Chaos and Kachin

Author(s): Ray Abrahams

Source: Anthropology Today, Vol. 6, No. 3 (Jun., 1990), pp. 15-17
Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3032724
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 AIDS with Womenin several countries have had mass roundups of women young in their own immortality,of policy makers in the
Kinshasa.Social living without male protectors.The women have been efficacy of their guidelines, and of the technocrats in
Science and Medicine. deported to rural areas. Gang rapes of market women the myth of progress and the eradicationof disease. Of
To be reprintedin
by prisoners and soldiers have also been reported.Fu- all the things we share, blood and semen are the most
Womenand Health in
Africa. M. Turshen,ed.
ture violence against women may include stoning or elemental. Both mythic and magical, these substances
New York:Africa poison ordeals for those accused of spreadingAIDS to cannot be controlledby the powers of humanreason.
WorldP. husbandsand lovers. The clever little . . . . has entered and will stay to
Schoepf, B.G., wN. thrive in the greatest homeland on the planet: poverty.
Rukarangira, N. Br-ookeGrundfestSchoepf Some say that poverty is also a disease; others say it is
Paynzo,C. Schoepf a 'co-factor.' It is certainly the best econiche imagi-
and E. Walu (Bunting Institute, Radcliffe College, HarvardUniver- nable. So the little . . . will live in happy symbiosis
1988. AIDS and Society
sity) with malnutrition,the lethal politics of development,
in CentralAfrica:A
View fromZaire. In endemic but soaring rates of other sexually transmitted
AIDSin Africa: Social diseases, and maternal-infanthealth programmes al-
and Policy Impact. N. Clever little '....' this new retrovirus. We have ready linked in complexity and failure to death.
Millerand R. learned a lot about its ruthless, selfish lifestyle. Like all And if blood and semen and sex and reproduction
Rockwell,eds. good parasites, it needs a network of comfortableguest and poverty were not sufficient, the clever little . ...
pp.211-235. houses, and a transportationsystem. Like other nasty has a backupsystem in the third largest industrylinking
Schoepf, B.G., N. microorganisms, it does not plan to kill the host and world economies: illegal drugs. Here the tiny creature
Payanzo,wN.
hostess, burn up the guest room or cut off avenues of finds naturalallies: greed, denial, power, prejudice,the
Rukarangira,E. Walu
and C. Schoepf
conquest. We have learned to fight back with all the search for highs, the need for escapes, small-scale tech-
1988. AIDS, Women magic of fervent incantationsand rubbertube. But the nologies like needles, newer systems like sexual tour-
and Society in central clever creatureis not thwartedby such puny rituals and ism, and the absurdityof political solutions.
Africa. In AIDS, 1988: new islands for its security and expansion continue to The clever little .... will, by 1995 or any other date
AAASsymposium open up. we name, still be thumbing its microscopic nose and
Papers. R. Kulstad,ed. The clever little . . . . finds econiches where people laughing up its metaphoricalsleeve at human attempts
pp. 175-181. are powerless to change their behaviouror where forces to counter our own culturalnature.We will still be try-
Washington,D.C.: Am.
of biology hold them hostage. This includes women ing to reason each other out of doing the very things
Assn for the
who must negotiate with the only currencythey have - that mark us as the animal species most likely to offer
Advancementof
Science. their bodies, and whom sex is protection, economics, hospitality to such a dangerous guest. We know that
Wilson, F.R. 1982. compliance, or someone else's habit. It includes babies. this malicious and clumsy houseguest has both limits
Reinventingthe Past The reproductive system of Homo sapiens, evolved and powerful enemies with weapon systems only now
and Circumscribingthe from millennia of mammalian intercourse, is vastly imagined.
Future:Authenticite more reliable than commercial aircraft, a sexually-
and the Negative linked urbancommunityor the artifice of needles. Ma) tha C. War-d
Image of Women's Blood and semen. The clever little . . . . has picked
Work in Zaire. In
the perfect econiche to transcendthe arbitraryboundar- (Universityof New Orleans)O
Womenand Wor-kin
Africa. E.G. Bay, ed. ies of nation states, of folk wisdom, of the beliefs of the

Chaos and Kachin

RAYABRAHAMS

The author is a Fellow

Chaos is in the air. Somewhere, a butterfly(is it always
of Chur-chillCollege, the same one or are there lots of them?) has flapped its
Cambri-dge,and wings, and we can already hear the wind whistling
Univ ersity Lectur ei. among the words processors.From the Open University
to the TLS, and from James Gleick to recent anthro-
pology debates, the message can be heard. Chaos is to
This article, which was
mostly written in late be the order of the day. Of course it is not the only
1989, attemptsin a message on the airwaves, and it will have to take its
lightheartedway to place with a few others, such as new biotechnology
draw attentionto some and, possibly, the Baltic states. But you can bet
new and perhapsnot so whatever you most fear to lose that we are going to
new ideas. I have no hear more about this butterflyand its strangefriend, the
pretensionsto deep pendulum who swings unpredictablyfrom one magnet
expertise on chaos
to anotherlike an anthropologistlooking for a theory.
theory, and my
knowledge of it is all
At this point a brief word of introduction to the
second-hand.In world of 'chaos theory' may be welcome. As its name
additionto material suggests, such theory deals with order and its absence.
cited, there are helpful It is partly aimed at the discovery of previously unno-
brief entries on the ticed forms of order, such as 'fractal' structureswhich
field in the Fontana replicate themselves at different orders of magnitude.
Dictionaiy of Modeil'1 This idea can be applied to a wide range of phenomena
Thoughtunder 'chaos'
from coastline geography to apparentlyrandomnoise in
telecommunication transmissions, but it is not clear
how useful it can be for anthropology- a simple social
fractal model is provided by Swift's fleas with their
'smaller fleas to bite 'em, and so ... ad infinitum'.Addi-
tionally, and of special relevance to my discussion here,
chaos theory is also deeply concerned with the fact that
many processes of interest to physicists and dthers are
much less predictable than has been anticipated by a
relatively simple mechanisticmodel of the world.
It may seem quixotic to place heavy bets on unpre-
dictability; but the paradox is just one formulation of
the well known puzzle which has been both the exter-
nal focus and the inner driving force of many anthro-
pologists. Human beings seek order in and among
themselves and in the world aroundthem, and this is a
hazardous if not, sometimes at least, an inappropriate
exercise.
At some risk of falling straight into the hole I have
just dug, we can distinguishhere between two problem-
atic zones. One is a material world of lifeless things
and processes, and the other is a world of life and,
often, choices and intentions.I know things are nowhere

ANTHROPOLOGYTODAY Vol 6 No 3, June 1990 15

and 'fractals'.One near that simple, but for present purposes 'no matter,
readerof the articlehas never mind', as the young Russell was told (more or
commentedthat less). The conventional search for order in the first of
Gleick, one of my
these worlds has so far been chaos theory's principal
sources, is a journalist
ratherthana scientist.
target, though it is also true that the appropriatenessof
Scientistswith whom I conventionally perceived forms of such order has been
have discussed a central issue in philosophy since early times. Heracli-
Gleick's book have tus, or at least a fragment of him, warned us against
expressedgreat talking about sameness and persistence, and in com-
admirationfor it, plementaryvein Lucretiustells us of the artificialityof
thoughI have heardthe categories which each purportto contain elements of
odd note of hesitation
one kind or another. At a most general level, chaos
abouthis and some
chaos theorists'
theory also addresses such problems. Despite our ef-
enthusiasmfor fractals. forts and intentions, there is only the remotest possi-
I am gratefulfor a bility that the swing of a pendulumsuspended between
mixed bag of four magnets will begin at the same point twice. And if
commentson the text it fails to do this, the minutest difference between
from Mick Brown, startingpoints is not reducedas the bob swings. Rather,
SusanDrucker-Brown, it becomes exaggerated and one track diverges widely
MichaelFischer,Ernest
and, within its limits, wildly from another. These and
Gellner,ChrisHann,
Keith Hart,Stephen
other processes within the physical world are highly
Hugh-Jones,the Editor complex, and some are much more complex than
and anonymousreaders others, so that even the idea of anticipatingtheir 'next
who read it for him. step', let alone predictingthem from the beginning, can
lie beyond the possibilities of even our high-speed tech-
nology and, more disturbingly,our mathematics.
When we get to life and humans, the situation seems
to be both more and yet, intriguingly,perhapsless com-
plicated. A recent article by Tito Arecchi on 'Chaos
and Complexity' in the Times Litelaly Supplementin-
cluded social processes and systems among the most
complex phenomena we might try to understand.The
powers of choice and intention, however we might try
to reduce them to other terms,create immense problems
for attempts at prediction, as even a cursory glance at
the last few months in eastern Europe makes abun-
dantly clear. Yet it is also arguable that the same
human drive to seek order in the world around us
pushes us to try to create order for ourselves. And the
existence of languages, and social rules, and powers of
empathy provides us with ample evidence that substan-
tial areas of such order can and do exist and that -
despite the well-worn paving on the road to hell - the
world of humansociety is by no means simply chaotic.
This leaves us in an odd position. It might be argued
that chaos thinking has narrowedthe gap between the
worlds of 'mind' and 'matter' in an unconventional
way. The common 'scientific' form of such attempts
has been reductionist,but this approachis alien to the
acknowledgement of the significance of interaction in
the new theories. In terms which are interestinglyremi-
niscent of Durkheim's superorganic polemic, we are
told that the behaviourof a complex set of elements in
systematic interaction with each other cannot be pre-
dicted simply from an understandingof the characterof
the components themselves in isolation from each
other. And as the behavioural patterns of even rela-
tively simple material systems are shown to be more
complex and less predictable than one might be
tempted to assume, such systems begin to look much
more like those which social scientists have tried to
grapplewith.
Indeed, there seems to be some evidence that sociol-
ogists and anthropologists have 'got there first', and
one begins to think that naturalscientists might benefit
from reading some of our texts ratherthan the all too
common patternin which we ourselves are to be seen,
as now, rummagingthroughthe ideas of others. I have
already mentioned Durkheim,but, as my title suggests,
I am mainly thinking here of EdmundLeach. It is true
16 ANTHROPOLOGYTODAY Vol 6 No 3, June 1990
that he broughtmany of the ideas in question into an-
thropology from engineering, but it is equally true that
his development of them in anthropologyseems to an-
ticipate some of the more recent thoughts within hard
science.
In his TLS article, Arecchi discusses the kind of
problem posed by the now familiar powerful butterfly
and waywardpendulumin general terms. The idea that
the flapping of those fragile wings might make all the
difference between doldrums and a hurricaneimplies,
among other things, the absence in such processes of
corrective counter-forcesto restore stability in the face
of the tiniest disturbance.Arecchi provides a simple di-
agram of two surfaces. The first is a kind of valley or
gully, of the sort one might representby folding a card
and holding it with the fold lowermost and the two
sides rising upwardsand away from it. The second is a
ridge - the same folded card turned upside down with
the two sides descending away from the fold. Start a
ball rolling anywherein the "valley"and it will eventu-
ally run along the bottom. Its path will ultimately con-
verge with that of any other ball no matter where they
start.In the second case, one might theoreticallyat least
start a ball rolling along the top of the ridge, but the
slightest variationof starting-pointor directionwill lead
to an ever-increasing divergence between the path of
this ball and the directionof the ridge.
Arecchi is of course presentinghere a classic model
of the difference between stable and unstableequilibria,
and this is exactly what Leach taughtus back in 1954. I
need scarcely rehearse this point in great detail here.
Leach arguedthat many of his colleagues made unwar-
rantedassumptionsabout the stability of social systems
which they analysed. He himself had found a mixture
of 'democratic' and 'autocratic' polities in the Kachin
Hills of highland Burma,and these were reminiscentof
the two main 'types' of polity delineated by Fortes and
Evans-Pritchardin African Political Systems. His as-
sumption was, however, that change is normal and per-
haps, in the last resort, disorderly. Systems could and
would change. They might be in equilibrium, but this
was a separate issue from stability. If one was to look
for a persistent pattern among the Kachins, it made
more sense to conceive of regularities of change in
which democracies might turn into autocracies and
vice-versa.
I will returnto this last issue shortly, but for the mo-
ment let me simply stress the parallel between Arec-
chi's point and Leach's 35 years earlier. In his analysis
of social systems Leach was chastising his colleagues
for their emphasis on stable equilibrium analysis, in
much the same vein as chaos theorists stress the ele-
ments of instabilityin the materialworld. For complete-
ness' sake, I should add that Leach clearly did not deny
the possibility that some social systems or sub-systems
might be more stable than others. His own analysis of
Shan states, and of the persistent force of mayuldama
marriage patterns in Kachin, treats these as relatively
stable features of the landscape, and indeed they are a
vital element in his model of the instability of gumlao
democracy and gumsa chiefly polities. Nonetheless, he
is keen in general to stress that stability cannot be
simply assumed. It may also be noted here in passing
that a similar point was made by Gregory Bateson in
his preface to the second edition of Nax'en(1958), and
it is clear that here, as in his contrastbetween different
forms of stable equilibriumin Bali and Iatmul (1949),
Bateson was rathermore aware than many of his col-
leagues of complexities within the field of equilibrium
theory.
 Abrahams,R. 1989. Law I have hinted that the world of human action might
and orderandthe state be both more simplified and complicated by the pre-
in the Hyamweziand sence in it of choice and intention. This possibility is
Sukumaareaof
perhaps most optimistically asserted by formalist
Tanzania.Africa,59.3.
Arecchi, T. 1989.Chaos
economics and games theory, where it is hoped that our
and Complexity.Times ability to act 'rationally' helps to make our choices
Liter a,y Supplement, relatively predictable. Again, functionalists and struc-
Special 'Liber'issue, turalists have hoped to reveal order through an under-
Oct. 6-12. standing of the problems which we have to solve and
Bateson,G. 1949. Bali: the intellectualand other apparatuswhich we can apply
the value system of a to their solution. Others again have stressed how order
stead state.In Fortes
and constraintmay be established through the medium
(ed.) Social Structure.
1958.Nai'en(2nd
of man-made structuresof relationshipand institutions
Edition). with their rules prescribingand proscribingvarious pat-
Bullock, A. et al. 1988. terns of behaviour. It is of course especially the idea
Fonitana Dictionariy (4 that such structuresand rule systems are both ordering
Modern Thought(2nd and stable which Leach attacks,and it is interestingtoo
Edition). that in this context he suggests that political anthro-
Fortes,M. and pology should pay more attention to Max Weber than
Evans-Pritchard, E. to Durkheim.
1940AfricanPolitical
Systems.
Of all our founding ancestors, Weber seems to have
Gleick, J. 1987. Chaos. been most conscious of the problems of discerning
Leach,E. 1954. The order in human affairs. This emerges nowhere more
Political Svstems (f clearly than in his methodology of ideal types, and it is
Highlanid Burmna. this side of his work which Leach especially seems to
1967.A Runawav emulate. In the present context, two aspects of the ap-
Wor-ld proach are particularlysignificant. One is the capacity
Schapera,I. 1956. of some ideal types to bridge a double gap, since they
Gov ernment an1d
can serve to link the general and particular,while at the
Politics in Tr-ibal
Societies. same time they provide a valuable connection between
Southall,A. 1956. Alur actor and observer.This is importantbecause, as I have
Societv. alreadymentioned, it is not only the anthropologistwho
Southwold,M. 1961. wants to make sense of society and behaviour. The
Bureaucracyand people we study also have an interest in this task,
Chiefshipin Buganda. though their interest is likely to be rather differently
East AftricanStudies. grounded from our own. Thus it appearsthat the cate-
Weber, M. 1947. The
4 gories of gumsa and gumlao are useful ideal types for
Theory'oSocial anid
Economic Oirgan2isation2. both Leach and the Kachin. For Leach, in part, they
provide an ideal-typical measure of the actual polities
he observes. For the Kachin, they provide a different
kind of ideal, which they use not only as a measure of
reality but also as a vision of worlds which they wish to
attain or avoid. This too is naturally interesting to
Leach, and here we also encounterthe second feature I
referredto. This is the potential of a model of this sort
for exploring instabilityand change.
Although Schapera felt he could assert in 1956 that
the tribal societies he studied lacked 'political philoso-
phy', in the sense of a serious entertainmentof alterna-
tive political worlds, Leach's book made clear that this
could not be said of the Kachins. Schapera was of
course writing of traditional societies in Southern
Africa, but it now seems quite unlikely that his com-
ment holds straightforwardlyfor at least some other
areas of that continent. The Tallensi have known and
even toyed with chiefship as exported by one of the
main Mole-Dagbane kingdoms, and peoples like the
Lendu and Okebu have similarly evaluated and made
choices between their own segmentary, oppositional
systems and the more centralizedstructuresof authority
of the Alur. In somewhat different vein, the Nyamwezi
and Sukuma, whom I myself have studied, have a long
history of combining two kinds (and levels) of polity -
the village eommlinitv and the chiefdom or other wider
ANTHROPOLOGICALINDEX
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ANTHROPOLOGYTODAY Vol 6 No 3, June 1990
hierarchy - and they have pitted the one against the
other on a numberof occasions.
Weberiananalyses exploit such co-existing models of
a polity in several ways. They can tell us about incon-
sistencies within a system, and this can also tell us
something interesting about where the system might
have been and where it might be going. Weber himself
brings this out very sharply in his analysis of 'patrimo-
nial' and 'feudal' structures.The first is an ideal type
where the ruler hires and fires staff at will. The latter
envisages the staff as well entrenchedby birthrightinto
power and high status. As Southwold shows for the Bu-
ganda, reality may vacillate between the two as the
ruler tries constantly to weaken the autonomy of staff
who are themselves attemptingto increase it. As with
Leach's Kachin picture,each phase of the system's life
is unstable, but the patternof change is not wholly un-
predictable.Naturally,as Leach argues, there is a cru-
cial 'as if' quality to such predictability,if only because
we are not often dealing with even 'the best laid plans
of mice and men'. But Leach is not simply telling us a
sort of fairy story with his 'as if' schema. The point is
that much change anywhere is actually sought by
humans as they attempt to realize their visions of a
good or better life, and even when the forces of change
can be thought of as extraneousto the actors, those ac-
tors nonetheless attempt to make sense of it and to
guide it along paths which are attractiveto them.
To returnto Arecchi's picture of a ridge as an un-
stable equilibriumsetting, Leach seems to suggest - for
a social system - that as the ball rolls down the side of
it, it tends to get diverted onto, or nearly onto, yet
anotherridge of human wishes, choices and intentions.
And such ridges are not infinite in number because
humanbeings seem to have relatively few ways of con-
ceiving forms of social order which they might try to
attain. It is of course possible that our ability to lay
equilibriumtraps for processes of change may be out-
stripped by the kinds of change which we experience.
Change may take place at a volume and with a speed
and complexity which our ready-to-wearmodels cannot
hope to fit, and which our capacity for new design fails
to cope with for a longer or a shorter time. This too
Leach had envisaged, in his evocative and, in its day,
extraordinarilyprophetic vision of a 'runaway world'
(1967).
It will be already obvious to any natural scientists
that I am not one of their number. I do not know to
what extent the unstable systems of the natural world
get caught up within new equilibria, though the fact
that hurricanestend to blow themselves out suggests
that even the powerful butterflyhas its limits. Perhaps
unwisely, however, I have been tempted here to try to
focus on some possible analogies between the natural
and social worlds as they emerge from some of the
popular 'chaos' literature.I have been especially struck
by the apparentsimilarities between modern critiques
of the traditional equilibrium focus of the natural
sciences and the criticism which Edmund Leach was
already directing at some of his colleagues in the dim
and distant early 1950s. Chaos may be in the air in
1990, as I suggest, but it appearsto have been already
there in social anthropologyin 1954. D
J
17