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Debate. Culture in the nation and public opinion: a Norwegian case

Insisting on culture?*

This paper explores some of the ongoing debates about culture and the concept of culture as it is used and deployed in the Norwegian public sphere, what we would call norsk offentlighet.1 More specically, I am interested in the part played by anthropology and anthropologists in inuencing the meanings and usages of such a key indigenous concept as culture. My interest was particularily spurred by the general debates on culture and immigrants which dominated the media in the mid-nineties, and in which anthropologists were actively engaged. Although these concrete debates are localised in time and space Norway (and Oslo) the thematics are not new and are recognisable elsewhere (e.g. Wright 1998). Such debates are interesting because they bring to the surface latent meanings of signicant concepts, and make visible the ongoing struggle to dene central organising concepts and hence the power such dening is invested with. However, there is another, more problematic side to this issue which makes it all the more important. This has to do with the very creation of perceptions of cultural differences. When and under what circumstances do particular notions of cultural differences become evident and operative? What are the relevant contexts which serve to ground, while simultaneously circumscribing, differences and sameness? And in this particular case: What is this notion of a specic norwegianness (det norske) and more important: When is it? And in anticipation of the arguments to follow, we may well ask: To what extent are cultural differences a product of anthropological (and other) research? To what degree are anthropologists implicated in creating dichotomies which ground difference or rendering such dichotomies meaningless? Obviously, I am in no position to answer these questions in such a short article as this. These issues are extremely complex, demanding extensive research, not least coupled to both an historical and comparative analysis. This paper, then, is merely an opening.
* Tordis Borchgrevink gave thoughtful comments to the rst version of this paper; Geir Thomas Hylland Eriksen has critically read the second version. I am grateful to both for pointing to my own blind spots. 1 This is a somewhat revised version of a paper rst presented at a workshop on Culture and the Europeans, organised by Adam Kuper at the EASA conference in Barcelona in 1996.

Social Anthropology (1999), 7, 1, 6580. 1999 European Association of Social Anthropologists

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A problem and a frame of reference

There is no doubt that anthropology in Norway today has stepped out of its scientic, somewhat exotic and protected existence and become part of the Norwegian public domain (norske offentlighet). Symptomatic are perhaps these words by a Norwegian journalist of a major newspaper: In the nineties there seems to be a little anthropologist living in all of us; he keeps house where the little sociologist moved out (Harket 1995).2 This residential displacement cannot be accounted for by the sheer number of anthropologists being educated today although I am not so modest as to not acknowledge the import of the knowledge being imparted in our class rooms and lecture halls.3 The enormous interest in anthropology seems to be part of a Zeitgeist, not least because of its reputation for being concerned with culture and as being the seat of cultural relativism. Moreover, whereas earlier anthropologists were drawn upon as part of a solution (remaining external e.g. within development aid); it seems that now, and in particular with respect to culture, that we have become part of the problem. However, the assimilation of anthropological discourse into public discourse, raises an open ended question: what kind of anthropology is being pushed and, more importantly, perhaps, what kind of anthropology is being bought? The issues seem in part to converge around the now notorious notion of culture. Norwegian anthropologists have to some extent and in various ways over the years been involved in promoting an understanding or understandings of the concept of culture in the public/political domain. This public domain covers a broad range of settings: open debates in the media, be it on television, radio or in the newspapers; television interviews and series; the drawing-up of government policies, within for example development aid and cultural affairs; promoting the inclusion of anthropological perspectives and textbooks as part of the curriculum in secondary schools and teacher training colleges; and the setting up of exhibitions at The Ethnographic Museum. What follows is a preliminary and very selective exercise to elicit some of the ways in which certain perceptions of culture have ltered into the Norwegian public consciousness. I will address the intentional efforts of anthropologists to inuence public policy-making which are explicitly grounded in notions of culture. I will also consider, albeit briey, the indigenous conceptions against which anthropological notions rebound, and I will draw forth some of the implications for anthropology. I have limited my focus to three more recent elds where Norwegian anthropologists have been explicitly involved in giving meanings to notions of culture.4 These are:
2 P 90 tallet bor det visst en liten antropolog i de este av oss, han holder vel hus der hvor den lille sosiologen yttet ut. 3 In the early 1970s, there were 10 to 20 undergraduate students (in Oslo); graduate students were few and far between, with one maybe completing every year. There were no doctoral students. Today, we have a total of about 1,000 students, some 670 undergraduate students; 350 (more or less active) graduate students and a doctoral program with 27 PhD students enrolled. With that many taking anthropology each year, it is inevitable that anthropological modes of thought will crop up outside academia and inuence discourse on, for example, cultural issues. 4 There are, of course, other important elds which I have not addressed: e.g. the place of the Ethnographic Museum in conveying notions of culture (see Mary Bouquet 1996, Bringing it all back home); the impact of Fredrik Barths television lecture series, broadcast by the Norwegian Broadcasting Company in 1979 (Andres liv og vrt eget); the degree of involvement of Norwegian (and foreign) anthropologists in Sami ethno-politics; and the inuence of anthropologists on the

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1. Development issues and the insistence (on the part of anthropologists) on the inclusion of the cultural dimension in certain development projects (see Klausen 1987). The thrust of the arguments (which have now become almost commonsensical) was that project activities pertaining to healthcare, rural development, income generating activities, environment, women etc. must take into account detailed knowledge of the local context (including values, worldviews, knowledge systems etc. in short culture). In other words, anthropologists promoted an awareness of cultural differences as a prerequisite for successful project implementation. 2. Cultural affairs and the elaboration of the so-called extended concept of culture det utvidete kultur begrep (as expressed in the White Paper to Parliament from the Ministry of Culture, St. medl. 61, 1991 2). This notion of culture is seen by some (e.g. Wiggen 1993) as being a specically anthropological invention; however, it may just as well be seen as a social democratic invention and a response to the notion of n kultur (i.e. culture as ne arts in strict sense). Central to this discussion is the delimitation of cultural activities, i.e. what kind of human activity is to be considered cultural? 3. Issues pertaining to the situation of non-Anglo-European immigrants in Norway and the debate on the erkulturelle samfunn, i.e. the multicultural society. At issue here is what being Norwegian is all about, and the question and status of cultural differences and their implications for policy. The problem is related to a notion of a certain contextual disparity within the same all encompassing context, i.e. the nation.5 The examples I have chosen reect an interesting coincidence between developments within the discipline of anthropology and developments within society at large with respect to understandings of the concept of culture: from an acceptance of anthropologistss insistence on the relevance of cultural differences within for example development aid and as expert witnesses in particular court cases (cf. Grnhaug 1983 and 1997, and Borchgrevink 1997) to a situation where anthropologists are being

understandings and conceptualisation of work-life, management and leadership cultures (through, for example the presence of anthropologists at the Institute of Work Research, Oslo). Nor should one forget the inuence of such anthropologists as Marianne Gullestad in conveying to Norwegians an understanding of their culture, Ottar Brox in his long-term involvement with northern Norway, focusing on the issues of centre and periphery (a central conceptualisation in the formation of Norway), Reidar Grnhaug in his role as expert witness, and Eduardo Archetti, so often called upon to comment upon aspects of Norwegianness. 5 Whereas points one and two can be traced to the direct involvement of Arne Martin Klausen (now professor emeritus at the University of Oslo), point three is illustrated by the active engagement of Geir Thomas Hylland Eriksen and Unni Wikan (both professors at the University of Oslo). Both have published books, written articles for major newspapers, journals etc. They have appeared on television and held lectures in various fora (separately and together) addressing the issues of migrant populations in Norway and the notion of culture and the role it plays be it in Norwegian public policy or more generally. Along with Inger Lise Lien (an anthropologist working at NIBR), they were for a time the centre of much attention, provoking as well as being provoked. Their roles were in a sense double: as experts on culture (a local perception of anthropologists) and as positioned subjects. Thus, they were simultaneously inscribed in the debates while maintaining a certain reexive distance. See, for example, Eriksen 1993; 1994; 1995; 1996a and b; Wikan 1995a; 1995b.

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acclaimed for disowning culture as a relevant concept to be applied in situations that have to do with immigrants in Norway (e.g. Wikan 1995; and in a somewhat different vein, Eriksen 1993, 1995). It is perhaps a reckless task to try to pinpoint a specic anthropological inuence on the public consciousness of such a common concept as is that of culture (but cf. Finkielkraut 1994: 49ff.). It is not just that it is hard to document empirically. Rather, the problem lies in the fact that the term culture is an indigenous one with particular historical signicance and references; a term which is commonly used in everyday language today with various connotations; and a term which is used as an analytic tool. It may, therefore, be difcult to foreground an anthropological concept against an indigenous concept or vice versa.6 In a way, an anthropological discourse on culture has become part of the indigenous discourse, although, of course, the opposite might also hold true. Thus there is ample room for confusion, most evident when there is an explicit link between anthropological notions of culture, on the one hand, and politics or even business on the other (cf. Harvey 1996). Underpinning this confusion, I think, lies an implication of the concept of culture (as it is understood): it is not only a question of whether culture is or is not but rather that culture operates as a moral category. Thus culture is viewed as good or bad; culture is not only seen as something that is but also something that ought or ought not to be. What becomes evident in reviewing these issues is on the one hand, anthropologists own ambivalence to notions of culture and cultural difference and hence, the problematic relationship between what constitutes sameness and what constitutes difference and the ordering of these phenomena (briey summed up as universal human rights, understood as individual rights and a concern for cultural diversity and the right to be (collectively) different).7 This I would assume Norwegian anthropologists share with their colleagues worldwide. On the other hand, it seems clear that several notions of culture also permeate Norwegian public policies, and that culture kultur in some form is and has been a politicised issue. There is an interest in culture. This interest is articulated simultaneously by anthropologists, politicians, businessmen and the public at large each, of course, variously positioned within their own group and vis a ` vis each other. And each with a different view of what is being described and what is being recommended. Thus, culture is used as a concept to organise production (e.g. work culture, management culture); it is used to describe the practice of corruption in politics (in the sense of there having developed a particular culture in, for example, the municipality of Oslo). Moreover, both business and politicians have discovered that not only does culture sell (e.g. the use of the Winter Olympics to sell Norway) but also that cross-cultural communication is necessary to make the sale. Culture is good business, as it is good politics: it works well, or so it has seemed. In this conceptual
6 This is all the more precarious, keeping in mind the many ways that anthropologists have used the term culture. The classic example used to illustrate this variation is, of course, the 164 denitions found by Kroeber and Kluckhohn (also cited by Wright 1998). 7 A case in point is UNESCOs Report of the World Commission on Culture and Development, Our creative diversity, which explicitly addresses the issues of culture. This report sustains simultaneously both the right to cultural freedom as a collective freedom and individual human rights. It launches the idea of a global ethics which is the underlying unity in the diversity of cultures based on universalism, while simultaneously insisting on the principle of pluralism (1995: 16 17).

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whirlpool, needless to say, there appear some strange bedfellows, and anthropologists may at times nd themselves in unwanted company. In addition to debates on what culture consists in high v. popular culture and the use of the so-called extended concept of culture in Norwegian policy making, we also nd culture used to reect a way of life, specic values, an ethos, a world view etc. i.e. culture as an argument for situating difference. We nd those insisting that there are cultures, and hence there is something specically Norwegian ( Hodne 1995: 13) and those refuting the same statement (Johansen 1995); those insisting that culture is an important empirical dimension that cannot be overlooked (i.e. people believe that they have a culture, and hence it must be taken seriously) and those that claim that any notion of culture must be used with extreme caution and preferably discarded (Wikan 1995). In between these positions, as people carry on with their daily lives, the government tries to work out its policies to cover the various interests and connotations of culture in the name of democracy, solidarity and universal human rights.8 And the question is: should anthropologists assist politicians in this confusion, and if so, how? Not only is there no consensus about the meanings of culture, but culture as a political issue in Norway mobilises people, unleashing very strong emotional engagement.9 This engagement can only be understood with reference to history. Todays policies and controversies are not new; they can be traced historically. Such a search would provide a more critical and comprehensive understanding of the ways the concept of culture operates in Norway (including the anthropological ones). Culture was an issue if not the issue of the whole period of the formation of the Norwegian national consciousness, from 1814 (the year of Norways independence from Denmark) and the drafting of the Norwegian constitution through the process leading to our nal independence from the union with Sweden in 1905. Culture was also an important element in the consolidation of the new nation state; and some notion of culture has continued to play a signicant part in government rhetoric and policy down to this day. Thus, the concept of culture has been operative in Norway for a long time. Culture has been and is a signicant issue. It is possible to glean two dominant meanings of culture underpinning the public debates and policies of the nation building period. The processes which generated these meanings are, of course, not unique to Norway, though we like to believe that they are (see, for example, Johansen 1995). Similar trends can be discerned throughout Europe. One meaning is grounded in class; the other is grounded in nation. The rst is tied to the enlightenment project (and has to do with arts, manners, education) and can be summed up in the relation between Dannelsen v. allmuen that is Bildung v.
8 At the time this paper was rst written (1996) Norway had a minority government run by the Labour Party. Much of the Labour Partys rhetoric is articulated through these terms. Elections were held in 1997 and a centre coalition government (also in a minority position) has come to power. The leading party is the Christian Peoples Party. Values is the key term in their rhetoric, so much so that they have appointed a Value Commission with a broad mandate. 9 For a Norwegian writing about culture in 1998 it is impossible not to mention the debate about the opera: Operadebatten. The issue is whether or not Norway should have its own opera house and, symptomatically, if so, where it should be located. After many years of discussion in which all possible arguments for and against have been mobilised, there is now presumably a majority in parliament for an opera. Yet due to the voting order, the motion to construct a new opera house in Oslo was defeated. Operadebatten sums up in very many ways central issues in the debates on culture in Norway.

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the ordinary (read ignorant) people. Culture, in this sense, was seen to be something that could be acquired, something that could (and should) be transplanted (forplantet is the Norwegian term quoted in Berggreen 1989: 19). The major civilising gure was the teacher (Kulturpedagogen),10 joining preaching with teaching and the main targets for enlightenment were seen to be the children. They were to be the bridgeheads, literally bringing culture home (cf. Berggreen 1989, Hodne 1995). Culture in this sense was associated with dannelse (Bildung) and much of the politics of the past century and beginning of this century has been concerned with raising the general level of dannelse. Part of the national project was to cultivate people, and this was particularly related to hygiene, cleanliness and sexual mores. The other meaning of culture is that pertaining to historical heritage, the nation the specicities of being Norwegian (as against the world), in sum culture not only as a way of life but as our way of life.11 Implicit in this view is that culture is something innate, rooted and unique (see Berggreen 1989; Srensen 1994; Hodne 1995). This view has spurred the debates on Norwegian values, on nationalism, on authenticity, collective identity and most importantly, perhaps, generated feelings of suspect foreign inuence and the concomitant suspicions of divided or even misplaced loyalties.12 Such
10 The historical signicance of the teacher as the civilising agent is much stressed by Berggreen and remnants of this ideology are echoed to this day. An editorial in a major Norwegian newspaper opens: Det var en gang at lrere var de fremste brere av s vel kultur som kunnskap her i landet (Once upon a time the teacher was the central bearer of both culture and knowledge in this country.) The article goes on to point out the shift in Norwegian educational policies from being the bastions of knowledge (and hence culture) to becoming care institutions. (Dagbladet 4 juli, 1996). 11 This way of perceiving culture is reiterated in, for example, the White Paper to Parliament, Kultur i Tiden, St. melding 62, 1991 2. To give an impression, I will quote from the introduction (pp. 24ff.). There is an emphasis on the signicance of cultural expressions (kulturytringer) as meaningful activities tied to ethics and societal responsibility; thus the government wishes to strengthen culture as a stabilising force in society. Moreover, the government feels that these pressing times require a strengthened involvement which will bind people closer together in an encompassing cultural community built on mutual values, references, and symbols . . . Through mutual values, mutual language and living conditions the foundations for a common identity are laid. To strengthen our cultural heritage is not only an obligation to ourselves, but also to the international community. The world society will also become poorer if the particularly national (det sregent nasjonale) is weakened. Richness is constituted in diversity. . . . A fostering of (satsing p) national culture implies a respect for the culture of other countries. To strengthen Norwegian culture is not to say that Norwegian culture is better than all others, but that it is important because it is ours (stress in original; my translation). See also Hodne 1995. 12 Different visions of foreignness have been evoked, each, of course reecting positioned subjects. In the middle and late 1800s, the divide was within the embedmannsstand, i.e. within the enlightened class, the links to Denmark and Sweden being perhaps the most critical. This divide was also articulated in the urban rural conguration, where the urban was viewed as a threat to the authentic Norwegian rural soul. In the early part of this century (when the bourgeoisie had more or less consolidated itself) the threat was seen to come from the workers movement. Their proclaimed international solidarity, their scepticism to church and religion, and their (initial) lack of enthusiam for the ag and the national anthem all combined to make them suspect subjects. At a symbolic level, this was most clearly articulated in the controversies surrounding the celebrations of 1 May (Labour Day) and 17 May (the national holiday), which were resolved by the 1930s (see Hodne 1995: 148ff.; sterud 1986). The war and the concomitant consolidation of the country after 1945 led to an even stronger national identication. In 1973, with the rst national referendum on Norwegian membership to

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suspicions are grounded in notions of unequivocal identities giving no room for the hybrid, for the creole for the multistranded cosmopolitan (see Eriksen 1993). Although these two meanings of culture are variously grounded, they both operate so as to divide, to order and classify people.13 In the rst case it is the elite v. the people (folket). In the second case it is Norwegian v. the rest. However, the fact that the two concepts operate in the same way, does not make them of the same order. Moreover, both meanings are continuously contested this is in part what politics is about and to complicate matters, the various discourses on culture tend to slip between these two meanings, where the rst may become the means to the second (e.g. We need to teach people to read in order that they become members of our culture). Whats more, the two meanings are in some contexts collapsed. This slippage becomes particularly evident in the implicit link that seems to underpin the notions of culture (as they have been used) with notions of loyalty: it is possible to see both the enlightenment notion of culture and the national one working together (the one through indoctrination, the other through assimilation) so as to create a specic Norwegianess; to create citizens who will partake in the same democratic processes, on the basis of the same values.14 With the recent immigration to Norway of peoples from Turkey, Pakistan, Chile, Vietnam (to name a few), the issues of foreigness (and loyalty) take a different turn. They challenge in a very different way what it means or should mean to be a Norwegian.15 A passport, it appears, is obviously not enough to make a Norwegian. The rhetorics of cultural diversity16 (the meaning of which is in itself very ambiguous) in combination with equal opportunity and respect is the name but not the game. Questions of assimilation v. integration, class v. culture are again at the forefront.

Enter anthropologists, backstage to front

It is of course, no coincidence, that two of the policy areas in which anthropologists have been active peddlers have to do with understandings of cultural differences of making the others known to ourselves. Anthropologists have taken it upon themselves to be cultural brokers, ofcial interpreters of culture with the aim of increasing crossthe then EEC, emotions tied to foreign as anti-national were mobilised and exploited. The most loyal Norwegian was the one who voted no; similar arguments were also used (but not with the same success) at the last referendum to join the European Union in 1994. It is interesting to note that neither Hodne nor Berggreen mention the Sami as a foreign threat. Nor do they mention the efforts of the Norwegian Labour governments to assimilate them: through denying them their language, their religion in short their culture. See also Minde (1994) for a description of the Sami political mobilisation 1900 1940. See, for example, the statement by Nielsen and Vinje in 1859: Culturen har gjordt forskjell p folk der det ikke var det fr (quoted in Berggreen 1989: 156). In the struggle to create a certain idea of an overarching sameness, it is interesting to note what are considered the signicant differences. According to Hodne (1995), the central issues permeating the Norwegian public debate on culture in the decade preceding the Second World War were language, alcohol, the church, school policies and the issues of centre and periphery (the rural urban divide). Not much has changed since! Historically and at present the issue of language is critical; the nal compromise was to recognise two written standards of Norwegian: bokml and New Norwegian. Re Wikan (1996) Kommet for pendle and Borchgrevinks comments (1997). The slogan ja til et fargerikt felleskap (yes to a colourful community) with its double meaning of race/colour and creativity has been launched in order to mark the inclusion of others in a mutually grounded notion of community.

13 14

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cultural (pan-human) understanding.17 Maybe a lofty and somewhat idealised goal but, I believe, a well intended one. Both international development assistance and the processes and problems related to integrating non-Anglo-European migrants and their Norwegian children into the Norwegian society confront Norwegians with specic forms of otherness. However, whereas the former has to do with peoples out there, the latter has to do with people right here. I do not know whether it is the specic localisation of the peoples concerned that inuence the view that anthropologists espouse (cf. the discussion of doing anthropology at home: Strathern 1987; Vike and Hovland 1996; Melhuus 1997; and Borchgrevink 1997), whether it is a question of times and trends, or whether it is the personal conviction of the individual anthropologist that ultimately informs the position one defends. Perhaps, it is all of these or none. Nevertheless, there are some interesting differences with respect to the views held of the concept of culture, and the suggestions for policy that follow from these views. With respect to development assistance, anthropologists have argued (and successfully too) that any development project, in order to reach its goals and be in line with the overall aims of Norwegian aid policy have to take into account cultural differences. However, in the debates about immigrants that have dominated Norwegian media, anthropologists are arguing against notions of culture. Whereas cultural relativism has informed the former position, cultural essentialism informs the latter. The arguments are differently grounded and I will return to these below. Arne Martin Klausen has been directly involved in drafting policy documents which address the concept of culture. One is a commissioned report on Socio-cultural factors in development assistance and the other is the White Paper to Parliament on Cultural Affairs (Kultur i Tiden: St. medl. 61, 91 2). Klausens conceptualisation of culture, which is reiterated in both these documents rests on a distinction between what he calls the normative (narrow) and the descriptive (broad) denitions of culture.18 The normative concept of culture is grounded in the notion of cultivation foredle and would correspond to that notion which underlies the enlightenment project. This notion involves some qualitative aspect which not only classies
17 This notion of cultural broker, anthropologist as interpreter, is premised on the understanding that not only do there exist systematic variations in the way people perceive their life-worlds and organise their societies, but that it is possible to establish points of recognition across the differences. 18 Klausens notion of culture is that which is formulated in his book Kultur, Mnster og Kaos (1992), which is a more than revised version of his earlier book, Kultur (1970). The latter was a result of a series of lectures he gave for development workers in the 1960s; by the eighth edition, it had a printrun of 40,000. This book became part of the xed curriculum in Norwegian secondary schools and it was also used in a correspondence course (brevskole) and study plan developed by his wife, Liv Klausen. This course was subscribed to by study circles organised by particular womens groups (husmorlag) all over the country as well as by conscripted soldiers doing their military service. According to Klausen (personal comment) the book became et ledd i folkeopplysningen (i.e an element in popular education). The 1992 edition was a result of his involvement in the planning of a new curriculum for teacher training colleges. For a comment on Klausens and anthropologists inuence on dening culture in Norwegian society, see the debate between Klausen and Wiggen (Wiggen 1993; Klausen 1994). Wiggen accuses Klausen of introducing the anthropological notion of culture to the debate on culture, not only confusing the debate (which according to Wiggen should be about the ne arts) but, more importantly, allowing greater room for political manipulation.

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something as culture (or as cultural activity) but does so on the basis of certain aesthetic criteria. The descriptive concept of culture is that which seeks to convey the ideas, values, and shared understandings of right and wrong, ugly and beautiful in a society.19 It is supposedly value neutral. Klausen distinguishes these two notions of culture by designating one as cultural sector (on a par with other sectors such as politics, economy, health etc.) and the other as culture as an aspect of all sectors in society. Whereas the former encompasses the arts and the institutions housing these cultural expressions, the latter concept of culture, he says, is one that is used in the social sciences, particularly social anthropology. In discussing this concept of culture (in the context of development) Klausen chooses to relate it to what has been termed in the Norwegian context the extended concept of culture, and been applied to cultural affairs within the country.20 This extended notion of culture was an attempt to see a cultural dimension, or a cultural aspect, in the activities of every sector of society. A sound cultural policy should, therefore, cut across societys sectoral boundaries (1995: 8). The notion of the extended concept of culture as applied to cultural affairs had already been introduced in the 1970s and was a direct reection of the debates concerning high v. popular culture, resulting in a popularisation and democratisation of culture (understood as ne arts) and cultural politics. These policies stressed egenaktivitet literally, self-activity, i.e. each persons own participation as a value in its own right; youth activities and sports were dened as culture on a par with the arts, theatre etc. This reorienting of cultural affairs is a rst step towards an allinclusive concept of culture culture as an aspect of all activities where culture becomes whatever people choose to dene as culture. The problem, of course, is that if everything is culture and culture becomes those activities that are dened as creative is some way, then there is no way of discerning quality or distinguishing between qualitatively different activities: hence a painting by Munch or Nedrum is a cultural expression on a par with winning the Para-olympics. There is no difference culturally speaking, they are the same. Klausens point, however, is that this sense of culture approaches the social scientic understanding of culture (and according to others, serves to undermine the real meaning of culture, cf. Wiggen 1993). By relating these two political domains (cultural affairs and development), Klausen brings together not only two very different spheres of Norwegian politics, but also seeks to gain acceptance for a particular perception of culture as generally useful for policy making. Although Klausen is insistent about the difference between understanding, explanation and acceptance, stressing the distinction between a moral relativism and the cultural relativism implied in systematic comparison, his descriptive notion of
19 The White Paper on Immigration and the multicultural Norway (St.meld. nr 17, 1996 7) gives its own denition of culture. It states: Culture is the sum of knowledge that is transferred from one generation to the next through a dynamic process. That knowledge consists in values, customs, norms, codes, symbols and expressions. The dynamic aspect of culture is expressed through the ability to adapt to new conditions, to new creations and in the ability to nd new ways of articulating insights and experience. Hence, culture is not static or locked, but continually changing (St.meld 17: 8; my more or less literal translation). 20 See also Hodnes brief discussion of Kulturbrevet (literally culture letter) of 1945, which outlined central cultural policies to be pursued in the wake of the war (Hodne 1995: 156ff.).

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culture, I suggest, has been assimilated into the public discourses as an essentialist one. What was intended as a contribution to the complex work of cultural translation, to battle rampant ethnocentrism and hence enhance cross-cultural communication has somehow been transformed in its meeting with dominating indigenous ideas of culture at home. This becomes most apparent in the debates about the culture of immigrant groups. The paradoxical situation, then, is that the extended notion of culture (which is applied to cultural affairs, and would refer to Klausens normative concept of culture) is the one which is at work erasing some differences by making each and any cultural manifestation of equal value. Culture in this sense is something that everyone has access to, through his or her own activities; thus, seemingly, culture no longer operates so as to divide people. The descriptive notion of culture, however, which seeks to relativise contexts of meaning, and render them mutually intelligible, has come to anchor essentialist views of differences. It has obviously fallen on fertile ground, being nourished by indigenous conceptions of culture as something unique, corresponding to that notion which distinguishes, orders, classies and hence excludes. The interesting question is where human rights (which is an essential part of Norwegian public rhetoric) ts in.

The end of culture?

The debates in Norway on migrants and their culture (and the anthropologists contribution to the same) can, perhaps, be better understood in light of the above processes. The local debates on the integration of immigrants confronts these two meanings and applications of culture. Not only is the essentialist concept of culture working hard; so also is the extended concept of culture. Respect for the others culture has, according to some, reached untenable proportions, and it is about time we (and it is implicit who this we is) demand respect for our culture too! At the same time, policies are being drawn up to facilitate and encourage cultural manifestations and cultural activities of Norwegians of foreign origin. The argument is that this will enrich our culture! (And who denes us? What, again, is this implicit collective we?) These stimulants (tiltak) are coupled by an educational policy that has denied the Muslims a right to build their own school; the substitution of different religious instructions in schools (including the right to be taught ethics instead of religion), for broadly Christian learning; and a heated discussion about the teaching of a mother language in state schools (cf. Wikan 1995: 58ff.). However, what remains unclear (to me) is what it is that informs the, at any time dominating, concept of culture. Is it the context (e.g. out there v. back here) which informs the workings of the notion of culture or is it the other way around: the operative notion of culture is that which informs the perception of context? Can we perceive a shift in attitudes or is it just a shifting of gure and ground which is occurring? Two anthropologists (Wikan and Eriksen) have been particularly active in these debates, drawing much public attention.21 Their activities and the responses they have
21 The publication of Wikans book, Mot en ny norsk underklasse, in 1995 caused a stir in the media and also in academia. For a critical comment, see Brochmann and Rogstad 1996. Eriksens book Det nye endebildet (1995) also drew attention, although to a much lesser extent than Wikans. I have about 50 newspaper clippings (1995 6) which are somehow related to these books or the issues they address (and there are surely some I have missed). These, together with the books and debates I have seen or attended, are the materials from which I base my arguments.

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provoked are socially signicant phenomena on how the concept of culture operates in Norway. Whereas Wikan has been engaged in inuencing policy, Eriksen has been more concerned with inuencing opinion. Both Wikan and Eriksen have culture as their theme; both aim to demonstrate how culture operates; both deplore the political function of culture to discriminate and order relations among people and both disavow the this is my culture excuse/ explanation, as a moral grounding of signicant acts, in particular those that run contrary to human rights. Wikan is concerned with what she calls kulturfundamentalisme cultural fundamentalism, intent on demonstrating that culture has come to substitute race as a basis for discrimination. Eriksen is concerned with those ideologies which bring forth particular ideas of what he calls cultural terrorism. His is a crusade against any unequivocal categorisation of people and his demand that politics be freed from notions of cultural communities.22 However, whereas Wikan (more or less) discards the concept of culture (and to some extent identity) as having any relevant analytical validity, preferring instead the concept of (individual) respect, Eriksen still nds relevance for this concept as an analytic term. Moreover, whereas Wikan isolates the individual as the only meaningful category, Eriksen insists on the relation. Finally, whereas Wikan dismisses cultural relativism as a method, Eriksen insists that this is a necessary analytical tool. Thus, we have a situation where anthropologists seem to agree as to the empirical reality i.e. what an indigenous discourse of culture is and does but disagree as to what the empirical reality implies for anthropological theory (and by implication anthropological practice). Wikans position, if I read her correctly, is that the critique of the concept of culture within anthropology should be brought to bear on the concept of culture as it is used by Norwegian men and women (of whatever ethnic background) in their daily dealings with each other. In her view, culture in Norway is a concept we (i.e. ethnic Norwegians) use to describe them, but which we never use in order to describe ourselves. Thus the rhetorics of culture, in addition to being the language and the mooring of the powerful, are also the ultimate grounding of otherness (while simultaneously functioning to distribute pain). Culture, in her view, is more than difference it is racist. Wikan is particularly concerned with Muslims (in Norway) and specically Muslim women and children, a marginalised group, whose voices are never heard (if they are even raised). She is explicitly normative. Her main agenda is to make their life situation better in Norway. Thus she speaks (and writes) on behalf of them. Wikan nds a collusion, created in the name of culture, between the Norwegian state and powerful Muslim men that is detrimental to women and children. She not only raises the important distinctions of gender and class (which have been all but absent from many of these debates) but she uses these distinctions to demonstrate the inadequacy of culture as having any explanatory value. In order, then, to work out policies that will truly integrate Muslims into Norwegian society, notions of cultural difference (understood as attributes of a collective having a culture) should be substituted for a notion of sameness or equality23 based on mutual respect between individuals (and not each
22 He asks rhetorically: when will it be possible to be colour blind without being called a rat, traitor or bourgeois idealist? When will it be possible not only to have an identity, but to be allowed not to have one? (Eriksen 1993: 59) 23 In Norwegian these two concepts are covered by one term: likhet.

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others cultures). In her understanding, integration implies an obligation on the part of immigrants to function according to Norwegian values and to learn Norwegian (Wikan 1995: 146).24 Several problems arise when she subsantiates her argument. However, as my concern is to pursue the concept of culture and not the debates on policies of integration my attention is drawn toward those aspects which shift the focus from them to us. This has to do with what being Norwegian means; it has to do with the the claim that there are basic values (such as freedom and equality) which are specically Norwegian, which at the same time are universal (Wikan 1995: 184ff.); and it has to do with doing anthropology and doing politics, and the slippage that occurs between what is and what ought to be. I do not believe that we can (in the name of anthropology) dissolve an empirical reality of perceived cultural differences by proclaiming equality between individuals based on mutual respect. This can only be done in the name of politics. Nor do I think that a critique of anthropology can necessarily be applied as a critique of an empirical reality. The problem, as I see it, is that not only does Wikan conate an is with an ought to be, but also that in so doing, she raises the content of the ought to something beyond question. In arguing against culture as something that is she is at the same time arguing for individual respect as something that ought to be without examining the (cultural) premises for the latter. In this move she reies the notion of Norwegian, an act she is not alone in committing. In her eagerness to convey an indigenous use of culture as essentialist, obscuring and discriminating (a view I share) Wikan overlooks or forgets to examine critically her own conceptualisations. My point in stressing this is not only that her understanding corroborates many Norwegians understanding (and hence is in line with indigenous discourse) but rather, that this same understanding also informs Wikan. In other words, contrary to Wikan, who claims that culture is a concept we (ethnic Norwegians) only use to denote them, I believe that the way the concept of culture is used to designate otherness springs out of a rooted understanding of culture that applies to us; moreover, such a concept of culture (the implicit in the we) is a prerequisite for any notion of them. This is not to say that ethnic Norwegians all agree as to what this culture is, but being Norwegian does seem to imply more than having a Norwegian passport. The question remains, of course, what this more is all about (and how we go about nding it). It is not just about accepting the fundamental values of freedom and equality these are not specically Norwegian values, although some might like to think so (nevertheless, I would argue that they gain specic connotations in the Norwegian context). Unless we are willing to critically apprehend that or those indigenous meanings, which underpin an exclusive and not an inclusive we, it is not possible to grasp the insidious ways culture works (and will continue to work) to distinguish those who are somehow seen as foreigners, nuturing insinuations that they are not good Norwegians.25 Hence, the problem of self-reference is critical. It implies taking the self seriously, not as a navel-gazing
24 Wikans focus is on Muslim children and the thrust of her argument is directed at how they can become (good) Norwegian citizens. Her views echo those of the Enlightenment (dannelses) project which were precisely grounded in class and education. Muslim children must rst and foremost learn Norwegian, and the school system must be organised so as to strengthen their integration into Norwegian society. 25 These arguments are also Eriksens; see Borchgrevink 1997.

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exercise but in the way it implicates notions of others. And there is still much to be done along these lines. Through her arguments, Wikan also conates an indigenous discourse with an anthropological one (or is it the other way round?) making it very unclear whether anthropology is part of the problem, or part of the solution. That many Norwegians have an essentialist concept of culture cannot be sufcient reason to refute cultural relativism as a method for anthropological practice. To my mind, that is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Wikans argument, that cultural relativism is an ideology that anchors rituals as meaningful, rather than gruesome, is grounded in an understanding that meaning and power are intrinsically linked; as long as an understanding of culture is tied to meaning, it is ipso facto tied to power and the distribution of suffering. Yet, we may ask: Does the rendering of the concept of culture as obsolete alleviate suffering? And will people stop investing ritual acts with meaning, just because anthropologists choose to overlook them? And do we not have an obligation to understand people in so far as they understand themselves? Is not contextualisation an imperative for anthropology? And does such a perspective deny any focus on class and power or the distribution of pain? That anthropology has been ridden by a totalising notion of culture does not alter the means that anthropology has to operate at the interface between different systems of meaning bridging a gap and by so doing recognising that such systematic differences exist and that these differences can be made mutually intelligible. Wikan has no concept of difference to offer Norwegians: instead, she offers respect and an empty notion of the individual. To my mind, respect is not a substitute for difference; it is, rather, a professional prerequisite.

The outsider is inside

There is no doubt that the present situation in Norway demands some rethinking on the part of anthropologists, and Wikan has delivered food for thought. This rethinking must include both historical and comparative work. This multicultural society not only confuses the anthropological agenda, it also broadens it. Moreover, it does not reduce the problem of cultural interpretation and translation it only makes the task different (Borchgrevink 1997). This has to do with the establishing of the relevant context and the fact that the cultural differences usually ascribed to being out there now are inscribed as being right here. It has to do with the establishing of a we and the right to dene whom and on what grounds the we is constituted. Thus it has to do with us. In so far as the basis for incorporation of cultural others is equality and sameness, the specic content and meanings of these notions must be critically examined in order to disclose what the premises for being equal are perceived to be, for us and them. It has to do with locating the interface that operative space from where anthropological knowledge can be produced, a space which does not necessarily imply the end of culture. And it has to do with recognising and exploring whether anthropology at home is qualitatively different from anthropology elsewhere in its practice and in its implications for anthropological theorising. In a newspaper article, Naushad Ali Qureshi and Atta Ansari (1996) launch an attack on Norwegian research on immigrants (to Norway) in general, and on anthropological research in particular. They attack the notion of expert knowledge,

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claiming that so-called innvandringsforskning (i.e. immigrant research), has almost solely been carried out by ethnic Norwegians and that immigrants generally gure as informants, their lives and their views forming the basis for PhD and masters theses, and future academic careers. Despite a rhetoric to the contrary, they claim, immigrants are never themselves included as partners in a dialogue, never asked to formulate their problems or dene the necessary research projects in their own terms, and never asked to propose solutions. They accuse researchers of focusing solely on the problems that migrants may have as they are viewed from, and formulated by, the ofcial Norway: i.e. through government statements and policies. They see researchers colluding with the state, working against immigrants rather than for them.26 This is criticism that must be taken seriously. These kinds of arguments and accusations are not new to anthropologists. We have heard them before and much of the painstaking anthropological reexivity over the past decades springs out of recognition that the anthropological endeavour is tainted by colonialism, positions of power, a hegemony of western knowledge systems and the twin roots of Enlightenment and Romanticism (those ur-harbours of concepts of culture). The responses from the anthropological community to these claims have been various, but two effects are notable. Anthropologists are now more forcefully obliged to take a stand on the type of anthropology they wish to practice. We are made accountable for the knowledge we produce in other ways than before and sometimes even for the ends to which this knowledge is put to use. Moreover, it seems that the very concept of culture however notorious and contested has become a summarising one in the sense that it has come to represent a kind of watershed within the anthropological community.27 There is an interest in culture. Yet, the nal point I wish to make is this (dropping all quotation marks): the outsider is now an insider she not only speaks our language, she is also cognisant. She knows something that we dont. She has access to life-worlds that are different to ours. She sees Norway from a different perspective than many ethnic Norwegians. She is a social phenomenon that speaks for herself. She is a native speaking in her own tongue to us and to them. She may also make her demands known in terms of culture. For anthropologists, this situation demands care. In order not to become part of the problem, we must continue to relativise, to contextualise. Otherwise, we risk giving natural connotations to that which is cultural; and on the way, losing our analytical distance, a prerequisite for any anthropological practice. The greatest challenge to the anthropologist working at home is to be born native and not go bush.
Marit Melhuus Institute of Social Anthropology University of Oslo PO Box 1091 Blindern N-0317 Oslo, Norway

26 This article is one of a series of articles that have been published in response to Unni Wikans book Mot en ny norsk underklasse. Innvandrere, kultur og integrasjon (1995). The article specically addresses her book and challenges the anthropological community in Norway to come forth and make their views known. 27 In a sense. Tell me what views you have on culture and I will tell you what kind of anthropologist you are!

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