men
return to th e village for th eir m idday rest. T h e m u ezzin s call to eddohor is
th e sign al for the secon d g o in g out of th e day. In less than half an h our, the
village is th is tim e alm ost com p letely em p tied : in the m o rn in g, the w om en
w ere kept in the h ou se b y th eir d om estic tasks and above all b y the im propriety
there w ou ld be in taking their m idday rest ou tsid e, under a tree, like th e m en,
or in h urryin g to get h om e, w hich is a w om a n s proper place at a m om ent
reserved for in tim a c y ; b y contrast, in the afternoon, all b ut a few o f th e w om en
accom pan y the m en , at least on certain occasion s: there are first, o f course,
th e "old w o m e n w h o, after " givin g th eir o rd ers to the daughters-in-law
w h ose turn it is to prepare d inn er, taking the m easure of flour from th e akufi,
g ettin g the b u n ch o f o n io n s and th e other vegetables required for imensx out
o f th arichth and p u ttin g th e keys to all the stores back on their g ird les, go
and m ake th eir con trib ution to the w ork and assert their au th ority in their
ow n w ay, b y in sp ectin g the gardens, m aking good the m en s n eg lig en ce the stray p iece o f w ood , the handful o f fodder dropped on the w ay, th e branch
left b eh in d under a tree - and in th e ev en in g b rin gin g back, on to p of the
D o x a t orthodoxy , heterodoxy
161
jar o f w ater from the sp rin g in the gard en , a bun ch o f herbs, v in e-lea v es, or
fliaize, for the d om estic anim als. T h ere are also the yo u n g w iv es w ho,
especially at the tim e of the fig-harvest, follow their h u sb an d s around the
orchard, picking up the fruit the m en have b eaten d o w n , so rtin g it and
162
Structures , habitus , po w er
D o x a o rth o d o xy h eterodoxy
i6 3
his field full of strange ears, d elicate and b rittle, like w om an . H e called this
164
Structures, habitus, p o w e r
(S ittlic h k e it), the recon ciliation o f su b jective dem and and objective (i e
co llectiv e) n ecessity w hich grou n d s the belief of a w hole group in what the
group b elie v es, i.e . in th e group: a reflexive return to the prin cip les of the
op eration s o f ob jectification , practices or d iscou rses, is p revented by the
very rein forcem en t w hich these p rod u ction s co n tin u o u sly draw from a
w orld o f ob jectification s p roduced in accordance w ith the sam e subjective
p rin cip les.
E very estab lish ed order ten d s to p rod uce (to very different d egrees and with
very d ifferen t m eans) the naturalization of its owTn arbitrariness. O f all the
m ech an ism s ten d in g to p rod u ce this effect, the m ost im portant and the best
con cealed is u n d ou b ted ly the dialectic o f the ob jective ch an ces and the agents
aspirations, out of w hich arises the sense o f lim its, co m m o n ly called the sense
o f re a lity , i.e . th e corresp ond en ce b etw een the ob jective classes and the
in tern alized classes, social structures and m en tal stru ctures, w hich is the
basis o f the m ost ineradicable adherence to th e estab lish ed order. S y stem s of
classification w hich reprodu ce, in their ow n specific lo g ic, the objective
cla sses, i.e . the d iv isio n s b y sex, age, or p osition in the relation s o f production,
m ake th eir sp ecific con trib u tion to the reproduction of the pow er relations
o f w h ich they are th e p rod u ct, by secu rin g the m isrecogn ition , and h en ce the
recogn ition , of th e arbitrariness on w hich they are b a se d : in th e extrem e case,
that is to say, w hen there is a q uasi-p erfect corresp ond en ce b etw een the
ob jective order and th e su b jective p rin cip les o f organization (as in ancient
so cieties) th e natural and social w orld appears as self-ev id en t. T h is experience
w e shall call doxa, so as to d istingu ish it from an orthodox or heterodox belief
im p ly in g aw areness and
recogn ition
D o x a , orthodoxy , heterodoxy
neutralizing th ose of its effects m ost contrary to th eir ow n in terests lies in
subm itting to them in order to m ake use o f them (in accordance w ith the logic
0f the eminence grise).
T h e taxon om ies o f the m ythico-ritual system at o n ce d ivid e and u nify,
legitim ating u n ity in d ivision , that is to say, hierarchy .9 T h er e is no need to
insist on the fun ction of legitim ation of the d iv isio n of labour and power
between the sexes that is fulfilled by a m yth ico-ritu al sy stem entirely d o m
inated by m ale values. It is perhaps less ob viou s that the social structuring
of tem porality w h ich organizes representations and practices, m ost solem n ly
reaffirmed in the rites of passage, fulfils a political fu n ctio n by sym bolically
m anipulating age lim its, i.e . the b oundaries w h ich d efine age-group s, but also
the lim itations im posed at different ages. T h e m yth ico-ritu al categories cut
up the age con tin u u m into d iscon tin u ou s segm en ts, co n stitu ted not b io lo g i
cally (like the p hysical sig n s of ageing) but so cia lly , and m arked by the
sym bolism o f co sm etics and cloth in g, d ecorations, orn am en ts, and em b lem s,
the tokens w hich exp ress and u nd erlin e the represen tation s o f the u ses o f the
body that are legitim ately associated w ith each socially defined age, and also
those w h ich are ruled ou t b ecau se th ey w ou ld have th e effect o f d isru ptin g
the system o f o p p osition s b etw een the gen erations (su ch as rejuvenation rites,
which are th e exact in version o f th e rites of p assage). Social representations
of the different ages o f life, and o f th e properties attached by definition to
them , exp ress, in their ow n logic, th e pow er relations b etw een th ea g e-cla sses,
helping to reproduce at on ce th e u nion and th e d ivision o f th ose classes by
means o f tem poral d iv isio n s ten d in g to produce both co n tin u ity and rupture.
T h ey thereby rank am on g the in stitu tion alized in stru m en ts for m aintenance
of the sym b olic order, and h en ce am ong the m ech an ism s of the reproduction
of the social order w h ose very fu n ction in g serves the interests o f those
occupying a d om in an t p osition in th e social stru cture, th e m en o f m ature a g e .10
W e see yet again howr erron eou s it w ou ld b e to con sid er o n ly the cogn itive
or, as D u rk h eim p ut it, " sp e cu la tiv e , fu n ction s of m yth ico-ritu al represen
tations: th ese m ental stru ctures, a transfigured reproduction o f the structures
con stitutin g a m ode of p rod uction and a m ode o f biological and social
reproduction, con trib ute at least as efficaciously as th e provisions o f cu stom
towards d efining and m aintaining th e d elim itation o f p ow ers b etw een the sexes
and gen erations, through the ethical d isp o sitio n s th e y p rod uce, su ch as the
sense of honour or respect for elders and an cestors. T h e theory o f know ledge
a d im en sion o f political theory b ecau se the sp ecifically sy m b o lic pow er to
nipose the p rin cip les o f the con stru ction o f reality - in particular, social
reality - is a major d im en sion o f political p ow er.
In a determ in ate social form ation, the stabler the ob jective structures and
the m ore fully they reproduce th em selves in the a g e n ts d isp o sitio n s, the
i66
Structures , habitus , p o w e r
greater the ex ten t of the field of d oxa, o f that w hich is taken for granted.
W h en , ow in g to the q uasi-p erfect fit b etw een th e ob jective stru ctures and the
in tern alized structures w hich results from the logic o f sim p le reproduction,
th e estab lish ed cosm ological and political order is perceived not as arbitrary,
i.e . as on e p ossib le order am on g o thers, but as a self-ev id en t and natural order
w h ich g oes w ith ou t sayin g and therefore goes u n q u estio n ed , the agents 5
aspirations have the sam e lim its as the ob jective co n d itio n s o f w hich th e y are
th e product.
It is not easy to evoke the subjective experience associated with this world o f the
realized ought-to-be, in which things that could scarcely be otherwise nonetheless are
w hat they are only because they are what they ought to be, in w hich an agent can
have at one and the same tim e the feeling that there is nothing to do except what he
is doing and also that he is only doing what he o u g h t.11 And so it is in all seriousness
that I juxtapose two particularly striking evocations of this experience, one by an old
K abyle w om an, underlining the fact that to be ill and dying was a social status, with
its attendant rights and duties, and the other by Marcel Proust, describing the
subjective effects of the ritualization of practices:
" In the old days, folk d id n t know what illness was. T h ey w ent to bed and they
died. Its only nowadays that w ere learning words like liver, lung [albumun; Fr. le
poum on\t intestines, stomach [listuma; Fr. Vestomac], and I d on t know what! People
only used to know [pain in] the belly [th'abut]; thats what everyone w ho died died
o f, unless it was fever [thatcla] . . . In the old days sick people used to call for death,
but it w ouldnt com e. When som eone was ill, the new s soon spread everyw here, not
just in the village, but all over the *arch. Besides, a sick m ans house is never empty:
in the daytim e all his relatives, m en and w om en, com e for n e w s .. .A t nightfall, all
th e women relatives, even the youngest, would be taken to his bedside. And once a
week there was 'the sick m ans m arket
umutin]: they would send som eone to
buy him meat or fruit. All thats forgotten nowadays; its true, there arent any sick
people now , not as there used to be. N ow everyones sick, everyones complaining
o f som ething. T hose w ho were dying used to suffer a lot; death came slow ly, it could
take a night and a day or two nights and a day. D eath 'always struck them through
their sp eech : first they became dum b. Everyone had time to see them one last time;
the relatives were given tim e to assem ble and to prepare the burial. T h ey w ould give
alm s to make the dying easier: they would give the com m unity a tree, generally a fig-tree
planted beside the road. Its fruit would not be picked, but left for passing travellers
and the poor [chajra usufagh, the tree of the outgoing; chajra n esadhaqa, the alms
tr e e ]. . .W h os ill nowadays? W hos well? Everyone com plains but no one stays in b ed ;
they all run to the doctor. Everyone knows w hats wrong w ith him now.*12
"From the position of the bed, m y side recalled the place where the crucifix used
to be, the breath of the recess in the bedroom in my grandparents house, in the days
w hen there were still bedroom s and parents, a tim e for each thing, when you loved
your parents not because you found them intelligent but because they were your
parents, w hen you w ent to bed not because you w anted to but because it was time,
and when you marked the desire, the acceptance and the whole cerem ony of sleeping
by going up two steps to the big bed, where you closed the blue rep curtains with
their raised-velvet bands, and w here, w hen you were ill, the old rem edies kept you
for several days on end, with a nightlight on the Siena marble m antelpiece, w ithout
any of the immoral m edicines that allow you to get up and imagine you can lead the
D o x a , orthodoxy , heterodoxy
167
life of a healthy man when you are ill, sweating under the blankets thanks to perfectly
harmless infusions, which for two thousand years have contained the flowers of the
meadows and the w isdom of old w om en .13
i6 8
Structures , habitus , p o w e r
(o r a r g u m e n t)
D o x a , orthodoxy , heterodoxy
169
raised.16 It follow s that th e w ou ld -b e m ost radical critiq ue alw ays has the lim its
that are assigned to it by th e ob jective con d ition s. C risis is a necessary
condition for a q u estio n in g of doxa b ut is not in itself a sufficient con d ition
for the p rod uction o f a critical d iscou rse. In class societies, in w hich the
definition of th e social w orld is at stake in overt or latent class stru ggle, the
drawing o f the lin e b etw een the field o f op in io n , o f that w hich is exp licitly
q uestioned, and the field o f doxa , of that w hich is b eyon d question and w hich
each agent tacitly accords b y th e m ere fact of actin g in accord writh social
con ven tion, is itself a fundam ental ob jective at stake in that form o f class
struggle w h ich is the struggle for the im p osition o f the d om in ant sy stem s of
classification. T h e d om inated classes have an interest in p u sh in g back the
lim its of doxa and exp osin g the arbitrariness o f th e taken for g ra n ted ; the
dom inant classes have an interest in d efen d in g the integrity o f d oxa or, short
of this, of estab lish in g in its p lace th e necessarily im perfect su b stitu te,
orthodoxy.
It is on ly w hen the d om in ated have th e m aterial and sym b olic m eans of
rejecting th e d efinition of the real that is im posed on them through logical
structures reprodu cing the social structures (i.e . the state o f the power
relations) and to lift the (in stitu tion alized or internalized) censorsh ip s w hich
it im p lies, i.e . w hen social classifications b ecom e th e object and in strum ent
of class stru ggle, that the arbitrary p rin cip les of the prevailing classification
can appear as su ch and it therefore b ecom es necessary to undertake the wrork
of co n sciou s system atization and express rationalization w hich marks the
passage from doxa to orth odoxy.
O rth odoxy, straight, or rather straightened, o p in ion , w h ich aim s, w ithou t
ever en tirely su cceed in g , at restoring the prim al state of in n o cen ce of d oxa,
exists on ly in th e ob jective relation ship w h ich o p p oses it to h eterod oxy, that
is, b y reference to th e ch oice - hairesis, heresy - m ade p ossib le by the
existence o f competing possibles and to the exp licit critiq ue of the su m total of
the alternatives not chosen that the estab lish ed order im p lies. It is defined
as a sy stem o f eu p h em ism s, o f acceptable w ays o f th in k in g and sp eak ing the
natural and social w orld , w hich rejects heretical rem arks as b la sp h em ies .17
But the m anifest cen sorsh ip im p osed b y orth odox d iscou rse, the official way
of speaking and th in k in g the w orld, con ceals another, m ore radical c e n so r sh ip :
the overt op p osition b etw een " r ig h t op inion and " le f t or " w r o n g o p in ion ,
w hich d elim its the universe o f possible discourse, be it legitim ate or illegitim ate,
eu p h em istic or b lasph em ou s, m asks in its turn the fundam ental op p osition
b etw een the universe o f th in gs that can be stated, and hence th o u g h t, and
170
Structures , habitus , p o w e r
legitimation - and, w hen th e occasion arises, to m anifest and rein force their
concordance. H eretical p ow er, the strength of the sorcerer w h o wrields a
liberating p otency - that o f all logotherap ies - in offering the m ea n s o f ex
pressing exp eriences usually repressed, the strength o f th e p rop het or
political leader w h o m ob ilizes the group b y an n ou n cin g to th em w hat they
want to hear, rests on the dialectical relation ship b etw een au th orized ,
authorizing language and the grou p w hich au th orizes it and acts on its
authority.
Sym bolic capital
T he theoretical con stru ction w hich retrosp ectively projects the cou n ter-gift
into the project of th e gift has th e effect o f transform ing in to m echanical
sequences o f ob ligatory acts the at on ce risky and necessary im provisation of
the everyday strategies w hich ow e their infinite com p lex ity to th e fact that
the g iv ers undeclared calculation m ust reckon w ith the receivers undeclared
calculation, and hence satisfy his exp ectation s w ith ou t appearing to know^w'hat
they are. In the sam e operation, it rem oves the co n d itio n s m aking p ossib le
the institutionally organ ized and guaranteed misrecognition20 w hich is th e basis
of gift exchange and, perhaps, o f all the sym b olic labour in ten d ed to trans
m ute, b y the sincere fiction of a d isin terested exchan ge, the in ev ita b le, and
inevitably interested relations im posed by k inship, n eig h b o u rh o o d , or work,
into elective relations of reciprocity: in the wrork o f reproducing estab lish ed
relations - through feasts, cerem on ies, exchan ges of gifts, visits or courtesies,
and, above all, m arriages - w hich is no less vital to the ex isten ce o f the group
than th e reproduction o f the eco n o m ic bases of its ex isten ce, the labour
required to conceal the fun ction o f the exchan ges is as im portant an elem en t
as the labour need ed to carry ou t the fu n ctio n .21 If it is true th a t th e lapse
of tim e in terp osed is w hat en ab les the gift or cou n ter-gift to b e seen and
experienced as an inaugural act o f g en erosity, w ith ou t any past or future, i.e.
w ithout calculation, th en it is clear that in redu cing the p o ly th etic to the
nionothetic, ob jectivism destroys the sp ecificity o f all practices w h ich , like
gift ex ch a n ge, tend or pretend to p ut the law o f self-in terest in to abeyance.
A rational contract w ould telescop e in to an instant a transaction w h ich gift
exchange d isgu ises b y stretch in g it ou t in tim e; and because o f th is, gift
exchange is, if not the only m ode of com m od ity circulation p ractised, at least
the only m ode to be fu lly recogn ized , in societies wrh ich , b ecau se they deny
the true soil o f their lif e , as Lukacs puts it, have an ec o n o m y in itself and
not for itself. E verything takes place as if the essen ce of th e " a rch a ic
econom y lay in the fact that econ om ic activity cannot exp licitly acknow ledge
the eco n o m ic en d s in relation to w hich it is objectively orien ted: th e "idolatry
1 7 2
Structures , habitus , po w er
*73
>74
Structures , habitus , p o w e r
the word of w itnesses, which is enhanced if they are distant and influential; then there
is a sim ple paper drawn up by som eone not specialized in th e production of lega]
docum ents; then the contract signed before a taleb, providing a religious but not a
legal guarantee, w hich is less solem n w hen drawn up by the village taleb than bv a
w ell-known taleb; then the Cadis written docum ent; and finally the contract signed
in front of a law yer.) It w ould be insulting to presum e to authenticate a transaction
based on trust betw een trustworthy people, and still more so betw een relatives, before
a lawyer, a adi, or even w itnesses. Sim ilarly, the share of th e loss w hich partners
agree to accept w hen there is an accident to an animal m ay be entirely different
depending on th e assessm ent of their responsibilities w hich th ey com e to in accordance
w ith the relationship between them : a man w ho has lent an animal to a close relative
feels he m ust m inim ize his partners responsibility. By contrast, a regular contract,
signed before th e Cadi or before w itnesses, governed the arrangement by which the
K abyles handed over their oxen to the southern X om ads to be looked after for one,
tw o, or three w orking years (from autum n to autum n) in exchange for twenty-two
double decalitres of barley per ox per year, with costs to be shared in the case of loss
and profits shared in the case o f sale. Private arrangements betw een kin and affines
are to market transactions what ritual war is to total war. T h e "goods or beasts of
the fellah are traditionally contrasted w ith the goods or beasts of the m arket: old
inform ants will talk endlessly o f the tricks and frauds w hich are com m on practice in
the 'big m arkets, that is to say, in exchanges betw een strangers. T here are countless
tales of m ules w hich run off as soon as the purchaser has got them hom e, oxen made
to look fatter b y rubbing them with a plant w hich makes them sw ell (adhris), and
purchasers who band together to force prices dow n. T h e incarnation of econom ic war
is the shady dealer, the man w ho fears neither G od nor m an. Men avoid buying
animals from h im , just as they avoid buying from any com plete stranger: as one
informant said, for straightforward goods such as land, it is the choice o f the thing to
be purchased w h ich determ ines the buyers decision; for problem atic good s, such as
beasts of burden, especially m ules, it is the choice of seller w hich decides, and at least
an effort is m ade to substitute a personalized relationship ( on behalf o f . . . ) for a
com pletely im personal, anonym ous one. Every intermediate stage can be found, from
transactions based on com plete distrust, such as that betw een th e peasant and the shady
dealer, who cannot dem and or obtain guarantees because he cannot guarantee the
quality of his product or find guarantors, to the exchange of honour which can
dispense w ith conditions and depend entirely on the good faith of the " contracting
p arties. But in m ost transactions the notions o f buyer and seller tend to be dissolved
in the network of m iddlem en and guarantors designed to transform the purely
econom ic relationship betw een supply and dem and into a genealogically based and
genealogically guaranteed relationship. Marriage itself is no exception: quite apart
from parallel-cousin marriage, it alm ost always occurs b etw een fam ilies already linked
by a whole network of previous exchanges, underwriting th e specific new agree
m ent. It is significant that in the first phase of the highly com plex negotiations
leading up to the marriage agreem ent, the fam ilies bring in prestigious kinsmen
or affines as "guarantors, the sym bolic capital thus displayed serving both to
strengthen their hand in the negotiations and to guarantee the deal once it has been
concluded.
S ym bolic capital
*75
176
Structures , habitus , p o w e r
17 7
the w ord so m etim es receives, as lackin g con crete or m aterial effect, in sh ort,
1 7 8
Structures , habitus , p o w e r
179
farm work) requ iring th e unpaid assistan ce o f a m ore ex ten d ed grou p . If this
u navoidably
lon g
p rod uction
p eriod.
Both
hum an
and
anim al
consum ption are cu t, the form er b y th e redu ction of the g ro u p to the m inim al
unit, the fam ily; and th e latter through hire con tracts, su ch as th e charka o f
an ox, b y w hich the ow n er lend s h is anim al in exch an ge for n o th in g m ore
than com p en sation in cash or in kind for " d ep reciation of th e ca p ita l . T h ese
services, p rovided at precise m om en ts and lim ited of p eriod s o f in tense
activity, su ch as harvest tim e, are repaid eith er in th e fo rm of labour, at other
tim es of the year, or w ith other services su ch as p ro tectio n , th e loan of
animals, etc.
T h u s w e see that sym b olic capital, w h ich in the form o f the p restige and
renown attached to a fam ily and a nam e is readily co n v ertib le back into
econom ic capital, is perhaps the most valuable form o f accum ulation in a so ciety
in w h ich the severity of the clim ate (th e m ajor w ork - p lo u g h in g and
harvesting - h aving to b e d on e in a very short sp ace o f tim e ) and th e lim ited
technical resources (harvesting is d on e w ith the sickle) d em and collective
labour. S h ou ld on e se e in it a d isgu ised form of purchase o f labour pow er,
or a covert exaction o f corvees? B y all m eans, as lon g as the analysis h olds
together w hat h olds together in practice, the double rea lity of instrinsically
equivocal, ambiguous co n d u ct. T h is is the pitfall aw aiting all th ose w h o m a
naively d u alistic representation of th e relation ship b etw een practice and
ideology, b etw een th e " n a tiv e ec on om y and th e " n a tiv e representation of
that eco n om y, leads into self-m y stify in g d em y stific a tio n s :28 th e com p lete
reality of th is appropriation of services lies in the fact that it can only take
Place in the d isgu ise o f the th iw iz i, th e voluntary assistan ce w hich is also a
corvee and is th u s a voluntary corvee and forced assistan ce, and that, to use
i8 o
Structures , habitus , p o w e r
solemnize the contract. O nce on e realizes that sym b olic capital is alw ays credit,
in the w id est sense of th e w ord, i.e . a sort of advance w hich the grou p alone
can grant th ose w h o give it th e best m aterial and sym b olic guarantees, it can
be seen that the exh ib ition of sym b olic capital (w hich is alw ays very exp en sive
in econom ic term s) is on e o f th e m echan ism s w hich (n o d ou b t u niversally)
make capital g o to capital.
It is th u s by d raw ing u p a comprehensive balance-sheet of sy m b o lic profits,
without forgettin g the u nd ifferen tiatedn ess of the sy m b o lic and m aterial
aspects of the patrim ony, that it b ecom es p ossib le to grasp the econ om ic
rationality o f con d u ct w h ich econ om ism d ism isses as absurd: the d ecision to
buy a seco n d pair of oxen after the harvest, on the grou n ds that they are needed
for treading ou t the grain - w h ich is a w ay o f m aking it know n the crop has
been p len tifu l - o n ly to have to sell th em again for lack of fodd er, before the
autumn
econom ically aberrant on ly if on e forgets all the material and sy m b o lic profit
accruing from this (albeit fictitiou s) addition to the fam ily s sy m b o lic capital
in the late-su m m er period in w h ich m arriages are n egotiated. T h e perfect
rationality o f this strategy o f bluff lies in the fact that marriage is the occasion
for an (in the w id est sen se) econ om ic circulation w h ich cannot be seen purely
in term s of m aterial go o d s; the profit a grou p can exp ect to draw from the
transaction rises w ith its m aterial and especially its sy m b o lic patrim ony, in
other w ord s, its stand in g in the eyes of other grou p s. T h is stand in g, w hich
depends on the capacity of the g rou p s p oin t of honour to guarantee the
invulnerability of its h onour, and con stitu tes an u n d ivid ed w hole in d issolu b ly
uniting th e q uan tity and q uality of its go o d s and th e q u an tity and q uality of
the m en capable of turnin g th em to good accoun t, is w'hat enables th e grou p ,
m ainly through m arriage, to acquire p ow erful affines (i.e . w ealth in the form
of " rifles , m easured not only b y the n um ber of m en b u t also by their
quality, i.e . their p oin t o f h on ou r), and defines the g ro u p s capacity to
preserve its land and h onour, and in particular th e honour o f its w om en (i.e .
the capital o f m aterial and sym b olic strength w hich can actually be m obilized
for m arket transactions, co n tests o f h on ou r, or work on the la n d ). T h u s the
m terest at stake in the con d u ct of h onou r is on e for w h ich eco n o m ism has
no n am e, and wThich has to be called sym b olic, although it is su ch as to inspire
actions w h ich are very d irectly m aterial; just as there are p rofession s, like law
and m ed icin e, in w h ich th ose w h o practise th em m ust be "above s u sp ic io n ,
80 a fam ily has a vital interest in k eep in g its capital of honour, i.e . its capital
of h onou rab ility, safe from su sp icio n . A nd th e h yp ersen sitivity to th e slightest
18 2
Structures , habitus , p o w er
M odes o f domination
184
Structures , habitus , po w er
and
pow er.
perm anence and cu m u lativity o f m aterial and sym b olic acq u isition s which
can then su b sist w ithou t the agen ts having to recreate them co n tin u ou sly and
in th eir en tirety b y d eliberate action; but, because th e profits of these in
stitu tion s are th e ob ject o f differential appropriation, objectification also and
inseparably en su res the reproduction of the structure o f the distribution of
th e capital wrh ich , in its various form s, is th e precond ition for su ch appropria
tio n , and in so d oin g, reproduces the structure o f the relations of dom ination
and d ep en d en ce.
P aradoxically, it is p recisely because there exist relatively autonom ous
fields, fu n ction in g in accordance w ith rigorous m echan ism s capable o f im
p osin g their n ecessity on the agen ts, that th ose wrh o are in a position to
com m and th ese m echan ism s and to appropriate the m aterial an d /or sym bolic
profits accruing from their fu n ction in g are able to dispense w ith strategies
aim ed expressly (w h ich d oes not m ean m anifestly) and directly (i.e . w ithout
b ein g m ed iated by th e m echan ism s) at the d om in ation o f individuals, a
dom in ation w hich in th is case is the con d ition o f the appropriation of the
m aterial and sym b olic profits o f their labour. T h e savin g is a real one,
b ecau se strategies d esign ed to establish or m aintain lastin g relations of depen
d en ce are generally very exp en sive in term s o f m aterial g o o d s (as in the
p otlatch or in charitable acts), services, or sim p ly tim e; wrhich is wrh y , b y a
paradox con stitu tive of this m ode o f d om in ation , the m eans eat up the end,
and the actions necessary to en su re the con tinu ation o f pow er th em selv es help
to w eaken it .34
E conom ic powrer lies not in w ealth b ut in th e relationship b etw een wealth
and a field of econ om ic relations, th e con stitu tion o f w hich is inseparable from
the d evelop m en t of a body o f specialized agents, w ith specific in terests; it is
in this relationship that w ealth is con stitu ted , in th e form o f capital, that is,
as the in stru m ent for appropriating the in stitu tional eq u ip m en t and the
M odes o f domination
m echanism s in dispensab le to th e fu n ction in g o f the field, and th ereb y also
appropriating the profits from it. T h u s M oses F in ley con v in cin g ly sh o w s that
the an cient econ om y lacked not resources b ut the m eans " to overcom e the
limits of individual re so u rces*. " T h ere w ere no proper credit in stru m en ts no negotiable paper, no book clearance, no credit p a y m e n t s .. .T h e r e w as
m oneylending in p len ty b u t it was concentrated on sm all u surious loans to
peasants or con su m ers, and in large borrow in gs to enable m en to m eet the
political or other con ven tion al exp en d itu res o f the upper c la s s e s . . . Sim ilarly
in the field o f b u sin ess organization: there w ere no lon g-term partnerships
or corporations, no brokers or agen ts, n o gu ild s - again w ith the occasional
and unim portant ex cep tio n . In short, both the organizational and the opera
tional
d ev ices
w ere
lacking
for
the
m obilization
of
private
capital
BOT
18 7
M odes o f domination
in stitu tion s,
i.e .
qualifications and socially defined p o sitio n s, and through th em , b etw een the
7-2
1 88
Structures, habitus , po w er
social m echan ism s w h ich p rod uce and guarantee both the social value o f the
qualifications and th e p osition s and also the distrib ution o f these social
attributes, am ong b iological in d iv id u a ls .43
L aw d oes no m ore than sym b olically con secrate - b y recording it in a form
w h ich renders it both eternal and universal - the structure of the power
relation b etw een groups and classes w hich is produced and guaranteed practi
cally by the fun ction in g o f these m ech an ism s. For exam p le, it records and
legitim ates th e d istinction b etw een the p osition and the person, the power
and its holder, together w ith the relationship obtaining at a particular m om ent
b etw een qualifications and jobs (reflecting the relative bargaining pow er of
the buyers and sellers o f qualified, i.e . scholastically guaranteed, labour
pow er) w hich appears con cretely in a particular distrib ution o f the material
'and sym b olic profits assigned to the holders (or non-holders) of qualifications.
T h e law thus contributes its o w n (specifically sym bolic) force to the action
o f th e various m echanism s w hich render it superfluous con stantly to reassert
pow er relations by overtly resorting to force.
T h u s the task of legitim atin g the estab lish ed order does not fall exclusively
to th e m echanism s traditionally regarded as b elon gin g to the order o f ideology,
su ch as law. T h e system o f sym b olic go o d s production and the system
p rod ucing th e producers fulfil in ad d ition , i.e . b y the very logic of their normal
fu n ction in g, ideological fu n ction s, by virtue o f th e fact that the m echanism s
through w hich they con trib ute to the reproduction o f the estab lish ed order
and to the perpetuation o f d om in ation rem ain hidden. T h e educational system
h elp s to p rovid e the d om in ant class w ith w hat M ax W eber term s "a theodicy
o f its ow n p riv ileg e, not so m uch through the ideologies it produces or
in cu lcates (as those w ho speak o f "id eological ap paratu ses w ould have it);
b ut rather through the practical justification of the established order which
it ach ieves b y u sing the overt con n ection b etw een qualifications and jobs as
a sm okescreen for th e con n ection - w hich it records surreptitiously, undercover
of form al equality - b etw een the qualifications people obtain and the cultural
capital they have inherited - in other w ord s, through the legitim acy it confers
on the transm ission o f th is form o f heritage. T h e m ost su ccessfu l ideological
effects are those w hich have n o need of w ords, and ask n o m ore than
com p licitou s silen ce. It fo llo w s, in cid en tally that any analysis of ideologies,
in the narrow sense of " legitim atin g d isc o u r se s, w hich fails to in clu d e an
analysis of th e corresponding in stitu tional m echan ism s is liable to be n o more
than a contribution to the efficacy o f th ose ideologies: th is is true of all
internal (sem iological) analyses of political, educational, religious, or a e s t h e t i c
id eologies w h ich forget that the political fun ction o f these id eologies may m
som e cases be reduced to the effect of d isp lacem en t and d iversion , cam ouflage
and legitim ation, w hich they produce by reproducing - through their over
M odes o f domination
189
sights and om ission s, and in their deliberately or in volu ntarily com p licitou s
silences - the effects of the objective m ech an ism s .44
It has b een necessary at least to sketch an analysis of the ob jective m echan
isms w h ich
190
Structures , habitus , p o w e r
and ev e n her d escen d an ts. O n ce a system o f m echan ism s has b een constituted
cap ab le of ob jectively en su rin g the reprodu ction o f the established order by
its ow n m otion (apo tou autom atou, as th e G reeks p u t it), the d om in ant class
have o n ly to let the system they dom inate take its own course in order to exercise
their d o m in a tio n ; but u n til su ch a system exists, they have to w ork directly
d aily, p ersonally, to produce and reprodu ce con d itio n s of d om in ation which
are ev e n then never en tirely tru stw orth y. B ecau se they cannot b e satisfied with
ap propriating the profits of a social m ach ine w h ich has not yet developed the
pow er o f self-p erp etu ation , they are ob liged to resort to the elem entary forms
o f dom ination , in other w ord s, th e d irect d om in ation o f on e person by
an oth er, the lim itin g case o f w hich is appropriation of persons, i.e. slavery.
T h ey can n ot appropriate the labour, services, g ood s, hom age, and respect
of o th ers w ith ou t " w in n in g them p ersonally, " ty in g th em - in short,
creatin g a bond betw een p ersons.
T h is is why a social relationship such as that between the master and his khammes
(a sort of m etayer who gets only a very small share of the crop, usually a fifth, with
local variations), which might at first sight seem very close to a sim ple capital-labour
relation, cannot in fact be kept up w ithout the direct application of material or
sym bolic violence to the person who is to be tied . T h e master may bind his khammes
by a debt w hich forces him to keep renewing h is contract until he finds a new master
willing to pay off the debt to the former em ployer - in other words, indefinitely. He
may also resort to brutal measures such as seizing the entire crop in order to recover
his loan. But each particular relationship is the product of com plex strategies whose
efficacy depends not only on the material and sym bolic strength of either party but
also on their skill in arousing sym pathy or indignation so as to m obilize the group.
T h e value of the relationship for the dom inator does not lie exclusively in the resultant
material profits, and many masters who are not m uch richer than their khammes and
would gain by cultivating their lands them selves refrain from doing so because they
prefer th e prestige of possessing a "clientele . But a man who wants to be treated
as a '*m aster m ust show he has the virtues corresponding to his status, and the first
of these is generosity and dignity in his relations with his clien ts. T h e compact
uniting the master and his khammes is an arrangement betw een one man and another
guaranteed by nothing beyond the loy a lty w hich honour dem ands. It involves no
abstract discipline, no rigorous contracts, and no specific sanctions. But the great ''
are expected to show that they are worthy o f their rank by affording material and
sym bolic protection to those dependent upon them .
Here again, it is all a question of strategy, and the reason w hy the enchanted
relations of the pact of honour are so frequent is that, in this econom y, the strategies
of sym bolic violence are often ultim ately more econom ical than pure economic
violence. Given that there is no real labour market, and that m oney is rare (and
therefore dear), the best way in which the master can serve his own interests is to
work away, day in, day out, with constant care and attention, weaving the ethical and
affective, as w ell as econom ic, bonds which durably tie his khammes to him.
reinforce the bonds of obligation, the master m ay arrange the marriage of his khammes
(or his son ) and instal him, with his fam ily, in the master's own house; the children,
brought up together, with the goods (the flock, fields, etc.) being ow ned in comm on,
often take a long tim e to discover what their position is. It is not uncom m on for one
M odes o f domination
19 1
0f the sons of a khammes to g o and work for wages in the tow n, together with one
0f the m asters sons, and like him , bring back his savings to the master. In short, if
the master wants to persuade the khammes to devote him self over a long period to
the pursuit of the masters interests, he has to associate him com pletely w ith those
interests, m asking the d y s s y m m e t r y 0f the relationship by sym bolically denying it in
his behaviour. T h e khammes is the man to whom one entrusts ones goods, o n es house,
and ones honour (as is shown by the form ula used by a master leaving to go and work
in a town or in France: 'A ssociate, Im counting on you; I m g oin g off to be an
associate m y self'). T h e khammes "treats the land as if he ow ned i t , because there
is nothing in his m asters conduct to belie his claim to have rights over the land on
which he works; and it is not unusual to hear a khammes saying, lon g after leaving
his "m aster, that the sweat o f his brow entitles him to pick fruit or enter the estate.
And just as he never feels entirely freed from his obligations towards his former m aster,
so, after what he calls a "change of heart he may accuse his master of "treachery*
in abandoning som eone he had " ad op ted .
T h u s this system con tain s only tw o w ays (and they prove in the end to
be just one w ay) of g ettin g and keep in g a lasting hold over so m eo n e: gifts
or d eb ts, the overtly eco n o m ic ob ligations o f d eb t, or th e " m o ra l, " affective
obligations created and m aintained b y exch an ge, in sh ort, overt (physical or
econom ic) v iolen ce, or sym b olic violen ce - censored, euphem ized, i.e . u n
recognizable, socially recogn ized vio len ce. T h ere is an in tellig ib le relation not a con trad iction - b etw een these tw o form s o f v io len ce, w h ich coexist in
the sam e social form ation and som etim es in the sam e relation ship
:47 w hen
dom ination can on ly be exercised in its elem entary form , i.e . d irectly, b etw een
one person and another, it cannot take place overtly and m u st be d isguised
under the veil of en ch an ted relation ship s, the official m o d el of w hich is
presented b y relations b etw een kinsm en; in order to be socially recognized
it m ust g et itself m isreco g n ized .48 T h e reason for the pre-capitalist eco n o m y s
great n eed for sym b olic violen ce is that the only w ay in w h ich relations of
dom ination can b e s e t u p , m aintain ed , or restored, is through strategies w h ich ,
being exp ressly oriented tow ards th e estab lish m en t o f relation s of personal
d ep en d en ce, m ust be d isgu ised and transfigured lest th ey d estro y th em selv es
by revealing their true nature; in a w ord, th ey m ust b e euphem ized. H ence
the censorship to w hich th e overt m anifestation of v iolen ce, esp ecia lly in its
naked eco n om ic form , is su bjected by th e logic characteristic o f an econ om y
in w hich in terests can o n ly be satisfied on con d ition that th e y be d isguised
in and by th e strategies a im in g to satisfy th e m .49 It w ou ld be a m istake to
see a con trad iction in the fact that vio len ce is here both m ore present and
m ore h id d en .50 Because th e pre-capitalist econ om y cannot cou n t on the
im placable, h idden violen ce of ob jective m ech an ism s, it resorts simultaneously
to form s o f d om in ation w h ich m ay strike the m odern observer as m ore brutal,
m ore p rim itive, m ore barbarous, or at the sam e tim e, as gen tler, m ore
hum ane, m ore resp ectful o f p erson s .51 T h is coexisten ce of o v ert physical and
19 2
Structures , habitus , p o w e r
M odes o f domination
.54T h e illusion
im plied by personal fid elity - that the ob ject is the sou rce of th e feelin g s
responsible fo r the particular representation of the ob ject - is not en tirely
an illu sio n ; th e " g r a c e w h ich gratitude recogn izes is in d eed , as H o b b es
observes, th e recogn ition of an " antecedent gra ce .
Gentle exploitation is m uch more costly - and not only in econom ic term s - for those
who practise it. " R espon sib ilities such as those of the tamen, the " spokesm an or
guarantor w ho represented his group ( thakharrubth or adhrum ) at the m eetings of
the m ens assem bly and on all solem n occasions, gave rise to little com petition or envy,
and it w as n ot uncom m on for the m ost influential and m ost important m em bers of
a group to refuse the job or soon ask to be replaced: the tasks of representation and
mediation w h ich fell to the tamen did indeed demand a great deal of tim e and effort.
Those on w hom the group bestow s the title "w ise m e n * or "great m e n , and w ho,
in the absence of any official mandate, find them selves invested with a sort of tacit
delegation of the groups authority, feel obliged (by a sense of duty towards them
selves resulting from considerable self-esteem ) constantly to recall the group to the
values it officially recognizes, both by their exem plary conduct and by their express
utterances; if they see two w om en of their group quarrelling they feel it incum bent
upon them to separate them and even to beat them (if they are w idow s or if the men
responsible for them are w ithout authority) or fine them ; in cases of serious conflict
between m em bers of their own clan, they feel required to recall both parties to w isdom ,
never an easy task and som etim es a dangerous one; in any situation liable to lead to
inter-clan conflict (in cases of crim e, for exam ple) they meet together in an assembly
with the m arabout so as to reconcile the antagonists; they feel it their duty to protect
the interests o f the clients and the poor, to give them presents when the traditional
collections are made (for the thimechret, for exam ple), to sen d them food at feast
times, to assist the w idow s, to arrange marriages for the orphans, etc.
*94
Structures , habitus, p o w e r
sou rce of all sym b olic valu e. T h e con stitu tio n of in stitu tionalized m ech a n ist^
m akes it p ossib le for a sin g le agen t (a party leader or u n ion d elegate, a member
of a board o f directors, a m em b er of an acad em y, e tc .) to be entrusted with
the totality of th e cap ital w h ich is the basis of th e group, and to exert over
this capital, collectiv ely ow n ed b y all the " shareholders , a d elegated authority
not strictly related to h is personal co n tr ib u tio n ; b u t in pre-capitalist societies
each agent shares d irectly in the collective capital, sym b olized by the name
of the fam ily or lin eage, to an ex ten t directly proportionate to his own
co n trib u tion , i.e . exactly to the exten t that h is w ord s, d eed s, and person are
a credit to th e g ro u p .55 T h e sy stem is su ch that the d om in ant agen ts have a
v ested interest in virtu e; th ey can accum u late political pow er o n ly b y paying
a personal price, and n ot sim p ly b y red istrib u tin g their g o o d s and money;
th ey m ust have the " v ir tu e s o f their pow er because th e o n ly basis of their
pow er is " v ir tu e .
G en erou s co n d u ct, o f w hich the p otlatch (a curio for anthropologists) is
sim p ly the extrem e ca se, m igh t se em to su spend th e universal law of interest
and "fair e x c h a n g e , w h ereb y n o th in g is ever given for n o th in g , and to set
up instead relation ship s w h ich are their ow n en d - con versation for conversa
tion s sake (and not in order to say so m eth in g ), g iv in g for g iv in g s sake, and
so o n . But in reality su ch d en ials of interest are n ever m ore than practical
disclaim ers: like F reu d s Vem einung, the d iscou rse w hich says w hat it says only
in a form that ten d s to sh ow that it is not sayin g it, they satisfy interest in
a (d isin terested ) m ann er d esign ed to sh ow that th ey are not sa tisfy in g interest.
(A parenthesis of the benefit of th e m oralists: an ab solute, i.e . ethical,
justification of th e en ch an tm en t felt b y the ob server of en ch an ted social
relations m ay be fo u n d in the fact that, as w ith d esire, so w ith material
in terest: society cannot ask or ex p ect o f its m em bers an yth ing m ore or better
than d enial, a " liftin g o f r e p r essio n w h ich , as Freud says, d oes not am ount
to " an accep tance of w h at is repressed
you giv e b u t the way you g ive i t that co u n ts, that w hat d istin g u ish es the
g ift from m ere "fair e x c h a n g e is th e labour d ev o ted to form : the presentation,
the m anner of g iv in g , m u st be su ch that the outw ard form s of th e act present
a practical d en ial of th e co n ten t of th e act, sy m b olically tran sm u ting an
in terested exchan ge or a sim p le pow er relation in to a relation ship set up in
d u e form for fo rm s sake, i.e . inspired b y pure resp ect for th e cu sto m s and
co n v en tio n s recogn ized by the grou p . (A p aren thesis for the b en efit o f the
aesth etes: archaic so c ietie s d ev o te m ore tim e and effort to the form s, because
in them the cen sorsh ip o f d irect exp ression of personal interest is stronger ;
th ey thu s offer con n o isseu rs o f b eau tifu l form s the en ch an tin g sp ectacle of
an art o f livin g raised to the level of an art for arts sake foun ded on the refusal
to ack n ow led ge self-ev id en t realities su ch as th e " b u sin ess is b u s in e s s or
*95
196
Structures , habitus , p o w e r
M odes o f domination
*97
exerted.
T o th ese form s o f legitim ate accu m u lation , through w h ich the d om in an t
N o tes
C H A P T E R 1. T H E O B J E C T I V E L I M I T S O F O B J E C T I V I S M
1 C. Bally, L e langage et la vie (G eneva: D roz, 1965), pp. 58, 72, 102.
2 See E. D urkheim , Education et sociologie (Paris: P U F , 1968; 1st e d ., 1922), pp.
68-9; English trans. Education and Sociology (N ew York: Free Press, 1956), p. 101.
3 Consider, for exam ple, in very different fields, the petty bourgeoisie with its avid
consum ption of manuals of etiquette, and all academ icism s, with their treatises
on style.
4 Objectivism posits that im m ediate com m unication is possible if and only if the
agents are objectively harmonized so as to associate the same m eaning with the
same sign (utterance, practice, or work), or, to put it another way, so as to refer
in their coding and decoding operations, i.e. in their practices and interpretations,
to one and the same system of constant relations, independent of individual
consciousnesses and wills and irreducible to their execution in practices or works
(e.g. Saussurian "longue as code or cipher). In so doing, objectivist analysis does
not, strictly speaking, contradict phenom enological analysis of primary experience
of the social world and of the im mediate com prehension of the utterances, acts,
or works of others. It merely defines the lim its of its validity by establishing the
particular conditions within which it is possible, conditions which phenomeno
logical analysis ignores.
5 See C. Levi-Strauss, " Introduction a 1'oeuvre de Marcel M au ss, in Sociologie
et anthropologie (Paris: P U F , 1950), p. xxxviii.
6 Ibid. p. xxxvi.
7 Sayings w hich exalt generosity, the suprem e virtue of the man of honour, coexist
with proverbs betraying the tem ptation of the spirit of calculation: "A gift is a
m isfortu ne, says one of them ; and another: "A present is a hen and the
recom pense is a camel." A nd, playing on the word lahna, which means both a
gift and peace, and the word lahdia, meaning a gift, they say: "Y ou w ho bring
us peace [a gift], leave us in p eace, or "L eave us in peace [lahna] with your
gift [lahdia], o r T he best gift is p eace. [T h ese exam ples, and those which follow,
draw on the au th ors fieldwork in Kabylia, Algeria. Translator.]
8 T he language of form , taken in the sense of " structure o f becoming which it has
in musical theory (e.g . the suite, or sonata form ) would no doubt be more
appropriate than the language of logical structure, to describe the logically but
also chronologically articulated sequences of a musical com position, a dance, or
any tem porally structured practice. It is significant that the only way which R
Jakobson and C. L^vi-Strauss (w*Les chats de Charles Baudelaire, L Homm*>
2, 1 (Jan.-A p ril 1962), pp. 5-21) find to explain the m ovem ent from structure
to form, and the experience of form , that is to say, to poetic and musical pleasure,
is to invoke frustrated expectation, which objectivist analysis can describe only
by bringing together in sim ultaneity, in the form of a set of them es linked by
relations of logical transformation (e.g. the m ovem ent from the metaphorical
form, the scientist, the lover, the cat, to m etonym ic form , the cat), the essentially
[1 9 8 ]
N otes fo r pp . 9 - / 7
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
199
200
19
20
21
22
23
24
JViotes fo r p p . 17-22
Etudes Islamiques, 1927, part 1, pp. 47-94) regards the qanun as a set of provision
in the form of rules, based on conventions and contractual agreem ents. In realitv
the assembly operates not as a court pronouncing judgem ent by reference to a
pre-existing code, but as a council which endeavours to reconcile the adversaries
points of view and persuade them to accept a com prom ise. T h is means that the
functioning of the system presupposes the orchestration of habitus, since the
m ediators decision can be applied only w ith the consent of the "convicted partv
(w ithout w hich the plaintiff has no alternative to resorting to force) and will not
be accepted unless it is consistent with the "sense of ju sticc and imposed in a
manner recognized by the "sense of h on o u r.
G . W. F . H egel, Reason in H istory: A General Introduction to the Philosophy of
H istory, trans. with an introduction b y R . S. Hartmann (Indianapolis: B o b b s M errill, 1953), p. 3.
A s is suggested by a reading of the Meno, the em ergence of institutionalized
education is accompanied by a crisis in diffuse education, which goes directly from
practice to practice w ithout passing through discourse. Excellence has ceased to
exist once people start asking whether it can be taught, i.e. as soon as the
objective confrontation of different styles of excellence makes it necessary to say
what goes w ithout saying, justify what is taken for granted, make an ought-to-be
and an ought-to-do out of what had up to then been regarded as the only way
to be and do; hence to apprehend what had formerly seem ed to be part of the
nature of things (phusei) as in fact based on the arbitrary institution of law ( nomo).
T h e upholders of old-style education have no difficulty in devaluing a knowledge
w hich, like that of the mathontes, bears the marks of apprenticeship; but the new
masters can safely challenge the kaloi kagathoi, who are unable to bring to the
level of discourse what they learned apo tou automatou, no one knows how, and
possess only "insofar as they are what they are w ho, because they are what they
know, do not have what they know, nor what they are.
M . M erleau-Pontv, The Structure o f Behaviour, trans. Alden L . Fisher (London:
M ethuen, 196$), p. 124.
For exam ple, the meanings agents give to rites, m yths, or decorative motifs are
m uch less stable in space, and doubtless over tim e, than the structures of the
corresponding practices (see F . Boas, Anthropology and M odem L ife (N ew York:
N orton, 1962; 1st ed ., 1928), pp. 164-6).
S ee A . Schutz, Collected Papers. I: The Problem o f Social R eality, edited and
introduced by Maurice Nathanson (T h e Hague: M artinus Nijhoff, 1962), p. 59Schutz seeks to show that the contradiction which he him self observes between
what he calls the postulate of subjective interpretation and the method o f the
m ost advanced sciences, such as econom ics, is only an apparent c o n tr a d ic t io n
(see pp. 34-5).
H . Garfinkel, Studies in Ethnomethodology, Englewood Cliffs, X . J .: P r e n t i c e - Hall,
, 967 *
25 T h u s it is the objectivist construction of the structure of the statistical c h a n c e s
objectively attached to an econom ic or social condition (that of a simple*
reproduction econom y, or a sub-proletariat, for exam ple) which makes it p o ss ib le
to give a com plete explanation of the form of temporal experience w hich pheno*
m enological analysis brings to light.
26 T h e effect of sym bolic im position w hich official representation intrinsically p r 0 "
duces is overlaid by a more profound effect when sem i-learned grammar, a
normative description, is made the object of teaching (differentially) d i s p e n s e d
by a specific institution and becom es thereby the principle of a cultivated habitus.
N otes fo r pp . 2 2 - 2 5
201
202
N otes fo r p p . 25 -2 7
o f Culture , in R. Linton (e d .), The Science o f Mart in the World Crisis (N ew Y o rk Columbia U niversity Press, 1945). pp. 78-105) gives a more sum mary, th o u g h
livelier, picture of this debate than A. L. K roeber and C. Kluckhohn in th e ir
Culture: A Critical R eview o f Concepts and Definitions (Papers of the P e a b o d v
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
N otes fo r p p . 2 7 -2 9
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
203
nature - w ithin which the schem es of thought are formed and transformed, and
in particular the logical categories, principles of division which through the
intermediary of the principles of the division o f labour, correspond to the structure
of the social world and not the natural world.
E. D urkheim , Les regies de la methode sociologique, 18th ed. (Paris: P U F , 1973;
ist ed ., A lcan, 1895), P- 9'. English translation, The Rules of Sociological Method
(N ew York: Free Press, 1964), p. 7.
T he hypnotic power of the notion of the unconscious has the effect of blotting
out the question of the relationship between the practice-generating schem es and
the representations - them selves more or less sanctioned by the collectivity they give of their practice to them selves or others. It thereby discourages
analysis of the theoretical or practical alterations that the various forms of
discourse about practice impose on practice.
*' A person w h o knows a language has represented in his brain some very abstract
system of underlying structures along with an abstract system of rules that
determ ine, by free iteration, an infinite range of sound-m eaning correspon
d en ce (see N . Chomsky, 'General Properties of L anguage, in I. L. Darley
(ed .) Brain iMechanism Underlying Speech and Language (N ew York and London:
Grune and Straton, 1967), pp. 7388).
C. Levi-Strauss, The Elementary Structures of K inship, rev. ed. (L ondon: Social
Science Paperbacks, 1969), p. 33 (m y italics).
Ibid.
Levi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology (L ondon: Allen Lane, 1968), p. 34.
Elementary Structures, p. 32.
Ibid.
It is an unwarranted transfer of the same type w hich, according to M erleau-Ponty,
engenders the intellectualist and empiricist errors in psychology (see The Struc
ture of Behaviour, esp. pp. 114 and 124).
L . W ittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (O xford: Blackwell, 1963), pp. 38-9.
If it is the case that making practice explicit subjects it to an essential alteration,
by speaking o f what goes without saying or by naming regularities by definition
unremarked, it follows that any scientific objectification ought to be preceded by
a sign indicating*'everything takes place as i f . . . , w hich, functioning in the same
way as quantifiers in logic, w ould constantly remind us of the epistem ological
status of the constructed concepts of objective science. Everything conspires to
encourage the reifying of concepts and of theoretical constructs, starting with the
logic of ordinary language, w hich inclines us to infer the substance from the
substantive or to confer on concepts the power to act in history as the words
designating them act in the sentences of historical discourse, i.e. as historical
subjects. It is clear what theoretical (and political) effects arise from the personifi
cation of collectives (in sentences like "the bourgeoisie thinks t h a t .. . or 'th e
working class refuses to accept. . . ), which leads, as surely as D urkheim s pro
fessions of faith, to postulating the existence of a group or class ''collective
consciousness : by crediting groups or institutions with dispositions which can
be constituted only in individual consciousnesses, even when they are the product
of collective conditions such as the awakening of awareness [prise de conscience)
of class interests, one gets out of having to analyse these conditions, in particular
those determi ning the degree of objective and subjective hom ogeneity of the group
in question and the degree of consciousness of its members.
P. Ziff, Semantic Analysis (N ew York: Cornell U niversity Press, i960), p. 38.
204
N otes f o r p p . 2 Q -31
N otes jo r pp . 31-33
205
;8 On the deductive relationship between kinship term inology and kinship attitudes,
see A . R. RadclifTe-Brown, Structure and Function in Prim itive Society (L ondon:
Cohen and W est, 1952), p. 62, and African Systems o f K inship and Marriage
(L ondon: Oxford U niversity Press, i960), introduction, p. 25; Levi-Slrauss,
Structural Anthropology, p . 38. On the term ju ral and the use which RadcliffeBrown makes of it, see D um ont, Introduction a deux theories, p. 41: "jural
relationships are those "which are subject to precise, binding prescriptions,
w hether concerning people or th in gs.
59 "Principles of Social Organization in Southern K urdistan, Universitetets Ethnografiske Museum Bulletin, no. 7, Oslo, 1953.
60 R. F . M urphy and L . Kasdan, "T he Structure of Parallel Cousin M arriage,
American Anthropologist, 61 (February 1959), pp. 17-29.
61 T he majority of earlier investigators accepted the native explanation that endoga
m ous marriage had the function of keeping the property in the fam ily, advancing
as evidence - and w ith som e reason - the closeness of the relationship between
marriage and inheritance practices. Against this explanation Murphy and Kasdan
very rightly object that the Koranic law which gives to a woman half of a so n s
share is rarely observed, and that the fam ily can in any case count on the
inheritance contributed by in-marrying w om en (H . G ranqvist, " Marriage Con
ditions in a Palestinian V illage, Commentationes Humanarum, Societas Scientiarium Fennica 3 (1931); H . Rosenfield, "An Analysis of Marriage Statistics for
a M oslem and Christian Arab V illage, International Archives o f Ethnography, 48
( i 957)> PP- 32-62)62 Both these theories accept an undifferentiated definition of function, which
reduces it to the function for the group as a whole. For exam ple, Murphy and
Kasdan write, " Most explanations of patrilateral parallel cousin marriage are of
a causal-motivational kind, in which the institution is explained through reference
to the consciously felt goals of the individual role players. We have not attempted
to explain the origin of the custom in this paper but have taken it as a given factor
and then proceeded to analyze its function, i.e. its operation within Bedouin
social structure. It was found that parallel cousin marriage contributes to the
extrem e fission of agnatic lines in Arab society, and, through in-marriage, encysts
the patrilineal segm en ts ("Structure of Parallel C ousin M arriage, p. 27).
63 J. Cuisenier, "Endogam ie et exogamie dans le mariage arabe, L Homme, 2, 2
(M av-A ugust 1962), pp. 80-105.
64 " It has long been knowrn that societies which advocate marriage betw een certain
types of kin adhere to the norm only in a small number of cases, as demonstrated
by Kunstadter and his team through the use of computer sim ulations. Fertility
and reproduction rates, the demographic balance of the sexes and the age
pyramid never show the perfect harmony necessary for every individual, when
the tim e com es for him to marry, to be assured of finding a suitable spouse in
the prescribed degree, even if the kinship nomenclature is broad enough to
confuse degrees of the same type but unequally distant, often so much so that
the notion of a com m on descent becom es m erely theoretical (Levi-Strauss,
Elementary Structures o f Kinship, p. xxx).
65 T he calculation of "rates of endogam y by genealogical level, an unreal intersec
tion of abstract "categories, leads one to treat as identical, by a second-order
abstraction, individuals w ho, although on the same level of the genealogical tree,
may be of widely differing ages and w hose marriages for this very reason may
have been arranged in different circum stances corresponding to different states
of the matrimonial market. Or, conversely, it may lead one to treat genealogically
206
66
67
68
69
70
N o tes f o r p p . 3 3 - 3 6
separate but chronologically sim ultaneous marriages as different - it being pos.
sible, for exam ple, for a man to marry at the same time as one of his uncles.
"Som e Structural Aspects of the Feud among the Cam el-herding Bedouin of
C yrenaica, A frica, 37, 3 (July 1967), pp. 261-82. Murphy was saying the same
thing but without drawing conclusions when he remarked that genealogies and
the manipulation of genealogies have as their main function the encouragement
of the vertical integration of social units which parallel-cousin marriage tends to
divide and close in upon them selves.
T h e most rigorously checked genealogies do indeed contain system atic lacunae:
since the strength of the group's m em ory of an individual depends on the value
they attach to him or her at the m om ent of data-collecting, genealogies are better
at recording men (and m en s marriages), especially w hen they have produced
many male descendants, than at recording w om en (except, of course, when the
latter married within the lin ea g e); they record close marriages better than distant
marriages, single marriages rather than much-married individuals com plete series
of marriages (polygam y ; m ultiple marriages after divorce or the partners death).
And there is every reason to believe that entire lineages may be left unmentioned
by informant* w hen the last representative has died without leaving any descen
dants or (which am ounts to the same thing) without male descendants.
It is as instruments of knowledge and cbnstruction of the social world that
kinship structures fulfil a political function (in the same way as religion and all
other ideologies). What are term s of address and reference, if not categories of
kinship, in the etym ological sense of collective, public im putations? (Kategoreisthai: to accuse publicly, to im pute a thing to som eone in front of everyone). The
constituting power of these designations, pregnant with a universe of prescriptions
and taboos, is brought hom e when one considers all that is contained in a phrase
like " S h es your sister - a n im perative declaration which is the sole practical
statem ent of the incest taboo. But, though every social relationship is organized
in terms of a representation of the social universe, structured in accordance with
kinship categories, it would be naive to suppose that social practices, even in
relationships with kinsm en, are im plied in their genealogical definition.
T h e error is that of all academ icism s, which subject the production to the rules
they have retrospectively derived from the product.
A new-born child is not normally given the name of a living relative; this is
avoided, because it would mean "bringing him back to life before he was dead,
thereby throwing dow n an insulting challenge, and, worse, casting a curse on h im ;
this is true even when the breakup of the undivided patrimony is consecrated
by a formal sharing out or when the family splits up on m oving to the city or
emigrating to France. A father cannot give his son his own first name, and when
a son does bear his fathers name it is because the father died 'leaving him in
his m others w o m b . But, here as elsewhere, there is no lack of subterfuges and
loopholes. Som etim es the name the child was first given is changed so as to give
him a name made available by the death of his father or grandfather (the original
name is then reserved for private use, by his mother and the women of the fam ily).
Som etim es the same first name is given in slightly different form s to several
children, with an elem ent added or suppressed (e.g . M ohand Ourabah instead
of Rabah, and vice versa ; Akli instead of Mohand Akli, and vice versa) or with
a slight alteration (Beza instead of Mohand A m eziane, Hamimi or Dahmane
instead of Ahmed, Ouali or Alilou instead of Ali, or again, Seghir or Mohand
Seghir - arabicized forms - instead of Meziane or Mohand A m eziane). Similarly,
although giving a child the same name as his elder brother is avoided, certain
N o tes f o r p p . 3 8 -4 3
71
72
73
74
75
207
associations of names w hich are very close to one another or derived from the
sam e name are much appreciated (Ahc&ne and E lhocine, A hm ed and M ohamed,
Seghir or Meziane and M oqrane, e tc .), especially if one of them is the name of
an ancestor. Sincc the more integrated the fam ily is, the greater the range of
unusable first-names, the choice of first names actually made gives an indication
of the "strength of feelin g in the lineage. T h e sam e nam e, or whole series
com posed of the same names, may coexist in a genealogy, running down parallel
lin e s: the more remote the com m on origin (or the weaker the unity between the
sub-groups), the more it seem s legitim ate to use the sam e names, thus
perpetuating the m em ory of the same ancestors in increasingly autonom ous
lineages.
T o make com pletely explicit the im plicit demand which lies behind genealogical
inquiry, as it lies behind all inquiries, one would first have to study the social
history of the genealogical tool, paying particular attention to the functions w hich,
in the traditions of w hich anthropologists are the product, have produced and
reproduced the need for this instrument, viz. the problem s of inheritance and
succession. T h is social genealogy of genealogy would have to extend into a social
history of the relationship between the " scien tific uses and the social uses of
the instrum ent. But the m ost im portant thing would be to carry ou t an
epistem ological study of the mode of investigation which is the precondition for
production of the genealogical diagram. T h is would aim to determ ine the full
significance of the ontological transmutation which learned inquiry brings about
sim ply by virtue of the fact that it dem ands a quasi-theoretical relation to kinship,
im plying a break with the practical relation directly oriented towards functions.
U nder the network of genealogical relationships is dissim ulated the network of
practical relationships, which are the product of the history of the econom ic and
sym bolic exchanges. It can be shown in a particular case (P . Bourdieu, Esquisse
d une theorie de la pratique, precede de trois etudes d ethnologie kabyle (Paris and
Geneva: Librairie D roz, 1972), pp. 85-8) that the agents organize their practice
in relation to the useful divisions, finding in the genealogical representation an
instrum ent of legitim ation.
D um on t, Introduction a deux theories d anthropologie sociale, pp. 122-3.
T he ritualization of violence in fighting is doubtless one of the most typical
manifestations of the dialectic of strategy and ritual: although the battles were
alm ost always motivated by harm done to econom ic or sym bolic interests - the
theft of an animal or an insult to mem bers of the group, e.g . the shepherds their lim its were set by the ritualized m odel of the war of honour, which
applied even more strictly in the seasonal gam es, also endow ed with a ritual
function, such as the ball games played in autumn and spring (see Bourdieu,
Esquisse, pp. 21-3). It is possible to understand in term s of this logic, i.e. as the
sym bolic manipulation of violence aimed at resolving the tensions arising from
contact between alien and som etim es traditionally hostile groups, all the particu
larly strict rites to w hich marriage between distant groups gives rise. Rules and
ritual becom e increasingly necessary as it ceases to be possible to count on the
autom atic orchestration of practices that is ensured by hom ogeneity of habitus
and interests (w hich explains, in a general w ay, why the ritualization of inter
actions rises with the distance between the individuals or groups and hence
with the size of the groups).
T h u s, the seem ingly most ritualized acts in the marriage negotiation and in the
ceremonials accom panying the wedding - which by their degree of solem nity have
the secondary function of declaring the social significance of the marriage (the
208
76
77
78
79
80
N otes fo r p p . 4 4 -4 7
solem nity of the cerem ony tending to rise with the families' position in the social
hierarchy and with the genealogical distance betw een them ) - constitute so many
opportunities to deploy strategies aimed at manipulating the objective meaning
of a relationship which is never entirely unequivocal, whether by choosing the
inevitable and - making a virtue of necessity - scrupulously conform ing to the
proprieties, or by disguising the objective significance of the marriage under the
ritual intended to celebrate it.
T h is explains in part the early age of marriage; the unmarried girl is the very
incarnation of the groups vulnerability; the straightest of them is twisted as a
sick le, says the proverb. So the fathers ch ief concern is to get rid of this danger
as quickly as possible by putting her under the protection of another man.
J. Chelhod, who reports th a t in the low language of A leppo, prostitutes are called
'daughters of the maternal a u n t, also quotes a Syrian proverb which expresses
the same disapproval of marriage with the m others sisters daughter: Because
of his impure character, he married his maternal aunts daughter ( * Le mariage
avec la cousine parallele dans le system e arabe , L Homme, 4, 3-4 (July-D ecem ber
1964), pp. 113-73). Similarly, in Kabylia, to express the total lack of any genea
logical relationship, men will say, What are you to me? N ot even the son of the
daughter of my m others sister [mis Mis kh alti].
An indirect confirmation of the meaning given to marriage betw een parallel
cousins may be seen in the fact that the person responsible for the solemn
opening of the ploughing, the action hom ologous with inaugural marriage, had
no political role to play and that his duties w ere purely honorary, or, one might
say, symbolic, i.e. at once undem anding and respected. T h is 6ara/ui-endowed
person is referred to by the names am ezw ar (the first), aneflus (the man of trust)
or aqdhim (the elder), amghar (the old m an), amas'ud (the man of luck), or, more
precisely, am ezw ar, aneflus, amghar nat-yuga (the first, the man of trust, the old
man of the team of oxen or of the plough). T he most significant term, because
it explicitly states the ploughing-m arriage homology manifested by countless
other indications, is unquestionably boula'ras (the man of the w edding). T h e same
connotation is found in another designation - mefthah n ss'ad (the key of good
luck, he who opens) (see E. Laoust, Mots et choses berberes: notes de linguistique
et d ethnographie, Paris: Challamel, 1920).
You must marry your paternal uncle's daughter, even if she has fallen into
neglect. And various other proverbs point in the same direction: "Turn with
the road if it turns. Marry the daughter of your 'amm if she has been abandoned
[is lying fallow ] ; " T h e daughter of your ramm even if she has been abandoned;
the road of peace even if it tw ists. A s the metaphor show s (the twisted road as
opposed to the straight way), parallel-cousin marriage (like marriage to a brothers
widow) is seen more than often not as a forced sacrifice which it is desirable to
turn into a voluntary subm ission to the call of honour. If you do not marry the
daughter of your amm, w ho will take her? You are the one who must take her,
whether you want to or n o t. Even if she be ugly and worthless, her paternal
uncle is expected to take her for his son; if h e seeks a wife for his son elsewhere,
people will laugh at him , and say: *He has gon e and found a stranger for his son,
and left his brothers daughter.
But here, too, every sort of com prom ise and, of course, strategy, is to be found:
although in the case of land, the best-placed relative may be aware that more
distant kin would willingly steal a march on him and win the sym bolic and
material advantage accruing from such a meritorious purchase, or, in the case
of the vengeance of honour, that a rival avenger is ready to step in and take over
N otes fo r p p . 4 9 -5 3
81
82
83
84
85
209
the revenge and the ensuing honour, nothing similar occurs in the case of
marriage, and there may be many ways of backing out: som etim es the son takes
flight, with his parents connivance, thereby providing them with the only
acceptable excuse that a brother can be given. Short of this extrem e solution,
it is not uncom m on for the obligation to marrv left-over daughters to devolve
upon the "poor relations*, w ho are bound by all sorts of " obligations* to the
richer m em bers of the group. And there is no better proof of the ideological
function of marriage to the parallel cousin (or to any female cousin in the paternal
lineage, however distant) than the use that may be made, in such cases, of the
exalted representation of this ideal marriage.
Physical and mental infirmity presents an extrem ely difficult problem for a group
which rigorously denies social status to a woman without a husband or even to
a man w ithout a wife (even a widower is obliged to rush into a new marriage).
All the more so when these infirmities are seen and interpreted through the
mythico-ritual categories: one can imagine the sacrifice it represents - in a u n i
verse in w hich a w ife can be repudiated because she has a reputation for bringing
bad luck - to marry a woman who is left-handed, half-blind, lame, or
hunchbacked (this deform ity representing an inversion of pregnancy) or who is
sim ply sick and weak, all om ens of barrenness and wickedness.
"You give w heat, but take barley. "You give wheat to bad teeth. "Make your
offspring out o f clay ; if you d on t get a cooking pot you will get a couscous d ish .
A m ong the eulogies of parallel-cousin marriage I have collected, the follow ing
are typical: "Sh e will not ask you for m uch for herself, and there will be no need
to spend a great deal on the w ed d in g. " H e may do what he will with his
brothers daughter and no evil will com e from her. Thereafter he will live in
greater unity with his brother, doing as their father recomm ended for the sake
of brotherhood [thaymats]: 'D o not listen to your w om en! " T h e woman who
is a stranger w ill despise you, she will be an insult to your ancestors, believing
that hers are more noble than yours. Whereas w ith the daughter of your 'amm,
your grandfather and hers are one; she will never say 'a curse on your fathers
father. T h e daughter of your 'amm will not abandon you. If you have no tea
she will not dem and any from you, and even if she should die of hunger in your
house, she w ill bear it all and never complain about y o u .
A . Hanoteau, Poesies populaires de la K abylie du D jurdjura (Paris: Imprimerie
Imperiale, 1867), p. 475.
Jurists fascination with what survives of matrilineal kinship has led them to take
an interest in the case of the aw rith, which they see, to use their own term inology,
as a "contract for the adoption of an adult m a le (for Algeria, see G . H .
Bousquet, " N o te sur le mariage mechrouth dans la region de G ouraya, Revue
Algerienne, January-Februarv 1934, pp. 9 -1 1, and L. Lefevre, Recherches sur la
condition de la femme kabyle, Algiers: Carbonel, 1939; for M orocco, G . M arcy,
"Le mariage en droit coutum ier zem m ou r, Revue Algerienne, Tunisienne et
Marocaine de Legislation et Jurisprudence, July 1930, and "L es vestiges de la
parente maternelle en droit coutum ier berbere, Revue Africaine, no. 85 (1941),
pp. 187-211: Capitaine Bendaoud, " L adoption des adultes par contrat mixte de
mariage et de travail chez les Beni M g u ild , Revue Marocaine de Legislation,
Doctrine, Jurisprudence Cherifiennes, no. 2 (1935), pp. 34-40; Capitaine T u rb et,
" L adoption des adultes chez les Ighezrane, ibid. p. 40, and no. 3 (1935), p. 41).
For exam ple, in a large family in the village of Aghbala in Lesser Kabylia, of
218 male marriages (each mans first) 34% were with fam ilies outside the lim its
of the tribe; only 8 % , those with the spatially and socially m ost distant groups,
2 10
* 86
87
88
89
N otes f o r p p . 5 5 -5 4
present all the features of prestige marriages: they are all the work of one family
which wants to distinguish itself from the other lineages by original matrimonial
practices. T he other distant marriages (26% ) merely renew established relation
ships (relationships "through the w o m en or "through the maternal uncles ,
constantly maintained on the occasion of marriages, departures and returns,
funerals and som etim es even large work projects). T w o thirds of the marriages
(66% ) were made within the tribe (m ade up of nine villages): apart from
marriages with the opposing clan, which are very rare (4% ) and always have a
political significance (especially for the older generations) on account of the
traditional antagonism betw een the two groups, all the other unions fall within
the class of ordinary marriages. Only 6 % of the marriages were made w ithin the
lineage (as against 17% in the other lineages and 39% in the field of practical
relationships): 4% with the parallel cousin and 2% with another cousin (and it
must be added that in tw o-thirds of these cases the fam ilies w hich make this
marriage have abandoned undivided ow nership).
T h e follow ing testim ony is particularly significant: "As soon as her first son was
born, Fatima set about finding his future wife. She never missed an opportunity
- she kept her eyes open on all occasions, in her neighbours houses, among her
own fam ily, in the village, when visiting friends, at w eddings, on pilgrimages,
at the fountain, far from hom e, and even when she had to go and present her
condolences. In this way she married off all her children w ithout difficulty and
almost without noticing it (Yam ina Ait Amar Ou Said, Le manage en Kabyhe
(Fichier de D ocum entation Berbere), i960, p. 10).
As I have shown elsewhere (cf. Esquisse, pp. 110-12), the frequency and solemnity
of ritual acts increase as one m oves from marriages contracted within the un
divided family or practical kinship, through marriages within close and then
distant practical relationships, and finally to extra-ordinary marriages. Everything
takes place as if extra-ordinary marriages gave us the opportunity to grasp in its
achieved form a ceremonial which is reduced to its sim plest expression when the
marriage is situated in the ordinary universe.
If we leave aside the mythical idealization (blood, purity, the inside) and ethical
exaltation (honour, virtue, etc.) surrounding purely agnatic marriage, we find that
these ordinary' marriages are described no differently from parallel-cousin
marriage. For exam ple, marriage with the fathers sisters daughter is regarded,
like marriage with the parallel cousin, as capable of securing agreement among
the w om en and the w ifes respect for her husbands relatives (her khal and her
khalt) at the lowest cost, since the tension resulting from the rivalry implicitly
triggered off by any marriage betw een different groups over the status and living
conditions offered to the young wife has no reason to occur at this degree of
familiarity.
T hese extra-ordinary marriages are not subject to the constraints and proprieties
which apply to ordinary marriages (partly because they have no " seq u el) : apart
from the cases in which the defeated group (clan or tribe) w ould give the
victorious group a w om an, or, to show that there was neither winner nor loser,
the tw o groups exchanged w om en, it also som etim es happened that the victorious
group would give the other group a woman without taking anything in return,
but then the marriage took place not between the most powerful fam ilies, but
between families asymmetrically situated: a small family in the victorious group
gave a woman to a great family in the other group. T h e victorious group intended
to show , by the very inequality of the union, that the least of its ow n members
was superior to the greatest of its opponents.
Notes f o r p p . 5 4 -6 2
2 11
212
N otes fo r p p . 6 2 -6 5
97 Here is just one typical testim ony relating to the breaking up of undivided
ownership: "You cant find two brothers w ho live together (za d d i) now , still less
we w ho are not sprung from the same w om b. I swear that I can't even remember
what relation I am to dadda Braham. Sooner or later its bound to happen, and
everyone in his heart wants it to , everyone thinks he does too much for the others
*If I only had my w ife and children, I w ouldnt have to work so hard or *I would
have reached the "divine throne" [the seventh h eaven ]. O nce people start
thinking like that, there's nothing for it, its all over. Its like a canker. T h e women
already thought that way, and when the men join in and start saying the same
things, its finished. T h a ts what all the w om en want; they are the enem ies of
za d d i, because the devil is in them : they do all they can to contam inate the men.
With their determ ination, they never fail.
98 T he weakening of the cohesive forces (correlative with the slum p in symbolic
values) and the strengthening of the disruptive forces (linked to the appearance
of sources of monetary incom e and to the ensuing crisis of the peasant economv)
lead to refusal of the elders authority and of the austere, frugal aspects of peasant
existence; the younger generation demand the right to dispose of the profit of
their labour, in order to spend it on consum er goods rather than on the svmbolic
goods which would increase the fam ilys prestige and influence. "In the past, no
one dared to ask for the heritage to be broken up. T here was the authority of
the elders. If anyone had tried, h ed have been beaten, cast out, and cursed: He
is a cause of bankruptcy \lakhla ukham, the fallow of the h o u se]. *He wants it
all shared out [itsabib ibbatu] : the elders refuse to 'give him the share-out . Now
everybody insists on their rights. Once it was 'eat your piece of wheatcake and
keep q uiet: once, being head of the fam ily, goin g to market, sitting in thajma'th,
meant som ething. N ow , everyone knows that w idow s houses are more prosperous
than those of men [of honour]. 'T h o se w ho were children only yesterday want
to run things n o w !
99 W ithout speculating as to the causal link between these facts, it may be noted
that " illnesses of acute jealousy (atan an-tsismin thissamamin, the sickness of bitter
jealousy) receive great attention from relatives, especially mothers, w ho wield a
whole arsenal of curative and prophylactic rites (to suggest an insurmountable
hatred, reference is made to the feeling of the little boy w ho, suddenly deprived
of his m others affection by the arrival of a new baby, grew thin and pale like
som eone moribund, am'ut, or " con stip ated , bubran).
100 It is significant that customary law, which only exceptionally intervenes in
dom estic life, explicitly favours undivided ownership ( thidukli bukham or z a d d i):
"People living in a family association pay no fine if they fight. If they separate,
they pay like other p eo p le (Hanoteau and Letourneux, L a K abylie, vol. in , p423)101 A female informant gives a typical account of how this sort of marriage is
arranged: "Before he had leant to walk, his father found him a bride. One
evening, after supper, Arab went to call on his elder brother (dadda). They
chatted. His brothers w ife had her daughter on her lap; the little girl s t r e t c h e d
out her arms towards her uncle, w ho picked her up, saying 'M ay G od make her
Idirs wife! T h ats so, isn t it, da d d a ? You w on t say no? *Arabs brother replied:
What does a blind man want? Light! If you relieve me of the care she gives
m e, may God take your cares from you. I give her to you, with her grain and
her chaff, for n o th in g ! (Y am ina Ait Amar Ou Said, L e m anage en K a b ylie,
p. 10).
102 A s J. Chelhod rightly points out, all observations confirm that the tendency to
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
marry endogam ously, which is more marked in nomadic tribes in a constant state
of war than in settled tribes, tends to reappear or to be accentuated when there
are threats of war or conflict ("L e mariage avec la cousine parallele dans le
system e arabe, pp. 113-73). T hose w ho perpetuate undivided ownership - or
the appearances of it - often invoke the danger of separating so long as rival
fam ilies remain united.
It follow s from this axiom that the dom inant are functionalists, because function
so defined - that is, in the sense of the structural-functionalist school - is simply
the interest of the dom inant, or more precisely, the interest the dominant have
in the perpetuation of a system consistent w ith their interests. T hose w ho explain
matrimonial strategies by their effects - for exam ple, the "fission and fu sion of
Murphy and Kasden are effects which one gains nothing by term ing functions
- are no less remote from the reality of practices than those who invoke the efficacy
of the rule. T o say that parallel-cousin marriage has the function of fission and/or
fusion w ithout inquiring for whom, for w hat, to what (m easurable) extent, and
under what conditions, is to resort, sham efacedly of course, to explanation by
final causes instead of inquiring how the econom ic and social conditions charac
teristic of a social formation im pose the pursuit of the satisfaction of a determinate
type of interests which itself leads to the production of a determ inate type of
collective effect.
By m eans of secret negotiations, lhamgharth som etim es manages to interfere in
a marriage being arranged entirely by the m en, and to make thislith promise to
leave her com plete authority in the house, warning her that otherwise she will
prevent the marriage. T he sons have som e justification in suspecting their
m others of giving them for wives girls they - the mothers - will be able to
dom inate w ithout difficulty.
T h e marriages of the poor (especially those poor in sym bolic capital) are to those
of the rich, mutatis mutandis, what female marriages are to male marriages. T he
poor cannot afford to be too dem anding in matters of honour. " T h e only thing
the poor man can do is show he is jealous. T h is means that, like w om en, the
poor are less concerned with the sym bolic and political functions of a marriage
than w ith its practical functions, attaching, for exam ple, much more importance
to the personal qualities of the spouses.
T h e girls value on the marriage market is in a sense a direct projection of the
value socially attributed to the tw o lineages of which she is the product. T h is can
be seen clearly when the father has had children by several marriages: whereas
the boys value is unrelated to their m others value, the girls value depends on
the social status of their m others lineages and the strength of their m others
positions in the fam ily.
T h e relevant genealogy is to be found in Bourdieu, Esquisse, p. 149.
"Spontaneous p sych ology perfectly describes the "girls b o y (aqchich bu thaqchichin), coddled and cosseted by the w om en of the fam ily w ho are always
inclined to keep him with them longer than the other boys; he eventually
identifies with the social role created for him , and becom es a sickly, puny child,
"eaten up by his many long-haired sisters. T h e same reasons which lead the
fam ily to lavish care on a product too rare and precious to be allowed to run the
slightest risk - to spare him agricultural work and to prolong his education, thus
settin g him apart from his friends by his more refined speech, cleaner clothes,
and more elaborate food - also lead them to arrange an early marriage for him .
A girls value rises with the number of her brothers, the guardians of her honour
(in particular of her virginity) and potential allies of her future husband. T ales
214
N otes f o r p p . 7 0 -7 3
express the jealousy inspired by the girl with seven brothers, protected sevenfold
like "a fig among the lea v es : "A girl who was lucky enough to have seven
brothers could be proud, and there was no lack o f suitors. She was sure of being
sought after and appreciated. W hen she was married, her husband, her husbands
parents, the whole fam ily, and even the neighbours and their w ives respected herhad she not seven men on her side, was she not the sister of seven brothers, seven
protectors? If there was the slightest argument, they came and set things right
and if their sister com m itted a fault, or ever came to be repudiated, they would
have taken her back home with them, respected by everyone. N o dishonour could touch
them. N o one would dare to enter the lions d e n
n o Particularly skilful strategies can make the m ost of the lim ited capital available,
through bluff (difficult when one is operating in the area of familiar relationships)
or, more sim ply, through shrewd exploitation of the am biguities of the symbolic
patrimony or discrepancies betw een different com ponents of the patrimony.
Although it may be regarded as part of sym bolic capital, which is itself relatively
autonom ous of strictly econom ic capital, the skill w hich enables one to make the
best use of the patrimony through shrewd investm ents, such as successful
marriages, is relatively independent of it. T h u s the poor, w ho have nothing to
sell but their virtue, can take advantage of their daughters marriage to gain
prestigious allies or at least powerful protectors, by purveying honour to highly
placed buyers.
i n Inasmuch as they belong to the class of reproduction strategies, matrimonial
strategies differ in no way in their logic from those strategies designed to preserve
or increase sym bolic capital w hich conform to the dialectic of honour, whether
they involve the buying back of land or the paying back of insults, rape, or murder;
in each case, the same dialectical relationship can be observed between
vulnerability (through land, w om en, the house, in short, hurma) and the protec
tion (through men, rifles, the point of honour; in short, nif) which preserves or
increases sym bolic capital (prestige, honour; in short, hurma).
C H A P T E R 2. S T R U C T U R E S A N D T H E H A B IT U S
1 T h e word disposition seem s particularly suited to express what is covered by the
concept of habitus (defined as a system of dispositions). It expresses first the
result of an organizing action, w ith a m eaning close to that of words such as
structure; it also designates a w a y of being, a habitual state (especially of the
body) and, in particular, a predisposition, tendency, propensity, or inclination.
[T he sem antic cluster of " d isp osition is rather wider in French than in English,
but as this note - translated literally - show s, the equivalence is adequate.
Translator.]
2 T h e m ost profitable strategies are usually those produced, on the hither side
of all calculation and in the illusion of the m ost "authentic sincerity, by a
habitus objectively fitted to the objective structures. T hese strategies w i t h o u t
strategic calculation procure an im portant secondary advantage for those w ho can
scarcely be called their authors - the social approval accruing from a p p a r e n t
disinterestedness.
3 "H ere w e confront the distressing fact that the sam ple episode chain under
analysis is a fragment of a larger segm ent of behavior which in the com plete r e c o r d
contains som e 480 separate episodes. M oreover, it took only tw enty m inutes for
these 480 behavior stream events to occur. If my w ifes rate of behavior is
roughly representative of that of other actors, we must be prepared to deal with
N otes f o r p p . 7 3 - 7 7
6
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2 l6
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N otes f o r p p . 8 8-92
2 17
32 If iiliterate societies seem to have a particular bent for the structural games which
fascinate the anthropologist, their purpose is often quite simply m nem onic: the
remarkable homology to be observed in Kabvlia between the structure of the
distribution of the fam ilies in the village and the structure of the distribution of
graves in the cemetery (Ait Hichem , T izi Hibel) clearly makes it easier to locate
the traditionally anonymous graves (with expressly transmitted landmarks added
to the structural principles).
33 B. Berelson and G . A. Steiner, Human Behavior (N ew York: Harcourt, Brace
and World, 1964), p. 193.
34 The Singer o f the Tales (Cambridge, M a ss.: Harvard U niversity Press, i960), p. 30.
35 Ibid. p. 32.
36 Ibid. p. 24.
37 T hus, in the game of qochra, which the children play in early spring, the cork
ball (the qochra) which is fought for, passed and defended, is the practical
equivalent of woman. In the course of the game the players must both defend
them selves against it and, possessing it, defend it against those trying to take it
away. At the start of the match, the leader of the game repeatedly asks, "W hose
daughter is sh e ? but no one will volunteer to be her father and protect her: a
daughter is always a liability for men. And so lots have to be drawn for her, and
the unlucky player w ho gets her must accept his fate. He now has to protect the
ball against the attacks of all the others, while at the same time trying to pass
it on to another player; but he can only do so in an honourable, approved way.
A player whom the father manages to touch with his stick, telling him S h es
your daughter, has to acknowledge defeat, like a man temporarily obliged to
a socially inferior family from whom he has taken a w ife. For the suitors the
tem ptation is to take the prestigious course of abduction, whereas the father wants
a marriage that will free him from guardianship and allow him to re-enter the
gam e. T h e loser of the game is excluded from the world of men ; the ball is tied
under his shirt so that he looks like a girl who has been got pregnant.
38 It is said that formerly the wom en used to go to market alone; but they are so
talkative that the market w ent on until the market time of the follow ing week.
So the men turned up one day with sticks and put an end to their w ives
gossip ing. . .I t can be seen that the m y th "exp lain s the present division of
space and work by invoking the "evil nature of w om en. When a man wants to
say that the world is topsy-turvy, he says that the w om en are going to market
39 A full presentation of the analysis of the internal structure of the Kabvle house,
of which it has only been possible to give the indispensable outline here, can be
found in P. Bourdieu, Esquisse d une theorie de la pratique (Paris and Geneva:
Libraine D roz, 1972), pp. 45-69.
40 T h is means to say that the learning by d o in g hypothesis, associated with the
name of Arrow (see K. J. Arrow, T he Econom ic Implications of Learning by
D o in g , Review of Economic Studies, 29, 3, no. 80 (June 1962), pp. 155-73) is a
particular case (whose particularity needs to be specified) of a very general law:
every made product - including sym bolic products such as works of art, gam es,
m yths, etc. - exerts by its very functioning, particularly by the use made of it,
an educative effect which helps to make it easier to acquire the dispositions
necessary for its adequate use.
41 Eriksons analyses of the Yoruk might be interpreted in the same light (see
E. H. Erikson, "Observations on the Yoruk: Childhood and World Im age
(U niversity of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology,
vol. 35, no. 10, Berkeley: U niversity of California Press, 1943), pp. 257-302).
BO T
2l8
N otes fo r p p . 9 7-9 8
219
220
7
8
10
11
12
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N otes f o r p p . 10 0 -10 4
sequence (running from autum n to sum m er, i.e. from west to east, evening to
morning, etc.) or as the points on a circle w hich may be obtained by folding the
diagram along the axis X Y .
Other informants even say it is im possible to know which is the first day of winter.
T hese names refer to the legend of the borrowed days, which tells how winter
(or January', or February, etc.) borrowed a few days from the next period so as
to punish an old woman (or a goat, or a Negro) who had issued a challenge.
Although it m ust not be forgotten that to bring together, in the form of a s e r ie s ,
a set of features present in a particular region is itself an entirely artificial
syncretic operation, the three main series are indicated in the diagram, \[ z
imirghane, amerdil, thamgharth, ahgan or thiftirine, nisan; thimgharine, hayan,
nisan; el mwalah, el qw arah, el szcalah, e lfw a ta h . husum, natah, nisan. T hese s e r ie s
could (for the sake of sim plicity) be said to correspond to the Djurdjura r e g i o n ,
to Lesser Kabylia, and, in the last case, to the most Islamized areas or to li t e r a t e
informants.
T h is was how an informant spoke of la'didal, a period of dreadful cold w h o s e
com ing can never be predicted. It is m entioned in a song which the w om en s in g
w hile working at the flour mill: " If la'didal are like the nights of hayan for m e .
tell the shepherds to flee to the village. And according to informants in th e
Djurdjura region, one night in the month of bujember (no one knows which o n e )
water turns to blood.
T h is sem i-scholarly series is som etim es called ma, qa, sa, fin, by a mnemonic
device used by the marabouts, in which each name is represented by its initial.
Sim ilarly, it is thanks to its m nem onic qualities that informants almost always
cite the series of the divisions of the beginning of sum m er ( izegzaw en, iwraghen,
imellalen, iquranen); the series is also som etim es designated by the first consonants
of the roots of the Berber names for the divisions: z a , ra, ma, qin.
Other taboos of hayan and husum: ploughing, w eddings, sex; working at night;
making and firing pottery; preparing w ool; w eaving. At Ain A ghbel, during
husum, all work on the land is forbidden - it is el faragh, em ptiness. It is
inauspicious "to start any building work, celebrate a marriage, hold a feast, or
buy an anim al. In a general w ay, people refrain from any activity involving the
future.
Thafsuth, spring, is related to efsu, to undo, untie, to draw w ool, and in the
passive, to open out, burgeon, flower.
Marriages take place either in autum n, like the marriage of the earth and the sky,
or in spring, in m id-A pril, w hen, according to a scholarly tradition, all the beings
on the earth marry. Sterile w om en are recom m ended to eat boiled herbs picked
during natah.
A z a l denotes the daytim e, broad daylight (as opposed to night and m orning),
and more especially the hottest m om ent of the sum m er day, devoted to rest. The
"return of a z a l is essentially marked by a change in the rhythm of daily a c t i v i t y ,
which is analysed below.
Just as acts of fecundation are excluded from the month of M ay, so sleep is
excluded from the first day of sum m er: people take care not to sleep that day
for fear of falling ill or losing their courage or their sense of honour (the seat of
which is the liver, the place of ruh, the male sou l). D oubtless for the same reason,
earth dug up on that day is used in the magic rites intended to reveal the
weakening or disappearance of the point of honour (nif) in m en, and the stubborn
ness in anim als w hich makes them resist training.
Smoke is som etim es credited with fertilizing powers, w hich, at the tim e of in sfa,
N otes f o r p p . 1 0 4 - 1 1 0
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
221
mainly act on the fig-trees (w hose cycle is relatively independent of that of the
cereals, and accompanied by a relatively small num ber of rites, ow ing to the fact
that it involves no intervention ''against nature). Sm oke, a synthesis of the moist
and the dry obtained by burning moist things (green plants, branches, and
vegetation gathered from damp spots, such as poplars or oleander), is believed
to have the power to fecu n d ate the fig-trees; fum igation is identified with
caprification.
A number of proverbs explicitly link the tw o p eriod s: for exam ple, it is often said
that if there is a severe sirocco in smaim there will be cold weather and snow in
lyali.
T he word lakhrif is related to the verb kherref, m eaning to pick and eat fresh
fig s, and also to joke, to tell funny and often obscene stories, in the style of
the wandering singers, and som etim es to talk n on sen se ( itskhernf "hes
ram bling; akherraf, joker, buffoon).
A similar effect may be observed in any social formation in which there coexist
unequally legitim ate practices and know ledges: when m em bers of the working
classes are questioned about their cultural practices and preferences, they select
those which they regard as closest to the dom inant definition of legitimate
practice.
E. H usserl, Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, trans. W. R. Boyce
G ibson (N ew York and L ondon: Collier, 1972), pp. 309-11.
In a sort of com m entary on Saussures second principle ( the signifier unfolds
in tim e and has the characteristics it gets from tim e : F. de Saussure, Cours de
linguistique generale (Paris: Payot, i960), p. 103; trans. W. Baskin as Course in
General Linguistics (N ew York: Philosophical Library, 1959), p. 70), Cournot
contrasts the properties of spoken or written discourse, "an essentially linear
series whose "mode of construction obliges us to use a successive, linear series
of signs to express relationships which the mind perceives, or ought to perceive,
sim ultaneously and in a different ord er, with synoptic tables, family trees,
historical atlases, mathematical tables, in which the surface expanse is more or
less successfully exploited to represent system atic relations and links w hich it
would be difficult to make out in the flow of d iscou rse (A . C ournot). Essai sur
les fondements de la connaissance et sur les caracteres de la critique philosophique
(Paris: H achette, 1922), p. 364).
See J. Favret, "La segm entarite au M aghreb, L'Homme, 6, 2 (1966), pp. 105-11,
and Relations de dependance et manipulation de la violence en K a b v lie,
L'H om m e, 8, 4 (1968), pp. 18-44.
Set out in greater detail in P. Bourdieu, The Algerians (B oston: Beacon Press,
1962), pp. 14-20.
T h e logic of rite and m yth belongs to the class of natural logics, which logic,
linguistics, and the philosophy of language are beginning to explore, with very
different assum ptions and m ethods. For exam ple, according to George Lakoff,
one of the founders of generative sem an tics, the fuzzy lo g ic of ordinary
language is characterized by its use of fuzzy co n cep ts and h ed g es, such as
sort oft pretty much, rather, loosely speaking, etc., which subject truth-values to
a deform ation which classical logic cannot account for.
T h e logic of practice ow es a number of its properties to the fact that what logic
calls the universe of d iscou rse there remains im plicit, in its practical state. One
must never lose sight of the conditions w hich have to be fulfilled for a genuine
universe of discourse to appear: the intellectual and material equipm ent needed
for the successive operations of methodical recording; the leisure required to carry
222
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
N otes f o r p p . 1 1 0 - 1 1 6
out these operations and analyse their products; an *' interest in such activities
w hich, even if not experienced as such, cannot be dissociated from a reasonably
expectation of material and/or sym bolic profit, i.e . from the existence of a market
for discourse and metadiscourse, etc.
It can be seen, in passing, that the points of view adopted on the house are
opposed in accordance with the very logic (m ale/fem ale) which they a p p ly : this
sort of reduplication, founded on the correspondence betw een social divisions and
logical divisions, results in a circular reinforcem ent which no doubt makes an
important contribution towards confining agents in a closed, finite world and
a doxic experience of that world.
J. N icod , L a geometrie dans le mondc sensible, w ith a preface by Bertrand Russell
(Paris: P U F , 1962), pp. 43-4.
For similar observations, see M . Granet, L a civilisation chinoise (Paris: A . Colin,
1929), passim and esp. p. 332. Another m odulation technique is association by
assonance; it may lead to connections with no mythico-ritual significance (aman
d laman, water is trust) or, on the other hand, to connections which are sym boli
cally overdeterm ined (a zk a d a z q a , tom orrow is the grave). A s in poetry, the
practical logic of ritual exploits the duality of sound and sense (and, in other cases,
the plurality of m eanings of the same so u n d ); the double link, by sound and by
m eaning, offers a crossroads, a choice between two paths, either of which may
be taken, w ithout contradiction, at different tim es and in different contexts.
Certain inform ants proceed in just this way w hen, avoiding mere recitation of
the sem i-scholarly series, they reconstruct the calendar by means of successive
dichotom ies.
In another tale, the snake which a sterile woman had brought up as her son is
rejected by its first w ife: it draw s itself up, swells, and breathes out a jet of poisonous
flame (asqi, the tem pering of iron, also means poisoning) which reduces her to
ashes.
T h e agrarian calendar reproduces, in a transfigured form , the rhythm s of the
farming year, or more precisely, the clim atic rhythm s as seen w hen translated
into the alternation of labour periods and production periods w hich structures
the farming year. (T h e pattern of rainfall is characterized by the opposition
between the cold, wet season, from N ovem ber to April - with the m axim um rain
or snow com ing in N ovem ber and D ecem ber, followed by a drier period in
January and more rain in February and March - and the hot, dry season, from
May to October - the driest m onths being June, July, and A ugust. T h e farmers
dependence on the climate was obviously exacerbated by the lim ited traction
power available - for ploughing - and the inefficiency of the techniques used sw ingplough and sickle - though som e are more dependent than others, since the
owners of the best land and the best oxen can plough im m ediately after the first
rains, even if the soil is sticky, whereas the poorest farmers often have to wait
until they can borrow or hire a yoke of oxen; and the same is true of reaping
- those richest in sym bolic capital can assem ble the labour force required for a
quick harvest.) In the same w ay, the sym bolic equipm ent the rites can use
naturally depends on what is in season (although in som e cases reserves are set
aside specially for ritual use); but the generative schem es make it possible to find
substitutes and to turn external necessities and constraints to good account within
the logic of the rite itself (and this explains the perfect harmony between
technical reason and mythic reason to be found in more than one case, e.g . in
the orientation of the house).
T hese schem es can be grasped only in the objective coherence of the ritual
N otes fo r p p .
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223
actions to w hich they give rise, although they can som etim es be almost directly
apprehended in discourse, w hen for no apparent reason an informant "associates
two ritual practices which have nothing in com m on except a schem e (e.g . the
schem e of sw elling, in one case in which an informant "related , by describing
them one after the other, the meal eaten on the first day of spring - with adhris
- and the w edding meal - w ith ufthyen).
34 Workmen w ho use a w ooden roller and an iron bar to raise a stone are applying
the rule of the com position of parallel forces in the same direction ; they know
how to vary the position of the fulcrum depending on their exact purpose and
the w eight or volum e of the load, as if they were not unaware of the rule (which
they would not be capable of form ulating expressly) that the greater the ratio
betw een the two arms of the lever, the less force is needed to counterbalance a
resistance - or more generally, the rule that a loss in displacem ent is a gain in
force. T here is no reason to invoke the mysteries of an unconscious versed in
physics, or the arcana of a philosophy of nature postulating a mysterious harmony
betw een the structure of the human brain and the structure of the physical world.
It m ight be interesting to know w hy the fact that the manipulation of language
presupposes the acquisition of abstract structures and of rules for the carrying
out of those operations (such as, according to C hom sky, the non-recursive nature
of inversion) should arouse such w onderm ent.
35 T h is section owes much to Jean N icod. Cf. L a geometne dans le monde sensible.
36 Q uoted in G . Bachelard, L a poetique de Iespace (Paris: P U F , 1961), p. 201.
37 ^ id .
38 Cf. J. F. L e N y , Apprentissageetactivitespsychologiques(Paris: P U F , 1967), p. 137.
39 wModern sociologists and psychologists resolve such problem s by appealing to
the unconscious activity of the mind; but when Durkheim was w riting, psychology
and modern linguistics had not yet reached their main conclusions. T h is explains
w hy D urkheim foundered in what he regarded as an irreducible antinom y. . . :
the blindness of history and the purposiveness of consciousness. Between the tw o
obviously stands the unconscious finality of the m i n d . . . I t i s . . . a t these
interm ediate or lower levels - such as that of unconscious thought - that the
apparent opposition betw een the individual and society disappears, and it becomes
possible to m ove from one point of view to the oth er. (C . Levi-Strauss, "La
sociologie fran^aise, in L a sociologie au X X e siecle, ed. G . Gurvich and Wr. E.
Moore (Paris: P U F , 1947), vol. 11, p. 527).
40 T h is is why I cannot help feeling a certain unease at w riting and describing in
words what, after a learning process analogous (mutatis mutandis) to that of the
native agent, I first mastered practically: the concept of "resurrection is what
the outsider, lacking practical mastery of the schem es of " opening and " sw ellin g
and of the objective intent to which they are subordinate, needs in order to
"understand rites generated practically from these schem es. But then he runs
the risk of giving a false "understanding both of the "understanding which
such a concept makes possible, and of the practical "understanding which does
not need concepts.
41 T he most accom plished prov erbs are those which manage to com bine the necessity
of a linguistic connection (w hich may range from mere assonance to a comm on
root) with the necessity of a mythical connection (paronomasia, and in particular
the highest variety, the word-play of philosophy, has no other basis).
42 M ost of these meanings are expressed through euphem ism s: e.g . the sense
" extin gu ish is conveyed by ferrah, to gladden.
43 Basic senses: heavy/light, hot/cold, dull/brilliant.
224
N otes fo r p p . 1 2 2 - 1 2 7
44 T o cast behind is also, at a more superficial level, to neglect, despise (''to put
behind ones ear), or more sim ply, not to face up to, not to confront.
45 Even in ordinary language, it w ould not be difficult to find the elem ents of a
description of this approximate logic, w hich "gets b y in a rough and ready
way, "playing it by ear and "follow ing its nose
all is grist that com es to this
mill. A few specim ens: I ll be back in a seco n d . . . just a t i c k .. . only a short ste p ..
any m om ent n o w . . . much the sa m e. . . som ething lik e. . . sort o f . . . once in a
blue m o o n . . . never in a thousand years. . . taking an etern ity . . . to some
e x te n t .. . all b u t. . . at a rough g u e ss. . . a stones th ro w . . . spitting d istan ce..
so to s p e a k .. . the average is in the region o f . *. a small minority of trouble
m a k e r s ... not to put too fine a point upon it. . . u m p t e e n ... w ithin a hairs
breadth. . . most of the t i m e .. . not e n tir e ly .. . v ir tu a lly .. . tolerab ly. . . etc.
46 T his is exactly Platos complaint against the m ythologists and poets: that they
are incapable of re-producing a practice other than by " identifying them selves with
som eone e ls e dia mimeseos, through mime (cf. for exam ple, Republic 393d).
-47 Aristotle, Metaphysics, A 5, 986a-22sq.
48 It is significant that Em pedocles, w ho of all the pre-Socratic thinkers is the
closest to the objective truth of rite, and hence the furthest removed from rite,
uses terms as manifestly social as philia and neikos to name these tw o principles
of ritual action.
49 On the identification of the opposition between, on the one hand, synkrisis and
diakrisis, and on the other hand, genesis and phthora, see J. Bollack, Empedocle,
vol. 1 (Paris: Editions de M inuit, 1965), p. 19m and p. 25113.
50 T h e preponderance assigned to the male principle, which enables it to impose
its effects in every union, means that the opposition between the female-male (the
male tem pered by union) and the male-male, is never overtly recognized or
declared, despite the disapproval of certain form s of excess of the male virtues,
such as "the D e v ils point of honour [nt/J
But it is nonetheless possible to set
in this class the amengur, the man w ithout m ale descendants, the redhead
(azegw ay) w ho sow s discord everywhere, who has no m oustache, whom nobody
wants as a companion in the market, and w ho refuses indulgence at the last
judgm ent, when everyone forgives offences; etc.
51 T h e duality of woman is retranslated into the logic of kinship in the form of the
opposition betw een the patrilateral cross cousin and the matrilateral cross cousin.
52 T he path (abridh) and "com panionship (elw am ) are opposed to emptiness
(lakhla), to "solitude, the w ild ern ess (elwahch). Thajma'th is that which can be
em pty w ithin fullness; the path (and the crossroads) are fullness within
em ptiness.
53 T h e way to get abundant butter is to go unseen to a crossroads used by the flocks,
and there find a sm all stone and a few sticks; the stone is put in the dish in which
the milk is kept and the sticks are burnt so that the smoke impregnates it
(Westermarck).
54 Measuring operations, w hich im pose lim itation, finiteness, breakage, are h e d g e d
with euphem ism s and magical precautions: the master of the land refrains from
measuring his own crop and entrusts the task to a khammes or a neighbour ( w h o
does it in his ab sen ce); ritual expressions are used to avoid certain num bers; ritual
formulae are uttered (as they are every time anything is measured or w eighed),
such as "M ay G od not measure out his bounty to u s ! Praise of beauty, h e a l t h
(a child s, for exam ple), or wealth is an im plicit num bering, hence a cutting, a n d
so it must be avoided and replaced with euphem ism s or neutralized with ritual
formulae. Cutting operations (extinguishing, closin g, leaving, finishing, stopping,
N otes fo r p p . 1 2 7 - 1 3 0
22 5
breaking, overturning, etc.) are named by means of euphem ism s: for exam ple,
to say that the stores, the harvest, or the milk are all gone, an expression m eaning
T here is abundance is used.
55 It is also known that the harvesters wear a leather apron similar to the sm ith s
(thabanda).
56 Circum cision ( khatna or thara - often replaced by euphem ism s based on dher, to
be clean, neat) is a purificatory cut which, as Durkheim suggests, is supposed
to confer the im m unity needed in order to confront the fearful forces enclosed
in the vagina (cf. the use of the cauris, a sym bol of the vulva, as a magical
protection; the destructive power attributed to menstrual blood; the sexual
abstinence im posed on important occasions) and especially those w hich sexual
intercourse unleashes by effecting the union of contraries (E . D urkheim , The
Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (L ondon: Allen and U nw in, 1915), pp.
3I4-'S )57 D ivination practices are particularly frequent on the first day of ennayer (in the
middle of lya li, w hen the black nights give way to the w h ite * nights) and
at the tim e o f the renewal rites which mark the start of the new year and are
centred on the house and the kanun (replacing the three hearthstones, w hitew ash
ing the houses); for example, at dawn, the sheep and goats are called ou t, and
it is regarded as unlucky if it is a goat that com es first, lucky if it is a sheep (cf.
the days of the goat - or of the old wom an); the hearthstones are coated with
a paste of w et clay, and it is reckoned that the year will be wet if the clay is wet
in the m orning, dry if the clay is dry. T h is is explained not only by the inaugural
role of the first day of ennayer but also by the fact that it com es in a period of
waiting and uncertainty, when there is nothing to be done but try to anticipate
the future. T h is is why the prognostication rites concerning family life and
especially the com ing harvest are similar to those applied to pregnant w om en.
58 W inter, hom ologous with night, is the time w hen the oxen sleep in the stable (the
night and the north of the house); the time of sexual intercourse (the partridge,
whose eggs are sym bols of fecundity, mates during lya li).
59 " Chchetwa telsemlaqab netsat d yiwen w ergaz, Fichier d A rchives Berberes, no.
19 (January 1947). WI shall kill your cattle, says winter. W hen I arise, the knives
will set to w ork.
60 T h e return of bad weather is som etim es explicitly attributed to the m aleficent
action of the old women of this or that village of the tribe or the neighbouring
tribes, i.e. w itches, each of whom has her particular day of the week.
61 In the tale called "the jackals marriage, the jackal marries outside his own
species; he marries the camel and, moreover, holds no w edding-feast. T he sky
shows its disapproval by sending hail and storms.
62 May marriages suffer every sort of calamity and will not last. T h e cursed broom
of M ay is the exact opposite of the blessed broom of the "first day of sp rin g :
it brings ruin, em ptiness, and sterility to the house or stable in which it is used.
63 T hese various instruments - especially the sickle - are used in the prophylactic
rites against the malignant powers of the w et, such as the djnun.
64 Salt has strong links with the dry and with sterility: the words m eaning to be
hot, scorching, also mean to be spiced, strong (virile), as opposed to insipid,
without bite, without intelligence (salt is sprinkled on babies so they w ill not be
insipid, stupid, w itless). T h e man who acts frivolously is said to think he is
scattering sa lt; he thinks his acts are of no consequence. Oil shares these
connotations: "T he sun is as scorching as o il.
65 T he schem e of turning round and turning over is set to work in all the rites
226
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
Notes f o r p p . 1 3 1 - 1 3 5
intended to bring about a radical change, particularly an abrupt passage from the
dry to the wet and especially from the wet to the dry: the threshold, which is
in itself a point of reversal, is one of the favourite spots for such rites. It is also
in terms of this schem e that any reversal or inversion of facts is con ceived : an
unabashed liar is said to have put the east in the w e st.
H oeing, the only agrarian activity exclusively reserved for w om en, is opposed both
to ploughing and to harvesting, operations which may not be entrusted to a woman
except in case of absolute necessity, when they require a whole series of ritual
precautions: she wears a dagger at her girdle, puts arkasen on her feet, etc.
T h e corresponding period in the cycle of life, i.e. childhood, is also marked by
a whole series of ritual operations w hich aim to separate the boy from his mother
and the female world, causing him at the same tim e to be reborn in his father
and his male relatives - in particular all the cerem onies marking his first entry
into the male world, such as his first visit to the market, his first haircut, and
the culm inating cerem ony of circum cision.
A zegzaw denotes blue, green, and grey; it can qualify fruit (green), meat (raw),
corn (unripe), a rainy sky (grey, like the ox sacrificed in autum n). A zeg za w brings
good fortune: to make a present of som ething green, especially in the morning,
brings good luck. Spring is the season for asafruri, i.e. legum inous plants,
especially beans, a certain proportion of which are set aside to be eaten green.
T h e women gather wild herbs in the course of their hoeing in the cultivated fields,
and these are eaten raw (w a g h za z, a raw, green plant the leaves of w hich can
be nibbled, e.g. dandelions; th izazw ath , greenery). T h e cattle, fed on green
fodder in the stable or near the house, yield abundant milk, which is consumed
in every form (w hey, curd, butter, cheese).
K . Marx, C apital, ed. F. Engels (M oscow: Progress Publishers, 1956), vol. 11,
part 11, ch. x iii T h e time of p roduction, pp. 242-51.
Circum cision and tree-pruning, like scarification and tattooing, partake of the
logic of purification, in which the instruments made with fire have a beneficent
function, like the in sla tires, rather than the logic of murder.
In this way the Negro or the sm ith, who are known to be the very opposite of
the bringer of good fortune ( elfal), may fulfil a beneficent function as takersaway of ill fortu n e. T he position of the family responsible for inaugurating the
ploughing is no less am biguous than that of the smith (elfal is never mentioned
in relation to him ), and their role as a lightning conductor does not entitle them
to a high place in the hierarchy of prestige and honour.
J. G . Frazer, The Golden Bough, 3rd ed. (L ondon: Macmillan, 1912), vol. 1, part
v, " T he Spirits of the Corn and the W ild , ch. v n , pp. 214-69.
T h e miraculous properties of the meat of the sacrificed animal are appropriated
in a comm unal meal. In several cases, the tail of the animal receives special
treatment (it is hung up in the m osque) as if, like the last sheaf, som etim es known
as the tail of the field , it concentrated the vital potency of the whole.
T h e frequency of large- and small-scale fighting in the fig season used to lead
som e observers, encouraged by native remarks (an overexcited person is said to
have eaten too many fig s), to wonder if the source of the ebullience reigning
at that time of year did not lie in the figs them selves: There is one season in
particular w hen it really seem s that m en s minds are more heated than any other
tim e . . . when they speak of the fig season, which they call kherif, autum n, it seems
to be agreed that everyone shall be agitated at that tim e, just as it is customary
to be merry at carnival tim es (C . D evaux, Les K ebailesde Djerdjera (M arseilles:
Carnion, and Paris: Challamel, 1859), pp. 85-6).
N otes fo r p p . 1 3 5 - 1 3 9
227
75 T he men who encircle the boy comprise all the male members of the clan and
sub-clan, together with the m others male kinsmen and their guests (the affines,
to w hom the boy has been presented the previous week, by a delegation of
rifle-bearing men from the sub-clan, in a rite called aghrum, wheatcake, the dry
and therefore male food par excellence, which also takes place before a marriage).
T h e sym bolism of the second, purely male birth, obeys the same logic as
marriage w ith the parallel cousin, the m ost m asculine of women.
76 Brahim Zellal, " L e roman de chacal, contes d anim aux, Fichier d Archives
Berberes, no. 81 (Fort National, Algeria), 1964.
77 Breach of the taboo of lahlal is a haram act (sacrilege) which gives rise to a haram
product (c f. the legend of yum chendul - 18 Septem ber - the wise ploughman who,
despite the heavy rain on that day, refused to plough before lahlal). In what is
known as el haq (e.g. el haq lakhrif, the ban on fig-picking), the magical elem ent
is again present, since the assembly w hich pronounces the edict calls down a curse
on all who break it; at the same tim e, the social-convention aspect of the interdict
appears in the fact that the penalty for transgression is a fine (also called el haq).
Although in the case of marriage the terra lahlal is only used to denote the sura
of m oney which the bridegroom gives the bride (in addition to the bride
wealth and the presents) before the marriage is consum mated, the sanctioning
function of the marriage cerem ony is underlined by a number of features (e.g.
imensi lahlal). T h u s, as we have seen, the marriage season often used to open
with a parallel-cousin marriage, a union predisposed to play this inaugural role
by its conform ity to the principles of the mythical world-view.
78 Or "the key of good lu ck .
79 T h e primordial union is represented, in the very place of procreation, in the form
of the union of asalas, the central beam, and thigejdith, the pillar, a symbol of
the marriage of sky and earth.
80 T h e ploughing cerem ony, like the marriage cerem ony, being a reunion of the
divided and separate, syncrisis, is placed under the sign of the figure two:
everything which com es in pairs - starting with the yoke of oxen ( thayuga or
thazivijth, form ed from the Arabic zw id ja ), the sym bol par excellence - is likely
to favour coupling (the man who opens the ploughing is som etim es called "the
old man of the yoke of o x en -a m g h a r m ay-yuga). In contrast, that which is
singular and solitary, the bachelor for exam ple, a symbol of division and separa
teness, is systematically excluded.
81 T h e seed corn, which always includes the grains of the last sheaf reaped (som e
tim es the grains of the last sheaf threshed or dust from the last plot of land
harvested, or taken from the threshing floor as the last sheaf was threshed; or
again, dust from the mausoleum of a saint, salt, e tc .), is kept in the house itself,
in sheepskins or chests stored in the damp part of the house and som etim es even
under the bed of the master of the field; it is prepared in accordance w ith rites
and taboos intended to preserve its properties.
82 T h e snake, a sym bol of resurrection (see above) is often represented on the
hand-made earthenware jars used to store grain for cooking or sow ing.
83 T h e interdicts surounding ploughing (or weaving, its female hom ologue) and
marriage all bear on acts of cutting (shaving, cutting the hair or n ails), closing (tying
up the hair), purifying (sweeping, whitewashing the house), and contact with
objects that are dry or associated with the dry (darkening the eyelids with kohl,
dying the hands with henna, or, in the order of food, the use of spices).
84 T h e sw ollen part of the lamp, which represents w om ans belly, is called "the
pom egranate.
228
85 T h e action of tying is a typical exam ple of the ambiguities which give practical
logic its efficacy. T yin g is in a sense doubly forbidden because it is opposed both
to the male action of opening and to the female action of swelling. All forms of
tying (crossing the arms or the legs, wearing knots or girdles, rings, etc.) 0r
closing (of doors, chests, locks, etc.) are forbidden at the mom ent of childbirth
and the opposite actions recom m ended. T h e rites intended to render a man or
woman incapable of sexual intercourse apply the schem e of closing (or its
equivalent, cutting), again exploiting the coincidence (well expressed by the
am biguity of the verbs referring to state) of openmg and being opened. It is natural
that ritual, which always seeks to put all the odds on its own side, should in a
sense kill two birds with one stone in recom m ending actions likely to favour (or
not likely to hinder) opening, an operation male in its active form and female in
its passive form.
86 I say " treated practically a s to avoid putting into the consciousness of the agents
(with expressions like "seen a s or "conceived a s) the representation which we
must construct in order to understand scientifically the practices objectively
oriented by the schem e of "resurrection and in order to comm unicate that
understanding.
87 T h e m eaning of the rite is clearly show n in the rope game described by Laoust,
a sort of tug-of-war between the men and the women, in the course of which the
rope is suddenly cut and the women fall on their backs, inviting the sky to rain
its fecundating seed upon them .
88 T h e snake, a sym bol of the power of erection and resurrection which belongs to
the male principle, is undoubtedly the d ry which shoots out the dry: in the tale
related above (p. 222), the aggrieved snake rises, sw ells, and spits out a poisonous
flame.
89 All the evidence suggests that the usefulness of the almost empty notion of baraka
(which has occupied a disproportionate place in the writings of anthropologists
from Westermarck to the present day) lies in the fact that it makes it possible
to name both the male principle of fecundity and the female principle of fertility
without distinguishing between them . T h is also means that, though useful in
social practice, it does not play a very important part in the econom y of the
sym bolic system .
90 T h e familiarity with this mode of thought that is acquired in the course of
scientific practice gives one an idea (though still a very abstract one) of the
subjective feeling of necessity which it gives to those it possesses: there is no
way in w hich this laxist logic of overdetermined, fuzzy relations, protected as it
is by its very weakness against contradiction or error, could encounter w ithin itself
any obstacle or resistance capable of determ ining a reflexive return or a questioning
of it. History can therefore only com e to it from outside, through the contradic
tions generated by synchronization (favoured by literacy) and the system atizing
intent that synchronization expresses and makes possible.
91 T his function is som etim es explicitly formulated. It is said, for exam ple, that when
cereals, a soft food, are being sow n, one must "eat so ft.
92 T h e opposition between the cooking-pot (achukth) and the griddle (bufrah) sums
up the series of oppositions between the two seasons and the tw o styles of
cooking: cooking indoors, boiling, evening meal, unspiced; cooking outdoors,
roasting, m orning meal, spiced. With rare exceptions (w hen an animal has been
slaughtered or when som eone is ill) meat is regarded as too precious to be c o o k e d
on the fire. In sum m er, sw eet peppers and tomatoes are cooked on the kanun.
However, meat is always boiled in autumn whereas it can be roasted in spring.
N otes f o r p p . 1 4 5 - 1 S t
229
93 Winter food is overall more fem ale, sum m er food more male. In every season,
female food, as one m ight expect, is a m oist form of the corresponding male fo o d :
the m ens food is based on wheatcake (aghrum) and couscous; the guest one wants
to honour, the male par excellence, is offered at least one couscous, even if it
has to be made with barley, and if possible, a meat couscous; never soup, not
even wheat soup, or boiled sem olina. T he w om ens food is liquid, less nourishing,
less highly spiced, based on boiled cereals, broths, and sauces (asqi, which also
denotes tem pering and p o ison in g); their couscous is made with barley or even
bran and flour (abulbul). In fact things are not so sim ple: sem olina dum plings,
which may appear as female because they are boiled in water, are also the most
male of female foods, hence som etim es eaten by men, because they can be
accompanied by meat; conversely, berkukes, a male food, can be eaten by women,
because it is boiled, unlike couscous, which is simply sprinkled. A boy eats with
the men as soon as he starts to walk and to go to the fields. Once he is old enough
to take the goats to pasture, he has a right to the afternoon snack (a handful of
figs, half a pint of milk).
94 Other direct indications of the hom ology: the weaving is done upwards, i.e from
w est to east. T h e weft is called thadrafth; the warp I'alam. 'Allam is to separate
the strands of the warp into tw o strips and to mark out the field with the first
furrow which divides it into plots, the even-numbered ones running eastward and
the odd ones westward.
95 T o tie a thread so that it cannot be untied is to "tie its so u l.
96 For the same reason, w eaving begun elsewhere is not brought into the house
(unless a chicken is sacrificed first). T h is belief is also invoked at harvest time
to justifying sacrificing an animal.
97 T hese various tasks are only part of the w om ens activities, which partake of all
the more or less abstract series that can be constructed, thereby underlining the
fact that practical unity lies not in the series (of farming tasks or the rites of
passage) but in practice generating similarly structured behaviour in all dom ains.
98 T he divisions of the year, particularly the m ost important one, "the return of
a z a l, which marks the separation between the dry season and the wet season,
are (relatively) independent of climatic conditions: thus the characteristic rhythm
of the winter day is kept up both at the coldest m om ents and in the warmer and
already "springlike days of the wet season. T he autonomy of the logic of ritual
with respect to objective conditions is even clearer in the case of clothing, which
as a sym bol of social status cannot vary according to the season: how could the
burnous be taken off in sum mer, if a man without a burnous is dishonoured ?
H ow could anyone fail to put on winter m occasins before reaping or undertaking
a long mountain journey, when everyone knows that they are the footwear which
characterizes the genuine peasant and the strong walker? H ow could the mistress
of the house give up the traditional pair of blankets, worn pinned in front, which
sym bolize her authority, her ascendancy over her daughters-in-law, and her power
over the running of the household, as does the belt on w hich she hangs the keys
to the household stores ?
99 For exam ple, a man who is late in the m orning is told, "All the shepherds are o u t.
And to indicate a late hour in the afternoon: "All the shepherds have already
'given back a z a l.,t In fact the return to the village at the tim e of a za l is not abso
lutely obligatory, and som e shepherds spend a za l in the shade on the grazing land.
100 For example, a man who does not get up early on the first day of spring is likely
to die in the course of the year; a man who gets up early on the first day of sum mer
will get up early all through the year.
230
N otes f o r p p . 1 5 2 - 1 5 6
N otes fo r pp. 15 6 - 1 6 1
11
12
13
14
231
without any normative reference to logical logic, anthropology has becom e locked
in the insoluble antinomy of otherness and identity, the "prim itive mentality"
and the "savage m in d . T h e principle of this antinomy was indicated by Kant
in the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic: depending on the interests
which inspire it, "reason obeys either the " principle of specification which leads
it to seek and accentuate differences, or the "principle of aggregation or
"hom ogeneity, which leads it to observe similarities, and, through an illusion
w hich characterizes it, "reason situates the principle of these judgm ents not in
itself but in the nature of its objects.
An internal analysis of the structure of a system of sym bolic relations is soundly
based only if it is subordinated to a sociological analysis of the structure of the
system of social relations of sym bolic production, circulation, and consum ption
in which these relations are set up and in which the social functions that they
objectively fulfil at any given m om ent are defined: the rites and m yths of the Greek
tradition tend to receive entirely different functions and meanings depending, for
exam ple, on whether they give rise to rationalizing, "routinizing "readings,
with corps of scholars, to inspired reinterpretations, with the magi and their
initiatory teachings, or to rhetorical exercises, with the first professional profes
sors, the Sophists. It follows that, asa point of method, any attempt to reconstruct
the original meaning of a mythical tradition must include analysis of the laws of
the deformation to which the various successive interpreters subject it on the basis
of their system s of interests.
As G . Bateson shows ( Naven (Stanford, C a l.: Stanford University Press, 1958;
ist ed ., 1936), mythological culture can become the tool, and in some cases the
object, of extremely com plex strategies (which explains, am ong other things, why
agents undertake the im mense mnem onic effort needed to acquire mastery of it)
even in societies which do not have a highly developed and differentiated religious
apparatus. It follows that it is im possible fully to account for the structure of the
mythical corpus and the transformations which affect it in the course of time,
by means of a strictly internal analysis ignoring the functions that the corpus fulfils
in the relations of com petition or conflict for econom ic or sym bolic power.
It goes without saying that the regressive use which Heidegger and the gnostic
tradition that he has introduced into university philosophy make of the most
"archaic devices of language, out of a taste for the p n m al which is the recon
version of the conservative intent into the logic of the philosophical field, has
nothing in comm on with the practice of the pre-Socratic thinkers, who mobilize
all the resources of a language fraught with mythic resonances to reproduce in
their discourse the objective systematicity of mythic practice or resolve the logical
contradictions springing from that ambition.
R. Carnap, "t-berw indung derM etaphysikdurch logische Analyse derS p rach e,
Erkenntnis, 4 (1931), pp. 219-41.
C H A P T E R 4 . S T R U C T U R E S , H A B IT U S , POW ER
1 T h e wet season is the time for oral instruction through which the group memory
is forged. In the dry season, that memory is acted out and enriched through
participation in the acts and ceremonies which set the seal on group unity: it is
in sum mer that the children undergo practical training in their future tasks as
peasants and their obligations as men of honour.
2 T h e "shepherds are the small boys of the village. (Translator.)
3 A principle which, as we have seen, belongs as much to magic as to morality.
232
10
233
ci Love, not im mune to such ritualization, also conforms to this logic, as is well
illustrated by the w ords of a young Kabyle woman: "A girl doesnt know her
husband beforehand and she looks to him for everything. She loves him even
before they marry, because she m u st; she has to love him , there is no other 'door
12 T h e full text of this conversation can be found in P. Bourdieu and A. Sayad, Le
deracinement (Paris: M inuit, 1964), pp. 215-20.
13 M. Proust, Contre Sainte-Beuve (Paris: Gallimard, 1965), pp. 74-5.
14 Cf. J. M. W. W hiting, Becoming a Kivom a (N ew Haven, C onn: Yale University
Press, 1941), p. 215.
15 T h e phenom enologists systematically forget to carry out an ultimate " reduction ,
the one which would reveal to them the social conditions of the possibility of the
"reduction and the epoche. What is radically excluded from phenomenological
analysis of the "general thesis of the natural standpoint which is constitutive
of "primary experience of the social world is the question of the econom ic and
social conditions of the belief which consists in "taking th e ' factworld ( Wirklichkeit) just as it gives itse lf (E . Husserl, Ideas (N ew York: Collier-M acmillan,
1962), p. 96), a belief which the reduction subsequently causes to appear as a
" th esis, or, more precisely, as an epoche of the epoche, a suspension of doubt
as to the possibility that the world of the natural standpoint could be otherwise.
16 If the emergence of a field of discussion is historically linked to the developm ent
of cities, this is because the concentration of different ethnic and/or professional
groups in the same space, with in particular the overthrow of spatial and
temporal frameworks, favours the confrontation of different cultural traditions,
which tends to expose their arbitrariness practically, through first-hand ex
perience, in the very heart of the routine of the everyday order, of the possibility
of doing the same things differently, or, no less important, of doing som ething
different at the same tim e; and also because it permits and requires the develop
ment of a body of specialists charged with raising to the level of discourse, so
as to rationalize and systematize them , the presuppositions of the traditional
world-viewr, hitherto mastered in their practical state.
17 A whole aspect of what is nowadays referred to as sociology (or anthropology)
partakes of this logic.
18 Formal Logic: Or, the Calculus of Inference, Necessary and Probable (London:
Taylor and Walton, 1847), p. 41.
19 J.-P . Sartre, L idiot de la fam ille (Paris: Gallimard, 1971), vol. 1, p. 783.
20 On belief as individual bad faith maintained and supported by collective bad faith,
see P. Bourdieu, "G enese et structure du champ religeux, Revue Fran^aise de
Sociologie, 12, 3 (1971), p. 318.
21 T o convince oneself that this is so, one only has to remember the tradition of
"confraternity within the medical profession. N o doctor ever pays a fellow doctor
a fee; instead he has to find him a present - without knowing what he wants or
needs - not costing too m uch more or too much less than the consultation, but
also not com ing too close, because that would amount to stating the price of the
consultation, thereby giving away the interested fiction that it was free.
22 "Y ouve saved me from having to sell is what is said in such cases to the lender
who prevents land falling into the hands of a stranger, by means of a sort of
fictitious sale (he gives the money while allowing the owner the continued use
of his property).
23 M . Mauss, "Essai sur le d o n , in Sociologie et anthropologic (Paris: P U F , 195c),
p. 239; trans. I. Cunnison as The G ift (L ondon, 1966), p. 52.
24 T he sacred character of the meal appears in the formulae used in swearing an
234
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
235
and there is disapproval of the man who takes advantage of the destitution of the
person forced to sell.
T h e trap is all the more infallible when, as in marriage, the circulation of
im mediately perceptible material goods, such as the bridewealth, the apparent
issue at stake in matrimonial negotiations, conceals the total circulation, actual
or potential, of goods that are indissociably material and sym bolic, of which they
are only the aspect most visible to the eye of the capitalist homo economicus. T he
amount of the payment, always of small value in relative and absolute terms, would
not justify the hard bargaining to which it gives rise, did it not take on a sym bolic
value of the highest importance as the unequivocal demonstration of the worth
of a fam ilys products on the matrimonial exchange market, and of the capacity
of the heads of the family to obtain the best price for their products through their
negotiating skills. T he best proof of the irreducibility of the stakes of matrimonial
strategy to the amount of the bridewealth is provided by history, which here too
has dissociated the sym bolic and material aspects of transactions: once reduced
to its purely monetary value, the bridewealth lost its significance as a sym bolic
rating, and the bargains of honour, thus reduced to the level of mere haggling,
were from then on considered shameful.
Although he fails to draw any real conclusions from it, in a work which proves
disappointing, Bertrand Russell admirably expresses an insight into the analogy
between energy and power which could serve as the basis for a unification of social
science: "Like energy, power has many forms, such as wealth, armaments, civil
authority, influence or opinion. N o one of these can be regarded as subordinate
to any other, and there is no one form from which the others are derivative. T h e
attempt to treat one form of power, say wealth, in isolation, can only be partially
successful, just as the study of one form of energy will be defective at certain
points, unless other forms are taken into account. Wealth may result from
military power or from influence over opinion, just as either of these may result
from w ealth (Power: A N ew Social Analysis (L ondon: Allen and U nw in, 1938),
pp. 12-13).
he goes on to define the programme for this unified science of
social energy: "Power, like energy, must be regarded as continually passing from
any one of its forms into any other, and it should be the business of social science
to seek the laws of such transform ations (pp. 13-14).
It has often been pointed out that the logic which makes the redistribution of
goods the sine qua non of the continuation of power tends to reduce or prevent
the primitive accumulation of econom ic capital and the developm ent of class
division (cf. for example E. Wolf, Sons of the Shaking Earth (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1959), p. 216).
M. I. Finley, "Technical Innovation and Economic Progress in the Ancient
W orld, Economic History Review, 18, 1 (August 1965), pp. 29-45, esp. p. 37;
and see "Land D ebt and the Man of Property in Classical A th en s, Political
Science Quarterly, 68 (1953), pp. 249-68.
See P. Bohannan, "Som e Principles of Exchange and Investm ent among the
T iv , American Anthropologist, 57, 1 (1955), pp. 60-70.
K. Polyani, Primitive Archaic and M odem Economics, ed. George D alton, N ew
York: D oubleday, 1968, and The Great Transformation, New York: Rinehart,
1944. It is rather paradoxical that in his contribution to a collection of essays edited
by Karl Polyani, Francisco Benet pays so much attention to the contrast between
the market and the village and scarcely mentions the factors which keep the local
suq under the control of the values of the good-faith econom y (see F . Benet,
"Explosive Markets: T h e Berber H ighlands, in K . Polyani, C. M. Arensberg,
236
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
N otes fo r p p . 185-189
and H. W. Pearson (ed s.), Trade and M arket in the E arly Empires, X ew York:
Free Press, 1957).
T he shady dealer cannot find anyone to answer for him (or his wares) and so
he cannot demand guarantees from the buyer.
T h e belief, often held in gnostic religions, that knowledge may be transmitted
through various forms of magical contact - most typically, through a kiss - may
be seen as an attempt to transcend the lim its of this mode of preservation:
"Whatever it is that the practitioner learns, he learns from another dukun, who
is his guru (teacher); and whatever he learns, he and others call his ilmu
(science). Ilmu is generally considered to be a kind of abstract knowledge or
supernormal skill, but by the more concrete-minded and 'old-fashioned, it is
som etim es viewed as a kind of substantive magical power, in which case its
transmission may be more direct than through teaching (C. Geertz, The Religion
o f Java (L ondon: Collier-Macmillan, i960), p. 88).
See in particular J. G oody and I. Watt, "T h e Consequences of Literacy", Com
parative Studies in Society and History, 5, (1962-3), pp. 304ff., and J. G oody (ed .),
Literacy in Traditional Societies, Cambridge: University Press, 1968.
"T he poet is the incarnate book of the oral p eop le (J. A. N otopoulos, " Mnemosym e in Oral Literature , Transaclions and Proceedings o f the American Philological
Association, 69 (1938), pp. 465-93, esp. p. 469). In a very impressive article,
William C. Greene shows how a change in the mode of accumulation, circulation,
and reproduction of culture results in a change in the function it is made to
perform, together with a change in the structure of cultural products ("T he
Spoken and the Written W ord, H arvard Studies in Classical Philology, 9 (1951),
pp. 24-58). And Eric A. Havelock similarly shows that even the content of
cultural resources is transformed by the transformation of "the technolog)' of
preserved com m unication, and in particular, by the abandonment of mimesis,
a practical reactivation m obilizing all the resources of a "pattern of organized
actions - m usic, rhythm, words - for m nem onic purposes in an act of affective
identification, in favour of written discourse, which, because it exists as a text,
is repeatable, reversible, detached from the situation, and predisposed by its
permanence to becom e the object of analysis, comparison, contrast, and reflexion
(Preface to Plato, Cambridge, M ass.: Harvard U niversity Press, 1963). U ntil
language is objectified in the written text, speech is inseparable from the speakers
whole person, and in his absence it can be manipulated only in the mode of
mimesis, which is not open to analysis or criticism.
A social history of all forms of distinction (of which the title is a particular case)
would have to show the social conditions and the consequences of the transition
from a personal authority which can neither be delegated nor inherited (e.g . the
gratia, esteem , influence, of the Romans) to the title - from honour to the jus
honorum. In Rome, for exam ple, the use of titles (e.g . eques Romanus) defining
a dignitas, an officially recognized position in the State (as distinct from a purely
personal quality), was, like the use of insignia, progressively subjected to detailed
control by custom or law (cf. C. N icolet, L ordre equestre a Iepoque republicaine,
vol. 1: Definitions juridiques et structures sociales (Paris, 1966), pp. 236-41).
On this point see P. Bourdieu and L. Boltanksi, "L e titre et le poste: rapports
entre le system e de production et le system e de reproduction, Actes de la
Recherche en Sciences Sociales, no. 2, March 1975; trans. "Qualifications and
Job s, C C C S Stencilled Paper 46 (U niversity of Birmingham, 1977).
T h is is true, for example, t>f the charismatic (or meritocratic) ideology which
explains the differential probability of access to academic qualifications by
reference to the inequality of innate talent, thus reproducing the effect of the
N otes fo r p p . iS g -ig i
237
1953). P- 19746 Ibid. p. 195. T he analogy with the Cartesian theory' of continuous creation is
perfect. And when L eibniz criticized a conception of God condem ned to move
the world "as a carpenter moves his axe or as a miller drives his m illstone by
directing the water towards the w h e e l (G . W. Leibniz, " D e ipsa natura,
Opuscula philosophica selecta, ed. P. Shrecker (Paris: Boivin, 1939), p. 92), and
put forward in place of the Cartesian universe, which cannot exist without
unremitting divine attention, a physical universe endowed with a vis propria, he
was initiating the critique, which did not find expression until much later (i.e.
in Hegels introduction to the Philosophy of Right), of all form s of the
refusal to acknowledge that the social world has a nature, i.e . an immanent
necessity.
47 If acts of com m unication - exchanges of gifts, challenges, or words - always bear
within them a potential conflict, it is because they always contain the possibility
of domination. Symbolic violence is that form of domination w hich, transcending
the opposition usually drawn between sense relations and power relations, com
munication and dom ination, is only exerted through the comm unication in which
it is disguised.
48 It can be seen that if one is trying to account for the specific form in which
domination is realized in the pre-capitalist econom y, it is not sufficient to observe,
as Marshall D . Sahlins does, that the pre-capitalist econom y does not provide the
conditions necessary for an indirect, impersonal mode of domination, in which
the workers dependence on the em ployer is the quasi-automatic product of the
mechanisms of the labour market (cf. "Political Power and the Economy in
Primitive S ociety, in G . E. D ole and R. L. Carneiro (ed s.). Essays in the Science
of Culture (N ew York: Crowell, i960), pp. 390-415; "Poor Man, Rich Man, Big
Man, Chief: Political T yp es in M elanesia and P olynesia, Comparative Studies
in Society and H istory, 5 (1962-3), pp. 285-303; "On the Sociology of Primitive
E xchange, in M. Banton (e d .), The Relevance o f Models fo r Social Anthropology
(London: Tavistock, 1965), pp. 139-236). T hese negative conditions (which one
is amply justified in pointing to when it is a question of countering any form of
idealism or idealization) do not account for the internal logic of sy'mbolic violence,
any more than the absence of the lightning rod and the electric telegraph, which
Marx refers to in a fam ous passage in the introduction to the Grundrisse, can be
used to explain Jupiter and H erm es, i.e. the internal logic of Greek mythology
and art.
49 T he interactionist "gaze, which ignores the objective mechanism s and their
operation, in order to look into the direct interactions between agents, would
find an ideal terrain in this sort of society, i.e. precisely in the case in which,
because of the relationship normally existing between the anthropologist and his
object, it is least likely to be possible. Another paradox appears in the fact that
structuralism, in the strict sense of the word, i.e. the sciences of the objective
structures of the social world (and not simply of agents im ages of them ), is least
adequate and least fruitful when applied to societies in which relations of
domination and dependence are the product of continuous creation. (U nless one
chooses to posit, as the structuralism of Levi-Strauss im plicitly does, that in such
cases the structure lies in the ideology', and that power lies in the possession
of the instrument of appropriation of these structures, i.e. in a form of cultural
capital.)
238
N otes fo r p p . 191-194
239
In d ex
azegzaw,
145, 226 n .6 8
B a c h e la rd , G ., 223 n .3 6
B ally , C ., r, 25, 198 n . i , 202 n .3 2
baraka, 22S n .8 9
b a r d , 88, 187, 236 n.41
b a rle y , o rig in o f, 162-3
B a r th , F . , 32
B a te s o n , G . , 231 n .1 1 2
see alsos p e c ia l
ri.91
c a le n d a r, 9 7 -1 0 9 ; a g ra ria n , 100-4, l3l*2 1 9 n . 3,
222 n .3 2 ; c o o k in g , 143-6; h o m o lo g ) o f c a le n
d a r s , 143; m y th ic a l a n d c lim a tic , 130; p r a c
tic a l, 219 n .4 ; r it u a l, 7, 4.5, 136; u n r e a lity o f,
107; w o m e n s , 146-8
c a p ita l,
c u ltu r a l,
89,
183-4,
236 n .4 1 ,
(c o m p e te n c e a n d ) 186, ( p r im itiv e a c c u m u la
tio n o f) 187; o f la n d a n d liv e s to c k , 4 9 ; o f
m e n , 49, 61, 6 9 ; s y m b o lic , 6, 36, 40, 41, 47,
54, 55, 59, 60, 65, 70, 17183, 2 1 4 n . n 1 , 222
n .3 2 , and see h o n o u r, n a m e , ( a n d e a rly
[ 240 ]
Index
capital (con t.)
e d u c a tio n ) 6 3 -4 , 182, (a n d e c o n o m ic c a p ita l)
56, 62, 67, 177-83 passim, 211 n .9 8 , 235 n .3 2 ;
see also in te r e s t, m is re c o g n itio n
C a r n a p , R ., 158, 231 n .1 1 4
c e n s o rs h ip , 169 -7 0 ; c ro s e -c ., 196; o f v io lc n c c ,
191; fee also h a b itu s
c e n t r if u g a l/c e n tr ip e ta l, 5 7 -8 , 92, 160; see also
o u ts id e
c h a lle n g e , 12, 61, 73, 182; a n d o ffe n c e , 211 n .9 4
C h a r , R ., 119
c h a ris m a , 170, 179, 193
c h a ris m a tic id e o lo g y , 187, 236 n .4 4
C h e lh o d , J . , 208 n .7 7 , 212 n .1 0 2
c h ild , 8 7 -9 , 93, 102, 131,153, 226 n .6 7 , 233 n .4 ;
see also e d u c a tio n , g a m e , h a b itu s
C h o m sk y , N ., 20, 26, 27, 29, 95, 203 n .4 1 , 223
n -34
c ip h e r, see c o d e
c irc u la tio n , c ir c u la r , 195
c irc u m c is io n , 127, 135, 143, 225 n .5 6 , 2 2 6 n n .6 7
&
70, 227 n.7 5
c la ss: d iv is io n in to , a n d c ris is, 168; d o m in a n t,
216
n .2 6 ; h a b itu s , 8 0 -1 , 8 5 -6 , 216 n .2 8 , and
see h a b itu s ; h o m o g a m y , 8 2 ; o b je c tiv e a n d
in te r n a liz e d , 164; see also c o n s c io u s n e s s
c la ssific a to ry s y s te m , 97, 98, 133, 159, 164;
a m b ig u ity o f, 140-1: d o m in a n t, 169; p o litic a l
f u n c tio n o f, 164; p ra c tic a l, 97, 109, 112, 121,
124, 163; see also k in s h ip , o p p o s itio n s
c lie n te le , 13, 178-80, 190
(to ) c lo s e /o p e n , 9 1 , 101, n o , 118, 1 20-1, 138,
208 n .7 8 , 220 n .1 2 , 223 n .4 0 , 228 n.8 5
c o d e , 1, 23, 25, 81, 198 n .4 ; see also d e c o d in g
c o g n itio n ,
see
f u n c tio n ,
k n o w le d g e
(connaissance)
c o h e re n c e , p ra c tic a l, see p r a c tic e ; o f p r o d u c ts
o f h a b itu s , 9 7 ; o f r itu a l a c tio n s , 118, 123, 231
n.1 1 3 , and see ritu a l p r a c tic e ; o f s y m b o lic
s y s te m s , see s y m b o lic s y ste m
c o ld /h o t, 12 1 -2 , 127
c o lle c tiv e , a n d in d iv id u a l, 35; p e rs o n ific a tio n
o f, see p e rs o n ific a tio n
c o lle c tiv iz a tio n , s y m b o lic , 41
c o m m e n s a lity , 136, 138, 173, 2 3 3 -4 n.2 4
c o m m e rc e , 176
c o m m o n s e n s e , see d o x a , d o x ic e x p e rie n c e ,
s e lf-e v id e n c e , s e n s e
c o m m u n ic a tio n , a n d d o m in a tio n , 237 n .4 7 ; see
also f u n c tio n
c o m p e te n c e , 2 , 58, 80, 81, 8 4 ; a n d c u ltu ra l
c a p ita l, 186; a s re c o g n iz e d c a p a c ity , 40
c o m p re h e n s io n . 1, 24
c o n d u c t, a s c o n s tr u c te d o b je c t a n d p re c o n
s tr u c te d d a tu m , 2 3 -5 , 2 0 i n .3 0 ; see also
e x e c u tio n , s p e e c h
c o n fo rm ity , 22, 29, 40, 57, 161, 193, 201 n .2 7 ,
208 n .7 5
24 1
c o n ju n c tu r e , 78, 8 1 ; p o litic a l, 8 2 -3
c o n sc io u s n e s s , 76; a w a k e n in g o f c la ss (prise de
conscience), 7 3 -4 , 76, 8 3 ,8 5 ,1 7 0 ,2 0 3 ^ 4 9 ,2 1 5
n .1 8 , 2 : 6 n n . 2 6 & 2 8 ; c o lle c tiv e , 25, 2 0 3 ^ 4 9 ;
c o m m u n ic a tio n o f c o n sc io u s n e s s e s , 80
c o n s c c ra tio n c y c le , 195
c o n s e n s u s , 80, 167
c o n tr a c t, 171, 172, 174, 179
c o n tra d ic tio n , s p e c ific , o f a g ra ria n a c tiv ity ,
116; o f m o d e o f r e p r o d u c tio n , 64
c o n tr a r ie s , 124-30; r e u n io n o f, 116, 124-30,
1 32-9, 225 n .5 6
c o n tr a r y a n d c o n tr a d ic to r y , x 12
c o o k e d /ra w , 90, 143-5
c o o k in g , 90, 113, 114, 128, 130, 138, 143-6, 154,
228 n .9 2
c o o k in g -p o t, i n , 116, 128, 129, 130, 140, 141,
'4 3 . >44. 54. 228 n .9 2
C o r n f o r d , F . M ., 156
c o u p le s , th in k in g in , 112
C o u r n o t, A ., 216 n .2 0 , 221 n .2 2
c o u s in , p a ra lle l, 28, 30-71 p a w im , 224 n . 5 1 ;
m a rria g e w ith , (f u n c tio n o f) 37, (id e o lo g ic a l
r e p r e s e n ta tio n o f) 4 3 -4 , 46, 47, 202 n .3 7 , 209
n .8 o ; re la tio n to , a n d r e la tio n to la n d , 46
c r e d it, 4 1 , 62, 181, 183, 192, 197, 238 n .5 0 , 239
n.6 2
c ris is, 40, 83, 168-9, '7> '7
c ro o k e d /s tra ig h t, 44, 94, 126, 136, 137, 138, 169,
208 n n .7 6 & 79
C u is e n ie r, J . , 32, 205 n .6 3
c u ltu r a l c a p ita l, see c a p ita l
c u ltu r a l in te re s ts , 177, 197
c u ltu r a l p ra c tic e s , a n d le g itim a c y , 221 n .2 0
c u ltu r e , c o n c e p t of, 2, 23, 27, 84, 201 n .3 0 , 218
n . i , 236 n.41
c u s to m a r y law , 1 6 - 1 7 ,19> 4^> 167, 199 n n . 15-18,
211 n .9 6 , 212 n .io o , 215 n .1 9
c u ttin g , 133, 224 n .5 4 , 225 n .5 6 , 227 n .8 3
D a h l, R ., 216 n.26
d a y /n ig h t, 91, i l l , 121, 148, 2 2 0 n . 15; s tr u c tu r e
o f d a y , 148-53, 15961
d e a th , 90, 166; a n d s le e p , 121, 148
d e c ip h e r in g , iee d e c o d in g
d e c o d in g , 1, 23-4, 91
d e la y a n d s tra te g y , 6
d e le g a tio n , 41, 193, 238 n n .< 5 -6 ; see also
a u th o r ity , g ro u p
D e M o rg a n , A ., 170
d e n ia l, 133, 136-7, 194-5, '9 7
D e s c a rte s , R . 74, 75, 107, 237 n .4 6
d ia g r a m , 106-7, >8- n 8, 219 n .6 , 221 n .2 2 ; see
also g e n e a lo g y
d ia le c tic , o f c h a lle n g e a n d r ip o s te , 11; o f o b je c
tif ic a tio n a n d e m b o d im e n t, 8 7 -9 5 , an(^ see
e x te rn a liz a tio n , h a b itu s ; o f o ffen c e a n d
re v e n g e , 7 , and see e x c h a n g e
242
In d ex
D ilth e y , W ., 80
D io d o r u s , 9
d is c o u r s e . 16-22, 27, 1556 , and see fo r m u la
t io n ; u n iv e rs e o f, 18, 110, 113, 168, 170, 221
n .2 6 , and see p ra c tic e
d is e n c h a n tm e n t, 9 2 , 167, 176, 196, 238 n n . 50-1
d is p o s itio n , 3, 15, 17, 61, 6 4 , 72, 87, 93, 167;
c h o ic e o f te r m , 214 n . i ; see also h a b itu s
d is tin c tio n , 57, 178, 195, 236 n .4 2
d iv is io n , 103, 107, 112, 222 n .3 0 ; p rin c ip le o f,
100, 112, 125, 178; see also la b o u r, s p a c e ,
u n d iv id e d
d o m in a n t/d o m in a te d , 169; see also fe m a le /
m a le , f u n c tio n a lis m , o fficial, p o w e r re la tio n s
d o m in a tio n , 14; e le m e n ta r y fo r m s o f, 190;
m o d e s o f, 183-97 Passim
d o o r , 100, 119, 120, 122, 137; see also th r e s h o ld
D o s to y e v s k y , F ., 199 n . 9
d o x a , 164^71
d o x ic e x p e r ie n c e , 3, 164, 222 n .2 7 ; see also
se lf-e v id e n c e
d ry , see w e t
D u B o is, C ., 8 4 -5
D u b v , G . , 232 n . i o
D u c r o t, O ., 202 n.31
D u m o n t, L . , 31, 205 n .5 8 , 207 n .7 3
D u r k h e im , E . , 23, 27, 74, 75, 79, 97, 109, 115,
165, 189, 198 ri.2, 199 n . 15, 2 0 3 n n -3 9 & 4 9 , 216
n .2 1 , 223 n .3 9 , 225 n .5 6 , 237 n .4 5
e a r th /s k y , 45, 90, 124, 127, 135, 136, 220 n .1 4 ,
227 n .7 9
e a s t/w e s t, 15, 90, 91, 112, 118-19, 121, 122, 130,
'S 3
e c c e n tric ity , 95, 161
e c o n o m ic p ra c tic e s , m e n s a n d w o m e n s , 6 2 -3
e c o n o m ic s o f p ra c tic e , 1778 , 183
e c o n o m is m , 172, 175, 177
e c o n o m y , 171-85; a rc h a ic , 6 2 -3 , 171-83, 185,
(a c c o u n ta n c y a n d ) 178, 181; g o o d -fa ith ,
172-3, 180, 185-6
e d u c a tio n , 62, 8 1, 8 7 , 200 n n .2 0 & 2 6 , 2 1 7 ^ 4 0 ,
219 n . 2 ; a n d e th o s , 7 7 ; jr e a /s o c h ild , in c u lc a
tio n , p e d a g o g y
e d u c a tio n a l s y s te m , 186-8, 219 n .4
elbahadla, 11-13, 19
e m b le m , 20, 36, 165, 236 n .4 2
e m b o d im e n t, 72, 7 8 -9 , 81, 8 7 -9 5
E m m e r ic h , W ., 93
e m o tio n , 74, 117, 151, 330 n .1 0 2 , 233 n.11
E m p e d o c le s , 125, 224 n .4 8
e m p ty /f u ll, 45, 91, i n , 121, 126, 220 n .1 2 , 224
n .5 2
e n d o g a m y , see c o u s in , g r o u p , in c e st
epoche, 168, 233 n.1 5
ergon!energeia, 119
E r ik s o n , E . H ., 9 2 -3 , 217 n .4 1 , 218 n .4 2
e th n o c e n tr is m , 10, 117, 177-8
Index
fu n c tio n a lis m , 35, 115, 213 n .1 0 3 ; a n ti- f ., 218
n .i
f u tu r e , 9, 11, 76, 152; a n d p a s t, 15, 121
fu z z in e s s , see in d e te rm in a c y
G a b le , R . W ., 239 n .6 3
g a m e , 130, 161, 207 n .7 4 , 217 n .3 7 ; o f h o n o u r,
n - 1 2 ; see also rite
g a m e th e o r y , 12, 77
G a rfin k e l, H ., 21, 200 n .2 4
G e e r tz , C ., 236 n .3 9
g e n e a lo g y , 2 , 8, 19, 21, 33, 3 6 -8 , 4 1 -3 , 98, 105,
204 n .5 4 , 206 n n .6 6 - 7 ; a n d g e n e a lo g is ts , 19,
207 n.71
g e n e r a tio n , c y c le o f, 15s; m o d e o f, 78
g e n e r a tio n c o n flic ts , 78, 138
g e n e r a tio n g a p , 232 n .5 ; see also lim it
g e n e r o s ity , 14, 171-3, 94-5> >98 n .7 , 2 3 9 ^ 5 9 ;
see also c a p ita l
g e n e s is a m n e s ia , 23, 79, 218 n . i
G id e , A ., 112
g if t, 4 - 6 , 7 - 8 , S3, 171, 192, 194, 198 n .7 ; see also
exchange
G lu c k m a n , M ., 202 n .3 4
G o ffm a n , E . , 94
g o in /o u t, see o u t(s id e )
G o o d y , J . , 236 n .4 0
g r a m m a r , 8, 20, 27, s o o n . 2 6 ; g e n e r a tiv e , 20, 25,
27
G r a n e t, M ., 222 n .2 9 , 230 n.109
G r a n q v is t. H . , 205 n.61
G r e e n e , W . C ., 236 n.41
g r o u p , 30-43 passim; a llia n c e , a n d d e s c e n t, 30;
see also fu n c tio n
g y m n a s tic s , s y m b o lic , 2, 120, 218 n .4 4
h a b itu s , a c q u is itio n o f, 7 6 -8 , 81, 878 ; a n d
b io g ra p h y , 8 6 -7 ; a n d c o lle c tiv e a c tio n , 81,
82; a n d c e n s o rs h ip , 18; c h o ic e o f te r m , 218
n .4 7 ; a n d c h ro n o lo g y , 8 6 -7 ; a n d c u ltu r e , 200
n .2 6 : a n d c u s to m a r y la w , 17; a n d e arly
e d u c a tio n , 15, 6 3 -4 , 87, and see h . : a c q u is i
tio n o f; a n d e th o s , 82, 8 5 ; g r o u p a n d c la ss,
7 7 -8 , 8 0 -2 , 8 5 -6 ; h a rm o n iz a tio n (o r c h e s
tr a tio n ) o f, 9 , 72, 7 9 -8 1 , 86, 200 n .1 8 ; a n d
h is to ry , 8 2 -3 , 8 5 ; h y s te re s is e ffe c t a n d , 78,
83; a n d im p r o v is a tio n , 21, 54, 7 9 ,9 5 , and see
im p r o v is a tio n ; a s im m a n e n t la w , 81; a n d
in c u lc a tio n , 17, 6 3 -4 , 76, 8 1 ,8 5 ; a n d in te ra c
tio n , g, 73, 8 1 ; a n d in te r e s ts , 35, 6 3 -4 ; a n d
p ra c tic e s , 18, 72, 7 8 , 95, 207 n .7 4 ; a n d ru le s ,
17, 20, 40, 76, 9 8 ; a n d so c ia l p o s itio n , 8 1 -2 ;
a n d s tra te g ie s , 73, 76, 2 i 4 n . 2 ; a s s tr u c tu r e d ,
s tr u c tu r in g s tr u c tu r e , 72, 77-9, 97, 167; a n d
u n c o n s c io u s , 18, 7 8 -9 ; as u n ify in g p rin c ip le ,
8 2 -3 , 216 n .2 3 ; a s u n iv e rs a liz in g m e d ia tio n ,
79, 83, 87, 216 n.2 3
243
H a n o te a u , A ., a n d L e to u r n e u x , A ., 16, 108-9,
199
n n . 17-18, 211 n .9 6 , 212 n .io o
haram, see s a c re d
h a r d /te n d e r , 122, 131, 132, 228 n.91
H a rris , M ., 73, 201 n .3 0 , 215 n .3
H a r tm a n n , N . , 79
H a v e lo c k , E . A ., 236 n.41
H e b - H e b - e r - R e m m a n , 114
H e g e l, G . W . F . , 18, 76, 86, 156, 163, 200 n . 19,
218 n .4 7 , 237 n->
H e id e g g e r, M ., 156, 216 n .2 4 , 231 n.113
h e re sy , 43, 169, 171
h e rm e n e u tic s , 1 -3, n , 23, 119; see also
sem io lo g y
h e te ro d o x y , see o rth o d o x y
h e x is, b o d y , 82, 87, 9 3 -4 ; m a n o f h o n o u r s, 94,
162; w o m a n s, 94
h ir e d tille r , 12-13
h is to ry ,
c o lle c tiv e ,
see
thadjadith', o f
e x c h a n g e s , 6 7, 207 n .7 2 ; a n d h a b itu s , 18,
7 8 -9 , 8 2 -3 ; in d iv id u a l a n d c o lle c tiv e , 86;
m a trim o n ia l, 66; a n d p ra c tic a l lo g ic 228 n .9 0 ;
a n d s e x u a l d iv is io n o f la b o u r , 9 2; a n d s t r u c
tu re s , 8 5 , 218 n . i ; a n d te rm in o lo g y o f social
u n its , 108; a n d u n c o n s c io u s , 7 8 -9 ; see also
s tr u c tu r a lis m
H je lm s le v , L . , 201 n .2 9
H o b b e s , T . , 189, 193
h o e in g , 131, 226 n .6 6
h o n o u r ( hurma), 48, 61, 90, 126, 178, 181, 182,
196, 211 n .9 4 , 2 , 4 n . m ; m a n o f, n , 94, 162,
175; see also c a p i ta l: s y m b o lic , is o tim y , p o in t
o f h o n o u r, s e n s e , s tra te g y
h o t, see c o ld
h o u s e ( K a b v le ) , 21, 44, 61, 8 9 -9 1 ,9 4 , n o , 113,
117,
125, 186, 217 n .3 9
h u m a n is m , 4 ; see also s u b je c tiv is m
H u m b o ld t, W . v o n , 119
H u m e , D ., 77
hurma, see h o n o u r
H u s s e rl, E ., 1, 76, 107, 199 n .8 , 221 n.21
h y s te re s is e ffe c t, 78, 8 3 ; see also g e n e r a tio n ,
h a b itu s
" id e o lo g ic a l a p p a r a t u s e s , 188
id e o lo g y , 21, 33, 37, 38, 62, 64, 65, 188; see also
g e n e a lo g y , n o r m , o fficial, ru le
illn e s s, 166-7
im p r o v is a tio n , 8, io , 11, 21, 54, 79, 95, 171; see
also h a b itu s
in c e s t, 30, 6 4 , 206 n .6 8
in c o rp o ra tio n , see e m b o d im e n t
in c u lc a tio n , 1 9 - 2 0 ,6 2 ,7 7 ,8 1 ,8 5 - 6 ,9 2 ,1 1 2 ,1 8 2 ,
186, 196, 200 n .2 6 ; see also h a b itu s
in d e te rm in a c y , 109-13, 122-3, I40 - 3> 221 n -2S
in d iv id u a l, 26, 81, 8 5 -6 ; c ritiq u e o f, 84; a n d
p o s itio n , 1 8 7 -8 ; see also h a b itu s
244
Index
Index
Malinowski, B., 195, 201 11.27, 202 n-}
manner, 86
manners, 94
map, 2, 37, 105
Marcy, G., 12, 199 n.13, 209 n.84
market,49, 58, i n , 122, 174,181,183, 184-6,217
n.38, 235 n.37; cultural, 187; matrimonial,
47,
56, 68-9, 71, 162, 174, 213 n.106; selfregulating, 183, 189
marriage, 6-7, 8, 30-71, 101, 103, 125, 129, 174,
220 n.14, 225 n.61; preferential, 3r, 33, 37;
proposal of, 34-5; see also cousin, extra
ordinary, function, labour, market, negotia
tion, official, rite, strategy
Marx, K.., 10, 30, 36, 60, 77,83-4, 96, 170, 176,
177, 178, 226 n.69, 237 n.48
"master beam, and main pillar, 90, 227 n.79
mastery, practical, 2,4, 15,19,79,87, 88-9, 111,
118, 123, 156, 223 n.40; symbolic
(theoretical), 10, 18-19, 79.
88 "8, 231
n n.in-12
materialism, 22, 96, 182; see also economism
Matheron, A., 218 n.45
Maunier, R. 234 n.30
Mauss, M., 4, 97, 172, 195, 233 n.23
Mead, G. H., 11
measuring, 127, 224 n.54
245
opinion, 167-71
oppositions, mythico-ritual, 45, 94, 112, 113,
118,
124-7, *42> 157; see also contraries,
magic, pairs of oppositions e.g. female/male
opus operatum, see modus operandi
orchestration of practices, 163, 232 n.7; see also
habitus
orthodoxy/heterodoxy, 19, 164, 169; see also
opinion
out(side)/m(side), 41, 57-8, 61, 90-2, 94, 102,
103, n c, 118-19, I22> 137. 160-1
outsider (stranger), 46, 47, 135, 138, 154, 230
n.107, see also awrith, centrifugal, observer,
outside
246
Index
Phidias, 86
philosophy, 30, 156, 168, 187, 223 n.41, 231
n.113
Plato, 156, 158, 200 n.20, 218 n.44, 224 n-4^
ploughing, 100, 104, 113, 127, 128, 130, 135-6,
!37 *75; and marriage, 45, 55, 114, 125, 137,
138
g, 208 n.78; and weaving, 115
ploughshare, 45, 127, 136, 137
Poincare, H., 2
point of honour (nif), 12, 14-15, 58, 61, 89, 90,
93, 94, 181, 182, 211 n-94, 214 n.i 11, 220n. 15,
224 n.50
point of view, 10-11, 96, 117; see also
anthropologist, objectivism
politeness, rules of, 94-5, 218 n.46; see also
etiquette
political science, 189
politics, 40, 54, 58, 60, 82-3, 92, 93-5, 153, 168,
171,
178-9, 180, 194, 218 n.46; and epistemology, 165 ; see also collectivization, officialization, position
Polyani, K., 183, 189, 235 n.37, 239 n.6o
polysemy, 110-11, 120-3, 143; see also indeter
minacy
polythesis, see monothesis
pomegranate, 114, 121, 138-9, 145, 227 n.84
position, in family, 69; legally defined, 187-8;
political, 107-8; in social structure, 82
potlatch, 194
pottery, 146-8
power, 15, 195, 235 n.33; economic, 184-5;
political, 180, 194; symbolic, 165, 170, 233
n.9
power relations. 187-8, 231 n.i 12, 237 n.47;
domestic, 43, 45^6, 64-5. 67-8, 164-5, 2I3
n.104, and see brothers, female, strategy:
successional; intergenerational, 165
practical logic, see logic
practical mastery, see mastery
practice, as "art, 2; temporal structure of,
5-9, and see simultaneity; theory of, 4, 9, 10,
ii,
72, 96, 105, (implicit) 1, 3, 17, 22, 23, 25,
31. 36; universe of, no, 122-3
prayer, 148, 153, 159, 160, 162
present, see gift
pre-Socratics, 156, 224 n.48, 231 n.113
Prieto, L., 25, 202 n.31
probabilities, objective, and subjective aspira
tions, 76-8, 86, 218 n.48
prophet, 171
Proust, M., 166, 233 n.13
psychoanalysis, 92
psychology, child, 93; and sexual division of
labour, 92; social, 81
Pythagoreans, 124
qabel, 15, 90, 162, 175
qanun, see customary law
Index
sacred (haram), 61, 89, 137, 199 n.14, 227 n.77
Sahlins, M. D ., 237 n.48
Sapir, E., 23, 119
sar, 193, 211 n.95
Sartre, J.-P., 73
6, 170, 215 n.18, 216 n.24, 23!
n.102, 233 n.19
Saussure, F. de, 1, 23-5, 26, 27, 198 n.4, 201
nn.28-9, 221 n.22
scheme (scheme), apprehension of, 116,123, 222
n.33, 2230.40, 228n.86; and habitus, 8-9,15;
and jurisprudence, 16; and model, 6,8-9,11,
20; and practice, 27, 91, 97, no, 112-13,
122-3; and situation, 142-3
scheme transfer, 116, 156
scholars, 156, 231 nn.m -12; see also bureau
cracy, literacy, specialists
Schutz, A., 21, 200 n.23
self-evidence, 53, 80, 164, 167-71, 182-3, 200
n.20, 203 n.49, 216 n.20; see also doxa
semiology, 23, 188; spontaneous, 10, 26
sense, 79-80, 124; of analogy, 112; of honour,
10-15,165, 199 n. 15,20c n. 18. and see honour,
point of honour; of justice, see justice; of
limits, 124, 164; practical, 113, ami see know
ledge (connaissance): practical; of reality, 86,
164; of roots, 98
separation, 124-30, 135, 153
series, 154-5, 229 n.97
Servier, J., 135
sexes, opposition between, 87; see also female,
labour, oppositions
sexuality, 225 n.56; male and female relations
to, 92-3
shame, 44, 47, 48; see also honour, woman
sheaf, ritual of last, 134-5, 140, 226 n.73, 227
n.81
simultaneity, and succession, 9, 38, 107, 117,
198 n.8, 221 n.22
situation, 25-6, 76, 110, 123, 142-3; see also
conjuncture
situational analysis, 26
smith, 104, 106, 126, 127, 133, 152, 163, 219 n.4,
226 n.71
snake, 114, 222 n.31, 227 n.82, 228 n.88
sociology, 188-9, 233 n-!7
soft, see hard
Sophists, 20, 231 n.i 11
sorcerer, 171
space, body, and cosmic, 89-90, 91; directions
in, see east/west; divisions of, 91, 163, 185,
217
n.38; geographical, 117; geometrical,
105, 108, 117-18; house, 89-91, 113, 117, 160;
male and female, 91, 160, 163, 217 n.38;
movements in, 90-1; village, 89-90, 160-1;
village, and market, 185-6
specialists, 21, 184, 231 nn. 111-12, 233 n.16
speech, as constructed object and preconstructed datum, 23
247
93
tempo, 7,
15; see also delay, interval, prac
tice, strategy
248
Index
n .6
te n d e r , see h ard
te r m in o lo g y , o f so c ia l u n its 1 0 8 -9 ; see a ^
k in sh ip
u p r ig h t, see c r o o k e d
u r b a n iz a tio n , 233 n .1 6 , 239 n .6 2
te m p o r a l r h y th m s, a n d so c ia l o r d e r , 165, 232
J., 202 n n .3 3 ,
J.,
V an V e ls e n ,
3 6 -7
V endryfes,
123
v e n g e a n c e , see r e v e n g e
v io le n c e , le g itim a te , z i , 4 0 -1 ; r itu a liz e d , 207
n .7 4 ; s y m b o lic , 21, 190-7 p a ssim , 237 n .4 7
v ir ility , 9 2 -3 ; see a lso p o in t o f h o n o u r , s e x u a lity
V o g e l, T . , 230 n . i o i
v o lu n ta r is m , see su b je c tiv ism
J., 75
W a h l,
W a lla c e, A . F . , 85
W a llo n , H . , i i 2
W a tt, I ., 236 n .4 0
w e a v in g , 90, 115, 133, 146; a n d p lo u g h in g , 115,
227 n .8 3 , 229 n .9 4
W 'eber, M . , 9 , 16, 6 4 , 7 6 , 170, 179, 188, 215 n .1 9
W 'esterm arck, E . , 114, 224 n .5 3 , 228 n .8 9
w e t /d r y , 9 0 , 100, 103, n o , 1 1 2 ,1 1 3 -1 4 ,1 2 7 , 129,
130, 140, 146, 221 n .1 7 , 227 n .8 3
W h ite , L . , 23
W h itin g , J. M . W ., 233 n .1 4
W ittg e n s te in , L . , 29, 30, 203 n .4 8 , 204 n .5 2
W o lf, E ., 235 n .3 4
w o m a n , 41, 44, 62, 6 6 , 6 8 , 89, 112, 1 2 3 ,1 2 6 ,1 2 8 ,
209 n .8 1 , 217 n n .3 7 - 8 , 224 n .5 1 ; o ld , se e
tham gharth-, re la tio n to , an d rela tio n to la n d ,
46, 55, 114, 1 2 5 -6 , 128-^, see a lso e x c h a n g e ,
fe m a le
w o o l, 1 4 6 -8
w o rk , see la b o u r
w r itin g , see lite ra cy
y ea r, f a n n in g , 1 2 7 -8 ; see also ca len d a r
Z iff, P ., 120, 203 n .38
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