Berghahn Books

Theories and Ideologies in Anthropology

Author(s): Jukka Siikala
Source: Social Analysis: The International Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 48, No. 3 (Fall
2004), pp. 199-204
Published by: Berghahn Books
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23175147
Accessed: 11-05-2022 21:46 UTC

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Analysis: The International Journal of Anthropology

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Theories and Ideologies in
Anthropology

Jukka Siikala

The Fate of Ethnography

It has been claimed that anthropology is in a terminal decline. If so, according

to my interpretation, part of this is self-generated. The intellectual suicide of the
discipline is closely connected to the decline of serious ethnographic research.
The classic backbone of the discipline has been called 'salvage-ethnography.'
This critical concept implies that ethnography has interest only in the past or
faraway places, and this kind of ethnography does not form the basis of the dis
cipline's current theoretical body. This kind of reductioñism—reducing the dis
tance between the anthropologist and the object—not only has led to the
deletion of time and miles, but also has had the extreme result of focusing on
individual experiences. With growing demands of reflectivity, self has become
the object, and thus the empirical content of anthropology has been reduced to
Western experiences of the world. Theoretically significant difference has been
wiped out in the process. On the other hand, we witness a proliferation of eth
nographies done by everybody else but anthropologists. In the following, I look
at the recent anthropological practices that unintentionally promote the disci
pline's own death and connect them to the shifts in the position of anthropo
logical theory and its nature.
In his classic essay on ideology and the anthropological scientific community,
Dumont (1992) expressed his concerns about the state of anthropology. His essay
is based on his observations and analysis of the discipline in the 1970s, but much
of it is still relevant today. Dumont complains about the prevalence of transitory
fashions rapidly succeeding each other and the way that this leads to deplorable
discontinuity in the development of the discipline. He acknowledges the lack of
consensus about the general framework of the discipline's ultimate aims and pro
gram. Thus, anthropology is living in a permanent scientific revolution. Dumont
attempts to explain this situation by referring to the ways in which the discipline
is open to the ideology or ideologies of the surrounding society. According to the

Social Analysis, Volume 48, Issue 3, Fall 2004, 199-204

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200 Jukka Siikala

ultimate telos of various scientific orientations, he distinguishes three kinds of

activities differently affected by the ideological surrounding. First, he finds spe
cialized research activities in a defined domain of anthropology where one can
find agreement about the problems to be solved. Second, the approaches adopted
in these domains have competing and mutually incompatible modes of explana
tion that, despite the differences, can enter into dialogue on the basis of general
scientific principles. From these two anthropological activities he distinguishes a
third, which he characterizes as "approaches or would-be approaches, which,...
in the guise of a specific anthropology, are in reality intent [on] subjecting anthro
pology to nonanthropological concerns" (Dumont 1992: 204). Dumont identifies
these concerns as fundamentally opposed to anthropological principles because
the ideology behind them is individualistic.
In the 1970s, Dumont was still longing for a professional community that
could achieve consensus about its aims and thus be able to resist external ide
ological inclinations and pressures. In the ensuing quarter of a century, the
conditions of the production of scientific knowledge and the ways its dissemi
nation is conditioned have transformed dramatically, and these transforma
tions have had an effect on the nature of anthropological theorizing. Before
discussing these changes, it is necessary, however, to look at the different types
of anthropological theories. Noro (2001), a sociologist, has developed an illu
minating classification for sociological theories that is relevant also for anthro
pology in general. The first type of theoretical discussions can be grouped as
explanations of complex social phenomena. These are theories that are based
on an analysis of empirical materials and can be called research theories. As
empirical generalizations, they are open for empirical criticism. On the basis of
research theories, a second type of theoretical formulation, known as general
theory, can be constructed. The relationship of general theory to empirical
material is not direct but mediated through research theories. Research nor
mally operates on the basis of these theories. In addition to these two types of
theoretical constructs, Noro stresses the importance of a third kind of theoreti
cal discussion, which he calls Zeitdiagnose. According to Noro, the rise of Zeit
diagnose (for which no English concept has been established) is connected to
the "transition from the 'breakthrough to modernity' within the modern epoch
... into modernity. Modernity implicates increasingly greater changes in one's
experience and turns historical time into shorter and shorter 'moments.'" Thus,
the present moment, or, as Noro puts it, "the now-moment (Jetztzeit), becomes
the focus on describing an epoch." Hence, the Zeitgeistanalyse aims at con
ceptualizing the contemporary experience of the modern world for those who
live in it and try to grasp the fleeting moment.
If we look at the historical fate of anthropological theorizing by applying these
distinctions of theoretical genres, we can find significant changes in the popular
ity and importance of analogical genres of anthropological theories through time.
An excellent example of these conjunctures is provided by the fate of the Annual
Reports of the Bureau of American Ethnology. For Lévi-Strauss in 1941, finding
these reports in a secondhand bookshop was a revelation: "I can hardly describe

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 Theories and Ideologies in Anthropology 201

my emotion at this find. That these sacrosanct volumes, representing most of

our knowledge about the American Indians, could be found for sale alongside
commonplace books was something I had never dreamed of" (1983: 50). Pub
lishing this kind of research was the task of different scientific societies around
the world. The Société Finno-Ugrienne, Polynesian Society, Borneo Research
Council, and other similar societies produced ethnographic materials and re
search theories based in their classic series. These old volumes are still vener
ated today, but not because of their contents. Lévi-Strauss regarded them as
essential research materials, but with escalating prices buyers today have a mere
antiquarian interest in possessing them. Instead of being used for "reading,
analysing and commenting" (ibid.: 51), they have become objects to collect.

New Role of Ethnography

The changes that resulted in this deplorable situation are connected to the criti
cism of anthropology's colonial nature and the political incorrectness of the oth
ering inherent in the description of 'natives' (see, e.g., Kuper 1988). Besides a
rising anthropological self-awareness, this development can be connected to two
other trends. Put in the context of the aforementioned demands of modernity's
need for self-awareness, the criticism can be recontextualized. Anthropologists did
a pretty bad job in the service of colonialism, as Goody (1995) has reminded us.
Turning the anthropological gaze on oneself succeeded much better in its service
to modernity's need for an eternal analysis of Jetztzeit by criticizing the represen
tee not the representation. Difference was transformed into hierarchy—generating
othering and labeled politically incorrect—and fieldwork at home became more
and more popular as part of a self-reflective search for 'the moment.'
The critical political program that demanded the repatriation of the disci
pline had a very strange bedfellow. With neoliberal research politics from
Thatcher and Reagan onwards, the economic possibilities for extended field
work have been undermined since the 1980s. The radical criticism of profes
sional tradition and conservative politics ultimately had the same aim, and both
undermined the foundational practices of the discipline of anthropology. This
erosion was not limited to anthropology, which is just a minor part of intellec
tual academic life institutionalized mainly in the universities. The whole uni
versity system has been transformed through the capitalization of knowledge
that ominously has led to an amalgamation of interests among the previously
separate institutions of state, industry, and universities (Etzkowitz 1998). The
organizing principle of this unified interest is no longer the interest of the aca
demic community in a traditional sense; rather, knowledge is 'produced' for its
application. With the development of information technology, biotechnology,
and genetics, the path from basic research to commercial application has short
ened, and the quick applicability makes this process understandable. Learned
traditions have been replaced by commercial applicability as the criterion for
the quality of research, at the same time as the administration of academia has

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202 Jukka Siikala

been transformed to imitate corporate models of commodity production with

quality controls based on the new aims of the activity.
The kind of anthropology that Lévi-Strauss found in the secondhand book
shops of New York produces very little material for commercial applications.
Ethnographic descriptions and anthropological research theories are already
applications—even in a double sense. They are applications of the conceptual
apparatus of the author to describe the ways that the people under study apply
their cultural systems in various situations. To commercialize these results of
anthropological inquiry is difficult, and therefore a need has arisen to produce
marketable products that have a demand. That demand has been provided by
mainly two groups of customers with different interests, and these interests have
had a profound impact on the kind of anthropology done today. The roots of both
can be found in Britain and its dwindling anthropological community. Britain
provided the stimulus for the emergence of cultural studies, which in its original
form was still closely tied to social structures and paid attention to problems such
as class. Transatlantic travel changed its nature considerably, cut it loose from its
social anchoring (Davies 1995), and turned it into commercial activity. The dom
inance of cultural studies in publication markets, aided by the neoliberal funding
policy, lured anthropologists into staying at home, crying, "Exotic no more"
(MacClancy 2002). Studying at home meets the demand of a reading audience
whose main interest is the Zeitdiagnose and thus the generalized identity of the
modern individual and the nature of the moment. When publishers state that
they do not publish research anymore, but only books, they define 'book' as a
commodity. As cultural studies has taught us, modern individuals define and
express their individuality through consumption and thus commodities. Con
sumers expect to find in the commodity their own self, not the self of somebody
else. Thus, anthropology at home turns into anthropology of familiarity, the
material of which is all already known, and the only new in it is its presentation.
American anthropology has another version of the compulsions with the experi
ences of the contemporaries in its infatuation with identity politics. In a multi
cultural society, the differential experiences of various groups find their own
image in the anthropologies of this and that group produced by their own. Thus,
anthropology has been turned into one version of the media products wherein
people have to find their own voice and, thus, find themselves. As a result,
anthropology is grouped with other disciplines (e.g., sociology, cultural studies)
that do ethnographic research in an attempt to represent society to itself. The
interest in the literary nature of anthropology is very much understandable on the
basis of this. If the only novelty in ethnographic description is the way it is said,
attention is naturally drawn to the modes of depiction rather than the contents.

Anthropology as Social Engineering

In a commodified world, the identity-audiences determine to a large extent the

policies of the major publishers. Besides this consumer demand there exists,

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 Theories and Ideologies in Anthropology 203

however, another structurally different audience for anthropological research.

Application of anthropological insights into the problems of development has
been pushed forward, and not only by the representatives of the discipline (Mars
2004); it has also be looked for by the international institutions, corporations, and
organizations that are the main players in the development business. It" in the
'anthropology at home' genre we can find a strange conflation of reading audi
ence's interests and ethnography's contents, the conflation is even more dramatic
in the anthropological analysis of development.
One of the main projects of classic anthropology was to find new questions on
the basis of exploration. Of course, this project was connected to the expansion of
the West to unknown parts of the world. The expansion has been completed, and
the result is the present all-encompassing global economic system. Our universe
does not expand any more, and finding new questions is more and more intellec
tually challenging. The fate of applied anthropology projects has therefore been to
accept the questions formulated elsewhere. In this, anthropology is again not
alone. The intellectual development in the social sciences after the 1980s has been
described as "a process ... which can now be fully recognized as an almost total
breakdown of social critique" (Wagner 1999: 349). The loss of critical registers is
connected to the way in which the main projects of the social sciences have in fact
been defined by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and other
organizations of the corporate world (Boltanski and Chiapello 2003). How the def
inition of questions determines the answers is apparent in the different answers
given to the questions of development. The World Bank orchestrated structural
adjustment programs and advocated reducing public expenditure, privatizing
state-owned enterprises, contracting out government services, abolishing subsi
dies, subjecting civil servants to corporate mechanisms and market forces, and
promoting transparency of local governments to make them accountable for local
communities. The countertheories of development advocate people-centered
development, local-level social action based on community empowerment, and
participation involving the poor and excluded—and women. This requires decen
tralization and devolution of government and the promotion of self-generated
grassroots development (Take care of yourself!) (Schoeffel 2003). The answers
and the actual social consequences of the programs are identical—despite the
claims of contrary intentions. The "New Leviathan" proposed by Kapferer (2002)
is able to incorporate into a unified field of effects even conflicting intentions
through defining the conditions of questioning. Universal applicability of these
programs means that differences and new options have been wiped out; thus, the
actual basis of anthropology—cultural difference—has been eliminated.

Ultimate Reductionism

The university system, the main locus of production of anthropological knowl

edge, has become, by the reintegration of institution's, government's, and cor
poration's interests, a research and development institution that is supposed to

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204 Jukka Siikala

provide answers instead of questions (Readings 1999: 173-174). This has elim
inated radical difference from anthropological inquiry, and some anthropolo
gists in turn have transformed vice into an imagined virtue and provided these
answers, either for identity-audiences at home or social engineers in service of
development or well-fare state. In Dumont's terms, this has led to an extreme
form of socio-centricism, focusing on individuals and the assumed universal
ism of the values of our own culture (Dumont 1992: 207). From this fact derives
the 'mother of all reductionisms' and its two sides. Anthropological analysis
tends to move in the area of "democratic residue" (Chomsky 1993), wherein
Zeitgeist issues, such as individual agency, strategy, identity-construction, etc.,
are possible, or, on the other hand, in the realm of externally defined questions
with its predetermined answers. The ultimate result is a complete denial of
anthropology's own specificity in denying the particularity of our own culture
and society and supposing that our values have a universal validity.

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