Fields | Terrains | Vol. 5

FIELDS TERRAINS a c a d e m i c

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Winter | Hiver 2015 | Vol. 5 McGill Undergraduate Journal of Anthropology Revue d’anthropologie des étudiantes et étudiants au baccalauréat de McGill

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McGill undergraduate journal of anthropology _ Revue d’anthropologie des étudiantes et étudiants au baccalauréat de McGill

Editor-in-chief - Rédactrice en chef Ivy Huang Cover art - Couverture “Reflections II (Catherine Diggs pictured)” by Maela Ohana Translator - Traductrice Myra Sivaloganathan Layout Editor - Éditeur de mise en page Issabella Biron Ren

Editorial board - Équipe éditoriale Issabella Biron Ren Matthew Shi Myra Sivaloganathan Special thanks - Remerciements Arts Undergraduate Society, McGill Department of Anthropology, Anthropology Students’ Association

Note de la rédactrice

Editor’s note

Fields | Terrains atteignant sa cinquième année, ce volume mince mais chargé encapsule le changement de direction que nous prenons en 2014-2015.

Bien que nous continuons de présenter des dissertations académiques variées du Département d’Anthropologie de McGill de premier cycle, ce volume a été composé en ayant un but spécifique à l’esprit – soit d’offrir un aperçu de notre temps et des questions contemporaines. Ce cinquième volume répond aux questions de méthode, d’identité, et de responsabilité sociale, et expose des sujets négligés depuis longtemps. Comme supplément au journal, nous avons ajouté des ethnographies de films à notre nouveau site web. Nous souhaitons donc, par cette compilation textuelle et visuelle, de rendre l’anthropologie plus accessible à la masse.

As Fields | Terrains enters into its fifth year, this slim (yet hefty) annual volume encapsulates the shift in direction that we have taken for 2014-2015.

While we continue to present a varied number of academic works from the McGill Undergraduate Anthropology Department, we have selected pieces with a specific aim in mind— to offer insight into current times and current questions. Responding to issues of method, identity, and social accountability, this fifth volume exposes subjects that many of us have neglected for too long. As a supplement to our academic journal, we have also expanded to include McGill student film ethnographies through our new website. We hope, through this compilation of the visual and textual, that we place anthropology closer to the dinner table rather than remaining upon the desks of academia.

Au nom du comité de rédaction de cette année, nous vous remercions pour votre soutien continu au journal.

Ivy Huang Rédactrice en chef

On behalf on this year’s editorial team, we thank you for your ongoing support.

Ivy Huang Editor-in-chief

Table of Contents | Table des matières

I: Discussions on How to Conduct Ethnography and Research Object of Objectivity, or Subject to Subjectivity? An Analysis of Anthropology’s “Solutions” to the Crisis of Representation

by Jessie Tougas............................................................................2 Getting Past the “Primitive”: An Analysis of the Proper Use of Ethnography in the Study of Cave Art by Forrest Picher...........10 Looking at Death without Eyes An Interview Analysis: Exploring the Expansive Process of Anthropological Listening by Kai Kafrissen..................................16

II: Discussions on Identity Amerindian Perspectivism and Jama-Coaque Figural Sculpture

by Abigail Craig........................................................................22 Art & the Neo-Colonialist: Contemporary African Art in the Euro-American Market by Natalie Della Valle..........................30 Young Memories: Exploring Human-Object Relations at Conflict Sites by Geneviève Godin.............................................35

III: Discussions of Applying Anthropology to Current Issues Natural and Cultural Resource Management: Examining National Parks and World Heritage Sites by Rachel Ma..........46 The Protagonist in the Image: Dominant Representations of Korogocho and the Power of Youth to Take Back What is Rightfully Theirs by Nabila Walji.............................................55 Asking How: Homelessness and the Control of Public Spaces

by Jonathan Bacon.....................................................................64

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I Discussions on How to Conduct Ethnography and Research

by Alexander Dawson

Preparing the smoker during a night-time beekeeping intervention. – Film still from Neatsfire (2015)

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Object of Objectivity, or Subject to Subjectivity?

An Analysis of Anthropology’s “Solutions” to the Crisis of Representation Jessie Tougas The crisis of representation presents, for anthropology, not only a crisis of methodology, but also a crisis of meaning. The very purpose of anthropology comes into question if we accept that anthropologists exhibit bias, that ethnographies cannot represent the world accurately, and that the discipline can be distilled down to “lies told by anthropologists” and “lies told to anthropologists” (Metcalf 2003:1). But even though the stakes are high, attempts to resolve this crisis have not resulted in a single, perfected solution with universal appeal across the discipline.

In fact, to some anthropologists, this is an impossible problem to resolve. To others, there was nothing to resolve in the first place.

Nevertheless, for many anthropologists and anthropology students, the crisis is real and a solution is vital.

In an effort to find a viable solution to the crisis of representation, I consider six prominent options: (1) confessional tales, (2) the emic-etic balance, (3) jointly-authored texts, (4) story-telling, (5) counter-binary methods, and (6) the return to objectivity.

I will begin by considering the origins, development, and implications of the crisis of representation. The bulk of my article contains a description of the six proposed “solutions” I mention above, each followed by a critical analysis. Finally, I will conclude by arguing that the return to objectivity is the most sound solution to adopt.

them or create them” (1967:140). This statement hints at an early development of what we now call the crisis of representation, which “arises from uncertainty of adequate means of describing social reality” (Marcus and Fischer 1999:8). Malinowski’s diary suggests that the statement may have been prompted by his disheartened realization that the objectivity he was seeking would not be attained, and perhaps could not be attained.

During the postmodern turn, as anthropologists were “deconstructing” all the commonly-held—i.e. Western, modernist— views of the world and denouncing them as ethnocentric, they realized that they themselves were no exception to that same criticism. For example, there were tendencies to develop theories that: (1) show race and gender to be constructs, so as not to appear racist or sexist, (2) subscribe to established literary standards, so as to be published in a reputable journal, (3) follow epistemological norms, so as to help the author achieve tenure, (4) prioritize depth over breadth of subject matter, so as to be valued as an expert in that specialization, and (5) advocate the relevance and value of anthropology, so as to ensure the continuation of their discipline. These are only a few of the inexhaustible number of ways in which certain anthropological theories may be valued for reasons other than accuracy and truth. Moreover, many theorists acknowledge that anthropologists cannot escape the general ethnocentrism under which each of us operates (cf. Clifford 1983).

For instance, John Van Maanen asserts that “ethnographies are shaped [...] by the specific traditions and disciplines from which they are

The Crisis of Representation Bronislaw Malinowski’s fieldwork diary includes a humble note that has enormous theoretical implications for anthropology: “Feeling of ownership: it is I who will describe

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launched. These institutional matters affect the current theoretical position an author takes” (2011:5). There are no exceptions from this bias, not even for those that claim the opposite—“there is no way of seeing, hearing, or representing the world of others that is absolutely, universally valid or correct” (Van Maanen 2011:35, 66).

The crisis of representation, then, presents an irresolvable dilemma. Haraway aptly describes the situation this way: “So, I think my problem, and ‘our’ problem, is how to have simultaneously an account of radical historical contingency for all knowledge claims and knowing subjects, a critical practice for recognizing our own ‘semiotic technologies’ for making meanings, and a no-nonsense commitment to faithful accounts of a ‘real’ world” (1988:579). Here, Haraway describes the three key elements within the crisis of representation: (1) the “account”, which is the acknowledgement that all assertions and people are biased; (2) the “practice”, which is the effort to see our own biases; and (3) the “commitment”, which is the goal to arrive at real knowledge.

The problem, as Haraway explains, is how to reconcile these three seemingly irreconcilable elements.

Why, when faced this irresolvable dilemma, do anthropologists and other social scientists continue the pursuit of knowledge instead of packing up their empty bags, renouncing their futile goals disguised as academic interests?

A skeptical answer lies in the assumption that anthropologists have a vested interest in the survival of their discipline—if it dies, so does their honour and self-esteem, not to mention their salary. Thus, as long as they have this vested interest, anthropologists will forever come up with theories that advocate the existence of anthropology. Scholars who suggest otherwise die off in a Darwinian model of the ivory tower. However, another answer rests in the philosopher Albert

Camus’ theory of the absurd as explained in his essay “The Myth of Sisyphus” (1975).

This theory asserts that humans may never be able to arrive at meaning, but they are nevertheless compelled to continue the search for meaning, by virtue of their being human (Camus 1975). Anthropologists, then, follow the rest of the human population in their search for meaning, otherwise constructed as truth or knowledge, which remains forever beyond their grasp. Similarly, Haraway describes it as “the situation we are in when we give up mastery but keep searching for fidelity, knowing all the while that we will be hoodwinked” (Haraway 1988:593-594).

Whichever answer is correct, the fact remains that several anthropologists have proposed solutions to the crisis of representation. Yet, are they truly solutions, or merely inadequate responses to the crisis of representation?

The “Solutions” to the Crisis The responses I present here consist of the following: (1) confessional tales, (2) the emic-etic balance, (3) jointly-authored texts, (4) story-telling, (5) counter-binary methods, and (6) the return to objectivity.

Each has flaws—some more than others— but the principle flaws concerning logic and pragmatic ones, not political correctness ones. All of them could be easily denounced as ethnocentric, but that is not what I have set out to do. The issue is knowledge, not ethics.

Confessional Tales The confessional tale is an ethnographic genre described by Van Maanen in his book Tales of the Field: On Writing Ethnography, in which he includes a list of examples (2011:82). Ethnographic accounts that conform to this genre focus “more on the fieldworker than the culture studied” (7). Usually, they either appear within a standard ethnography published after an

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author has earned notable respect in the field, or simply remain unpublished (81).

In Malinowski’s case, his fieldwork diary—a classic that is exemplary of the confessional tale genre—was kept separate from his field notes and his published works. Even the very existence of his diary remained secret until his wife allowed its posthumous publication (Malinowski 1989[1967]:viii).

Once published, readers now understood more of the psychological and social conditions under which he conducted his fieldwork and how that affected his ethnography, because “while the personality of a scientist may not necessarily have a direct bearing upon his selection and treatment of problems, it must influence his work in other more subtle ways” (Malinowski 1989[1967]:xi).

The purpose of this kind of writing, according to Van Maanen, is to “demystify fieldwork or participant-observation by showing how the technique is practiced in the field” (2011:73). For some, this exposition of methodology allows peers to assess the reliability and validity of their ethnography; thus, if deemed acceptable, they may present their research as “scientifically valid” despite its shortcomings (92). For others, however, scientific validity is not a goal; instead, they use the confessional tale to question ethnographic authority and transform it from a science into a “philosophical, artistic, phenomenological, or political craft” (92).

Nonetheless, the idea is to erase the image of perfection from their collection and presentation of data by revealing flaws of their fieldwork. However, confessional tales do not constitute a real solution; rather, they merely lower the standard of anthropological knowledge. Anthropologists that include their methodology in their ethnographies do not ameliorate their research, but simply confess them. And while acknowledging or being critical of one’s own partiality is important, it is not enough on its own

(Haraway 1988:585). Without improving results, the research is just as untrustworthy as any other. Thus, the confessional tale does not present a viable solution to the crisis of representation.

The Emic-Etic Balance In his article “From the Native’s Point of View: On the Nature of Anthropological Understanding,” Clifford Geertz distinguished the emic or “experience-near” viewpoint from the etic or “experience-distant” viewpoints (1974:28). Emic research is conducted by an individual looking within one’s own social group, while etic research is conducted by an outsider looking into another’s social group.

Having established these concepts, Geertz reassures his audience that anthropologists are still needed to interpret other cultures.

His argument rests on two notions: first, that “you [the anthropologist] don’t have to be one [a native] to know one,” and second, that anthropologists are privy to etic parts of culture that natives are unaware of (29-30).

The problem with having a witch write an ethnography of witchcraft, he claims, is that witches are “imprisoned within their mental horizons” (29). The solution, then, is for an anthropologist to maintain a balance between the emic and etic parts of culture (29). But there are key assumptions that Geertz takes for granted. First, he assumes that etic parts of culture are necessary to anthropological knowledge. Second, he assumes that a mixed emic-etic approach is superior to one or the other. Third, he assumes that anthropologists who conduct fieldwork are not also “imprisoned within their mental horizons” (29). This last assumption is vital, because it reflects the crux of the crisis of representation, and Geertz leaves it unresolved.

Jointly-Authored Texts The jointly-authored text directly contradicts Geertz assumption. Instead of suggesting that anthropologists are privy to certain information, these texts imply

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that natives are privy to information that anthropologists cannot interpret. The idea here is to “let indigenous voices speak wherever possible,” to reduce the amount of “theoretical metacommentary,” and to provide “space for the natives to tell their own tale without the undue interference and wanton translation of the fieldworker” (Keesing 1992:10, Van Maanen 2011:136). Roger M. Keesing, who employed this method in his ethnography Custom and Confrontation: The Kwaio Struggle for Cultural Autonomy, argues that this “helps to control against excessive projections of my own theoretical biases and interpretive persuasions, and of Western logics, assumptions, motives, and categories” (1992:10).

However, this approach has drawbacks as well. According to Van Maanen, “most selfrespecting cultural members have no interest in representing their culture to others” (2011:137). This makes jointly-authored texts an impossible method for anthropologists to adopt universally. But even for those who do adopt it, there are more problems. Keesing found that his aims in writing and researching about Kwaio culture differed vastly from the Kwaio’s own goals (1992:135). In fact, he thought that what they wanted from him was, in his eyes, impossible to achieve (198). Moreover, there is usually a power inbalance between researcher and subject; in the end, it is the anthropologist who has the final say on editing and publishing, seeing as it is her research project (Van Maanen 2011:137). Finally, in trying to overcome general bias, the anthropologist is still going to confront native bias—even those natives who take an interest in ethnography are subject to their own limited views of how the culture exists and functions (Van Maanen 2011:137). When attempting to represent the subjugated, no one can encompass all the various positions wholly and simultaneously; this will only result in a “fetishized” and

“essentialized” subject (Haraway 1988:586).

Hence, jointly-authored texts as a solution remains problematic.

Story-telling Paul Stoller (2007) argues that the legacy of anthropology and its scholarly obligation is simply story-telling (178). Due to anthropology’s extreme specialization, he says, it can be hard to know what the discipline is about (179). Something of which he is certain is that anthropologists write ethnographies, yet even those are highly varied and “there is no one way to write ethnographic text (180).

What all ethnographies have in common is that they tell stories, whether about others or oneself (188). This view of anthropology— with its assumption that the nature of stories is eternal—is meant to supersede the “theoretical flavor of the day” (189).

However, upon further examination, it becomes clear that Stoller offers an escape from the problem rather than a solution to it. Suddenly, ethnographic bias ceases to matter because ethnographies are just stories. While this would be a clever tactic to avoid political incorrectness, it reduces anthropology to a sub-discipline of literature or creative writing. Is anthropology so weak that it cannot withstand the rigours of the social sciences? Are anthropologists so fearful of accusations of ethnocentrism that they are willing to abandon truth claims altogether? If this is not the case, then anthropology should not be reduced to a literary sub-discipline.

And without making truth claims, Stoller’s approach leaves anthropology with little academic authority, let alone a solution to the crisis of representation.

Counter-Binary Methods There are many methodological theories that seek to merge or reject binary poles such as subjectivity and objectivity, relativism and positivism, modern and postmodern. Although these kinds of theories are problematic as a whole, I will

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focus on Haraway’s (1988) theory of situated knowledges here. She proposes a rejection of the “view from above” in favour of “the joining of partial views and halting voices into a collective subject position” (590). For her methodology, more ways of knowing is inherently better than one. Pragmatically, this translates to a community of anthropologists who bring their differing views—as varied as possible—together in one place. However, I argue that multiple views may be expressed by a single scholar while maintaining the same amount of value to the academic community.

Take, for instance, Michael Taussig’s debate with Sidney Mintz and Eric Wolf. According to Haraway, academia benefitted from having these multiple scholars each express their own different viewpoints. But in theory, one hypothetical scholar could have simply related an internal struggle between each of the views. Thus, multiple viewpoints expressed by one scholar is not only possible, but just as beneficial as being expressed by multiple scholars.

Another issue with Haraway’s proposition is that it assumes that scholarly debates are coherent to the extent that they work in unison toward a common goal. While reading her article, one might be soothed into imagining academic discussions in a beautiful meadow under clear skies, where everyone sits in a circle and takes turn listening to one another, while nods and smiles abound. But in reality,we witness a haphazard collection of textual shouts. What we find more often than not in anthropology is the dismissal of grand theories in favour of fragmented ones (Bloch 2005:2, Bloch 2008). Rather than working toward the similar, general questions that define ordinary people’s reflexive thoughts, anthropologists become increasingly specialized and their research becomes decreasingly relevant to one another. This inevitably results in many anthropologists shouting past each other or avoiding each

other altogether.

A Return to Objectivity On the other hand, anthropology could return to grand, general theories that describe humanity. These theories seek to answer questions that all human beings ask about themselves, about human nature, about differences and similarities between us (Bloch 2008). Bloch (2008) calls anthropological debate, as opposed to the institution of anthropology, which rarely enters the debate and instead spends its time navel-gazing.

Marvin Harris (1968) found problems early on with the “eclectic, piecemeal approach... concerned with idiographic phenomena” that stressed “the inner, subjective meaning of experience to the exclusion of objective effects and relations” (3). This approach, far from being progressive or organic, arose “from covert pressures of the sociocultural milieu in which anthropology achieved its disciplinary identity” (5). Harris claims it is “a convenient excuse for not having to bother with the question of the scientific importance of a particular research option” and thus, while neglecting and obfuscating, falls subject to irresponsibility (3). If, on the other hand, the discipline were to return to the grand anthropological debate of humanity, then it is no longer irrelevant and fragmented.

A question remains, however, of how to return to those grand questions now that we are aware of our own bias in research.

But it is one thing to admit the possibility of research bias and another thing to assert the inevitability of it. The former remains consistent with a objectivist view, in which the world really exists and can be known, while the latter is more consistent with a relativist view, in which there are no facts and the world cannot be truly known. The Taussig versus Mintz and Wolf debate, discussed earlier, exemplifies these two views. Taussig (1987) argues from a relativist perspective; he criticizes Mintz and Wolf for seeking out

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causal relationships and quotes Friedrich Nietzche’s assertion: “There are no facts as such. We must always begin by introducing a meaning in order for there to be a fact” (7). Meanwhile, Mintz and Wolf (2001) insist on an objectivist perspective that there are facts, causal relationships, and objective truth beyond “meanings” (508). They also point out that Taussig, as a relativist, should accommodate different points of view instead of criticizing his methods (510-511). Besides, what makes Taussig think that he exists “outside the system” any more than them (512)? What makes him an exception?

The importance of this debate lies in the fact that one pole is more optimal than another. In a relativist world, even the knowledge of “positivist, naturalizing devils” is valid (Mintz and Wolf 2001:507). However, in a world of objectivity, Taussig’s approach is flawed because it refutes the existence of objective facts. In deciding between the two approaches, as shown in Figure 1, Mintz and Wolf ’s option proves to be the best for optimizing one’s chances of success.

Yet, the objectivist approach is not without

criticism. One fear is that losing the knowledge that the postmodern period has given us will only lead to a repetition of the past (Bloch 2008). If postmodernism has shown us that modernism is flawed, then we should certainly avoid adopting the same methods that modernists were using. But the main flaw that postmodernists were and are quick to point out in modernism is the ethnocentrism of it all. According to postmodernists, modernism—with its positivist, universalist, objectivist, and scientific perspectives—is merely a Western and colonial way of viewing the world. They assert that this worldview is “Western” because ethnographic data reveals a wide variety of peoples and cultures who view the world differently, and it is “colonial” because this worldview can marginalize and oppress people who are not part of the hegemonic society.

Each of these assumptions is flawed. First, the dichotomy of Western and non-Western worldviews is premised on the essentialist assumption that all Westerners are alike and all non-Westerners are alike.

More probable is that worldviews do

Relativism: All knowledges are equally valid, there is no objective truth

Objectivity: Some knowledges are more valid than others, there is objective truth

Michael Taussig’s approach

holds

does not hold

Sidney Mintz and Eric Wolf ’s approach

holds

does not hold

Figure 1. A decision table that accommodates the relativism-objectivity debate. Here, we see that Taussig’s approach only holds in the relativism circumstance; meanwhile, Mintz and Wolf ’s approach holds in both circumstances. If a scholar wants to optimize her chances of argumentative soundness, she should adopt their objectivist approach and assume the existence of objective truth.

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not fit neatly into these two classifications.

Furthermore, the fact that different people hold different worldviews says nothing about their accuracy. The idea that some views are false and others are true is both intuitive and rational. Second, the fact that one mode of thinking might marginalize and oppress others does not throw the validity of that thinking into doubt; it may be unpalatable or politically incorrect, but that does not mean it is false. Besides, postmodernism can also be seen as ethnocentric by valuing those who subscribe to it higher than those who do not. Do postmodernists not, to some extent, marginalize modernists?

Jurgen Habermas, a critic of postmodernism, argues that while modernist thinking has its flaws, these flaws do not warrant the entire abandonment of rationality (Ashley 1990). On the other hand, postmodernism introduces a serious flaw: when all knowledge systems are equally valid, choice between them becomes meaningless, thus paralyzing anthropologists into inactivity.

Even Jean Baudrillard, a postmodernist scholar, argues that the postmodernism of the twentieth century destroyed meaning just as much as it destroyed appearances (1994:161).

Without meaning, trying to obtain knowledge becomes futile.

Therefore, a cognizant return to objectivity appears to be the most rational, sound argument. By beginning with an awareness of different forms of knowledge, this form of scholarship would not repeat modernism’s mistake of taking one form of knowledge for granted. By asserting that there are indeed objective facts about the universe, it would would not repeat postmodernism’s error of rejecting objectivity altogether. But its allegiance to the belief in objective reality is not blind; rather, it is a result of rational thought. Moreover, by working toward grand theories that explain general questions about humanity, anthropology can remain useful

and relevant to society at large.

Conclusion The need to resolve the crisis of representation is vital for the discipline of anthropology. Of the six responses to this crisis that I have examined, the most viable solution is a return to the search of objective knowledge, addressing the ontological and epistemological questions without ignoring cultural bias. This approach would benefit anthropology through assurance of this field’s continuation as a unified and relevant academic discipline. And even if some like Bloch (2008) do not care for the survival of anthropology as an institutional system, this method of research would still produce sound, rational arguments. Such rigorous academic scholarship is undoubtedly beneficial not only to those currently inhabiting the ivory tower, but more importantly to the world’s many other inhabitants.female diets,” (idem: 251).

References : Ashley, David 1990 Habermas and the Completion of “The Project of Modernity”. In Theories of Modernity and Postmodernity Pp. 88-107. Turner Bryan, ed.

London: SAGE. Baudrillard, Jean 1994 Simulacra and Simulation. Sheila Faria Glaser, tran. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Bloch, Maurice 2005 Where Did Anthropology Go?: Or the Need For “Human Nature”. In Essays On Cultural Transmission. Maurice Bloch, ed. Pp. 1–20. Oxford: Berg Publishers. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/27108/, accessed December 8, 2012.

2008 The Reluctant Anthropologist. Interview by Maarja Kaaristo. Online. February 28. http://www. eurozine.com/articles/2008-02-28-bloch-en.html.

Camus, Albert 1975 The Myth of Sisyphus. Justin O’Brien, tran.

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Ethnography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Archaeological Tourism and the Ch’orti’ in Honduras. In The Ch’orti’ Maya Area, Brent E. Metz, Cameron L. McNeil and Kerry M. Hull (eds.) Gainesville: University of Florida Press, pp.

246-257.

Patterson, Thomas C. 1995 Archaeology, History Indigenismo, and the State in Peru and Mexico. In Making Alternative Histories: The Practice of Archaeology and History in Non-Western Settings, Peter R. Schmidt and Thomas C. Patterson (eds.) Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, pp. 69-85.

UNESCO World Heritage Convention.

1972 Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. Paris : United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.

Clifford, James 1983 On Ethnographic Authority. Representations (2):118–146.

Geertz, Clifford 1974 From the Native’s Point of View: On the Nature of Anthropological Understanding. Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 28(1):26–45.

Haraway, Donna 1988 Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective.

Feminist Studies 14(3):575–599.

Harris, Marvin 1968 The Rise of Anthropological Theory: A History of Theories of Culture. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company.

Keesing, Roger M. 1992 Custom and Confrontation: The Kwaio Struggle for Cultural Autonomy. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press.

Malinowski, Bronislaw 1989[1967] A Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Marcus, George E., and Michael M. J. Fischer 1999 Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences.

University of Chicago Press.

Metcalf, Peter 2003 They Lie, We Lie: Getting on with Anthropology. London: Routledge.

Mintz, Sidney W., and Eric R. Wolf 2001 Reply to Michael Taussig. In Readings for a History of Anthropological Theory Pp. 507-513.

Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Stoller, Paul 2007 Ethnography/Memoir/Imagination/Story.

Anthropology and Humanism 32(2):178–191.

Taussig, Michael 1989 History as Commodity: In Some Recent American (Anthropological) Literature. Critique of Anthropology 9(1):7–23.

Van Maanen, John 2011 Tales of the Field: On Writing

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Getting Past the “Primitive”: An Analysis of the Proper Use of Ethnography in the Study of Cave Art Forrest Picher For the scholars occupied with understanding the art of the Upper Paleolithic, information from contemporary parallels has often been used as corroborative material, and even sources for hypotheses. In this essay I will analyze the use of contemporary ethnographic sources to interpret Upper Paleolithic Rock Art. I will begin with a discussion of how contemporary “primitives” were used to understand the art of so-called Paleolithic “primitives”, and the implications of these ideas on the development of archaeological interpretation of parietal art in the Paleolithic. I will then analyze a modern interpretation’s use of parallels. I will end with my conclusions on the validity of ethnographic parallelism and its value to the interpretation of Paleolithic art.

To begin, it is necessary to explain my use of the term “primitive”. Although the term is no longer in favour, as this is in a sense a historiography, I feel inclined to use the term for the sake of consistency. This is not to justify or support any idea of the studied peoples as primitive in the modern understanding of the word. Instead, the word “primitive” here refers to the subjects of study, be they cultural parallels, Upper Paleolithic cultures or the scholars themselves.

Since the 16th century, there has been evidence to suggest a general belief that historic civilization, “had been preceded by uncivilized or barbarous periods” (Ucko and Rosenfeld 1967:116). Later, the Upper Paleolithic primitives and those primitives being discovered through the expansion of empire were imbedded within this preexisting concept. It was believed that because these peoples lacked metal, agriculture and animal husbandry, they must have been

culturally primitive (Ucko and Rosenfeld 1967:117). The discovery of art, however, complicated this belief, confronting thinkers with the problem of explaining how such an advanced and expressive feat could be realized by such primitive peoples. Édouard Lartet and Henry Christy (Ucko and Rosenfeld 1967) were among the first to offer a hypothesis. These scholars assumed that due to the sheer abundance of economic resources, the Upper Paleolithic people had easy lives, and, therefore, time on their hands to invest in art. According to Lartet and Christy, this art was simply for aesthetic purpose with no symbolic value, or “art for art’s sake” (Ucko and Rosenfeld 1967:117). In this sense, rather than disprove the preconceived notions, archaeological theory was created to validate them. This was extended to all primitive peoples. For example, the original understanding of the San in South Africa, according to David Lewis-Williams (2002), was that they were, “mentally so stunted that they could not conceive of a god in the Christian sense of the word” (145). Through this extension to contemporary primitives, the theory served as a justification of empire. It demonstrated that the conquerors had been in a state of savagery, had elevated their culture above it, and now had the burden to elevate the culture of contemporary primitives through empire. Therefore, the first interaction between theories of Paleolithic primitives and contemporary primitives was to corroborate preexisting notions of savagery and to provide a framework that established European civilization at the top of the pyramid of cultural evolution.

Ethnographic evidence from Australia

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however, later disproved Lartet and Christy’s hypothesis. According to scholars at the time, Australian Aborigines had similar cultural conditions as they both painted rock shelters (Ucko and Rosenfeld 1967:118). However, these primitives lacked the exceptional environmental conditions suggested by the “Art for Art’s Sake” Hypothesis and forced scholars to create new explanations for Paleolithic art. Thus, at an early stage, archaeological theory was dependent on ethnographic parallelism, so much so, that an archaeological theory might fall out of favour if countered with contradictory ethnographical evidence. In addition, this represents a reversal of cause and effect in anthropology. In the earlier example, the understanding of contemporary primitives was affected by the ideas about Paleolithic primitives. In the latter however, the understanding of contemporaries affected the ideas of the past.

This change is reflected in the work of Salomon Reinach 1967. This scholar noticed the prevalence of “sympathetic magic” among Australian primitives in which a person was able to, “gain control over or at least exercise a fundamental influence on, whatever subject was represented” (Ucko and Rosenfeld 1967:124). Due to the previously discussed reversal of the causal relationship, the idea of sympathetic magic was assumed to be present among Paleolithic people. This opened up Upper Paleolithic art to symbolic and religious interpretation and afforded it superaesthetic value (Laming-Emperaire 1962:74).

This represents an additional change in the relationship between contemporary and Paleolithic primitives. When “Art for Art’s Sake” was disproved, the Australian primitives were just a point of reference. It was concluded that the tenets of the hypothesis were unrealistic due to the observable reality of contemporary primitives. In contrast, Reinach employed contemporary primitives

as a source of ideas, opening up archaeological theory to an increase in influence from ethnographic parallels. In fact, ethnographic parallels were so widely accepted as legitimate sources for understanding Paleolithic people, that researchers began searching for practices in modern primitives in order to explain the Paleolithic art (Ucko and Rosenfeld 1967:139).

On the other hand, the new emphasis on ethnography also sparked a reactionary movement that rejected parallelism altogether. The work of Annette LamingEmperaire and André Leroi-Gourhan 1962, for example, promoted an exclusive focus on the evidence of the Paleolithic art itself (149). By concentrating on the observable characteristics of the art rather than ethnographies, the scholars came up with influential empirical results. Most importantly, they recognized the varying contexts of Paleolithic parietal art: some art was in habitation areas, and some was in hard to reach, secluded places (Ucko and Rosenfeld 1967:143). This disproved Reinach’s rejection of “Art for Art’s Sake”, based on the fact that, “the Palaeolithic representations [that] were placed in contexts which were difficult to access” were not the only contexts for art (124). This new insight does not disprove sympathetic magic as a cause, though it does open up the possibility for art created for aesthetic reasons in habitational contexts.

Although ethnographic parallels have been useful in increasing the range of possible interpretations of Upper Paleolithic art, such as sympathetic magic, their rejection introduced a less simplistic understanding, where various contexts might mean various artistic motivations.

This last point also demonstrates how archaeological understanding was still dictated by the understanding that primitives were simple. By imposing the beliefs of modern primitives onto Paleolithic primitives,

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a symbol was treated as being constant across both time and space. The painting of an animal in an Upper Paleolithic site in Southern France dated to over 25,000 years B.P. was discussed as being in the same social context as one in contemporary Australia. By pointing out the difference between two types of parietal art in one area and in one time period, Laming and Leroi-Gourhan rejected this universal explanation. This marked the beginning of a recognition of the complexity of primitives’ artistic motivations.

The value of ethnographic parallelism in the archaeological interpretation of Paleolithic parietal art has not been decided conclusively.

Although some advances in theory used parallels, others have come about due to the rejection of ethnography. This has resulted in a residual anxiety about ethnography in modern interpretation of Paleolithic art. For example, in The Mind in the Cave (2002), David Lewis-Williams, while using ethnographic parallels, spends a large portion of these ethnographic chapters analyzing the history of racism in their interpretation. He appears anxious and presents it within a notas-bad-as-before complex to justify it.

However, Lewis-Williams does effectively incorporate these ethnographic examples to create some legitimate conclusions. For example, he discusses that for San people, paint does not have the same meaning as for Western people. To us paint is functional, a tool without any kind of spiritual value, but for the San, paint had religious significance and spiritual powers. In this description, Lewis-Williams expands our understanding of art, situating it in what he refers to as a “chain of operations”. This is a successful and legitimate use of ethnographic parallelism because it demonstrates a potential understanding that could be applied to Upper Paleolithic art, while refraining from dictating that since this is the case with the San that it is conclusively the case in the

Paleolithic, as Reinach might have done. As the social context behind the Paleolithic paint manufacturing is, for the most part, lost, we cannot definitively say whether paint had this aspect or not. Lewis-Williams merely invites us to, “situate technology in a social matrix,” stating that, “Artefacts, including rock art images are made in a social arena” (LewisWilliams 2002:156).

Secondly, Lewis-Williams very successfully employs ethnographic parallelism when discussing North American rock art. He examines how, in the Chumash narratives, there was no distinct divide between the sacred and the profane, the extraordinary and the ordinary. He concludes that, “any dichotomy between the natural and the supernatural is likely to be a Western imposition” (LewisWilliams 2002:165). This is a good use of ethnography as it demonstrates that our conceptions of an exclusively “Art for Art’s Sake” view or an exclusively “Sympathetic Magic” or “Shamanistic” view, are subjective.

Instead, the divisions between sacred and profane represent a Western binary, and may not necessarily have been the same in the Paleolithic period. In this way, LewisWilliams expands our realm of possibilities so that an art piece could have been made for both aesthetic and super-aesthetic reasons.

However, later in the book, LewisWilliams (2002) imposes the concept of Shamanism on the Paleolithic people as there are, he concludes, “remarkable similarities between shamanistic traditions worldwide” (206). This, however, is an improper use of ethnographic parallelism as it suggests that a system of beliefs is standard across chronological boundaries if it seems to be standard across spatial boundaries.

Lewis-Williams is successful where his employment of ethnographic parallelism forces the archaeologist to analyze their point of analysis. The first two examples forced us to rethink how we, as interpreters, think

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of conceptions of paint and the idea of what is sacred or profane (or whether there is any difference at all) so that we may see what of our own culture we are imposing on the subject of our analysis. However, ethnographical parallelism that concludes outright a characteristic of Paleolithic art, such as Lewis-Williams’ (2002) imposition of shamanism, should be rejected, as it assumes an observable homogeneity of characteristics across space equals an intrinsic homogeneity of characteristics across time.

Now that I have given a brief introduction to the historical and contemporary problems with the use of ethnographic parallelism, I will present my conclusions on the validity of using modern ethnographic data to understand the past. First, ethnographic parallelism should be used to understand how we understand. For example, Arnold Van Gennep (Ucko and Rosenfeld 1967) concluded that Paleolithic artists were, “in no way different from modern artists” (119). Van Gennep was projecting the understanding of art in his own context, during the period of romantic art culture, whose function was to decorate (Bahn and Vertut 1988:149).

In addition, Van Gennep’s (Ucko and Rosenfeld 1967) description demonstrates a division between the sacred and profane, as the art is described in the aesthetic sense but said to, “have nothing to do with any kind of magical rituals” (119). In this case, ethnographic parallelism would be beneficial.

Using ethnographic information that demonstrates that Van Gennep’s conception of art or the dichotomy of the natural and the supernatural were not intrinsic, would have forced the scholar to look at his frame of reference and perhaps realize his own subjectivity so as to put forward more objective conclusions. In this sense I am in agreement with Peter J. Ucko and Andrée Rosenfeld that ethnographic parallelism should be used, “to avoid predetermining the

type of explanation that one can offer for the interpretation of archaeological material by basing it exclusively on experience derived from one’s own cultural heritage” (151).

Furthermore, viewing ourselves as the primitives of study might help us to understand the depth of the Paleolithic art. For example, some Western art carries extra-aesthetic meaning, and some does not.

Similarly, one symbol in one context, or at one point in time in Western society, does not mean the same as in another. The example put forward by Ucko and Rosenfeld (1967) is that of mother and child. In church this symbol represents the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ, whereas in someone’s home it might represent “Mrs Smith with her son Albert” (167). If our symbols are capable of these various meanings, so too could be the symbols of Paleolithic parietal art. This is not to say that different contexts should always necessitate different interpretations, but rather that, when interpreting, the archaeologist should keep in mind that it is within the realm of possibility.

I am proposing, therefore, that ethnographic parallelism should be used to provide a framework, or a tangible realm of possibility, but not to be used necessarily as evidence for assumed behaviour in the Paleolithic, as Lewis-Williams has done with his discussion of shamanism.

In addition, where there are no ethnographic parallels, the conclusions of archaeologists should be reconsidered, alternatives suggested, and an analysis conducted of the culture or personal views of the interpreter. For example, Abbé Breuil (Bahn and Vertut 1988) put forward the idea that the Paleolithic period was sex obsessed.

The scholar interpreted many objects and paintings to represent vulvas, then drew conclusions that the Upper Paleolithic was sex obsessed and thus validated his own search for vulvas (163). The only evidence in

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this interpretation is the archaeologist’s own theory. The conclusions should therefore be considered subjective. However, if Breuil were to have included ethnographic parallels of contemporary sex-obsessed primitives, his theory could be considered within the realm of possibility.

Furthermore, the assumption that Upper Palaeolithic primitives must hold the same beliefs regarding shamanism as modern primitives, simply because they share the same brain, is ethnocentric and should be thrown out. It is true that this assumption would imply, and correctly so, that Upper Paleolithic people did experience dreams and had the potential for visions. However, the importance of these dreams and their interpretations would be both spatially and chronologically specific. To demonstrate this I will use two ethnographic examples that are both chronologically and spatially distinct.

The Huron were described in 1636 by Jean De Brébeuf as having a “faith in dreams” (47), much like modern Egyptians do in Amira Mittermaier’s ethnography Dreams That Matter (2011). For the Hurons, dreams are considered “ordinances and irrevocable decrees” and must be acted on, at least metaphorically, whether positive, negative, or even violent (Brébouf 2000:47). However, for the Egyptians, the act of having one’s dream interpreted can mean that it has come true.

Thus, negative dreams are not brought to interpreters, as in doing so they will have been realized (Mittermaier 2011:81). Dreams, although prevailing in both cultures, can be acted on very differently. Just because we can safely assume the people of the Paleolithic dreamt, does not mean that they interpreted these dreams through shamanism like many living cultures. By drawing attention to “note the ancient universal, human neurological inheritance” (Lewis-Williams 2002:206) assumes a limited view of the abilities of human belief and is ethnocentric

in that it assumes a homogeneity of people over a period of tens of thousands of years, which would require a static and “primitive” primitive culture.

Although it is imperative that ethnographical parallelism continues in the interpretation of Upper Paleolithic parietal art, it should serve as a red herring to the subjectivity of the archaeologist and as a demonstration of the possibility of human experience. However, this parallelism should not be used as a conclusive explanation (read: limitation) of experience. In using contemporary parallels as conclusive evidence, the archaeologist risks ascribing an ahistorical interpretation that both continues the legacy of colonialism, and denies the socalled primitive access to the complexities of the human condition.

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References: Bahn, Paul G. and Jean Vertut 1998 Images of the Ice Age. Leicester: W. H. Smith and Son Ltd. De Brébeuf, Jean 2000 That the Hurons Recognize Some Divinity; Of Their Superstitions and of Their Faith in Dreams.

In The Jesuit Relations: Natives and Missionaries in the Seventeenth Century. Allan Greer, ed. Pp. 4647. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s.

Laming-Emperaire, A 1962 La Signification de l’Art Rupestre Paléolithique: Methodes et Applications. Paris: Éditions A. & J. Picard & Cie. Lewis-Williams, David 2002 The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd. Mittermaier, Amira 2011 Dreams that Matter: Egyptian Landscapes of the Imagination. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Ucko, Peter J. and Andrée Rosenfeld 1967 Paleolithic Cave Art. New York: McGraw Hill Book Company.

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Looking at Death without Eyes An Interview Analysis: Exploring the Expansive Process of Anthropological Listening

Kai Kafrissen “Thank God

cancer had basically eaten her everything.

laughs.

From time to time, she would instinctively reach across the space between us and touch my arm, “You understand, being the eldest and all…” She often did this while paralleling different parts of her story to my own life.

I felt her closing the gap between us, both physically and emotionally, as she intertwined our experiences. When Lisa spoke about a moment that had a particularly jarring affect on her, she instinctually punctuated the event by snapping her fingers. “Why was this happening? But this was all happening at lightening speed (snap, snap, snap).” I felt that she was translating the feeling of abrupt shock to me, seamlessly weaving her emotional memory into our current conversation.

Lisa explained how she felt that it was so important for people to be ready and prepared to die. When she spoke of the first death, that of her sister Dawn, it was as if past memories were called into the present with a snap of her fingers. As she detailed the importance of readiness for death, my dad’s voice interrupted from downstairs: “Dinner is ready, it’s ready!” Lisa paused in her explanation to call back, “We’re coming, just a minute!” She turned back to me and winked jokingly, as if we shared in the knowledge that we wouldn’t be rushed to leave. We would come down when we were good and ready.

I was struck by how perfectly that instance illustrated Lisa’s own advocation of a final morbid readiness. She picked up her train of thought where we had been interupted and we reentered the interview.

With the windows now black, the interview came to an organic end, dying out with the whisper of memories. Lisa stretched her arms and legs, making movements to get

she didn’t know.

The eyes…

Gone. And she woke ‘How come it’s dark in here?’”

one day and said

up so

Sharing space and memory The interview began as we walked into her bedroom. The room was welcoming; the large white windows let in a purple glow that tinged the oak floor with long shadows. I glided along the polished floors and easily sat on the massive bed. I smiled to myself remembering the first time my dad introduced me to her; his unknown girlfriend had quickly transformed into our Lisa.

Concerned that I would get cold, she offered me a wool-flecked cardigan. We stood eye to eye, both physically and in our broader views on life. Her grey turtleneck and matching skirt camouflaged her to the white bed we sat on, highlighting her already expressive face. Backed by the formal presence of my computer, I started the recorder, faced Lisa, and we began. I felt awkward at first, as if the recording would provide eternal evidence of my blunders and stutters. I stumbled through my few first questions, but Lisa seemed deaf to the clumsiness of my queries. With her thoughtful, detailed, and articulate answers she soon erased any feeling of unease that hung between us. We shared an apprehension and eagerness, emotionally charged with the subject’s electricity. We were going to speak about death, specifically about three deaths Lisa had witnessed—her sister, her father, her friend. Our postures began to naturally mirror each other: erect but relaxed shoulders, attentive eye contact, and occasional nods or

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up. I shut the laptop, ended the recording, and we slipped off the bed. We crossed through the doorway and Lisa turned off the bedroom light, leaving the room in darkness.

The interview seemed to end as we descended the stairs, at our own pace, ready for dinner.

order to engage with her sister, as opposed to Taylor’s method of relocating the afflicted individual’s self. Part of Lisa’s own identity becomes transfused into the process of caring for her sister. In different ways both Lisa and Taylor recognize that the notion of a self requires expansion by centering it in a network of care rather than in a bounded individual.

Another prominent theme in our conversation was grief and how one grieves. It can be helpful to explore this by drawing on Freud’s ideas of mourning and melancholia.

Freud goes to great lengths to outline the pain that a subject endures in both forms of bereavement, but he makes a clear distinction between the two (2005: 210). He rationalizes that mourning stops short of pathological because, “Reality testing has revealed that the beloved object no longer exists, and demands that the libido as a whole sever its bonds with that object” (Freud 2005: 204). Lisa allows for the same necessary acknowledgement of actuality in her own mourning process. She reflects on her sister’s death, “When your realize, ‘Oh my God, I think she’s dead,’ there is the reality of it. The absolute logic that sets in. The predictable behaviour that comes.” She aligns herself with Freud by identifying that there is a sort of prescribed and predicted behaviour, the Freudian libido severance, which is required to culminate the mourning process. Having largely achieved this awareness, Lisa reflects on her current situation, saying,“My mom will say, ‘I feel Dawn [sister] here all the time.’ And it’s weird because I don’t.” Both Freud and Lisa allude to this need for alignment with certainty.

Freud’s alternative, an inability to grasp the reality that the object of affection is gone, can produce in the subject pain, narcissism, and even hatred (2005: 211). Lisa puts a human face to his abstractions by noting the selfish aspect she feels in prolonged grief. Speaking of her mother, she notes the pain that incurs

Attempting to understand Several ideas emerged from Lisa’s interview that cooperate to express a complex understanding of a self. In many ways, they oppose conceptions such as Geertz’s individuated, discrete, and autonomous heuristic, popular in modern western societies. This contrast becomes clear through Lisa’s understanding that selves relationally constitute each other. She notes, while reflecting on her brushes with death, dying, and care, “I had turned a leaf in the sense that my life was no longer about me.” Her world was drawn into her sister’s experience with cancer, and living through such sickness and death became an intimate part of Lisa’s identity. Such an identity could no longer be “set contrastively against other such wholes [individuals]” (Geertz 1974: 31). In fact, Lisa’s experience can be linked to elements of Janelle Taylor’s work on reconceptualizing care and selves in the face of dementia. Lisa felt that her sister had experienced a kind of social death during hospitalization, saying, “The relationships [Dawn] had that were extremely defining in her life had started to dissipate.”

Taylor identifies a similar phenomenon in the case of her mother’s dementia (2008:316) and calls for a more care-centered and distributive conception of selfhood (2008: 326). I believe that Lisa would agree with Taylor’s call for reconceptualization, as she too experiences society’s lacking recognition of her sister upon institutionalization. It seems that Lisa unknowingly adapts Taylor’s ideas into her own personal views. Lisa participates in this network of care by diffusing herself in

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from constant obsession with grief: “It is horribly unhealthy for [my mother] to go back and say ‘I miss her [Dawn], I need her.’ You can’t, you CAN’T go through life thinking of loss all the time, it has to stop.”

Both Freud and Lisa explore how one’s ability to go through and truly “enter” life can be inhibited by the pathological condition of melancholia (Freud 2005: 203).

Building on this Freudian connection, Angela Garcia’s article may shed further light on our queries. Specifically, Garcia’s work on landscape, memory, heroin addiction, and melancholia in New Mexico poses a fundamental question: “Can you live a melancholic life that is meaningful in its own terms?” (2008: 740). For Lisa, in her own understanding of what melancholia is, we can assume she would answer “no.”

I admit that the situations in question are quite different. Garcia is looking at a complex, cyclical, and historical melancholia while Lisa shares a more personal and acute experience. Nonetheless, both cases share a subject-specific understanding of what is “meaningful” as worthy of note, emotionally charged, and affective.

Remembering the tidal wave of emotions and bereavement she felt following these deaths, Lisa recalls, “I was able to compartmentalize it. I had to… I think it would just be [a] slow form of torture.” This assertion, or perhaps revelation, seems to express Lisa’s need to escape the onslaught of emotions, her flight from a life characterized by melancholia. Lisa’s wariness of falling into this state of melancholia illustrates how painful and agonizing such a condition can be. Garcia quotes Alma on melancholia; “I can’t control it” (2008: 741). This surrender to the insurmountable force of sheer emotion illuminates the power melancholy can have over someone. Both Alma and Lisa acknowledge the painful grips of melancholy; however, it seems that Lisa affirms her inability

to live in Alma’s uncontrolled melancholic cycle by insisting on the need to categorically mourn and thus retain her sanity in the face of death.

I now wish to turn to the subject of emotional management. Stefania Pandolfo beautifully explores how a man named Ilyas’ mental illness manifested in his life through inspiring and painful flashes emotion. She discusses how Ilyas’ paintings can offer a sanctuary from his torment (Pandolfo, forthcoming) and explains that “It is a cure that acknowledges and engages with a dimension of the incurable” (forthcoming: 35). The author identifies such dialogue as engaging with unreason, a discourse that steps outside expected reality and invites readers to enter a realm of suspended belief. Lisa explains the oddity of her own sister’s cancer, the complete deterioration of flesh and how it psychologically perturbed even the medical staff. This case broke from their expectations.

“Dawn wouldn’t die…by all definition she should have died weeks ago”; Lisa’s statement illuminates how elements of the situation slipped into incomprehensibility and even irrationality. Such severe conditions can be linked to the excruciating events in Ilyas’ life and how he entered into a dialogue with unreason through his evocative art. Lisa too found that her pain necessitated engagement in such a dialogue. She recounted how a nurse explained that the family must tell Dawn that it was all right to die. Lisa states, “And I remember looking at the nurse and saying ‘You’re crazy, I’m never going to tell my sister to DIE.’” Perhaps for Lisa this course of action, which she finally participated in, lay in a realm outside of her comprehensible reality—a reality that found it unfathomable to wish a loved one to die.

Do you hear that? Did you feel it?

Reflecting on the interview, I was drawn to the theme of care, how it is a

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transformative and expanding practice that embeds itself in the way people interact, speak, and, specifically, listen. I was pushed to not just listen with care, but to be attuned to and enter a completely strange realm of experience. In my interview with Lisa I had to learn to dialogue with unreason (Pandolfo, forthcoming). This divergence from my imagined interview trajectory and expected responses, and the unfamiliar relationality with Lisa, thrust me into the confusing, unfamilar reality of unreason. More subtly, I had to learn to expand my listening scope, to enter a discourse of incomprehensibility, and to do so with care. I could not simply hear the meanings I assumed Lisa’s words to have, I had to open my mind to the unreasonable in order to hear what she was truly communicating.

Just as Pandolfo’s character Ilyas acted as a vessel for his images to speak for themselves— painting “without any awareness” (Pandolfo: 38)—I too tried to act in a way that allowed the meaning of Lisa’s words and gestures to be transmitted through me. And yet I felt the classic tension standing between objective and subjective methods of listening.

Participating in Pandolfo’s (forthcoming) engagement with unreason is crucial to fully hearing, specifically in the practice of anthropological listening. I align myself with the sentiment that attempting to pause one’s own rationality and sense of reason broadens ability for dialogue. As the title of this essay suggests, listening in anthropology pushes the boundaries of traditional and “rational” attendance practices, and proposes that such methods are not contingent upon directly associated sensory organs. Just as anthropological seeing necessitates making the familiar strange and the strange familiar, a dialogue with unreason opens new possibilities in listening. In closing, I wish to propose a practice of suspending one’s own expectations, allowing the incomprehensibility of another’s view to wash upon you, and receiving these

words in, if nothing else, a space of care.

References: Butler, Judith 1997 Excitable Speech / A Politics of the Performative: Routledge Davis, Kate 2001 Southern Comfort: Q-Ball Productions, HBO Documentary Fanon, Franz 1952 Black Skin White Masks, The Fact of Blackness: Editions de Seuil Freud, Sigmund 2005 On Murder, Mourning and Melancholia: Penguin Classics Garcia, Angela 2008 The Elegiac Addict: History, Chronicity, and the Melancholic Subject: American Anthropological Association Geertz, Clifford 1974 From the Native’s Point of View: American Academy of Arts & Sciences MacLean, Stuart 2007 ‘To Dream Profoundly’: Irish Boglands and the Imagination of Matter: Irish Journal of Anthropology Vol. 10 Pandolfo, Stefania (Forthcoming) Ramz: The Passion of Ilyas Taylor, Janelle S. 2000 On Recognition, Caring and Dementia: University of Washington

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II Discussions on Identity

by Maela Ohana

Reflections.

On a voyeuristic desire to see see through eyes that are not our own.

To momentarily enter an unexplored visual terrain; to shift senses and bodies.

To be at once the subject and the object, the image and its dream, self and Other.

– Reflections I (Catherine Diggs pictured)

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Amerindian Perspectivism and Jama-Coaque Figural Sculpture Abigail Craig cultural beliefs and meanings from artifacts) and towards an approach that considers the objectness of objects, their cultural significance, and the deep-rooted effect of perspectivism on the very way in which objects are understood and interacted with.

Introduction The Jama-Coaque culture existed from approximately 500 BCE to 500 CE and was located between Cabo de San Francisco and Bahía de Caráquez on the coast of Ecuador (Mueseo Chileno de Arte Precolombino).

Found in archeological sites of the JamaCoaque culture are figural ceramics depicting humans, animals, and creatures that bear characteristics of both kinds of beings. The purpose of this paper is to observe the manner in which human and nonhuman iconography mix in a small number of these ceramic pieces and attempt to understand the hybrids through perspectivist theory as defined by anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro in the 1998 essay Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism.

Also of interest are the ideas of Benjamin Alberti, Yvonne Marshall, and Mary Weismantel whose archaeological work in other areas of South America (Argentina and Peru) has prompted them to investigate ways of understanding ancient art and artifacts that do not fall back on the assumption of only one “reality” or “true” world out there (one ontology). This truly is a Western ontological assumption, which reduces all other conceptions and philosophies to “worldviews.” By considering perspectivist philosophy as an equal to Western ontology and opening up theory to the possibility of multiple ontologies, Weismantel shows the deep influence of culture on sensory perception, which is taken for granted as universal and pervasive in the West, and challenges the idea of universal and objective scientific truths. Alberti and Marshall take the possibility of multiple ontologies seriously by distancing themselves from “conventional interpretation” of artifacts (that is, reading

Viveiros de Castro on Perspectivism Eduardo Viveiros de Castro’s definition of perspectivism is that all beings have similar souls—what differentiates beings are their bodies. This stands in opposition to the traditional idea of body as nature, the common denominator between humans and animals; traditionally, the soul is seen as that which distinguishes humans from each other and from other animals. Viveiros de Castro asserts that the soul is consistent among all beings. The soul takes nature’s role as the constant: it is the universal, the unifying factor. The body takes culture’s role: bodies are many, and it is the body that creates difference.

In Western ontology the human is defined by its possession of a soul—the soul is what differentiates humans from nonhumans.

With perspectivism, it is the opposite.

Viveiros de Castro frames it well when he says, “a perspective is not a representation because representations are a property of the mind or spirit, whereas the point of view is located in the body” (Viveiros de Castro 1998:478). The body forms the human, gives it the distinguishing characteristics, and makes the human different from other animals. Viveiros de Castro explains that “all beings see (‘represent’) the world in the same way, what changes is the world that they see” (1998:477). He uses the example of manioc beer to demonstrate this. To all persons, there exists a manioc beer, which is an appealing

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The Chavín monoliths, on the other hand, force an interaction between both agents by withholding information from the viewers.

This brings to mind animist philosophy and the way in which power and agency are distributed between humans and the nonhuman beings.

As opposed to Western science of sensory perception, which assumes a universallyshared experience, Weismantel states: “sensory perception is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that is subject to enormous cultural variation” (2014:24). She explains that seeing the Chavín monoliths in person, as opposed to viewing images of them in books, enabled her to better understand the way perception works in the ancient Peruvian Chavín culture. The massive size of the stones (many well above human height), the complex, sprawling designs covering the entire surface of each stone, and the shallow relief of the carvings intend to slow down the viewer’s eye and perception. Being in the presence of these giant stones and being compelled to move around them, Weismantel came to realize that the frustration of trying to see and comprehend the entire image is actually deliberate, intended to “impede rather than aid recognition” (2014:27). The visual style is an attempt by the architects and artists of Chavín de Huantar to “create a kind of visuality that is slow, conscious, active, and interactive—qualities that enact key tenets of Native South American religious thought” (2014:25). Just as Eduardo Viveiros de Castro’s definition of perspectivism specifies that agency extends beyond the human, so too do these stones, by compelling viewers to interact and dialog with them, they claim a certain agency for themselves (2014:29). The monoliths at Chavín de Huantar “create an experience that is akin to the experience of getting to know another being” (2014:29) because they demand an embodied and tangible experience of viewing. The slowed

relief to their thirst. To the person in the body of a human, this is actually manioc beer, but to the person in the body of a jaguar, the blood of its prey fills the of role manioc beer in quenching its thirst. It may look like blood to the human body, but to the jaguar it is beer.

Weismantel and the Phenomenological Approach In her essay Inhuman Eyes: Looking at Chavín de Huantar, Mary Weismantel argues that archeological literature on preColumbian works of Amerindian art should not focus exclusively on the iconography of those objects but also think of them “as objects in the world” (Weismantel 2014:21).

She states, in her study of carved monoliths at Chavín de Huantar in Peru, that “[her] goal is to reverse that separation [of image and actual, physical stone]. She also seeks to reintegrate iconographic analysis with a consideration of the stones themselves: their materiality, their spatial context, and especially the peculiar forms of interaction they demand of viewers” (2014:22). She contests the privilege awarded to European abstract thought, and enables archaeologists and art historians to open up to “bodily and sensory forms of knowing” (2014:22) through a phenomenological approach to this site. Weismantel claims that “the influence of Native South American animist philosophy on Chavín art goes beyond the occasional iconographic reference. It is deeply ingrained into the very principles that govern pictorial composition, just as Western ontologies shape conventions of naturalistic art” (2014:24).

Western imagery is presented to the viewer in a manner that gives all information it holds up front: one image, one perspective, and one moment in time (2014:28-29). This results in a one-sided relationship between an image or artwork and its viewer, in which power and agency rests with the viewer alone.

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through the application of universal concepts, it is treated as philosophically challenging, [and as] a potential equivalent to Western philosophical doctrines” (2009:347).

When considering the Argentinian “bodypots” which are the focus of analysis in their paper, they state that, “a representationalist approach assumes that the thing as sign vehicle reveals a story or set of cultural beliefs inscribed in it and read off it…[and] unreflexively imposes a separation between ‘thing’ and ‘meaning’” (2009:351). To counter this they bring into their study the materiality of the pots: the materials they are made of, the space they take up, and the way they are interacted with as objects. In this, they are investigating not only those meanings that can be “read off” the pots, but also the deeper penetrating ideas of perspectivism that permeate ancient Argentinian culture (as per Weismantel’s argument), and break down the assumption of perspectivism as “fantasy” (2009:353). By contemplating the both the physical and iconographic information of the body-pots they enter into the perspectivist way of thinking, giving credence to the world in which the pots were made.

down, physical act of perception required to comprehend the carved images of the monoliths demonstrates, for Weismental, an alternative mode of perception to the restricted and immediate Western notions of visual perception.

Alberti and Marshall: Animating Archaeology In Animating Archaeology: Local Theories and Conceptually Open-ended Methodologies, Benjamin Alberti and Yvonne Marshall challenge the idea that Western ontology embodies the most authentic and “real” world. They argue that the assumption that non-Western ontologies are “fascinating but ultimately mistaken,” and that the tendency of Western philosophy to presuppose that there is only one correct ontology are dated, sterile, and ethnocentric beliefs (Alberti and Marshall 2009:344). They rename philosophies that are considered to be worldviews or cultural beliefs as “ontologies,” saying: “we use ‘ontology’ here, to mean the possibility of giving credence to other worlds, not simply as a noble and relativizing but ultimately hypocritical gesture, but as a means to force the production of new material concepts” (2009:344). By acknowledging agency in the archeological objects they study, the hope is to elicit a better understanding of ontological context from which those artifacts came, much like Weismantel’s alternate mode of perception.

Alberti and Marshall use the term perspectivism as a philosophy, noting that it is rarely treated as such academically (2009:344), and define it as: “a unitary or constant epistemology and variable or plural ontologies” (2009:347). That is, there is one way to know things, and there are many worlds to know. To undermine the dominance of the Western ontology, the authors promote to practice “the taking seriously of native thought,” so that “instead of neutralizing it

Jama-Coaque Figures and Perspectivism This paper’s analysis will focus on JamaCoaque figures; this focus is largely due to the availability of images of Jama-Coaque art works. The simplest way to understand these Jama-Coaque figures, in the context of perspectivism, is to look at ways in which they illustrate the perspectivist philosophy.

It is worth noting that most of the following figures allude to perspectivist theory, in that they bear both human and animal characteristics and iconography. They also tend to depict animals that, according to Viveiros de Castro, are significant to the community and “perform a key symbolic and practical role” for them (1998:471). As such,

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the jaguar, for instance, plays a substantial role among art works related to perspectivism.1 Figura Antropomorfa (Fig. 1) seems to depict a human head perched on the body of a nonhuman creature. This is difficult to confirm because the lower half of the figure is either broken off or nonexistent.

The head is very clearly human, bearing human features much like those of another Figura Antropmorfa (Fig. 2) from the same collection of Jama-Coaque art at the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino. The second Figura Antropomorfa is more visually similar to other depictions of humans than the first, which is why I compare it to highlight the non-human characteristics of the first Figura Antropomorfa. The most noticeable facial difference between the two is in the eyes: whereas sculptural depictions of the human face – such as the second Figura Antropomorfa – tend to bear almond-shaped eyes that stand out from the face with no distinct pupils, this first figure has eyes etched into the face and very prominent pupils that stare unblinkingly, at the viewer.

It is not the eyes, though, that capture the attention of the viewer, so much as the nature of this figure’s body. Other Jama-Coaque figures from similar periods (approximately 500 BCE-500 CE) are broad-shouldered, with arms, chest and head in the same line, and hands that are often finely nuanced with wrinkles, knuckles, and fingernails, posed in grasping or gesturing poses. Figura Antropomorfa defies several of these norms.

Its shoulders are comparably broad but much more sloping, and pushed forward in front of the head and torso. There are no creases to imply the presence of elbows or wrists,

and the hands are flat and stocky, with four chunky lines indicating the separation of fingers. The torso is positioned behind the arms and in line with the head of the figure.

Also, notably, there is of a small hint of ceramic that exists between the left side of the torso and the left arm. Since only one view of this figure is offered by the museum, there is no way to tell exactly what that is.

What is most striking is the distinctly non-human quality of the arms of this figure.

The way they jut out in front of the torso and head is unlike the other anthropomorphic figures of this collection, and their pose is difficult and unusual for the human body (if you try to mimic the position you will find your shoulders do not like to twist that way). The limbs look more closely related to those of Effigy Vessel (1-600 CE), from the collection of the Brooklyn Museum of Art (Fig. 3), than to the other anthropomorphic sculptures. According to the museum’s research on Effigy Vessel, this vessel is most definitely a non-human, four-footed animal, most likely a jaguar. However, Effigy Vessel and Figura Antropomorfa differ in their depiction of feet. The pads of the vessel’s paws and the extended claws are not present in Figura Antropomorfa. In addition, the eyes of the figure and the vessel have similar components but Effigy Vessel’s are much larger and more prominent. Though the imagery doesn’t line up perfectly, it is important to consider that the Effigy Vessel is considered to be younger than Figura Antropomorfa, (so it is possible that technology, iconography, and style had changed in the intervening years). What remains is the fact that compared to other sculptural representations of humans from

1

Weismantel, Marshall, and Alberti’s ideas on pre-Columbian Amerindian art are certainly interesting and I hope to convey them clearly and accurately to the extent that I can in this paper. Given the limited number of images of ceramics, and the fact that that the nature of their writing on archaeological artifacts is based on being in the same physical space with those objects, I have fallen back on a more (as Alberti and Marshall put it) “conventional interpretation” (2009:350).

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the same period, these shoulders and arms are distinctly non-human.

In describing perspectivism, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro touches on the way animals are thought of: “the manifest form of each species is a mere envelope (a ‘clothing’) which conceals an internal human form… this internal form is the ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’ of the animal: an intentionality or subjectivity formally identical to human consciousness” (1998:470-471). If it is true that this is a sphinxlike being with a human head and a feline body, it provides a fairly straightforward visual interpretation of the perspectivist philosophy. The body, the nature-determiner, is that of a feline, while the head, the framework for the perspective within that nature, is that of a human.

Pájaro y Hombre (Fig. 4) demonstrates two aspects of perspectivism: the shaman entering into the consciousness and perspective of another being, and as with Figura Antropomorfa, the existence of the internal human form. The figure appears to be a human wearing a shirt and hat of bird feathers. Material hangs from his arms and shoulders, and fans out behind the body.

The dynamic stance of the figure makes him look as though he is spreading his wings, embodying a position of flight.

This could, as with Figura Antropomorfa, be intended to show once more the human interiority of the bird. Being named by the museum Pájaro y Hombre, or Bird and Man, rather than Man Dressed as Bird (or something along similar lines) shows that this signifies two persons in one than one person alone. By this I mean were the titular man labeled as being dressed as a bird, there would be only character: the present man. A bird may be alluded to but it would not take part in the image, it would merely be a skin worn. By saying that there are two figures and using the conjunction and to signify both presences, I believe it makes the figure more about

the human perspectival framework present inside the bird’s body. The bird is literally the “clothing” (1998:471) of the human, which represents its interiority; the bird provides the world and point of view for the human interiority to experience.

Another possibility of perspectivist connotation in this piece lies in shamanism.

Casa del Alabado Museo de Arte Precolombino of Quito, Ecuador, in whose collection Pájaro y Hombre is housed, offers a brief description of the piece: “en este ser alado se conjugan el cielo y la tierra. Con los brazos tienta le levedad del aire el aseverase. Así como un pájaro humano le recordarán en su comarca.”

This translates roughly to “in this winged figure the sky and the earth combine. With arms touching the lightness of the air he asserts himself. Like this as a human bird they will remember his domain.” Although there is no mention of a shaman, I believe this could allude to the idea of a shaman entering the consciousness of a non-human being. Viveiros de Castro indirectly alludes to the entering of other bodies in which perspectives reside, stating that “to put on mask-clothing is not so much to conceal a human essence beneath an animal appearance, but rather to activate the powers of a different body” (1998:482).

Given this, a man dressed in signifiers of a bird could be a shaman attempting to enter into a bird’s perspective.

The visual is an important aspect of perspective. The perspective of a bird, not only as a vastly different creature from a human, but as a body with privileged access to both the sky and the earth is foreign, novel, and thus of all the more interest. The museum’s written caption hints at this, saying that as a human bird, he will “remember their domain,”. The bird’s domain, in the sky, is in fact what the shaman seeks to understand. By making interest in flight so prominent, with the presence of so many feathers and even “wings,” the figure reveals this great curiosity

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and fascination with the bird and its aerial perspective.

El Shamán Hecho Felino (Fig. 5), also of the collection of Casa del Alabado, shows the shaman entering the consciousness of another being, this time a feline (likely a jaguar). The museum’s description states: “transformado en felino, el shamán se introduce en el Supramundo, buscando congraciarse con los dioses en beneficio de los mortales. Su expressión feróz es tan solo un medio para comunicarsecon aquellos seres venerados;” translated: “transformed into a cat, the shaman enters into the world beyond, looking to ingratiate himself with the gods for the benefit of mortals. His ferocious expression is only a medium through which to communicate with those venerable beings.” The reference to other worlds is entirely unambiguous, this time going as far as naming the figure as a shaman and the action as that of entering a world beyond, the world of gods. In this case, there is very little visual evidence that a human that becomes this jaguar—it is enough evidence for the museum to determine that it is a shaman, but not enough my less experienced eyes to identify.

Looking back at the Effigy Vessel, this jaguar-figure possesses the same physique, but its pose is remarkably different. The cylindrical, uncontoured arms and bodily structure persist between the two figures, as do the presence of the claws and teeth of the big cat. The most obvious differences between the two are the collar-like frame around the face of the jaguar and the splayed position of its limbs. The abnormal pose of the jaguar, like that of the Figura Antropomorfa, is not feasible for the species portrayed. This could be a hint that this creature, although his outward appearance is feline, is actually a human entering into the spirit of the jaguar.

While the body may indicate jaguar, the body language most certainly does not.

The majority of detail in this piece is located around the face of the jaguar. The facial features of Effigy Vessel, while perhaps not totally realistic, are far more proportional relative to those of its shaman counterpart. Its eyes and mouth are large but do not dominate the whole head, and small details are added around the eyes and nose. The face of El Shamán Hecho Felino on the other hand is dominated completely by its features. Effigy Vessel possesses small orb-like eyes, which are, according to Weistmantel, associated with non-humans such as jaguars and birds of prey (2014:31). El Shamán Hecho Felino, in contrast, has eyes that are long and wide, spanning the entire width of the jaguar’s head.

Its gnashing teeth in its immense mouth also seem oversized for the face. As opposed to the small, stylized details added to the face of the other jaguar, this figure appears to have a geometric and superfluous crown or other ornament wrapped around its entire head.

The distortion of facial features seems to further indicate that this is not a jaguar. This being exceeds both what a jaguar is and what a human is, transcending into another world to be in the company of spirits and gods.

In particular, the eyes of this jaguar both in their shape and rendering (as low, flat, and in relief ) are actually more similar to those of the second Figura Antropomorfa (Fig. 2). This figure shows the iconographical convention for human eyes, and when they are present in the face of this jaguar it shows that inside the cat is a human shaman (just as the figure’s pose suggests that this animal is not really or only a cat.) The expression on the jaguar’s face is so arresting that it is specifically referred to in this figure’s caption as the mode of communication for this shaman-jaguar. By showing human eyes on this jaguar’s face, the human shaman within the jaguar is revealed and the emphasis is placed on the eyes as a site of perspective and mode through which to understand that of other beings.

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Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino “Jama-Coaque.” Accessed December 5 2014. h t t p : / / w w w. p re c o l o m b i n o. c l / e n / c u l t u r a s americanas/culturas-precolombinas/intermedia/ jama-coaque/#/ambiente-y-localizacion/ Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo 1998 Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4(3):469-488.

Weismantel, Mary 2014 Inhuman Eyes: Looking at Chavín de Huantar. In Relational Archaeologies: Humans, Animals, Things. Christopher Watts, ed. Pp. 2141. London: Routledge.

Conclusion

The manner of bringing human and nonhuman together into single beings through mismatched body parts, metaphors of clothing, aberrant behavior, and posing show the complexity of perspectivist philosophy. Even the subtler signs of the common soul among different species (such as the shaman-jaguar’s eyes) hint at the pervasiveness of this alternate ontology. Since these are only images, it is difficult to apply Alberti, Marshall, and Weismantel’s methods of understanding the depth of their ontology’s effect on basic, presumed universal acts like sensory perception.

The small fragment of ceramic, seemingly unattached to any part of that first Figura Antropomofa between the torso and the left arm (or leg), still frustrates my desire for clarity and categorization. Partly because the museum offers only one view of this piece – and partly because design, wear, or accident – this piece has been left without a bottom belonging to any species; this piece resists any definite interpretation. Being a photograph from a museum, this does not remotely capture the experience and full impact of Alberti, Marshall, and Weismantel in their work, but it does offer a little insight into what it is to have perception slowed down, to feel the need to crane one’s neck and tilt one’s head to understand the artifact, and the interaction an object can demand. This episode of dialogue with the photograph adds one small confirmation of the depth of the perspectivist philosophy and its reality as an ontology.

Appendix:

References: Figure 1. Figura Antropomorfa (Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, Colección Área Intermediate) http://www.precolombino.cl/en/coleccion/figuraantropomorfa-6/

Alberti, Benjamin and Yvonne Marshall 2009 Animating Archaeology: Local Theories and Conceptually Open-ended Methodologies.

Cambridge Archeological Journal 19(3):344356.

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Figure 4. Pรกjaro y Hombre (Casa del Alabado Museo de Arte Precolombino) http://alabado. org/culturas-precolombinas/cultura-jama-coaque/ p%C3%A1jaro-y-hombre

Figure 2. Figura Antropomorfa (Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, Colecciรณn ร rea Intermediate) http://www.precolombino.cl/en/coleccion/figuraantropomorfa-5/

Figure 3. Effigy Vessel (Brooklyn Museum Art of the Americas) http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/ opencollection/objects/1864/Effigy_Vessel

Figure 5. El Shamรกn Hecho Felino (Casa del Alabado Museo de Arte Precolombino) http://alabado.org/ culturas-precolombinas/cultura-jama-coaque/elfelino-hecho-sham%C3%A1n

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Art & the Neo-Colonialist: Contemporary African Art in the Euro-American Market Natalie Della Valle

Soly Cissé, Untitled 5, 2013, acrylic on canvas, 59.1 x 59.1 in. (150 x 150 cm). Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, Seattle. 2015. (photograph provided by Artsy).

Abstract: Within the past few years, contemporary African art has steadily gained recognition on the international arts scene, allowing artists to enter the mainstream spotlight. Yet, despite this increase in international attention, discourse between curators and academics surrounding these works and these artists remains problematic. In this paper, I dissect issues and problematic language within recent presentations of modern African art so as to question ideas surrounding ‘African’ modernity and self-representation in the arts. Through looking at various various texts and trends, I argue that the placement of African artists within the Euro-American centric art world reflects the continuation of the West’s desire to distinguish itself from Africa to this day, a problematic paradigm that finds its roots in the history of colonialism.

The construction and re-construction of identity in post-colonial Sub-Saharan Africa encompasses politics, economics, popular entertainment, literature, and art. One can begin to comprehend this specific identity imposed by the West through the lens of

contemporary African art. However, there is a general shift in the levels of investment in subSaharan pieces, which in turn works to shift this long-standing paradigm of neo-colonial identity. Specifically, art from Kenya, Nigeria, and Angola has been heavily monetized

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in the past few years within the global art market following the rapid monetization of East Asian art. For example, the renowned London 1:54 Contemporary Art Fair held its inaugural event as recently as October 2013, and was the first international art fair dedicated solely to contemporary African art.

Similarly, the number of African countries sponsoring pavilions at the quintessential Venice Art Biennale has increased greatly in the past two years - the African pavillion first opened as recently as 2007. In addition, interest in investment in this “new and hot” region continues to rise in both Europe and North America, with many calling it the “next big thing”.

These events represent a large shift in the perception of such art - up until such movements, it was ancient art coming from the African continent that has been prioritized over contemporary pieces in terms of investment value. However, there are a number of contemporary artists who are breaking away from this traditional paradigm of lucrative art, and instead creating works that are bringing a new focus unto the area.

Despite such a move away from the traditional prioritization of ancient art, towards greater international investment of contemporary pieces, the representation of this artwork by academics and curators continues to create problematic dialogue.

The recent change in the interest and discussion of contemporary African art by the international art community has gradually shifted away from the previously used language and neo-colonial notions when ancient art ruled the market. Western romanticized, neo-primitive notions of what Sub-Saharan African art “should be” are no longer present in discussions surrounding

this regional output. Likewise, that the art’s transformation into a desirable form of monetary investment represents a significant change in a market in which neo-colonial ideas are present, especially in the treatment of ancient art. Albeit this change is a step in eliminating center-periphery binarism that remains in art trade, the dialogue between Western curators, academics, and artists themselves is still vexed. A new-found international regard for contemporary artists such as Ghanaian El Anatsui and Nigerian Ben Enwonwu indicates a transformation in the market–a loosening of ties between African art and indigenous tradition or primitive-historical significance as investment increases1–something one can see in the change in terminology for proof: “primal art” became “primitive art”, which now has morphed into “indigenous art”. Likewise, many of the objects displayed in spaces akin to the Musée du Quai Branly, for example, have more often than not been treated as ethnographic objects rather than art prized for its aesthetic value.

Until recently, the critical and monetary value of African art objects was determined by the purpose of the creation of the piece (was it created for a “traditional purpose”?) and by the artist’s heritage (was it created by an “authentic”, “traditional” artist”). Currently, these categories have greatly subsided with the boom of modernism and post-colonial international dialogue; however, Western fascination and romanticization of indigenous African art remains present.

Western curators continue to cast a neoprimitive, quasi-tribal shadow onto African artwork in the name of critical analysis.

Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbechie, criticizing a Modern African Art exhibition at London’s Whitechapel Gallery, argues that the right

1

As an aside, it is of extreme importance that in discussing contemporary African art, one must be aware of how to commend artists individually rather than as a member of a movement, group, or as a part of this new wave of art coming to Western galleries in the present day.

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to define contemporary African art needs to rest in the hands of the artists themselves, not in the hands of curators injecting financial resources. The stakes are larger than mere art; his articulation of such issues is an attempt to end the current paradigm that indulges Western curators with the power to narrate, contextualize, and impose preconceived criteria. The international economic structure, aligned with a center-periphery paradigm established by colonial intervention, further lodges notions of a master of the province of the art and in turn perpetuates a form of paternalism. This becomes incredibly problematic in the region, seen as “one finds that some of the most radical art began with collective endeavors, at times identified with membership, manifestoes and magazines”, which extends into neo-colonial cultural notions and values, creating the “quasi-tribal artist whose work is interesting principally because it translates the cultural ethos of the collectivity” trope (Deliss 1996: 16).

Dialogue between the artists and those external to the cultural and geographical milieu through literature, curation, and within the art itself is now challenging previously established standards. It is the artists themselves - not curators or academics - who are taking hold of redefining postcolonial modernity within the realm of fine art, thus reclaiming a form of agency.

It is important, though, that this artistic and social modernity movement towards ideological must not be categorized under the umbrella of Euro-American modernity movements. The historical-social experiences creating this new idea of “modernism” in the African arts is one that is separate from the Western experience, largely due to the history and impact of colonization. One can look at Leopold Sedar Senghor’s Negritude movement as representation of a declaration or call for a specifically African modernity.

The idea of modernism as an exclusively

Western movement, with similar development in other cultures as a mere mimicry, is one that is greatly outdated across disciplines.

However, a specific postcolonial modernity can be seen in the statements of identity by the artists themselves, distinct from Western modernity due to colonialistic undercurrents.

For example, we can see the rise of this ideologically separate modernity in artists who claimed a state modernity in Kenya after the 1998 US Embassy bombing through a prolific outpour of art. The ‘modernity’ arising in sub-Saharan Africa, in this case, can be seen as an ideology provoked by historical events. From a global economic standpoint, this new modernity in the art market could also be demonstrated by the willingness of international collectors to pay higher and higher prices for Sub-Saharan art and their rush to invest in the prolific work of creators across nations. This, however, raises the question of why and for whom the work is created-- perhaps the answers reveal differences that explains the rift between locally-acclaimed art and lucrative art that attracts international attention.

Ed Cross, an international curator specializing in contemporary Kenyan, Senegalese, and Beninese art and sculpture, notes that the current movement only further places the title of international tastemaker upon Euro-American curators. However, he also names Nigeria, and specifically the city of Lagos, as a crucial force in developing the future of ‘African’ art. One only needs to look at the international attention the gallery CCA Lagos has received to vindicate his point.

With this recent boom of transactions among Western curators and artists themselves, the construction of a singular Africa is notably absent compared to the recent past. Kenya, Nigeria, Mali, and a few other regions are being named repeatedly as individual hotspots for emerging art.

The idea of continental Africa as a singular

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entity with a singular identity is a colonial and Western production. The historical and social experiences that informed Western artistic and academic modernity movements are not those that informed artistic and national modernity in various art-centric locales, such as Lagos. The idea that the Euro-American art world has created a very specific EuroAmerican-centric identity for the Modernist movement apart from Africa was another way of differentiating themselves from the rest of the world. The African Modernist movement is just that – labeled as specifically African from the start. This may be correct, given the historical and social realities that informed such a movement are unique to colonialism and a very different history; however, speaking of the movement in fine arts specifically, it is all too often that one’s aesthetic is automatically labeled as not “modern art” or “contemporary art”, but rather “African Modern art” or “African Contemporary art”. The artwork is thus automatically interpellated into being the Other. Language usage in both curatorial discourse and in economic proceedings is improving, but there is still room for improvement. The idea of the “Africa” is remains prevalent in present prominent dialogues.

In discussing the Western construction of “Africa” as a singular entity, Ferguson writes that, “historically, Western societies have found ‘Africa’ a radical other for their own constructions of civilization, enlightenment, progress, development, modernity, and indeed, history” (Ferguson 2006: 2). The idea that African contemporary art has for so long been marginalized and ostracized - seen as something distinctly “African” and something that speaks “to the African experience” rather than speaking to the individual experience - is supportive of Ferguson’s argument that Western constructions of ‘African’ entity reach far and wide and create a false singular identity. However, the emergence of

contemporary art, the emergence of artists to watch, and the international recognition being given to singular galleries and schools are beginning to change this mentality within the art world. Although these forms of individuality represent great steps forward towards the equal treatment of artworks, Western curatorial attitudes in particular have been slow to adapt their language away from that traditionally, and problematically, used.

The neo-colonialist language that still is in use today is much more subtle than those of days of past. Although the art is given accolades for its individual achievements, the neocolonial “artist as trope” paradigm is also still present. Given the economic dependence upon Western curators in practically every “secondary” global market, colonial notions of the mainstream and margin, the center and periphery, and the taste-maker and follower still seep into art sales and shows around the world. Additionally, the fact that much of the art is used as a catalyst for discourse surrounding “the Africa problem” diminishes the value of the art as an aesthetically and/ or ideologically piece of work and the value of the artist as the creator. The art is then, as iterated above, taken out of the hands of the artist and placed into those of the curator for their own utilization and purpose.

As the performance or masquerade was the subject of Western attention during the colonial era, the idea of the modern artist performing through their art for an audience, eliciting accolades from Western curators, evokes the same intentions. EuroAmerican curators evidently attempt to distance themselves from artists who are carving out a niche in a contemporary market previously largely closed off to them, acting as gatekeepers. Ferguson, in his introduction, states that globalization has brought awareness of global materialism to those who have not had their promises of development

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fulfilled. He explains the reaction of people, “asserting global membership, often through a brilliantly inventive bricolage of scraps and leftovers, that is far more likely to be celebrated by the cultural analyst than by the “locals” themselves, who may see such practices more as signs of weakness than of strength (Ferguson 2006: 21).

It is hard to negotiate the two sides of this story. On the one hand, artists are achieving success en masse within the international market that is unbeholden of long-existing ties between art and Western romanticized visions of “primitive representational art”.

However, questionable treatment of both the art and artists by Western investors as representative of an emerging Africa still remains in the industry. Additionally, the need to map out modernism onto specific African experiences, movements, histories is necessary, but simultaneously separates the West from the “other”, thus strengthening the neocolonial nature of relations between the West and Africa. This highlights how the false “traditional vs contemporary” dichotomy furthers the conflicted need for African artists to represent something, despite that this conversation would ultimately place them in the palms of Western curators.

As African contemporary art is being displayed and exchanged in the West at higher rates than before, discourse and exhibitions surrounding this subject must be carefully conducted to avoid pitfalls of neocolonialism. This responsibilities largely lies in the hands of both curators and investors who ultimately set the tone of dialogue, thus possessing power to influence mindframes of the general public. For instance, recent sales of art are often treated as a “new discovery”, eerily echoing the “discovery” of African lands claimed by colonial powers. As artists make efforts for their individual voices to be heard, both curators and the general public must correspond by viewing the art for its

own merits, deserving to be placed in the spotlight not because of its geographical origin, but because of the flourishing arts scenes in African locales. The questions posed in this paper will be answered not by Western armchair academics but by the artists, such as El Anatsui and Soly Cissé, who are answering the questions for themselves.

References: Cornet, Joseph 1975 African Art and Authenticity. African Arts 9:52-55.

Ferguson, James 2006 Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order. Durham: Duke University Press.

Kasfir, Sidney 2005 Narrating Trauma as Modernity: Kenyan Artists and the American Embassy Bombing.

African Arts. Theme Issue, “Trauma and Representation in Africa” 38(3): 66-77.

“Kenyan art auction held in Nairobi.”

BBC News. BBC News , 5 Nov. 2013. Web. 20 Mar. 2014. http://www.bbc.com/news/worldafrica-24818965.

Mudariki, Richard 2013 African Art in London 2013. Omeka Magazine 1(2): 32-35.

Ogebechie, Sylvester 1997 Exhibiting Africa: Curatorial Attitudes and Political Representation in “Seven Stories about Modern Art in Africa”. African Arts 30(1): 10+12+83-84.

Peffer, John 2003 African Modernism, from the Margins to the Marketplace. Art Journal 62(4): 101-103.

Ravenhill, Philip 1996 Seven Stories about Modern Art in Africa by Clémentine Deliss. African Arts 29(3): 15-18.

Toledo, Manuel “Africa triumphs at the Venice Biennale.” BBC News. BBC News, 6 June 2013. Web. 20 Mar. 2014. http://www.bbc.com/news/worldafrica-22791617.

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Young Memories: Exploring Human-Object Relations at Conflict Sites Geneviève Godin One of the defining characteristics of modern total warfare is its tendency to extend well beyond the confines of the trenches, and to expand the frontline inwards, until entire civilian landscapes find themselves at the heart of the conflict. No aspect of everyday life is left unscathed in such contexts, although children have thus far been largely excluded from these narratives (Moshenska 2008:122).

Their experiences and practices are too often dismissed as atypical, and therefore inconsequential ways of engaging with the world. In this paper, I explore human-object relations as school-aged children in World War II Britain experienced them. More specifically, I aim to demonstrate the ways in which children’s engagement with material culture was not merely a symptom of a total war, but instead the result of schoolchildren acting by choice. I also set out to show that, by giving more weight to objects and acknowledging their entanglements with young people, it is possible to see beyond dominant narratives of conflict. While I do not claim that the material culture discussed in this paper encompasses the full breadth of experiences that these individuals had, it nonetheless nuances our understanding of conflicts by opening up a space for non-mainstream accounts, including the testimonies of children.

My analysis builds on research from the fields of material culture studies and conflict archaeology. In addition, I refer to the BBC’s WWII People’s War project, which is an online archive of over 47,000 stories written by those who grew up and attended school in wartime Britain, compiled between June 2003 and January 2006, and divided into 64 different categories. Two types of material culture recur in the “Childhood” section

of this online archive. The first is the gas masks that were made mandatory in British schools, but not in society at large, from the onset of the Second World War. The second type is made up of the shell fragments that were collected, exchanged, and introduced as currency in the playground economy. In the subsequent sections, I will first define childhood and question common assumptions about what it means to be a child. The roles of shrapnel shells and gas masks, as well as the process of incorporating them into everyday life, will then be explored and supported by examples drawn from written accounts sent to the WWII People’s War project. Finally, I will shift the discussion towards a theoretical examination of objects, more specifically in terms of dependence, order, and material culture shock.

Defining Childhood In a key piece on the implications of taking children into account, Baxter identifies two main approaches to the archaeology of childhood: one is the study of childhood for its own sake, while the other is the study of children as adults in development (2008:172). In practice, this duality influences the kind of research that is being produced and the questions that are asked.

However, in conveying the arguments put forth in this paper, it is not crucial to adhere closely to only one of these approaches since they both acknowledge that the experiences of children matter. The main obstacle to the inclusion of children’s narratives is likely to be the idea that childhood and being a child are universal categories, regardless of the context (Baxter 2008:161). In reality, evidence suggests that the notions of “child” and “childhood” extend beyond the recognition

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of a body as either mature or immature, and involve a multitude of experiences characterized by dependence, naivety, and passivity (Derevenski 2000:11).

In the eyes of the nation-state, these experiences are also linked to free time and play, and contrasted with the structured time and valuable labour of adults. It is important to note that there is nothing inherent in the notion of childhood, and that being a child is negotiated differently across time and space, and through material culture. Similarly, it should be made clear that the idea of the child as linked to a particular kind of body is culturally specific, thus blurring the line between childhood and adulthood, and highlighting the absence of a clear break from the former stage to the latter (Derevenski 2000:12). I acknowledge that this paper falls into the trap of studying young people as a unified category. Nevertheless, I wish to limit the consequences of this shortcoming by explicitly stating that the experiences of British schoolchildren were in no way uniform, and that both shell fragments and gas masks provide evidence that supports the view of children as actors who play an active role in constructing their own lives. In other words, things do not simply happen to them, as they wait submissively.

The reasons why children have often been dismissed as the producers of unofficial, inaccurate narratives can further be explored by attempting to answer a straightforward question, asked by Hirschfeld (2000) in an article titled “Why Don’t Anthropologists Like Children?” I take this question to be a bold statement in and of itself, insofar as it can only emerge and be relevant in a context where the marginalization of children as a social category is apparent. To answer one scholar’s question with another’s work, namely that of Schlanger, anthropologists dislike children because children are stupid – indeed, they “simply and stupidly choked

to death” while attempting to use gas masks (1994:280). To be fair to the author, the process of choking was, in its essence, quite straightforward. By being unaware that a plastic plug had to be removed for the mask to be functional, children prevented oxygen flow, thus leading to asphyxiation. That being said, I maintain that it is unacceptable to attribute the loss of human lives to sheer foolishness, and to reduce the unfathomable distress that must have overcome these children in their final moments to a mere annoyance. Children neither live, nor depart “simply and stupidly.”

While this extreme example is not representative of the treatment of children in archaeology at large, it does highlight the negative impact of the trivialization of their actions and the problematic assumption that young people constitute a universal and unified social category. For these reasons, I argue that the material culture and experiences of children should be approached with the same level of consideration one would expect when approaching those of adults, as both are actors in their own right, and form multivocal, heterogeneous groups (Baxter 2008:161). Schoolchildren may not have approached the military equipment of World War II with the solemnity that it was thought to demand, but this in no way negates the existence of their entanglement, or mutually dependent relationship with those objects. The materiality of their experiences remains valid, and, in order to do them justice as actors, should be viewed as more than an inevitable consequence of a total war that impacted all aspects of life. As social beings, children are deeply embedded in human-object networks. The playground economy within which shell fragments circulated provides a real-life example of this, as it challenges the idea of children as passive and reveals them as individuals who initiate action by choice.

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metal developed an array of beautiful rainbow colours. An informant, Mr. Jones, reveals that this beauty offered a sharp contrast to the “evil intent of the munitions” – a complex notion that he appears to have been aware of even as a child, challenging the idea of childhood as a time of pure innocence and obliviousness (Jones 2003).

The pieces gathered following air raids were compared, exchanged, and envied by children who were always on the lookout for larger and more impressive fragments (Bill 2003). In describing the seemingly casual playground economy of schoolchildren and their creative use of shrapnel shells, it is not my intention to suggest that they remained largely unaffected by the war, in some kind of parallel, unthreatening world, unaware of the actual purpose of the shells in their intact state. On the contrary, they witnessed first hand the devastating effects of razorsharp edges on their knees and palms as they gathered shrapnel, and in the damaged landscape that surrounded them. Despite being only three and a half years old at the onset of the Second World War, Mr. Palmer confesses that he was, and continues to be affected by what, in his own words, was a disturbed childhood. He remembers it as one fraught with instability and vivid traumatic memories, such as the day he witnessed his elderly neighbour stagger into his childhood home, “blood streaming from a scalp wound after having been struck on the head by a piece of shrapnel” (Palmer 2004).

Gas Masks as Nested Artifacts Gas masks, unlike shrapnel, were massproduced and could not be exchanged.

They were worn close to the body, making them both a material reality and a sensory experience, and enabled humans to resist the gases employed in chemical warfare. Other than indicating age – body bags for infants, Mickey Mouse red masks for toddlers, and the regular model for older children, gas masks

Shrapnel and the Playground Economy Shrapnel, a type of artillery shell, was mostly used as a defensive technology during the Second World War in Britain. The shells were launched by the British military at enemy aircrafts in order to intercept them, meaning that they exploded overhead, before their sharp fragments landed on local soil.

Exploded shrapnel shells were not intended to be objects at all, but rather garbage that needed to be collected both for safety reasons and to participate in the war effort by recycling metal. Schoolchildren, following air raids, went out in the streets to find fragments, which they collected, compared, and introduced as currency in their playground economy. Having these objects enabled them to gain prestige among their peers, but also to engage in reciprocal exchange in order to obtain other, more impressive fragments according to a set of criteria that they established, or to obtain goods, such as candy.

In doing so, they appropriated these objects in creative ways, and generated a set of highly regulated practices that were entirely driven by the schoolchildren themselves (Moshenska 2008:107-109).

In his study of shrapnel collecting, Moshenska reveals that the collecting of material culture is not uncommon for children in high-stress situations.

He suggests that this is in fact a coping mechanism, employed by young individuals to “domesticate” the violent technology that became a part of their landscape, but also to feel on par with the adults who surrounded them (Moshenska 2008:109). They did so through the atypical use of technologies they would not have had access to under regular, non-conflict circumstances, and by reframing them in a non-threatening way that could then be integrated into their social lives.

In testimonies, some individuals describe their shrapnel collection in poetic terms, explaining how the heated post-explosion

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were indistinguishable, mass-produced pieces of military equipment. Although children appear to have mainly used their mask for its intended purpose, or rather avoided wearing it at all for reasons I will later discuss, more contemporary uses show the flexibility of gas masks as object categories. Present-day uses range from protective devices to art objects, costumes, symbols of post-industrialism, disguises, sexual fetish objects, historical artifacts, etc. (Moshenska 2010a:611). The gas masks that had been issued to infants and children were recalled at the end of World War II since they had been especially costly to produce (624). However, the schoolchildren, now elderly, nonetheless report sudden, unexpected memories related to gas masks, triggered by sensory inputs, such as the use of a filter mask when painting, despite the physical absence of the actual object (610).

Many accounts suggest a greater attachment to the cardboard boxes or metal containers the gas masks were kept in than to the mask itself. Mr. Tarling has fond memories of the time metal canisters started being sold at Woolworths, and his mother purchased one to replace the cardboard box all masks originally came in, which quickly proved unsuitable for everyday use. His white enamel canister made him the most enviable child in school for a brief period of time, until new filters were added to the masks to accommodate developments in chemical warfare technology, thus making all existing containers too small (Tarling 2004). In her testimony, Ms. Taylor expresses a different type of attachment to her mask’s case, which she used to defend herself against an older boy who was violent towards her in the schoolyard.

She recalls a particular confrontation during which she swung the container at the boy, breaking his nose, thinking that if Winston Churchill fought back for the nation, she should fight back for herself, too. Ms. Taylor here inserts her own actions into national

narratives, despite the nation-state’s rejection of children as motivated actors. This incident also informed the opinions she continued to have later in life, mainly that retaliation was generally justified and should not be frowned upon (Taylor 2004). I conclude that these boxes were an opportunity for children not to directly tame the material culture of war, as was the case with shell fragments, but instead to negotiate their individuality and their identity, in addition to carving a space for themselves in their social world (Moshenska 2010a:622).

While the device itself is usually the object of inquiry when gas masks are mentioned, testimonies show that they more closely resemble what can be called a “nested artifact,” meaning that the mask itself is only one component of the equation (Moshenska 2010a:611). There was no reason to carry a canister without a mask, and neither was there a point in having a gas mask that could not be easily carried. Based on this, it is fair to say that together the mask and the box formed a literal nested artifact whose life histories are “as inseparable as they are eventful” (611).

The nested properties of the artifact enabled schoolchildren to conceal the sophisticated military technology while customizing the most visible aspect of the nested object – the box. By tracing the history of the use of these objects by young people, I imply that gas masks were part of broader social networks and entanglements. The following section explores the practice of gas training in the education system, as one of the many ways in which military technology was incorporated into everyday life.

Chemical Education The process of putting on, wearing, and removing a mask appears to have been in the majority of cases unpleasant, especially since it was coupled with a great deal of hair and skin pulling due to the rubber that effectively sealed the mask (Allen 2005).

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That being said, at least one written account serves as a reminder of the diversity of experiences, and shows that not all children offered strong, overt resistance to gas mask training – “I cannot recall being at all put out or perturbed at having to do this,” writes Mr. Palmer (2004). Once the masks were properly installed, children either went about their daily business while wearing it, or went through live gas training. This entailed being placed either in a mobile chamber or van, or in a closed room with a machine, as their surroundings were filled with tear gas (Gossling 2003; Palmer 2004). The goal of this first phase was to reassure civilians, including children, of the utility and value of the masks (Moshenska 2010b:230). In the second phase of the training, schoolchildren were made to remove their mask and expose themselves to the chemicals, as the machines made their ear buzz, and the tear gas made their eyes sting and water (Palmer 2004). This brutal lesson reminded them of the reason why they carried those cumbersome metal boxes in the first place, but also encouraged the fear of chemical warfare.

Moshenska suggests that gas masks were perceived as agents of authority and control, and that the children reacted to them accordingly – with hostility, resistance, and suspicion (2010a:625). While they were mandatory in schools, this did not prevent children from refusing to take part in gas masks tests. A woman writes that her five-year-old self feared the mask would suffocate her and refused to wear it unless forced to. She adds that, to this day, she still cannot stand having her nose and face covered (Anonymous 2003).

Exposure to tear gas during tests conducted in schools was thought of as necessary so that children would grow accustomed to the practice of installing, wearing, and removing a gas mask, in the hopes that it would feel natural in case of a chemical attack. However, I propose that this also served to reinforce

the disdain of children towards the whole practice, and the perception of gas masks as oppressive, especially since exposure to the harmful, albeit short-lasting effects of tear gas made for an unpleasant lesson.

The Dependence of Things One lesson that was made clear during live gas mask training is that young people ought to carry these nested artifacts with them at all times, for they depended on at least one part of that artifact. In this context, the entanglement of the child and the gas mask is evident, although not inevitable.

While I do not question the potential value of conducting a symmetrical archaeology that does not presuppose a split between humans and object, I argue that portraying people and gas masks as equals is ignoring the full extent of the former’s influence as actors. This conclusion is influenced by a frequently cited argument by anthropologist Alfred Gell, who maintains: “A soldier is not just a man, but a man with a gun. … A soldier’s weapons are parts of him which make him what he is” (Olsen 2010:136). I remain unconvinced, however, that soldiers are fragmented agents who require the agency of objects for their identity to be whole. Even if his weapons are removed, an individual’s military past is not automatically erased. By suggesting that a soldier is somehow incomplete or inadequate without a gun, the symmetrical approach fails to take into consideration ideology and only looks at the presence or absence of the weapon. The same principle applies to children whose non-mainstream engagement with material culture is not negated once there is no evidence left to show, as was the case once the masks had been recollected and the shrapnel recycled.

As an alternative, I turn to the notion of objects as being socially constituted through their entanglements with people, meaning that performances bestow meaning upon them.

While objects do have physical properties,

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they do not possess inherent, rigid meanings simply waiting to engage with humans as equals. Joy’s (2002) analysis of the socially constituted significance of her grandfather’s war medal is an example of this. Despite being a “strictly contextualized” object and a strong symbol, Joy successfully demonstrates the ways in which even a war medal is not innately meaningful. Rather, it came to have various meanings that evolved over time as a result of the actions of those who interacted with the medal (Joy 2002:133). This creative, yet meaningful engagement with objects originally intended for a specific purpose is also reflected in schoolchildren’s interactions with shell fragments.

To return to the issue of dependence, it is through entanglements that objects not only gain significance, but also enter human-object networks. These objects are not isolated since they depend on humans and require the presence of other objects (Hodder 2012:3, 59). To come into existence, shell fragments require shrapnel shells, which require someone to fire them, somewhere they can be fired from, and something to be fired at and come into contact with. Similarly, gas masks require production, assembly, and maintenance by humans, in addition to requiring some sort of protection so that they remain intact and therefore efficient in times of need. These two objects and their associated dependencies are part of a broader network of human-object relations in the context of conflict. People become entangled in these relations not because material culture exercises an agency that enchains them against their will, but rather because they become trapped by objects that will not continue to be fully functional without them. In other words, “humans rely on things that have to be maintained so that they can be relied on” (Hodder 2012:208). I understand this to be a compromise between the view of objects of agents and, at the opposite end of the

spectrum, of objects as empty shells.

(Dis)Orderly Objects In the discussion above, I have taken for granted that objects are stable and permanent, unless removed or destroyed. This, however, is problematic. Indeed, it ignores a crucial aspect of the illusion of stability: the unwavering permanence of material culture is only maintained as long as someone is working hard to produce that stability (Hodder 2012:209).

Shrapnel shells only exist as long as someone is there to produce and demand them, while gas masks offer little protection to the wearer if no one sets into motion the production of new filters as the methods of chemical warfare evolve. Olsen attributes this to a shyness in the demeanor of things, which remain outside of our consciousness until they disrupt our “implicit expectation of service as usual” by breaking, going missing, or becoming obsolete (Olsen et al. 2012:17).

What happens, then, when the material realm fails to fulfill our implicit expectations and does not go on as usual, but is instead disrupted in unpredictable ways by warfare?

The fact that gas masks had to be carried by schoolchildren at all times as well as the written accounts of injuries caused by shrapnel show how conflicts have sudden, unforeseen consequences on the everydayness, which becomes fraught with instability. This is perhaps part of the reason why young people’s shrapnel collections, gas masks, and customized metal containers did not so easily fall into oblivion as time went on. I argue that, in the absence of a reliable everydayness, these objects were always a matter of concern, thus continuously reinserted into social networks, and into the process of negotiating children’s place and identity in the world, as actors capable of maintaining complex entanglements (Olsen 2010:116; Edensor 2005b:313).

The disordering of the material world is a concept that I borrow from industrial archaeology, especially as Edensor, a geographer,

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employs it in his studies of ruins. In doing so, I conceptualize most wars as events that are not meant to last, and that have a beginning and an actual or expected end. They are, in this sense, exceptional events, suspended in time as people collectively hold their breath, waiting for the outcomes that will inevitably ensue. They have boundaries, like industrial sites, and are bound to a specific time and place. Both ruined landscapes and those left behind by war are an affront to the senses, blending the intact and the damaged in unexpected ways. Edensor attributes the fascination with ruins to the disruption of the popular saying “a place for everything and everything in its place” (2005b:310). It is within this framework that the “commonsense obviousness of the ways in which the world in ordered” fails, and that it is no longer possible to apprehend things unreflexively (Edensor 2005a:97).

Material Culture Shock Extraordinary contexts show how easily destabilized the human-object dependence is (Hodder 2012:207). It is fair to say that things are not in their socially sanctioned place when children collect the artillery shells of the military, and wear the protective gear of armed forces. This directly speaks back to the deconstructed concept of childhood, which I have addressed earlier. The presupposed divide between adulthood and childhood has imposed rigid frameworks of interpretation onto these two life stages, which stand in opposition. The seriousness of war is thought to be well beyond the grasp of children; conflicts and their nuances belong to the realm of adults. Moreover, the interactions of children with their peers, but also with objects, events, and landscapes are described as play.

By definition, play is a type of performance that is largely fictional, and its main purpose is to entertain. Children and their practices are therefore seen as apolitical and lacking in seriousness (Derevenski 2000:4).

An alternative to this is taking children seriously, and expanding on mainstream discourses surrounding conflict by acknowledging that they, too, lived through the Second World War. This exercise is especially relevant in the context of modern warfare, which is characterized by total wars.

In these contexts, violence is not confined to the trenches; wars extend past the frontline, into civilian territory. The population at large becomes a target for military attacks, thus leading to the distribution of defensive technology, such as gas masks. Children will inevitably be confronted with the material culture of conflict, as they hear about air raids, are themselves hiding in shelters, and in some cases are injured or killed as collateral damage (Moshenska 2008:107). They are also subjected to the same restrictions, which are imposed onto adults, who then impose them onto the young people in their care.

These hardships included the rationing of clothes and food, but also the evacuation of thousands of children away from urban zones thought to be unsafe for them, and into the countryside homes of family members or, too often, of complete strangers (Moshenska 2012:52).

In more conventional archaeological research, the creative use of shrapnel shells and the customization of gas mask cases would be seen as interferences that compromise the integrity of the overall narrative of warfare and obscure archaeologists’ interpretations.

Baxter refers to children as an “unknowable category of people” when discussing how they use material culture differently than adults (Baxter 2008:162). Not presupposing an insurmountable gap between child and adult, between play and politics, and between creative and prescribed uses allows us to explore the discomfort felt when thinking about small children wearing gas masks, carrying sharp shell fragments, and being purposely exposed to chemical warfare.

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Borrowing Derevenski’s terms, I refer to this uneasiness as a “material culture shock” (2000:3). In the context of child soldiers, she describes this as the profound distress felt when realizing that “the material culture of the gun ought to be held in a different hand, the uniform of battle should be worn by another body” (3). When looking at the material culture of schoolchildren in World War II Britain, I understand this material culture shock as a way of describing the disruption of expectations that occurs when objects are not in the right places, nor with the right actors. The pairing of innocent children and lethal weapons creates incongruity (Derevenski 2000:3). As a result, the humanobject entanglement is destabilized and has to be reconsidered since its manifestations no longer correlate with the idea of children as innocent, passive, and incapable of establishing meaningful connections with the politicized material culture of warfare.

a more nuanced understanding not of the conflict itself, as it unfolded in the trenches, but rather of the distinctly modern effects of total wars that permeate all aspects of social life, including the private realm and family life. For these reasons, I maintain that the archaeology of modern conflict goes well beyond the battlefield, and conclude that it must also include children who may or may not have fully grasped the crisis that was unfolding above their heads and along their borders, but who were nonetheless directly affected by its consequences.

Concluding Remarks As I have attempted to show, young individuals, through their entanglement with gas masks and their appropriation of shell fragments, reveal their role in constructing their own identity. As a result, the commonly held idea of political, economic, and social power as being exclusively in the hands of adults is challenged (Baxter 2008:161). The fact that they do not consistently engage with material culture in a mainstream, socially sanctioned manner does not in any way negate the validity and legitimacy of children’s experiences. As social beings, they are embedded in human-object networks to the same extent as adults. Sites and objects both have different levels of significance for different people, and the full breadth of human experiences cannot be contained within a single narrative. By inserting the voices of young people into broader narratives of conflict, it is possible to gain

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Terrains Pp. 132-142. London: Routledge.

Moshenska, Gabriel 2008 A Hard Rain: Children’s Shrapnel Collections in the Second World War. Journal of Material Culture 13(1):107-125.

2010a Gas masks: material culture, memory, and the senses. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 16(3):609-628.

2010b Government gas vans and school gas chambers: preparedness and paranoia in Britain, 1936-1941. Medicine, Conflict and Survival 26(3): 223-234.

2012 The Archaeology of the Second World War: Uncovering Britain’s Wartime Heritage. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Books.

Olsen, Bjørnar 2010 In Defense of Things: Archaeology and the Ontology of Objects. Lanham: AltaMira Press.

Olsen, Bjørnar, with Michael Shanks, Timothy Webmoor, and Christopher Witmore 2012 Archaeology: The Discipline of Things.

Berkeley: University of California Press.

Palmer, Michael.

“The War in the West – A Child’s Perspective.”

WW2 People’s War, www.bbc.co.uk/history/ ww2peopleswar/stories/75/a3253475.shtml (accessed 12 December 2014).

Schlanger, Nathan 1994 The Trials of the Gas Mask: An Object of Fumbling. Configurations 2(2):275-300.

References: Allen, Julie.

“Memories of the Gas Mask by a Child in Penge.”

WW2 People’s War, www.bbc.co.uk/history/ ww2peopleswar/stories/07/a4491407.shtml (accessed 12 December 2014).

Anonymous.

“A Child’s Eye View of Wartime.” WW2 People’s War, www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/ stories/61/a2026261.shtml (accessed 12 December 2014).

Baxter, Jane Eva 2008 The Archaeology of Childhood. Annual Review of Anthropology 37:159-175.

Derevenski, Joanna Sofaer 2000 Material culture shock: Confronting expectations in the material culture of children.

In Children and Material Culture. Joanna Sofaer Derevenski, ed. Pp. 3-16. London: Routledge.

Edensor, Tim 2005a Industrial Ruins: Space, Aesthetics and Materiality. New York: Berg.

2005b Waste Matter – The Debris of Industrial Ruins and the Disordering of the Material World.

Journal of Material Culture 10(3):311-332.

Gossling, Tim. “Memories of World War 2 in Croydon.”

WW2 People’s War, www.bbc.co.uk/history/ ww2peopleswar/stories/24/a1956224.shtml (accessed 12 December 2014).

Hodder, Ian. 2012 Entangled: An Archaeology of the Relationships between Humans and Things.

Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

Jones, D. “Child’s Eye: Collecting Shrapnel.” WW2 People’s War, www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/ stories/81/a2055881.shtml (accessed 12 December 2014).

Joy, Jody 2002 Biography of a medal: people and the things they value. In Matériel Culture: The Archaeology of Twentieth Century Conflict. John Schofield, William Gray Johnson, and Colleen M. Beck, eds.

Schofield, John 2005 Combat Archaeology: Material Culture and Modern Conflict. London: Duckworth & Co. Tarling, Ron. “GAS MASKS.” WW2 People’s War, www. bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/10/ a3337210.shtml (accessed 12 December 2014).

Taylor, Dorothy.

“How I Saw the Second World War – Part 2.”

WW2 People’s War, www.bbc.co.uk/history/ ww2peopleswar/stories/38/a2853038.shtml (accessed 12 December 2014).

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III Discussions of Applying Anthropology to Current Issues

by Alexander Dawson

A bee examines the camera; extracting strained honey into jars. – Film stills from Neatsfire (2015)

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Natural and Cultural Resource Management: Examining National Parks and World Heritage Sites Rachel Ma Critique of the nature-culture dichotomy is nothing new, especially in the field of anthropology. Yet, nature conservation continues to address seemingly untouched landscapes while cultural heritage is still concerned with manifestations of human activity. Critics of environmental and cultural movements have raised questions about their respective conceptions of nature and culture.

Through a closer examination of National Parks and World Heritage sites, we can begin to see that the first step to moving forwards is not a separation but an integration of the two realms.

In Imagining Serengeti, Jane Shetler discusses how perceptions of the savannah landscape have changed over time, in both its physical form and the meanings that people ascribe to it. She argues that the work of governments, scientists, NGOs, historians, and locals are shaped by their different imaginations of the same African landscape (Shetler 2007:24). Each positioned actor has a particular relation to the land, with differing aims and stakes in how the landscape is portrayed and perceived. How they see the landscape directly influences their actions in shaping what ultimately happens to it. The term ‘landscape’ is employed, rather than ‘nature’ or ‘environment’, to specifically highlight the phenomenological aspects of the landscape as a lived experience. Landscapes are socially constructed phenomena, playing an important role in social memory and in shaping identities (Shetler 2007:17). Thus, despite their existence in nature, landscapes can never be exclusively natural—they will always be more than just quantifiable geological landforms, as emphasis is placed on our lived experiences transforming “physical spaces” into “meaningful places”

(Mathers and Kruger 2010:72). For instance, Christopher Tilley defines landscapes as “the richly nuanced contextual surroundings in which people move and think and dwell” (2012:15), and Timothy Darvill considers landscapes as “specialized experiences of space and time” (1999:104). Yet, these conceptions often fail to translate into policy and practice.

Landscapes continue to be stripped of their social dimensions, becoming little more than a static backdrop to human activities. This sort of “imagined geography” (Mathers and Kruger 2010:77) is especially common when it comes to geographically and temporally distant regions This socially and historically decontextualized view of the landscape is prevalent in the creation of National Parks and in many global conservationist movements. Wilderness advocates value these remote areas because they are free from signs of human habitation (Conte 2007:233).

However, as established, no lived landscape can completely be free of human influence.

The myth of empty landscape not only separates humans from nature, but actively places them in opposition. While nature seen as an artefact standing still, culture is regarded as a dynamic process of change. The mixture of the two thus automatically renders humanity a destructive force acting upon an otherwise untouched nature. Environmental preservation movements in the 1960s, with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring as their manifesto, played a large role in spreading this view of a threatened nature in need of care and restoration (Skoglund and Svensson 2010:370). Many nature management models thus operate under the assumption that local residents are destroyers of the environment, instead of shapers of productive landscapes (Conte:234). Put into practice, the eviction

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of indigenous inhabitants is justified by a characterization of their land-use practices as inherently destructive (Hayashida 2005:52).

Removing humans has become a way to reinstate something imagined as pristine wilderness (Meskell 2009:105), despite the fact that no such thing exists. By removing inhabitants and silencing human voices, visitors to national parks continue to perceive these landscapes as nature untouched by humans, carrying on the myth of pristine wilderness.

We cannot blame the average tourist for holding these conceptions of wilderness,— park managers and nation states make great efforts to curate these landscapes as such experiences. According to Christopher Conte (2007:232), local African labourers in South Africa’s Kruger National Park were prohibited from walking along park roads for fear that tourists (who were almost always white) would get the impression that the park was inhabited by any beings other than wild animals. Though unrealistic, it seems like the ultimate goal is to replicate the opening scenes of Disney’s The Lion King. To preserve this image of African wilderness, African people who become a part of the tour are thus interpreted as “part of the land, not disturbing the vision of an empty landscape” (Mathers and Kruger 2010:77). These contemporary safaris continually evoke perceptions of an unpopulated African landscape, instilling in visitors the idea of nature possessing inherent value (Mathers and Kruger 2010:77). These contexts come to place certain people, and what they represent, entirely in the realm of nature. The split of nature and culture is effectively manufactured by maintaining local communities as ‘one with nature’; thus, none of their ecological actions spoil the image of a pristine wilderness.

Baker presents a case that hits closer to home: Algonquin Provincial Park, the oldest and one of the most popular provincial

parks in Canada. He observes that careful management of the park experience serves ideological functions in encoding specific meanings into the landscape (Baker 2002:200) These do not reflect historical cultural interpretations, but instead portray values embedded by white colonizers. Park management carefully ensure that these so-called natural spaces produce intended readings of the land (Baker 2002:201). Thus, park boundaries are created, maps produced, inhabitants relocated, and subsistence customs and economy expelled (Baker 2002:201). Much like the African labourer in Kruger National Park, everything that does not fit within this established narrative is kept out of view. All of the resource utilization takes place “in a discreet manner” to ensure the visitor’s experience of the natural qualities of the landscape (Baker 2002:202)— campers would have a vastly different outdoor experience if they depart from marked trails to find over 2,000 kilometres of permanent logging roads (Baker 2002:200). Baker argues this entire “leisure-based consumer activity” (2002:202) is dependent on the production of an authenticity expected by visitors, as the wilderness produced in Algonquian and other parks has become a central feature of the historically dominant national imaginary (2002:200). The interior is recognized as “the essence of Algonquian”, and elitism is associated with the people who can appreciate it (Baker 2002:203). Cultural capital is to blame for those who are not part of this select group. After all, culture restricts access to these seemingly authentic experiences (Baker 2002:203), and is in this case acquired from the perceived absence of culture (Baker 2002:206). Baker goes on to say that “any lived experience of the park is a product of culture, ideology, and the same social structures that produce urban and industrial spaces” (202:208).

In both Kruger and Algonquin Parks,

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there is clearly a fraught relationship between cultural and natural heritage. And in these contexts, nature trumps culture.

Meskell (2008:94) argues that this is because the language and scope of biodiversity is inherently cosmopolitan and neutral; it does not belong to anyone in particular and is, in fact, shared by all. She says in South Africa, “national nature” has explicitly been positioned as “non-racial” or “supra-racial” (Meskell 2013:610). We see this hierarchy of nature over culture in the earlier descriptions of environmental conservation placing deliberate focus on the needs of biodiversity over the needs of living people in or near the protected areas (Byrne 2009:68). The myth of pristine wilderness persists due to the removal of human histories in and on the landscape through eviction of living communities and diminishment of land-use legacies. As Conte (2007:236) states, the entire wilderness concept is based on a flawed understanding of the dynamic relationships between nature and culture. Ultimately, humans are either seen to be on the side of nature or entirely opposed to it. There is no middle ground for people to shape landscapes or influence ecosystems without bringing them to a destructive demise. Hayashida (2005:48) cites Fairhead & Leach’s work in Kissingoudou, Guinea to demonstrate the implications of assuming humanity’s inherent destruction. Patches of forest observed in the savannah landscape were initially interpreted as remnants of an expansive forest, the mere leftovers of the local inhabitants’ devastating actions. However, a closer study showed that in fact the opposite was true: these were “forest islands” that the locals had planted in what had been an un-forested landscape (Hayashida 2005:48). In efforts to quash similar misreadings, Mulk and Bayliss-Smith are critical of interpretations of cultural landscapes in northern Sweden that render the indigenous Sami presence invisible due to

their ecological impact being “not sufficiently drastic for their culture to be stamped on to nature in obvious and irreversible ways” (1999:391). Due to the starting assumption that humans are inherently destructive, a lack of evidence of such destruction thus signals a lack of human habitation altogether. This is a misinterpretation of all human-environment relationships, as neither exists in isolation.

The designation of natural places as national parks or game reserves removes the landscapes from their meaningful human histories (Conte 2007:227). It would seem that cultural heritage sites, on the other hand, could not erase this human history to the same extent since their value is not attributed to a perceived pristine nature. Nevertheless, much skewing of perception does in fact take place in these cultural heritage sites.

On the UNESCO World Heritage website, Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape is labeled as the “almost untouched remains of the palace sites and also the entire settlement area” (emphasis added). However, Meskell (2013:602) says what survives today is better described as the destruction of a palace site and settlement through early unsystematic archaeological excavations and treasure seeking. The natural aspects of the site have overshadowed the historical findings about ancient people’s lives. Even though the value of Mapungubwe’s cultural features (rock art and Iron Age archaeology) are what granted it heritage status, these were immediately sidelined as soon as the park was inscribed (Meskell 2013:612). This goes to show the continued structural separation of nature and culture, despite UNESCO’s best attempts to forge an integrated category of ‘cultural landscape’ to go alongside the existing cultural sites and natural sites (Meskell 2013:609).

The “long-steeped” nature-based tourism in countries like South Africa gives ample reason to privilege natural values over cultural ones (Meskell 2013:610). Hughes expands on this

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sentiment, “By identifying with nature and nature-based tourism…whites found a reason for being in Africa. They gained footing on a moral foundation stronger and more lasting than the state and the nation together” (2005:161).

According to Omland (2006:234), the concept of a common heritage has been around in preservation rhetoric since the eighteenth century. UNESCO’s establishment in 1945 represented a global acknowledgement of the concept (Omland 2006:242), and the World Heritage Convention in 1972 shifted focus to the shared moral obligation of protecting cultural heritage of all peoples of the world (Omland 2006:245). The World Heritage concept initially rose as a challenge to national views of cultural heritage, but is now itself being challenged in the name of local and indigenous interests, as questions are raised about its ethical status (Omland 2006:242). The concept remains ethically problematic because of its underpinnings in Western values (Omland 2006:253; Herzfeld 2012:49), as clearly reflected in the disproportionate number of sites in Europe and an underrepresentation of sites in, say, sub-Saharan Africa. This overrepresentation of monumental architecture in what constitutes World Heritage has been criticized for being too Eurocentric, and has also been disproportionately prevalent in the writing of world prehistory and history (Omland 2006:251). European cultural heritage has come to be considered as universally valued, while other kinds of heritage are only considered to be locally valued (Omland 2006:254). Watkins adds, “the scientific perspective seems to speak to the collective benefit of humanity, but that perspective seems guided primarily by a Western notion that conveniently dismisses other perspectives as parochia”(2005:84).

He goes on to cite Tsosie in saying this view of scientific supremacy “constitutes

an imperialistic endeavour that seems more consistent with the colonial history of science than its modern-day proponents want to admit” (Watkins 2005:84). There are evident issues with this biased conception of World Heritage, and Omland (2006:254) finds problematic the very possibility of a cultural heritage that embodies universal values.

As discussed above, heritage materials are widely used in shaping individual and collective identities. However, such materials may also work their way into the formation of others’ identities as they become a source of tension between groups staking claims over cultural heritage recognized as their own.

This becomes especially problematic when escalated to the national scale, with heritage objects from marginalized populations being appropriated by central powers. Watkins (2005:80) gives the example of Mexican political rulers appropriating heritage items from the “social and cultural ‘peripheries’” to construct a national identity that excluded the indigenous people from whom the heritage objects were acquired. These heritage objects are then considered on the international level as objects of national pride, when in fact they often represent conflict and power struggles.

The representations of these national pasts are created through a carefully censored and highly selective process, brought on by the “perceived need to calibrate national culture to the Western ethos” (Herzfeld 2012:40).

This implicates more than material artefacts, as the commercial marketing of historical landscapes is also an act of “curating” them to project official views of the past (McGlade 1999:458). Meskell describes this tension in presenting the perspective of black Africans regarding the creation of Kruger National Park. She reports that many believe the park caters exclusively to the “cultural and recreational tastes of the white and wealthy” (Meskell 2009:97). They do not see the park as a “national treasure” or international

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identity in the past, placing value exclusively in a past time and limiting the possibilities of value in modern developments (Joy 2011:395). Though its unique features and World Heritage designation bring in tourism and economic development, Djenné is really only of interest to the outside world when it comes to the preservation of its aesthetic appeal. It was only recently that the lives of Djenné residents were considered at all, though focus remained on restoring and preserving the architecture (Joy 2011:396).

Many challenges of heritage policies stem from a struggle between universal values and local allegiances. Meskell (2012:237) writes that a critical tension of “balancing appeals to universalism with that of cultural diversity” underlines much of the work on heritage.

Archaeologists and other practitioners have begun to examine how heritage politics are locally and nationally managed through international discourses. Transnational bodies such as UNESCO, the World Bank and conservation and funding agencies have been “curiously brought into play in local arenas” (Meskell 2012:237). Eriksen (2001:133), criticizes the UNESCO concept of culture for promoting contradictory views of cultural relativism and ethical universalism. He suggests that development work should not be concerned with “cultural authenticity or purity,” but rather, “people’s ability to gain control over their own lives” (Eriksen 2001:142). Omland brings yet another critique to the conception of World Heritage.

He says that while World Heritage can be approached from a cosmopolitan stance that presupposes a “rootedness to one’s ‘own’ past’”, culture that is used to legitimize exclusiveness may also legitimate exclusion and lead to violent identity politics (Eriksen 2001:136).

The inherent value placed on diversity fails to consider what Erikson (2001:135) calls the “mixed ‘neither-nor’ or ‘both-and’” individuals, those whom Omland (2006:248)

“beacon of biodiversity” (Meskell 2009:97).

Instead, they just want an explanation and compensation for their eviction, and rights to enter the protected areas to see the animals and visit ancestor graves (Meskell 2009:97).

The designation of Kruger National Park thus serves as a symbol of oppression, as the land and landscape are taken away from local communities and thrown into the national and international discourses of biodiversity These new contexts are far from representing what the land really means to locals.

Critical debates of the 1990s started to shift focus from heritage as objects to heritage as a process and an interaction between people and their world (Holtorf (2013:16).

Tensions between groups and cultural property have become increasingly obvious with the changes of globalization (Watkins 2005:79), as questions of “Who owns the past?” and “Whose heritage?” begin to pick apart established national narratives (Holtorf 2013:16). We have moved from centralization toward regionalization, with local voices and previously silenced histories starting to influence cultural resource management (Watkins 2005:79). Considering the multiplicity and diversity of identities, the question then becomes not just one of whose heritage but which heritage (Holtorf and Fairclough 2013:500).

As an appropriate example, Joy writes about the implications of Djenné’s World Heritage status based on its “exceptional architecture and archaeology” (2011:390).

To retain its status, all of the town’s buildings must remain forever built in mud, to serve as “an illustration of a specific time in history, for the benefit of the whole of humanity” (Joy 2011:395). Beyond the practical challenges of maintaining a mud brick town with strict restrictions on modifications, there are also serious conceptual consequences. The continual concern with the preservation of “traditional” architecture fixes the town’s

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Thus, archaeologists can help in putting an end to the notion of pristine wilderness and provide insight into past human actions and land-use legacies. Herzfeld suggests social anthropology and archaeology could be socially useful in the “critical management of a public debate about the uses of ‘finds’ and ‘data’ in the larger political arena–a debate that has real consequences for people who live in the spaces designated as historic” (2012:42).

Archaeologists continue to be involved in the production of narratives and can help see to it that local, national, and international value systems are given appropriate recognition (Darvill 2007:438).

So why is all of this becoming so important now? McGlade (1999:458) writes about the recent increase in exploitation and conflict in cultural landscapes due to increased land-use disputes and mass tourism.

This rise of “cultural consumption” comes with the increased mobility and leisure time of people worldwide, and accompanies a growing commercial marketing of historical landscapes curated to project specific ‘official’ views of the past (McGlade 1999:458).

Tourism, specifically heritage tourism, plays an important role in fuelling the management of heritage resources. Scholars are divided on whether the continuation and intensification of tourism in the future would be beneficial, though most agree this is almost inevitable.

Debates are largely concerned with how heritage tourism is understood, and what lies at the heart of the matter. Making structural changes to this growing industry could help tune the effects of mass tourism and perhaps start to change how policy-makers, residents, and tourists themselves come to see heritage.

Human relations to landscapes involve the integration of the physical and symbolic, or in other words, the natural and cultural.

Understanding these landscapes thus requires recognizing the layers of meaning created by

terms “the stranger who does not belong to any place.” The population they describe has been growing increasingly relevant with the rising number of refugees, immigrants, and stateless people, as well as those who are members of a nation or group but do not identify themselves as part of that nation or group’s culture (Omland 2006:258). From this perspective, it is evident that the World Heritage concept continues to be concerned with nations and groups, and is not yet based on the global and universal (Omland 2006:258).

In the past, archaeological materials have been used to fight many political battles.

Often, this is not due to the motivation of archaeological work, but is instead a misuse or misinterpretation of archaeological findings. Of course, the nationalist agendas of archaeology conducted in the service of the state can indeed be “extremely destructive to the interests of marginal or minority groups” (Herzfeld 2012:53). For instance, the discovery that a landscape is not pristine can be spun in many ways to suit a particular political motive (Hayashida 2005:57).

Hayashida (2005:57) gives the following examples: depicting indigenous people as spoilers of land to create grounds for denying rights to land and resources, presenting land as un-pristine to excuse modern destructive practices on the principle that the land was already spoiled, and justifying modern logging and mining on the grounds that they mimic natural or indigenous processes of past. As findings are so often misinterpreted or otherwise irresponsibly used, some say that archaeologists need to take a more active role in the public interpretations and political applications of findings.

While debates about the disposition and management of landscapes and resources may be fundamentally political and ethical in nature, they remain informed by the findings of researchers (Hayashida 2005:44).

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different actors: the palimpsests of meaning created over time (Mathers and Kruger 2010:73). Dealing with these materials and conceptual frameworks, archaeologists are particularly well positioned to become more prominent leaders in the discussion of heritage management. Scholars from various perspectives have come to assert the importance of a community-based approach, working with locals and valuing local knowledge that had only been superficially considered before, if it all. As Conte states, “landscapes imagined, occupied, and administered by outsiders do not meet the needs of inhabitants who live in poverty and whose ancestors have experienced the powerful forces of Western exploitation” (2007:238). This emphasis on an internal perspective includes a reorientation towards the present, foregrounding the ways in which archaeology, heritage, and the past are important in present society and can help to mobilize various social groups (Holtorf 2013:14). Likewise, Skoglund and Svensson’s (2010:369) integrated approach calls for new demands on archaeologists to work with local communities as well as nature conservationists. As visitors seek to look backwards to find a preserved traditional culture or pristine wilderness, locals seek to move forward, focusing instead on the changes and possible developments of natural and cultural resources alike.

UNESCO selects their sites for their ‘outstanding universal value’ but who is to decide what this is? The universal value of parks and reserves is attributed to their lasting nature, while the value of cultural heritage sites stems from their human histories. No place holds a meaning that is exclusive to nature or culture, so it does not make sense to treat the two so differently. The two movements need to be brought together, as they are both rooted in reactions to industrialization, but have moved in opposite directions ever since.

Some work has been begun in disrupting modernist separations of nature and culture, but there remains much to be done. We need to move away from this focus on authenticity and purity in both nature and culture in order to address the world as it exists today and to responsibly manage our cultural and natural resources for tomorrow.

References: Baker, Jody 2002 Production and Consumption of Wilderness in Algonquian Park. Space and Culture 5:198–210.

Byrne, Denis 2009 Archaeology and the Fortress of Rationality. In Cosmopolitan Archaeologies. Lynn Meskell, ed. Pp. 68–88. Durham: Duke University Press.

Conte, Christopher 2007 Creating Wild Places From Domesticated Landscapes: the Internationalization of American Wilderness Concept. In American Wilderness: A new History. M.L. Lewis, ed. Pp. 223-241.

Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Darvill, Timothy 1999 The Historic Environment, Historic Landscapes, and Space-Time-Action Models in Landscape Archaeology. In The Archaeology and Anthropology of Landscape. Peter J. Ucko and Robert Layton, eds. Pp.104–118. London: Routledge.

Darvill, Timothy 2007 Research Frameworks for World Heritage Sites and the Conceptualization of Archaeological Knowledge. World Archaeology 39(3):436–457.

Eriksen, Thomas H. 2001 A Critique of the UNESCO Concept of Culture. In Culture and Rights: Anthropological Perspectives. Jane Cowan, Marie-Bénédicte Dembour, and Richard Wilson, eds. Pp.127–148.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Herzfeld, Michael 2012 Whose Rights to Which Past?

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Archaeologists, Anthropologists, and the Ethics of Heritage in the Global Hierarchy of Value. In Archaeology and Anthropology: Past, Present, and Future. David Shankland, ed. Pp.41–61. London: Berg.

Holtorf , Cornelius 2013 The Need and Potential for an Archaeology Orientated Towards the Present.

Archaeological Dialogues 20(1):12–18.

Holtorf, Cornelius and Graham Fairclough 2013 The New Heritage and Re-shapings of the Past. In Reclaiming Archaeology: Beyond the Tropes of Modernity. Alfredo GonzálezRuibal, ed. Pp. 485–516. Milton Park, Abingdon: Routledge.

Hughes, David M 2005 Third Nature: Making Space and Time in the Great Limpopo Conservation Area. Cultural Anthropology 20(2):157–184.

Hayashida, Frances M. 2005 Archaeology, Ecological History, and Conservation. The Annual Review of Anthropology 34:43–65.

Joy, Charlotte 2011 Negotiating Material Identities: Young Men and Modernity in Djenné. Journal of Material Culture 16(4):389–400.

Logan, William S. 2008 Cultural Diversity, Heritage and Human Rights. In Heritage and Identity. B. J. Graham and Peter Howard, eds. Pp.439–454. Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing.

Mathers, Kathryn and Neels Kruger 2010 The Past is Another Country: Archaeology in the Limpopo Province, South Africa. In Landscapes of Clearance. Angèle Smith and Amy Gazin-Swartz, eds. Pp.71–86. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.

UNESCO World Heritage Centre.

“Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape.” Accessed November 24, 2014. http://whc.unesco.org/en/ list/1099.

McGlade, James 1999 Archaeology and the Evolution of Cultural Landscapes: Towards an Interdisciplinary

Research Agenda. In The Archaeology and Anthropology of Landscape. Peter J. Ucko and Robert Layton, eds. Pp.458–482. London: Routledge.

Meskell, Lynn 2009 The Nature of Culture in Kruger National Park. In Cosmopolitan Archaeologies.

Lynn Meskell, ed. Pp. 89–112. Durham: Duke University Press.

2012 The Social Life of Heritage. In Archaeological Theory Today. Ian Hodder, ed. Pp. 229–250. Cambridge: Polity Press.

2013 A Thoroughly Modern Park: Mapungubwe, UNESCO and Indigenous Heritage.

In Reclaiming Archaeology: Beyond the Tropes of Modernity. Alfredo González-Ruibal, ed. Pp. 485– 516. Milton Park, Abingdon: Routledge.

Mulk, Inga-Maria and Tim Bayliss-Smith 1999 The Representations of Sami Cultural Identity in the Cultural Landscapes of Northern Sweden: the Use and Misuse of Archaeological Knowledge. In The Archaeology and Anthropology of Landscape. Peter J. Ucko and Robert Layton, eds. Pp. 358–392. London: Routledge.

Omland, Atle 2006 The ethics of the World Heritage concept.

In The Ethics of Archaeology: Philosophical Perspectives on Archaeological Practice. Christoper Scarre and Geoffrey Scarre, eds. Pp. 242–259.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Porter, Benjamin W. 2008 Heritage Tourism: Conflicting Identities in the Modern World. In Heritage and Identity. B. J. Graham and Peter Howard, eds. Pp.267–282.

Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing.

Shetler, Jan B. 2007 Imagining Serengeti: A History of Landscape Memory in Tanzania from Earliest Times to the Present. Athens: Ohio University Press.

Skoglund, Peter and Eva Svensson 2010 Discourses of Nature Conservation and Heritage Management in the Past, Present and Future: Discussing Heritage and Sustainable Development From Swedish Experiences.

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European Journal of Archaeology 13:368–385.

Tilley, Christopher 2010 Walking the Past in the Present. In Landscapes Beyond Land: Routes, Aesthetics, Narratives. Arnar Árnason, ed. Pp.15–32. New York: Berghahn Books.

Watkins, Joe 2005 Cultural Nationalists, Internationalists, and “Intra-nationalists”: Who’s Right and Whose Right? International Journal of Cultural Property 12:78-94.

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The Protagonist in the Image: Dominant Representations of Korogocho and the Power of Youth to Take Back What is Rightfully Theirs Nabila Walji The acerbic smell of sewage and burning plastic bags drifted through the air of the slum. We paced in a common area while we waited for Peter1, who was interviewing a potential program candidate in one of the shanty homes. Faith, a temporary programmer for the NGO, passed her time asking John questions about life in Korogocho. The shacks were single-roomed compartments made of mud walls and recyclable materials; inside, they were dark and smoky, with items neatly organized to ensure that there was seating space. The word Korogocho itself means “crowded from shoulder to shoulder” in Kiswahili, and yes, these were cramped living spaces. But they had texture. I listened to the two of them talking in Kiswahili, but found myself more mesmerized by the sight and sound of chicks chirping and walking every which way. In the shadows, I could discern the faint outline of a rooster sitting in the mud, bobbing its head up and down.

A little overhead, laundry lines and electrical cables crisscrossed. My gaze shifted to the moving form of a black kitten, which had a white spot around its eye, climbing through the myriad of items on the iron-sheath roof down towards me. It had the most beautiful eyes. Smiling, I thought to myself: “I have never seen such teeming life in Montreal”2.

Peter finished his interview and stepped out of the dark room into the common area. He wobbled a little, caught off footing, and we all looked down. Scarlet red drops dripped from a little chick, as it tweeted in pain. The

damage was irreparable. As I stepped out of the compound, I looked back and absorbed the scene, memorizing the image of the dying and crying chick, the chaos of the movement of the other chicks, and the detail of the textured shacks that framed the compound.

And I thought to myself, “I have never seen such sudden death in Montreal.”

The Co-existence of Life and Death In the West, coverage of slums in dominant media highlights disease, crime, poverty, and hopelessness. In the case of African slums, these representations validate pre-existing conceptions of Africa as being a backward, dirty, desolate place of the ‘Other’.

The experience described above occurred during an internship with a local NGO3 that operates in Korogocho4, Nairobi’s fourth largest slum (Book et al. 2012:25).

While crime, disease and other problems are rampant in Korogocho, Korogocho is not a place devoid of hope, as common media images had unconsciously led me to believe.

Throughout my fieldwork, scenes like the one above struck me because they contradicted dominant narratives about slums that I had previously encountered. These scenes captured and depicted Korogocho as a colorful place with engaged inhabitants willing to work to refashion the world’s perception of their environment, and to empower themselves.

This paper will draw on sources from various academic disciplines and use ethnographic- material from my internship

1

Pseudonyms have been used to protect privacy.

Before my internship, I was living in Montreal.

3 I will refer to my internship work at Korogocho as ‘fieldwork’ from now on.

4 My fieldwork was in the youth department of at an NGO called LVCT Health, which works in HIV/AIDS programming. I visited Korogocho multiple times over a period of a few months.

2

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to analyze slum representations in dominant media, focusing on media representations of Korogocho5,6. Dominant media houses depict slums simply to be sites of dirt, disease, crime, death and the ‘Other’ – and thereby justify intervention in order to impose Western standards, initiate developmental progress, and ameliorate the seemingly ‘dire’ consequences in which these people find themselves. However, there is need for a more personal representation of slums, from an emic perspective, in order to return agency to slum-dwellers. First, using image theory, I will consider the power of images as communicatory tools and as representations of power imbalances. With these notions in mind, I will go on to highlight three dominant narratives about Korogocho found in popular news media sources. These narratives will be problematized using development theory and experiences from my fieldwork. Dominant media narratives use discourses of progress to justify the removal of Korogochian agency.

However, while socio-economic issues are at the forefront of Korogochians’ lives, they do not define their lives. Therefore, I will suggest, through the use of youth-centered examples, that agency be returned to the Korogochian through the image.

The Power in the Image The power of images is twofold.

Firstly, images communicate esoteric and extrasensorial, messages. Relatedly, they can influence their audiences’ perspectives in powerful ways7, and reinforce power relations.

Saying the unsayable Images are powerful because they communicate something beyond words, something timeless and extra-sensorial.

According to Barthes, images have three meanings: the informational, the symbolic, and the third meaning. First, the informational meaning can be gathered from the setting, time, people etc. of the image, essentially the context. The symbolic meaning lies in the ability of the image to symbolize and signify something else. Finally, third meaning is rather esoteric and cannot easily be articulated in words. Barthes attempts to explain third meaning through the filmic: “[t]he filmic is that in the film which cannot be described, the representation which cannot be represented.

The filmic begins only where language and metalanguage end” (Barthes 1977:65; emphasis my own). Third meaning incites a response in the audience – it is a question carrying veiled emotion, which can only be heard through a deeper more penetrating “listening” (Barthes 1977:53). Third meaning

5

I could have easily used Kibera slum as my primary example for this paper. Kibera is considered, by most, Africa’s largest slum and has therefore garnered a lot of attention in the media, through film and from NGOs. Although there is more coverage of Kibera, I use Korogocho as my primary example in this essay for multiple reasons. Firstly, because my fieldwork was conducted there. Secondly, because there is a large gap in the attention given to Kibera because of its status as the largest and other slums in the area. Therefore, I use Korgocho in the hopes of bringing more attention to the experiences of the people of Korogocho.

6 While this paper uses the example of Korogocho, it will supplement the research with writings on other slums. It will make reference to African slums or slums generally when speaking about dominant media representations. This is not to say that all slum experiences are the same.

7 The image with which I opened this paper differs slightly from the images discussed by theorists. The difference between these images comes from the fact that image theory speaks about photographs, or second-hand experiences, while the images I am speaking about were experienced first-hand, and were, unfortunately, not captured by a camera (although, they were captured in my mind much like a photograph). Despite this difference, I find that image theory is useful in explaining the power of, even, mental images.

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poignant message indeed.

Powerfully Unbalancing Power Images are also powerful in a different way – they can influence the perspectives of their audience and reinforce power relations.

On the topic of war images, Susan Sontag makes two points about the impact of visual imagery. Firstly, “public attention is steered by [the] attentions of the media”, especially in visual media. This makes events that do not directly affect the public, like war, for many, “real” (Sontag 2003:104). Niezen’s eight points regarding the persona of mass publics8 extend Sontag’s argument. According to him, public audiences are persuadable, self-interested, curious, and emotionally responsive. They also tend to be hypocritical, have short attention spans, and be “ismatic”9 (Niezen 2010:49). Finally, publics have “an abiding sense of fairness, with inclinations to indignation when rules of fairness are violated” (Niezen 2010:37-49). Together, Sontag and Niezen show the powerful, persuasive, and political effect of the media on publics. Sontag points to a second concern with impact of visual imagery on publics, namely, that the “hyper-saturat[ion] of images” means that “those that should matter have a diminishing effect” (Sontag 2003:105). Ours is a “society of spectacle” (Sontag 2003:109), where the consumption of images is like a form of “tourism” (Sontag 2003:112), and experiences are depicted in order to attract the attention of publics.

Sontag’s two points are disconcerting: in the context of the media, when the power to communicate is given to someone other than those being represented, there is potential to misrepresent and create a “spectacle” of them (Sontag 2003:109). Those that should

evades words, and adds something to the first two meanings – perhaps, its ability to move the senses, which is certainly a fundamental part of the power of photography. Connor points to this intersensoriality: “[t]he sense we make of any one sense is always mixed with and mediated by that of others. The senses form an indefinite series of integrations and transformations: they form a complexion” (Connor 2004:156). Intersensoriality does not just involve separate senses, but it “makes sensory responses…[and creates] sense multipliers” (Connor 2004:156). In other words, the visual evokes sound, smell, touch and taste, as well as movement, to create a synesthetic and more holistic experience.

Images can also evade and transform time – they are timeless, poignant, and evocative.

They are “painful in [their] inexplicability... awesome and astonishing in [their] inexplicability... [and] impossible or agonizing to get one’s mind round” (Diamond 2008:3).

In this way, images defy the “language-game” which attempts to rationalize abstractions and notions that are impossible for the mind to wrap around (Diamond 2008:2). Images depict moments of the past, but viewing an image creates a re-living of the moment in a different way – it is “impossible to think, and yet it is there” (Diamond 2008:15). Diamond calls the confusion and bewilderment that results from images the “difficulty of reality” (Diamond 2008:2). The mental image from Korogocho of the dying chick is striking in all of these respects. The image evokes the sounds, textures, feelings and emotions of a moment in the past; it allows for the reliving of the moment through synesthetic intersensoriality and points to the coexistence of life and death, a timeless and 8

The author of this book uses the word publics for multiple reasons, but especially because “there is more than one vaguely identifiable public…{;} it is usually more appropriate to use the plural term “publics”” (Niezen 2010:1) 9 “ismatic” meaning they “form around specific collective causes…like liberalism” (Niezen 2010, 49).

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or working with the inhabitants to complete a project. Generally, these narratives use the moralizing discourse of the “white savior complex”. But, as asserted in a tweet included in Teju Cole’s 2012 article “The WhiteSaviour Industrial Complex”, “[t]he White Saviour Industrial Complex is not about justice. It is about having a big emotional experience that validates privilege”.

Image A from the appendix embodies this narrative and highlights the story of John McBride’s13 engagement with Korogocho.

A BBC video segment from 2012, entitled “County Durham runner takes Olympic torch to Kenya slums,” explains that McBride is known as the “barefoot runner” because he runs the last mile of his marathons shoeless.

McBride explains his rationale as: “you’re running the same ground as people in Africa and it just connects you right through to them…every time you hit the ground, you connect with another child, another child, another child.” After running the Olympic torch in England, on behalf of the Catholic Aid Agency CAFOD, McBride took the torch to Korogocho. In Korogocho, he ran a minimarathon through the streets with about fifty people and donated the torch to an unnamed sports project in the area. He works with aid agencies because “[people in extreme poverty] have hopes and dreams and potential like we have and they would see [the torch] as [inspiration] to reach their full potential”.

matter – namely, the people of the slums being misrepresented – are disempowered, and public audiences of the West become desensitized and unreceptive. The nature of publics, and the effect of the media on them, make this tendency self-perpetuating.

The Three Protagonists10 in Media Coverage on Korogocho Popular news sources, often Western news sources, use narratives with three central characters in their coverage of Korogocho slum11: the NGO, the disease, and the uncertain12. The following section will analyze news images that illustrate each of the dominant narratives, using written media coverage and development theory.

The mainstream narratives about Korogocho harness a discourse of progress, justifying intervention, and removing agency from the Korogochian. This type of coverage affects the audience’s perception of slums.

The NGO as the Protagonist The most common type of media representation of Korogocho is the NGO as the protagonist. A visual depiction of this narrative commonly includes a construction project by an NGO, or new textbooks purchased by an NGO, or something else to highlight work being done in the slum. More commonly one sees a representative of the NGO, usually a white foreigner, at the centre of the image, being shown around the slum 10

By protagonist, I mean simply the main character and agent of a story, in this case a news story. In some literary styles, this term is also used in opposition to an antagonist, who must be overcome by the protagonist – my use of the term is not reflective of literary connotations and my intention is not to make value judgments about ‘good’ or ‘bad’ characters in the story of slums.

11 Most media houses have very little coverage of Korogocho specifically. Of the zero to ten articles that might be present on the website of a media house, one of these three narratives is predominant in almost each one of the articles. For example, BBC’s online portal, yields ten articles that mention Korogocho. Of the seven relevant articles, three use predominantly the narrative of the NGO protagonist, one uses the disease protagonist narrative and three use a mix between the disease and uncertain protagonist narratives.

12 Although I pinpoint three narratives, these are interrelated and can be found together in the same news story.

13 Of seven results that mention Korogocho on the BBC website, McBride is central to two of the articles.

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position of helplessness and victimization.

Image B in the appendix represents this narrative, highlighting HIV/AIDS as the protagonist of the narrative and Western biomedicine as the solution. The image shows white-gloved hands using medical equipment to test black hands for HIV/AIDs, where the former set of hands represents Western biomedicine and the latter the disease. The white hands in the image are in control of what is happening, indicated by the way they hold the black hands. This image shows action, but on a symbolic level, in Barthes’ sense, it could be linked to Western biomedical paternalism and imperialism. The article, “Sex workers using anti-HIV drugs instead of condoms” explains how sex workers, from Korogocho and other slums, have not been practicing proper anti-HIV procedures.

Instead of using condoms, the girls use postexposure prophylaxis (PEP), but pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) would better suit the needs of these girls. The article quotes Peter Godfrey-Faussett, a senior science advisor for UNAIDS, and, “stresses that they [PrEP,] must be used as part of a wider package, including regular HIV testing to make sure that a patient is on the correct medication” and that “[c]ondoms are the single most effective way of preventing HIV, sexually transmitted infection and pregnancy.” The prescriptive tone and dichotomous image of the article highlight the fact that biomedical intervention is seen as necessary to correct the behavior of the girls. Often, this type of discourse goes so far as to suggest that the lifestyle of the slum-dwellers is the very cause of their disease. Rather than placing fault on historical and structural factors, this narrative places fault on the inhabitants of the slum instead.

The Uncertain as the Protagonist The uncertain as protagonist narrative is not as explicit as the other two, but is often an undercurrent to most media depictions of

These moralistic discourses appeal to publics because of their curious, self-interested, fair, and “ismatic” nature. However, publics’ persuadable, hypocritical, indignant natures, and short-attention spans might make them miss the fact that – through the rhetoric of the interview and the composition of the photograph – McBride is depicted as the focus of a story about Korogocho (Niezen 2010:37-49). The image places McBride at the centre, akin to a Greek god, carrying the torch high, with his white skin and clothes held in contrast to the nameless, voiceless, faceless, and shoeless black Korogochians on the street. The visual appeal of this contrast filters through into the minds of viewers, so that stories about Korogocho become, whether consciously or not, about NGOs and white foreigners.

The Disease as the Protagonist The disease as protagonist narrative highlights a specific problem central to news stories about slums. The agent in this narrative can be a literal disease, but can also be other barriers to development such as education, infrastructure, crime, and sanitation. The narrative uses a medicalized discourse, where a medical, social, economic, or psychological problem is treated like a disease through external intervention. Images from this narrative usually show unhappy or worried slum dwellers, waiting for some sort of intervention or cure from an external agent.

Sometimes these unhappy people are in line at a clinic, and sometimes they sit on a bench and stare into the distance. Other depictions include the example of starving children, either rummaging through the garbage, or helplessly laying in the dirt. This medicalized discourse assumes that there exists a single cure to developmental issues in slums, and suggests that the West alone holds the answer – creating an unbalanced power relation, and placing the Western agents in a position of knowledge and power and Eastern slums in a

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of the sack, which contains, symbolically perhaps, the burden of living in such a hostile environment. The article closes with a similar type of description, where men are animalized as hungry dogs “fight[ing] over the haul” at the dumpsite. Like this article, most other news stories make reference to the fear and uncertainty associated with the poverty of slums. Images and articles like this, through Barthes’ many levels of meaning, leave an impression of decay, struggle, hopelessness, and an absence of humanity.

Maintaining the Colonial Discourse through Media and Development Dominant media narratives and images highlight non-Korogochians as the protagonists of the slum story, mainly through a colonial and developmental discourse of progress. These narratives encourage the conscious and unconscious perception of slum-dwellers as immoral beings living in a hostile environment. They are responsible for their own misfortune, and require external help in order to improve their standing and become normal citizens, or in other words become ‘Western’. Outsiders are meanwhile posed as superior, pure, and moral agents who generate change. Early colonial and missionizing ideology has been criticized for exactly this type of discourse. These civilizing missions viewed the colonized peoples as ‘primitive’ and inferior; it was their Christian moral obligation to ‘save’ these children and to help them progress to the level of development of Western civilization (Metcalf and Metcalf 2006:81; Bose and Jalal 2004:67). Many theorists have also highlighted this discourse in development practice, in critiques such as Teju Cole’s “The White Saviour Industrial Complex.” The progress discourse is highlighted in approaches not just to slums, but also to poverty and to Africa as a whole.

However, images and narratives of progress misrepresent the life of the very people they claim to represent, and fail to illustrate the

slums. The word uncertain incites notions of fear, darkness, shadows, immorality, and death. Slums are locales where many of these ideas come together. As highlighted by Foucault’s analysis of the history of asylums, Westernized or modernized societies fear and pathologize the uncertain, and thereby separate themselves from the uncertain; darkness is kept outside, immorality in prisons, and death in morgues (Foucault 2006). Similarly, Said’s Orientalism explains the same tendency on the part of colonizers, where the colonial ‘Other’ is kept separated from the civilized, pure, white Westerner (1978). In this ideology, the ‘Other’ is man in his natural, wild, and savage state – a useful concept in a discussion of slums, in that it allows for slums to embody all these ‘othering’ tendencies of normalized and stereotyped Western society (the poor person, the coloured person, the sick person, the criminal person - and most importantly, the dead person).

A 2012 Globe and Mail article, entitled “Nairobi’s garbage dump pits pickers against neighbours”, highlights “the uncertain” as the protagonist. The analysis of the article, which is in depth and thoroughly researched, has been carried out alongside two animalizing anecdotes about the people who make their income off the garbage dumps. The article opens with the following passage: “[w]eighted with two heavy sacks of discarded milk bags and meat bones slung across her back, a plastic bag of rotted cabbage in her hand, Rahab Ruguru walks through a smoky landscape of mountainous piles of burning waste, scavenging for a living.” Words like “rotted”, “bones”, “smoky” and “burning” give the environment a semblance of hell. The image from the article, Image C in the appendix, has a smoky and monochromatic colour scheme which helps create this atmosphere.

Rahab Ruguru is depicted like a vulture, “scavenging”, cowering under the weight

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diversity of their experiences. They take away agency from these individuals and perpetuate, over and over again, misconceptions about the experience of slums.

– he attributes this behavior to his mother’s influence. Despite his ethical behavior, John repeatedly said that “[he] regret[s]” being a thief. I was surprised to discover that John no longer lived in Korogocho, but had moved to Dandora, where he lives with his wife and son. He told me he dislikes Korogocho and that he attributes his success to having left Korogocho – yet everyday he returns to his birthplace and works for its people.

John’s story highlights factors that inspire development and dominant media narratives about Korogocho, such as poverty, crime, illness, and death. Korogocho is certainly a place where there is a high concentration of poverty, morbidity, mortality, crime, and mortality (Hook et al. 2012; Zulu et al. 2011). Access to food, water, and health and social services are limited (Hook et al. 2012:26). Youth are prone to drug and substance abuse, risky sexual behaviors, and orphans are forced into independence and must learn to fend for themselves at an early age (Zulu et al. 2011:5191-5192).

However, there is also significant diversity within slums: people from various sociolinguistic groups, religions, and backgrounds live together, although race remains relatively uniform. There is also economic disparity: a 2008 UPHD report found that between Korogocho’s seven villages, poverty incidence varies between 42% and 78%. Some slumdwellers even own land and take rent from others (Zulu et al. 2011:5194-5195).

Dominant narratives on African slums show only one perspective, and fail to represent the heterogeneity of experiences.

While these challenges are realities, John’s story also speaks to something absent from the dominant media narratives: hope and agency. He supported his sister’s education,

The Real Protagonist of the Slum John14, the community liaison for the NGO I was interning with, told me about his life during one of my visits to Korogocho.

He started out the conversation by saying that “[m]y life story is very difficult”. John was born in 1989—he was the first-born to his parents. In his life he witnessed the death of three of his younger siblings and both his parents. Most of his siblings died within days of their birth, because of “God’s plan”, and his parents died due to illnesses. At the age of 14, John began working at the Dandora city dumpsite to make money for his family.

Eventually, due to peer pressure, he ended up joining a gang. Korogocho is notorious for such gangs, which readily use guns and knives to steal from people inside the slum.

Soon after joining the gang, John dropped out of school; he had almost completed high school. Even though he was unable to complete school, he helped his younger sister – and only remaining sibling – complete her classes. He considers this accomplishment to be the best thing he has done in his life.

John told me that his sister would graduate in September of 2014. In 2013, he became a motorcycle taxi, or boda boda, driver; he hoped to own his own motorcycle one day, and open up his own shop. His mother, whom he characterized as a businesswoman, inspired this entrepreneurial dream. She taught him about keeping good company, working hard, and taking care of others. While a member of a gang, John refused to carry a gun and tried to stop others from committing crimes 14

The interview was spontaneous, however I received verbal permission from John to write about his life story if I ever got a chance. The interview was for personal informational purposes, and not for academic research purposes. The interview took place at the end of July in 2014.

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determining the degree of poverty (Seers 1979; Goulet 1971). Sen expands on these ideas in his capabilities approach: poverty causes a lack of freedom. These changes in development practice recognize the importance of agency at the grassroots level (Sen 1999). In present times, grassrootslevel organizations, integrated approaches, and participatory development have gained more popularity. However, improvements in development theory have not reached the popular media, which continues to use the colonialist logic of early development practice.

Together, development theory and voices from grassroots organizations (especially of youth) suggest a need for a shift in the media – and a reclamation of Korogochian agency.

escaped the hold of gangs, and created a new life. A study on adolescents in Korogocho and Vidwani found that despite challenges, youth from these two slums have “positive youth agency” (Kabiru, Mojola, Beguy and Okigbo 2013:81). In order to fulfill their aspirations, they problem-solve by turning to education, religion, compromise, residential mobility, and even delinquency (Kabiru, Mojola, Beguy and Okigbo 2013:81, 89-91). Asha Jaffar is a writer and poet who was raised in Kibera, a slum outside of Nairobi. At the Haller Prize for Development Journalism in 2014, Jaffar was awarded the Chairman of the Judge’s Special Award. Jaffar argues, in an article published in The Star newspaper, “Kenya: Dear NGOs-Get out of Kibera, You’ve Failed Us”, that agency needs to be returned to the people of Kibera – her argument can also be applied to the Korogochian context. She asserts that “Kibera has been painted [as] the dirtiest, scariest, most poverty-stricken place in the world, but I have a different story.”

NGOs have done nothing for Kibera, only sold their “[s]ad stories”. For Jaffar, some of the most intelligent and skillful people she knows live in Kibera. Therefore, instead of encouraging the NGO’s “commercialisation” of Kibera, she suggests that “the people [of Kibera] do all the work in order to change and revolutionize their own societies”.

Jaffar’s opposition to NGO involvement in Kibera mirrors academic debates within the discipline of international development.

Early development theory viewed poverty as a disease – something that could be eliminated through outside intervention. However, ever since the 1960s, poverty theories have recognized a more complicated picture of poverty and have argued for a return of agency to the very people that development targets. Seers and Goulet highlight poverty’s multi-dimensionality, and in addition to income, recognize factors such as education, employment, self-esteem, and freedom in

Telling One’s own Story The experiences of people living in slums are diverse and striking, and cannot be easily summarized or encapsulated in theories; many have suggested participant photography and videography as a means of self-expression, especially for youth. Within slums, this has led to independent artists who have taken control by sharing images of their environment with the world. Slumphotography is an independent photographer who grew up in Kibera. His Instagram page states the aim of “sharing slum photos [with] the world.” The Mathare Youth Sports Association Shootback Project (MYSA) and Nairobi’s ArtKids Foundation are more formalized attempts to return agency to youth in respective slums through photography classes. The former, a grassroots organization, and the latter, an organization founded by Portuguese psychologist Natalia Jidovanu, have explicit developmental aims. MYSA photos have been displayed locally and internationally, and the project itself has connected Mathare youth to youth around the world (Awuor and Njunga 2007:228-229). ArtKids, as explained in an article in the Daily Nation from November

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2014, benefits youth by teaching them technical photography skills and providing them with photo mentorship. Furthermore, the program builds in children “the skills and confidence needed to share their experiences and challenges.” Mary Akinyi, a participant in ArtKids, is quoted stating that she likes taking “photos that are not just about poverty and crime, because there are a lot of [other] activities taking place here”. On a formal level, agency has been reclaimed by the African Slum Journal, which was founded and is run by people who grew up in slums around Africa. The Journal, according to its website, aims to “strengthen the local media sector together with the people who live in the slum”. The Journal’s work enables aspiring youth to get training in media, and exposes some of the informal workings of slums. The Journal also holds screenings and discussions at the bunge mtaani meetings, or “parliament of the neighborhood” in the slums. These screenings create a platform for the discussion of topics relevant to slum-dwellers. In these examples, slum-dwellers hold power over representation, and are able to give an emic perspective of life in their slums; through action they are able to oppose and challenge dominant media representations of slums.

Further implementation of projects such as these in Korogocho would help overcome dominant media perceptions of Korogocho.

of poignant emotions and extra-sensorial, synesthetic effects. The three protagonists of the image – NGOs, disease, and the uncertain – create a paternalistic and imperialistic discourse that perpetuates misconceptions of slums. However, organizations such as MYSA, ArtKids, and the African Slum Journal provide platforms for community and individual growth in slums, challenge dominant media perspectives about slums, and return agency to slum-dwellers. As the grassroots actions of these individuals intensify, hopefully their efforts will spillover from art galleries into the narratives of the dominant media, so that the viewer can get a glimpse of the emic perspectives of slum life.

Slums are not solely sites of disease, violence, immorality, and death; life and death, beauty and unsightliness, and virtue and sin can coexist in a place like Korogocho.

References: African Slum Journal. 2014.

“About Us.” Accessed December 1. http://www. africanslumjournal.com Awuor, George and James Njunga. 2007.

“The Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA) “Shootback Project.” Children, Youth and Environments 17(3): 227-235.

Barthes, Roland.

1977. “The Third Meaning.” In Image, Music, Text, 52-68. New York: Hill and Wang.

Bose, Sugata and Ayesha Jalal.

2004. iModern South Asia: History, Political Eoconomy. New York: Routledge. 2nd edition.

CAFOD. 2012. “Barefoot Torchbearer hailed as Olympic hero in Kenya.” Last modified August 8. http:// www.cafod.org.uk/News/UK-News/TorchbearerOlympic-hero Cole, Teju.

2012. “The White-Saviour Industrial Complex.”

The Atlantic. March 21, 2012.

Connor, Steven.

The Image as the Agent for Change Dominant media depict slums as places of disease, violence, immorality, and death – places that require Western intervention for progress. As grassroots and development theorists have argued, inhabitants of slums must reclaim their agency. This issue is being taken seriously, and participant photography and videography are becoming increasingly widespread to fulfill this purpose. Images have the potential to deeply influence viewers’ perspective of slums, through the evocation

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2004 “Edison’s teeth: touching hearing.” In Hearing cultures: essays on sound, listening, and modernity, edited by Veit Erlmann,153-172.

Wenner-Gren international symposium series.

Oxford ; New York: Berg.

Conrad, David.

2012. “Nairobi’s garbage dump pits pickers against neighbours.” Globe and Mail. Last updated June 18, 2012.

“County Durham runner takes Olympic torch to Kenya slums.”

BBC News, June 27, 2012.

Deen, Zainab.

2013. “Sex workers using anti-HIV drugs instead of condoms.” BBC News. November 20, 2013.

Diamond, Cora 2008 The Difficulty of Reality and the Difficulty of Philosophy. In Philosophy and Animal Life. New York: Columbia University Press.

Foucault, Michel.

2006. History of Madness. Oxon: Routledge.

Goulet, Denis.

1971. The Cruel Choice: A New Concept in the Theory of Development. New York: Atheneum.

Hook, Maria, Jonsson, Pia, Skottke, Emma and Marlene Thelandersson.

2012. Korogocho Streetscapes: documenting the role and potentials of streets in citywide slum upgrading. Nairobi: UNON Publishing Service Section.

Jaffar, Asha.

2014.“Kenya: Dear NGOs - Get Out of Kibera, You’ve Failed Us.” The Star. November 24, 2014.

Kabiru, Caroline W., Mojola, Sanyu A., Beguy, Donatien and Chinelo Okigbo.

“Growing Up at the “Margins”: Concerns, Aspirations, and Expectations of Young People Living in Nairobi’s Slums.” Journal of Research on Adolescence 23(1): 81-94.

McSherrrey, Elizabeth.

2014. “Say cheese! Kibera children paint different picture of the slum through photos.” Daily Nation, December 5, 2014. Metcalf, B.D., and T.R. Metcalf. 2006. A Concise History of Modern India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

2nd edition.

Niezen, Ronald.

2010. Public Justice and the Anthropology of Law. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Said, Edward.

1978.“Introduction.” In Orientalism, New York: Vintage Books.

Seers, Dudley.

1979. “The meaning of development, with a postscript,” In Development Theory: Four Critical Studies, edited by David Lehmann, 9-30. London: Frank Class.

Sen, Amartya.

1999. Development As Freedom. New York: Anchor Books.

Sontag, Susan 2003 Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Zulu, Eliya M., Beguy, Donatien, Ezeh, Alex C., Phillippe Bocquier, Nyovani, Madise J., Cleland, John, and Jane Falkingham.

2011.“Overview of migration, poverty and health dynamics in Nairobi City’s slum settlements.”

Journal of Urban Health 88(2): 5185-5199.

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Appendix: Image A: The NGO as the Protagonist

Image B: The Disease as the Protagonist

Image C: The Uncertain as the Protagonist

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Asking How: Homelessness and the Control of Public Spaces Jonathan Bacon Abstract: Homelessness is, at the core, a social issue. However, since the 1960s, major overlapping discourses have attempted to understand and simplify it in medical and judicial terms.

Today, this medicalization is both challenged and internalized in the media, and judicialization is a growing topic of concern for activists, academics and public agents alike. Using a specific theoretical framework combining approaches by Gilles Deleuze and Philippe Bourgois, I offer a spatial approach to the theory of lumpen abuse applied to public spaces in Montreal in an effort to disengage from the aforementioned discursive misgivings.

Throughout, I ground my research in reports from the Service de Police de la Ville de Montreal (SPVM) and from community organizations such as the Réseau d’Aide aux Personnes Seules et Itinérantes de Montréal (RAPSIM) and the Homeless Hub.

academic and local media publications. Next I thoroughly examine the growing literature on judicialized bodies and the judicialization of homelessness. In doing so, I approach the historical roots of the broken-window theory and its implications for modern legislation, and demonstrate the administrative challenge behind the reduction of one’s penal fines. I then discuss the problems related to police discretion in the application of municipal laws as related to their internalization of specific judicial discourses and their control of public spaces.

Following an explanation of the discursive self-perpetuation of both the medicalization and the judicialization of homelessness, I introduce Philippe Bourgois’ theory of lumpen abuse, dealing with the expression of structural violence on an individual level, and connect it to Gilles Deleuze’s assemblage thinking, offering a spatial theory of lumpen abuse applied to public spaces in Montreal.

Examining the control of public spaces, I suggest some new policy approaches to deal with the visible homeless among us. As will be made clear, it is my belief that a spatial theory of lumpen abuse can serve to highlight the processes of homeless with the intent to both expose the self-maintaining discourses

Introduction Public and economic policies in previous decades have led to unprecedented levels of poverty and homelessness in North American metropolitan centres, many resources accurately referring to the problem as a crisis (Gaetz, Gulliver and Richter 2014:3; Quebec: Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse 2009:13; Mathieu 1993:170). This paper is written, first and foremost, as a response to the crisis as it is lived in Montreal. As a socioeconomic issue, homelessness emerges at a crossroads of social marginalization, addiction, unemployment, and mental and physical health. It is best understood as a symptom of inaccessible housing and institutions of care, and a lack of adequate social safety nets. Since the 1960s, however, a reductionist sweep by the media has contributed to the taking up of homelessness in purely psychiatric terms (Hopper 1988:155, Mathieu 1993:170).

Following a discussion on qualifying homelessness wherein I call upon a specific typology by the Canadian Homelessness Research Network (CHRN), I outline the problematic tendencies and consequences of the medicalization of homelessness, notably through how it is internalized in some

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we uphold, and to draw increased attention to problems of agency and inaccessibility in homelessness alleviation programs. More generally, this work emerges from Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Margaret Lock’s work on the body politic as “referring to the regulation, surveillance and control of bodies […] in work and in leisure, in sickness and other forms of deviance and human difference,” in a wholly post-structuralist effort (1987:7-8).

it omits a reference to the absence of a “groupe d’appartenance stable” [reliable social network] (Quebec: Santé et Services sociaux 2008:11). The Homeless Hub’s 2013 report further complicates the accepted definitions by identifying a range of homeless circumstances: the unsheltered live in public spaces, the emergency sheltered sleep in overnight emergency shelters, and the provisionally accommodated (or “invisible homeless”) include individuals in unstable housing conditions such as interim housing, people living with friends or family, or in institutional contexts (hospitals, prisons).

The last category, those at risk of homelessness, includes a slew of individuals whose living conditions are “precarious and [do] not meet public health and safety standards” (Gaetz et al. 2013:3).

A report published by the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse2 (CDPJ) further divides this typology into three time frames: the chronically homeless are those individuals without stable housing for long periods of time (often many years); transitory homelessness refers to circumstantial, short-term instability; and episodic homelessness points to a repeating cycle of being with and without a home (2009:6-7). On this topic, the Homeless Hub notes that the chronic and episodic homeless form a smaller percentage of the homeless population but are “most often the highest users of public systems” (Gaetz et al.

2013:6). These disparities in the experience of homelessness are exemplified in the varieties of “homelessnesses” I have encountered, from at-risk sex workers in my work at Rezo3 and unsheltered or provisionally accommodated street addicts (Bourgois and Schonberg 2009)

Limits and Definitions Defining homelessness is a difficult task due to its multifaceted nature; the recurring challenge is to avoid reductionism. Sources rarely agree on their qualitative definitions of homelessness, often limiting themselves to a reference to absent housing (Qc.: CDPJ 2009:6). The Canadian Homelessness Research Network (CHRN), in their 2012 report, offer the current official definition of homelessness: “[…] the situation of an individual or family without stable, permanent, appropriate housing, or the immediate prospect, means and ability of acquiring it. It is the result of systemic or societal barriers, a lack of affordable and appropriate housing, the individual/household’s financial, mental, cognitive, behavioural or physical challenges, and/or racism and discrimination. Most people do not choose to be homeless, and the experience is generally negative, unpleasant, stressful and distressing.” (CHRN 2012:1)

The CHRN’s interpretation strongly resembles the previously accepted definition by the Comité des sans-abris de la ville de Montréal1 in all points, except that 1

Homeless committee of the city of Montreal Commission for the rights of the individuals and the rights of the youth 3 For more information, consult http://www.rezosante.org/programme-travailleur-du-sexe.html (accessed 1 Dec 2014).

2

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the legitimacy and credit of homeless actors is reduced in the drama portrayed by the media, allowing the homeless “status” to be diagnosed by professionals, effectively making a socioeconomic problem into a medical one (Mathieu 1993:170). Hopper (1988:164) describes this as the “impaired capacity” model of homelessness wherein it “remains locked with the conceptual brace of ‘deviancy.’”

Vincent Lyon-Callo (2000:330) accurately summarizes the inherently problematic nature of this conflation in his statement that the “continuum of care” approach disregards the notion of the distribution of resources.

He argues that “the focus on ‘disease’ within the discourses of ‘helping’ actually obliterates discussion of alternative explanations and [alterations of ] class, race, or gender dynamics.” If the CDPJ (2009:10) notes a 30% to 50% prevalence of mental illness in the homeless population, Mario Poirier puts these statistics in perspective by pointing out that the prevalence of mental illnesses in the homeless and non-homeless populations is generally comparable (2007:81), and that the DSM-IV’s definition of antisocial personality essentially allows for a profiling of homeless populations (2007:84). Citing Snow et al., Poirier (2007:82) attributes the association of mental illness and homelessness to four main factors: the continued presumption of a strong link between deinstitutionalization and homelessness; a perspective which has us fix individuals, not the system; the increased visibility of homeless individuals with severe mental problems (where they become “spectacular” in public spaces); and the methodological weakness of much research.

Today, the medicalization of homelessness is both more nuanced and more internalized.

Governmental and organizational reports I

to similarly precarious homeless youth in my volunteering for Dans La Rue4. These nuances in defining homelessness account for the difficulty in establishing accurate counts of homeless individuals5.

While every definition has its caveats, their preciseness is mandatory to ensure an inclusive approach to the topic (which the term “homeless” itself tends to preclude). Catherine Panter-Brick, writing on the vicissitudes of general terms such as “street children,” outlines various drawbacks associated with their use: inadequate representation of the circumstances and experiences of individuals, stigmatization linked to the term which can “[trigger or strengthen] negative social reactions” (2002:152), and limitations on suggested actions (in other words, a flattening of activist approaches). As such, the use of general descriptors in discourses of the lumpen is everything but productive, addressing “conditions that diverge from accepted norms” (Panter-Brick 2002:154) rather than the experiences of the individuals.

Throughout my essay, generic terms like “homelessness” are used with awareness of their enormous scope.

Medicalized Bodies: The Snare of Deviancy The first widespread reports of “growing numbers of the psychiatrically disabled” among the homeless populations of New York City emerged in the 1970s—Kim Hopper notes the ease with which shelter workers reduce homelessness to a preponderance of “psychos,” a conception that public health officials have latched onto (Hopper 1988:156).

Medicalization refers to the persistent linking of homelessness and mental illness, so that 4

For more information, consult http://www.danslarue.com/ (accessed 1 Dec 2014).

For added discussion on the difficulties in quantifying homelessness, consult Hopper 2003: 3-24 and 131146.

5

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have studied attempt to partially dissociate homelessness from mental illness where it is pertinent. Unfortunately, in news sources and research, the problems are often forcefully juxtaposed. Here, a 2013 study on selfharm and homelessness by Graham Pluck, Kwang-Hyuk Lee, and Randolph W. Parks, along with the “24h” news outlet’s category of “santé mentale et itinérance” [mental health and homelessness] (Pineda 2014), are outstanding examples. Another example is the SPVM’s 2013 annual report, which contains a section on the “intervention auprès de personnes mentalement perturbées [...] ou en situation d’itinérance” [intervention with mentally perturbed or homeless individuals] (12). Additionally, the historical images of vagrants have not gone away. Common misconceptions about homeless individuals make reference to their idleness, their desire to be on the street, an assumption that they are all men and all drug users, etc.6 All these examples point to the fact that the medicalization of homelessness is not behind us; rather, we have internalized it to a degree where we often unwittingly cast homeless bodies in a biologically or psychologically deficient light.

pratiques considérées comme socialement déviantes” [resorting to law, and thus to the legal apparatus, to punish norms or practices considered socially deviant]7 (Qc.: CDPJ 2009:18). I argue that the process of judicialization causes the continuous emergence and maintenance of the trope of the historical vagrant, characterized by his idleness, mobility and indigence. In other words, an individual whose very body is impossible for society to assimilate, due to what the CDPJ refers to as “son mode de vie [errant et désaffilié] réfractaire à toute forme de contrôle” [his errant and disaffiliated lifestyle adverse to any and all forms of control], along with the “menace” this individual bears against public order and peace (2009:15).

The judicialization of homelessness increased drastically after New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s election in 1993, following a campaign centred on the themes of public safety and urban disorder. In conjunction with police prefect William Bratton, Giuliani imposed a “zero tolerance” policy (the Quality of Life Initiative) against what he called “social incivilities.” This initiative aimed to systematically penalize “social incivilities” through the legal apparatus. Bratton and Giuliani’s approach drew explicitly from James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling’s broken-window theory, published in 1982: if minor civil infractions (such as public drinking, loitering, vandalism, and broken windows) are not forcefully and quickly dealt with, the social environment becomes prone to further criminality (Qc.: CDPJ 2009:2123). The broken-window theory makes

Judicialized Bodies: Broken Windows and Discursive Failures Beyond the medicalized body, one long-standing issue is the framing of homelessness in purely legal or penal terminology. Judicialization is largely defined as “le recours au droit, et donc à l’appareil judiciaire, pour sanctionner des normes ou

6 For more common misconceptions regarding homelessness, consult: All Chicago: making homelessness history. “Facts & Misconceptions”. Accessed 1 Dec 2014; Hopper 2003; Panter-Brick 2002.

7 To clarify, criminalization and penalization refer to legal processes wherein an individual is charged and a dispute adjudicated following the application of the Criminal Code or the Penal Code, respectively (Raffestin 2009:4). Judicialization, on the other hand, refers to the discursive practice of subsuming moral or social issues to the legal sphere (for more information, consult Hirschl 2006:723-724). Judicialization thus implies both criminalization and penalization, but is used discursively and productively.

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continuous reference to “disorderly behaviors” and “disorderly people” as increasing the insecurity of civilians through their linkage with a criminal slippery slope (Qc.: CDPJ 2009:25).

This policy’s discrimination against homeless individuals became even more explicit when the New York Police Department produced, for its agents, a quick reference guide listing unacceptable behaviors along with codes and laws that could be used to sanction them. Behaviors include panhandling, urinating in public, washing car windows, and being in parks under the influence of alcohol. This guide can be seen as a sanctioned tool for the social profiling of homeless individuals. In other words, the broken-window theory, and the social policies it generates, create the obligation for homeless individuals to take responsibility. Instead of being treated as a consequence of certain situations, homelessness becomes something that reinforces further homelessness (Qc.: CDPJ 2009:20). Bringing Giuliani’s initiative closer to home, the CDPJ report notes how it influenced policy in Ontario and British Columbia (2009:30), and Marie-Eve Sylvestre points out the SPVM’s “convenient” use of the broken-window theory in their interventions (2010:805). More importantly, Sylvestre draws attention to “the lack of conclusive empirical data [supporting] the connection between disorder and severe criminality” in the broken-window theory, an argument original authors Wilson and Kelling concede to in their 1982 article (2010:807).

Pragmatically, judicialization also leads to an imposing and often insurmountable debt, which is consistently associated with increased difficulty in individuals’ efforts to get off the streets (Cour municipale de la Ville de Montréal (CMVM) 2012:2) through 8 9

loss of material goods, damaged tentative stability, and broken relationships (Raffestin 2010:19). The Clinique Droits Devant (“Rights Ahead”), in association with the RAPSIM, offers various services to alleviate the burden of judicialization on homeless individuals in the city. Their first yearly report indicates four ways to manage outstanding fines. The first is to dispute the ticket when it is received—however, as homeless individuals do not have a fixed address at which to receive the appropriate papers, they are often found guilty before they can prove otherwise. Droits Devant can serve as a provisional address for these individuals, facilitating their judicial process. The second way is through the PAPSI, or programme d’accompagnement pour les personnes en situation d’itinérance8, which allows for the designation of a preceptor to collect as little as $5 per month towards the payment of the fines (this is less than ideal when one’s fines can add up to thousands of dollars) (Fortin et al. 2010). A third method is to apply for compensatory community work, and a fourth is through the PAJIC, or programme d’accompagnement justice itinérance à la cour9. Through PAJIC, selected individuals’ belongings and debts are consolidated, and after a certain probation period, the individual’s fines may be partially or fully cancelled if the individual is permanently housed and is abstinent in any previous addiction to drugs, alcohol, or gambling (CMVM 2012:3; RAPSIM 2007:10). Though there is a standing moratorium on the issuance of incarceration mandates for individuals with accumulated unpaid fees (Fortin et al. 2010), the challenge of finding an adequate home and maintaining it is still enormous, and the idea of abstinence flies in the face of the harm reduction approach, generally acknowledged

Support program for individuals in a situation of homelessness.

Judicial support program in court for homeless individuals.

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as the modern form of social intervention10.

It is important to remember that Montreal is the only city with such a moratorium, and that despite its unique nature, getting one’s fines cancelled is an often insurmountable challenge for marginalized citizens.

Beyond debt, judicialization is also concerned with police work as the primary instrument for the control of public spaces.

Sylvestre studies this control in conjunction with the SPVM’s “convenient” use of the broken-window theory, calling attention to how the SPVM “directly built on U.S. studies on the connection between disorder and urban decay and growing feelings of insecurity” (2010:806). She adds that maintaining a specific, static sense of what is “socially good” also freeze-frames everything that is “socially bad”: “being noisy, lying down in the streets [and] begging” are seen “as a loosening of one’s posture and moral standards but also [as] a threat to a specific social order.” This is how, Sylvestre claims, the broken-window theory contributes to a “domination of space” (2010:807): public places are fenced in, or given new architectural titles (eg. square, plaza) in order to enhance legal control.

Sylvestre also studies how the city uses open-ended legislation and unquestioning trust in police discretion to restrict public spaces. In “Disorder and Public Spaces in Montreal” (Sylvestre 2010), an agent comments: “Our priority here downtown is on squeegees, beggars stopping cars, and homeless people. We could include bar fights and clients spitting on the ground, but that’s not the same.” This is a striking example of how individual agents “must accept and internalize” a certain conception of order dictated by local authorities, such as when the mayor’s office calls for a clean-up

in a park (2010:816). Sylvestre notes how the streets become a true “negotiation field” (2010:820) that police officers and homeless individuals cohabit, the former wielding discretionary power, while being pressured by institutional forces, to perpetuate a certain social order despite their knowledge of the field (2010:818); this leaves the latter, the homeless, “walking a thin line between respecting the law, disrespecting unofficial rules” and not enacting the worst of social disorders—to openly challenge police authority (2010:819).

Targeting homeless individuals reinforces the misconceptions around them, making rehabilitation more difficult. Terms such as “bum,” “layabout,” “punk,” and the old-school “vagrant” are legitimated. Judicialization, then, is an excellent example of both symbolic and structural violence: Pierre Bourdieu defines the former as the naturalization of subordination, wherein “inequalities are made to appear commonsensical”; Philippe Bourgois defines the latter as “how the political-economic organization of society wreaks havoc on vulnerable categories of people” (Bourgois and Schonberg 2009:1617). The violence of judicialization is symbolic in the sense that the actions of homeless individuals in public spaces not only perpetuate their homelessness but also strengthen the negative qualities wrongfully attributed to them by the public. They enter a self-defeating logic.

Shifting Policies, Changing Public Spaces What emerges from the above discussion is the complexity of homelessness: public policy and discourse can never fully lock horns to deal with the problem because its

10

More precisely, this method is concerned with the consequences of drug abuse rather than the use of the substance itself, considering that many users cannot or will not stop using in the short term. For a more indepth definition, consult Fischer 2005.

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parts. First, he engages with abuse as it “[...] calls attention to the misuse of power in intimate relations that conjugates victims with perpetrators in a trauma of betrayal over an extended time period.” Bourgois also emphasizes the “embodied manifestations of distress” associated with abuse, where “violence operates along a continuum that spans structural, symbolic, everyday, and intimate dimensions.” His theory is partially grounded in Nancy Scheper-Hughes’ study of the effects of routine, everyday violence and Bourdieu’s previously discussed symbolic violence that makes inequalities “appear commonsensical.” His use of the word “lumpen” refers to Karl Marx’s denotation of “drop-outs of history [...], a vulnerable population that is produced at the interstices of transitioning modes of production”; Bourgois notes how the word is understood more as a modifier than a concrete social class.

Combined with Michel Foucault’s biopower, or the “capillary-like” biological expression of state power, along with its production of specific subjectivities as distinct points-ofview, the theory “highlights the way imposed everyday suffering generates violent and destructive subjectivities” (2009:16-19).

The theory of lumpen abuse, at the intersection of these different authors and basically chimerical in nature, informs Bourgois’s analysis of structural forces as they operate and produce “patterns of suffering” on an individual, everyday level (2009:318).

I wish to take up his theory in a Deleuzian frame to view cities and the public spaces within them as assemblages, which would allow for an unveiling of lumpen abuse as it emerges in a spatial rather than individual sense. Seeing cities and their public spaces as assemblages would imply reorienting public policy and legislation to look at the performativities of the users of these public spaces. Critical questions include: how is the space used? Why and at what times? Which

approach has only ever been medical or legal, whereas the problem is deeply social. Its medicalization and judicialization only serve to reinforce it. Keeping this in mind, I propose assemblage-thinking as a way of tackling urban homelessness. Lisa Helps, approaching body as a site of historical investigation, offers an on-point summary of Deleuzian assemblages as “living beings and things that come together in particular configurations in particular times and places, [...] continually making and unmaking themselves, [...] always becoming” (Helps 2007:129). According to Deleuze (1997:185-186) in conversation with Michel Foucault, desire as a “co-functioning” assemblage binds bodies together with “the earth, with deterritorialization,” that is, to other organic and inorganic bodies. These “desiring assemblages” contain systems of power, but always and certainly in relation with “the different components of the assemblage.” In this sense, Deleuze refers to a “body without organs,” one that sees beyond all-encompassing articulations of power and organization. It is “as biological as it is collective and political, [...] it varies.” Michele Lancione (2013:359) takes up assemblagethinking by stating the explicit connection between the city and homeless individuals— especially, I clarify, in their forced conflation of the public and private spheres. In his analysis, he invites us to perceive as assemblages both homeless individuals and the city itself, the latter as an always-becoming heterogeneous nexus of body, wishes, and ideas, and the former as an always-becoming machine of law enforcement, buildings, parks, citizens, nation, and emotion. This concept is essential to his work and mine as it seeks “not to define, but to open up possibilities” (Lancione 2013:362).

Another key concept here is Philippe Bourgois’ lumpen abuse. His theory, as the foundation of his and Jeff Schonberg’s seminal work Righteous Dopefiend, is built from many

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habits are implicated in its use, and which laws apply to it? What kind of discourse and how much arbitrariness is associated with the application of these laws? I propose a holistic approach where public policy contends with public spaces as human-nonhuman zones of production and maintenance of homelessness, and suggest that this approach, as it deals adequately with the multifaceted nature of the problem, can help give equal weight to the practices of homelessness and to the structures that brought these practices forth. A spatial theory of lumpen abuse can be an analytical tool that shifts the blame away from the homeless, replacing it with a conscious agentive capacity for recovery—a shift from a justice of order to a justice of solidarity (Sylvestre, Bellot and Chesnay 2012:299). The implied consequence, which I make explicit, would be a loosening of public policy when it comes to the control of public spaces.

Reconceptualizing homelessness not as a state to homelessness but as an assemblage, as becoming rather than being, and as dynamic rather than static transfers analysis from why to how. This shift to a study of the processes of homelessness, despite being arguably challenging to enact, discourages past methodologies such as judicialization and medicalization, wherein the homeless experience is homogenized and “reduced to the travails and gambits” of the individuals it limits (Hopper 1988:165). With this new approach, sociality would emerge as the main avenue of intervention in combating homelessness.

Concretely speaking, I argue that through a “howing” of homelessness the feedback effect of our perceptions of homelessness would be highlighted. By this, I refer to the symbolic violence of medicalization and judicialization as both defining and perpetuating certain tropes of homelessness, and to the very real circumstances wherein the

burden of fines or institutional inaccessibility impedes an individual’s progress. A theory of abuse applied individually or spatially can orient policy choices away from a frame of “discursive logics of power that propel governmentality, shape subjectivities [and] reinforce habitus-based inequalities,” refusing a “[reassignment] of blame to the powerless” (Bourgois 2009:297). A community worker’s primary goal, then, would be to change these self-perpetuating discourses of sociality and inequality, giving homeless individuals equal discursive power and agency over their lawful or unlawful use of public spaces.

Conclusions: Avenues of Thought I have first attempted to provide a just definition of homelessness. Using the CHRN’s four-part typology, my purpose was to highlight the different ways homelessness can be lived as a first step to complicating this experience so as not to offer a “lecture simplifiée de l’itinérance” [a simplified reading of homelessness] (Sylvestre, Bellot and Chesnay 2012:318). I have then outlined how this simplified reading has been expressed in terms of medicalization and judicialization. In the case of the former, I have looked at Hopper and Lyon-Callo’s research to point to the internalization of a medicalized discourse of homelessness in news and public reports in Montreal and to the self-perpetuating dangers of accepting a “snare of deviancy” (Hopper 1988:164). In the latter case, I have extensively examined the general acceptance of the broken-window theory as a foundational text to guide public policy; I have demonstrated the undesirable vicissitudes of both accumulated judicial debt and police discretion in establishing a “domination of space” (Sylvestre 2010:807); I have also exposed the cycle of marginalization wherein homeless individuals are essentially fined for being homeless, thus perpetuating their difficult circumstances.

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In the last section, I introduced Bourgois’ theory of lumpen abuse and Deleuze’s analytical tool of assemblages. I argued for an application of lumpen abuse theory not to individuals, but to spaces in a distinctly Deleuzian manner: I posited that to view public spaces and cities as assemblages, as complex, multifaceted sites of production of homelessness, would allow us to avoid another “lecture simplifiée” by considering all the factors concomitant with homelessness and how they interact on a physical, spatial level. I also suggested that such a shift from static to dynamic analysis would cause a newfound “howing” of homelessness, one that would shift a burden of blame away from homeless individuals.

It is paramount to understand, however, that my goal is not to dispossess the homeless of responsibility, wholly blaming societal structures for their outcomes. My goal is to give agency to homeless individuals in their own reconstruction, a move away from what Lyon-Callo calls the “production of selfblame” (328). The main limitation of this approach, of course, is that it only really tackles the problem of the visible homeless: it doesn’t open up possibilities for the provisionally accommodated, or those at risk of homelessness. This approach also does not offer a panacea to the problems of discursive marginalization. An important realization in my research was the inadequacy of terms such as “reinsertion” and “reintegration,” which I believe perpetuate notions of homeless individuals as an “other” political body that must be recovered by society. This calls for a more attentive and self-reflexive mode of social intervention.

In closing, I wish to draw from Vincanne Adams’ Markets of Sorrow, Labors of Faith, an ethnography of the post-Katrina reconstruction efforts in New Orleans.

Prominent in her research is a possessive notion of the body that invokes a unified

perception of selfhood and home: her participants experience bodily their material losses, and a man is even referred to as “becoming a gutted house” (2013:127).

I believe that this modern notion of the self as imperatively housed, especially in conjunction with Kim Hopper’s claim that “the opposite of homelessness is not shelter but home” (2003:214, emphasis added), can succinctly communicate the urgency behind the alleviation of homelessness.

References: Adams, Vincanne.

2013. “Markets of Sorrow, Labors of Faith: New Orleans in the wake of Katrina”, Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. 227 pp.

Bourgois, Philippe and Jeff Schonberg.

2009. “Righteous Dopefiend”, Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press, 360 pp.

Canadian Homelessness Research Network (CHRN).

2012. “Canadian Definition of Homelessness”, The Homeless Hub. Accessed 1 Dec 2014.

Cour municipale de la Ville de Montréal (CMVM).

2012. “Les programmes d’accompagnement des personnes ayant vécu l’itinérance”, by Sophie Beauchemin for the Congrès du Barreau du Québec. Accessed 25 Nov 2014.

Deleuze, Gilles.

1997. “Desire and pleasure”, trans. Melissa McMahon, in Globe E 5, by Monash University.

Accessed 8 Dec 2014.

Fischer, Benedikt.

2005. “Réduction des méfaits”, in Toxicomanie au Canada: Enjeux et options actuels, pp. 11-15.

Fortin, Véronique, Claude-Catherine Lemoine, Daredjane Assathiany and Kathy Ramsey.

2010. “Itinérants: la discrimination persiste”, La Presse, 16 Dec 2010. Accessed 1 Dec 2014.

Gaetz, Stephen, Tanya Gulliver and Tim Richter.

2014. “The State of Homelessness in Canada 2014”, edited by Allyson Marsolais. Toronto: The Homeless Hub Press.

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Gaetz, Stephen, Jesse Donaldson, Tim Richter and Tanya Gulliver.

2013. “The State of Homelessness in Canada 2013”, Toronto: Canadian Homelessness Research Network Press.

Helps, Lisa.

2007. “Body, Power, Desire: Mapping Canadian Body History”, Journal of Canadian Studies 41(1): 126-150.

Hirschl, Ran. 2006. “The New Constitution and the Judicialization of Pure Politics Worldwide”, Fordham Law Review 75(2): 721-753.

Hopper, Kim. 1988. “more than passing strange: homelessness and mental illness in New York City”, American Ethnologist, 15(1): 155–167.

2003. “Reckoning with homelessness”, Ithaca/ London: Cornell University Press, 271 pp.

Lancione, Michele.

2013. “Homeless people and the city of abstract machines: Assemblage thinking and the performative approach to homelessness”, Area 45(3): 358-364.

Lyon-Callo, Vincent.

2000. “Medicalizing Homelessness: The Production of Self-Blame and Self-Governing within Homeless Shelters”, Medical Anthropology Quarterly 14(3): 328-345.

Mathieu, Arline.

1993. “The Medicalization of Homelessness and the Theater of Repression”, Medical Anthropology Quarterly 7(2): 170-184.

Panter-Brick, Catherine.

2002. “Street Children, Human Rights and Public Health: A Critique and Future Directions”, Annual Review in Anthropology 31: 147-171.

Pineda, Améli.

2014. “Le SPVM satisfait de son bilan”, 24h Montréal, 3 Mar 2014. Accessed 1 Dec 2014.

Pluck, Graham, Kwang-Hyuk Lee and Randolph W. Parks.

2013. “Self-Harm and Homeless Adults”, Crisis 34(5): 363-366.

Poirier, Mario.

2007. “Santé mentale et itinérance: analyse d’une controverse”, Nouvelles pratiques sociales 19(2): 76-91.

Quebec. Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse.

“La judicialization des personnes itinérantes à Montréal: Un profilage social”, by Christine Campbell and Paul Eid. Nov 2009.

Quebec. Santé et Services sociaux.

2008. “L’itinérance au Québec: Cadre de référence”, by La Direction des communications du ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux du Québec. Accessed 1 Dec 2014.

Raffestin, Isabelle.

2009. “Une injustice programmée? Le point de vue des personnes itinérantes sur leur judiciarisation et leur incarcération”, (master’s thesis, Université de Montréal), 162 pp.

2010. “L’avis des personnes itinérantes sur leur situation judiciaire”, Porte Ouverte 21(1): 19-20.

Réseau d’aide aux personnes seules et itinérantes de Montréal (RAPSIM).

2007. “Rapport d’évaluation: Un an de Clinique Droits Devant”, by Bernard St-Jacques and Isabelle Raffestin. Accessed 25 Nov 2014.

Scheper-Hughes, Nancy, and Margaret Lock.

1987. “The Mindful Body: A Prolegomenon to Future Work in Medical Anthropology”, Medical Anthropology Quarterly 1(1): 6-41.

Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM).

2013. “Une approche citoyens: Rapport annuel 2013”, by La Section des communications corporatives du Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal. Accessed 23 Nov 2014.

Sylvestre, Marie-Ève.

2010. “Disorder and Public Spaces in Montreal: Repression (and Resistance) Through Law, Politics and Police Discretion”, Urban Geography 31(6): 803-824.

Sylvestre, Marie-Ève, Céline Bellot and Catherine Chesnay.

2012. “De la justice de l’ordre à la justice de la solidarité: une analyse des discours légitimateurs de la judicialization de l’itinérance au Canada”, Droit et Société 81: 299-320.

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