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Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object by Johannes Fabian
Review by: George E. Marcus
Source: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 86, No. 4 (Dec., 1984), pp. 1023-1025
Published by: on behalf of the Wiley American Anthropological Association
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GENERAL / THEORETICAL 1023
General/Theoretical
Time and the Other: How
Anthropology
Makes Its
Object.Johannes
Fabian. New York:
Columbia
University
Press,
1983. xv
+
205
pp.
$28.00 (cloth).
George
E. Marcus
Rice
University
During
the 1960s and
early
1970s,
self-
conscious
critiques
within
Anglo-American
an-
thropology developed
on three fronts. A cri-
tique
of
paradigm reshaped
the
study
of culture
and
society according
to
symbolic
and struc-
turalist
perspectives.
A
critique
of method
ap-
peared
in the
growth
of a literature on field-
work,
which while confessional and
celebratory,
exposed
the
vulnerability
of
anthropology's
claims to status as a social science. And there
was a
critique
of its
subject,
the isolated
primitive
Other,
through
historic connections
made between
anthropology
and Western co-
lonialism. While the first
critique
did
change
anthropological thinking
about
culture,
these
assaults from within had little effect on the
way
anthropologists
work-both in the field and in
the sort of
ethnographies they
have written.
Partly,
this was because the
critiques
were un-
coordinated,
but most
importantly,
it was
because
they partook
of the
ideological
atmos-
phere
and the
hopes
for or fears of radical social
change
characteristic of that
period.
The cri-
tiques
failed to address the level of
practice,
and
more
precisely,
the
way
that
anthropologists
constitute their
subjects
in
ethnographic
and
theoretical
writing.
Now, however,
more
powerful
versions of
these earlier
critiques
have come
together
in the
writing
of accounts derived from fieldwork
by
those who were
graduate
students
during
the
1960s and 1970s and for whom the recent
putatively antipositivist interpretive
fashion in
cultural
analysis
has been formative.
Framing
the
ethnographic
works of writers such as
Rosaldo, Rabinow,
Crapanzano,
Dumont,
and
Taussig, among
others, are
attempts
to
apply
and
express
in
practice
the different strains of
critique
that
appeared during
the 1960s. This is
a
period
of
experiments
in
ethnographic writing
in the absence of either a
unifying
debate at the
level of
high theory
or an
adequate
metastate-
ment about the current transformation of an-
thropological practice occurring
in the
writing
of critical
ethnography
itself.
Johannes
Fabian's Time and the Other is a
profound
and ambitious effort to
provide
such a
systematic
metastatement which delivers a
radical
epistemological critique
of
anthropolog-
ical
writing.
In a 1971 article,
Fabian was an
early
voice in
pointing
the
critique
of anthro-
pology
toward an examination of its discourse.
Now he has
attempted
to
expand
a focused
argument
into a
general critique.
His book
ap-
pears
after Edward Said's similar but less
precise
argument
in
Orientalism,
and when the
point
of
his
critique
is
already being
more or less suc-
cessfully
taken to heart in the trend of
experi-
mentation with the
thoroughly challenged
con-
ventions of
ethnographic writing.
Central to Fabian's
argument
is the
discrep-
ancy
between the here and now
reality
of field-
work and the
way
that
anthropologists
write
about their
subjects
in accounts derived from it.
Fieldwork involves
engagement
between
ethnographer
and
subject,
an
intersubjective
sharing
of the same historic time and
space--
what Fabian terms
coevalness--while
ethno-
graphic
rhetoric has
systematically
distanced
the
subjects
of
fieldwork,
primarily by denying
the
contemporaneity
of
subjects
and
placing
them in
temporal
frames other than that en-
compassing
the
ethnographer
and her reader-
ship.
Fabian's book is
largely
concerned with
demonstrating
how this denial of
coevalness,
as
he calls
it,
has been
accomplished
in
anthropo-
logical writing.
This denial has served to block
anthropology's
awareness of its own
politicized
context and intellectual
history.
Fabian views
this
epistemological critique
of rhetoric as essen-
tial in
clearing
the
way
for
transforming
what
anthropologists
write about.
In
expanding
this core
insight
about
temporal
distancing
into a
general critique,
Fabian
assigns
himself the task of
providing
a
system-
atic, abstract account of how Time
(with
a
capital T)
has infused the
development
of an-
thropology.
His first
chapter provides
a
history
of
temporalizing
rhetoric in
anthropology.
He
demonstrates how sacred
Judeo-Christian
time
became secularized in
European
intellectual
history, culminating
in the influential evolu-
tionary
frame of
thought
in the 19th
century,
which
spatialized
time. This
spatialization
had
unfortunate
consequences
for the human
sciences,
such as
anthropology,
in that
subjects
were naturalized and denied
meaning
in a
historical sense.
Although
functionalist-based
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1024 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST
[86, 1984]
anthropology
freed itself from an
evolutionary
paradigm,
a subtle
legacy
remained embedded
nonetheless in the
way subjects
were conceived
in
ethnography
-
they
remained
temporally
dis-
tanced from the
ethnographer, despite
the
im-
mediacy
of fieldwork. As Fabian
says (p. 18),
"Primitive
being essentially
a
temporal concept,
is a
category,
not an
object
of Western
thought"
(p. 18).
Chapter
2 is an account of the denial of
coevalness in two theoretical frameworks that
have
guided
modern
anthropology:
cultural
relativism and structuralism. Fabian's
labeling
of
paradigms
is
idiosyncratic
and his choice of
examples
seems
arbitrary (for example,
he
misses a substantial tradition of Marxist
ethnog-
raphy
and
sociolinguistic ethnography,
which
though
still
subject
to the sort of
political
cri-
tique
Fabian is
making,
are not as
guilty
of the
denial of
coevalness).
However,
he
effectively
shows how the
intersubjectivity
of fieldwork has
been circumscribed or
preempted
in culture
theory
and structuralism.
Throughout
his cri-
tique,
Fabian intimates that
although
not
politically
motivated,
the denial of coevalness
has had the effect of
making
the
major para-
digms
of
anthropology inherently reactionary.
Chapter
3
probes
the rhetoric of
temporal
distancing
in
ethnographic writing.
This
chapter
and the next are his most
original
and
cogent.
The two
keys
to
temporal distancing
of
the
subject
are the
positing
of the
ethnographic
present
and the elimination of the autobio-
graphical
first
person
in
ethnographic writing.
The first
accomplishes
the
spatialization
of
time,
and the latter serves to
deny
the
dialogic
engagement,
and thus the
contemporaneity,
of
the fieldwork situation.
Chapter
4,
the most
original
and
profound
in
the
book,
takes a
long
view of the determinants
of
ethnographic
rhetoric. One is the
spatializa-
tion of time
previously
discussed,
and the
other,
associated with
spatialization,
is the "rhetoric of
vision"
deep
in the
prehistory
of Western science
which favors visual
metaphors
over those de-
rived from other senses such as the aural/oral.
Thus,
anthropologists
tend to write about field-
work and data more in terms of observation
than
participation.
The bias for the visual en-
tails the
temporal distancing
of the
subject
so
central to Fabian's
argument.
The
inspiration
for this
chapter
is the work of Frances Yates and
Walter
Ong (in anthropology,
this
critique
is
being
most
radically pursued by Stephen Tyler).
Fabian ends this
chapter
with a
convincing
critique
of the other
major paradigmatic
fashion in
contemporary anthropology: sym-
bolic
analysis, especially
semiotics.
Symbolic
an-
thropology
is the most
sophisticated
realization
of the culture
concept,
which,
as Fabian has
shown,
is founded on
temporal distancing
strategies. Symbolic analysis
functions as an
anxiety-reducing
mechanism that attributes
ambiguity
and conflict in social life to
symbolic
process
itself rather than to historic
processes
of
event and action which current culture theories
obscure.
This discussion of
symbolic analysis
as the
climax of culture
theory,
founded on the denial
of
coevalness,
leads Fabian in conclusion to the
proposal
of an alternative. The
overemphasis
on
cultural
representations
of
practical
activities
must now be balanced
by
attention to
praxis,
to
the activities themselves that
produce symbols
and cultural
meanings.
Production becomes Fa-
bian's
keyword, analysis
in terms of which he
believes will shatter the embedded
strategies
of
denying
the
contemporaneity
of the ethno-
graphic subject.
He thus arrives at a
position
much like that
espoused by
Pierre Bourdieu and
Anthony
Giddens,
in works addressed more to
the
enterprise
of social
theory
itself than to
research
practice.
Indeed,
there is
something
generally appealing
now to
anthropologists
in
this focus on
practice, perhaps
as a needed
swing
of the
pendulum away
from
symbolic ap-
proaches,
but as
yet
no
adequate
statement ex-
ists of what the
melding
of
interpretive,
mean-
ing approaches
with the hard-core concerns of
political economy
and a
sociology
of action
would mean for the
anthropologist's
own
prax-
is -what
changes might
occur in
fieldwork,
and
more
importantly,
in the
way
that
ethnography
is written.
Focusing mainly
on
critique,
Fabian
is all too brief in
explaining
his
praxis
alterna-
tive. But
perhaps defining
this alternative is less
a task for theoretical discussion and metastate-
ment than it is for the
writing
of
experimentally
constructed
ethnography
itself.
Fabian, then,
has succeeded
brilliantly
in
capturing
and
thoroughly exposing
one central
dimension of
anthropological practice
which
has led to a
growing
trend of dissatisfaction with
it,
but as a
general epistemological critique,
his
book is flawed. Fabian demands too much from
his reader: he substitutes an
idiosyncratic, per-
sonal
jargon
for
existing
conventional
jargon;
there is much
repetition
and a
zigzag
construc-
tion to the book that allows him to hit some of
his
targets squarely
while
making
his
critique
oblique
with
regard
to others. For
example,
he
fails to
provide
a
major
focused
critique
of the
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GENERA L / THEORETICAL 1025
culture
concept,
instead
weaving
around it
by
cleaving
to his central focus on time.
Moving
from the coevalness
problem
to a
general expo-
sition on time in
anthropological thought
is a
flawed
strategy
of
general critique,
since time as
a theme cannot
encompass, except obliquely
and
awkwardly,
all the dimensions that account
for the
predicaments
of
theory
and
practice
in
contemporary
sociocultural
anthropology.
Ruth Benedict: Patterns of a Life.
Judith
Schachter Modell.
Philadelphia: University
of
Pennsylvania
Press,
1983. x + 355
pp. n.p.
(cloth).
L. L.
Langness
UCLA
As a
fairly
avid reader of both
biography
and
the
history
of
anthropology,
I am
pleased
with
this new and more detailed
biography
of Ruth
Benedict. It is a welcome addition to the
slowly
growing
list of
biographies
of
anthropologists
and also to the
history
of the
profession.
It is all
here,
as it
says
on the dust
jacket,
"Her
partial
deafness from childhood;
her barren and emo-
tionless
marriage;
her self-doubt but
increasing
confidence . . .;
her
years
as a close friend and
colleague
of
Margaret
Mead;
the influences of
two world wars . .
.;
her
authorship
of the best-
selling
Patterns
of Culture....
." The
chronology
of Benedict's
life,
already pretty
much
known,
is fleshed
out,
details from her
diaries and
poetry
are
included,
and one does
get
a better sense of Benedict the
person
and the
anthropologist.
Even
so,
for all its
detail,
there
is
something dissatisfying
about the book.
First,
I take
exception
to Modell's statement
that
"every biography
is constrained
by
chronol-
ogy" (p. 2).
While it is
obviously
true that
every
life has a
beginning,
middle and
end,
I see no
reason other than somewhat
thoughtless (prob-
ably Western-European)
convention
why every
biography
has to be
presented strictly
chrono-
logically.
I would like to see much more
experi-
mentation with the
genre
and I believe this
par-
ticular work
might
well have been
improved
had
it not been forced into the standard format.
Although
this is a criticism that
might
well be
directed at most
biographers,
there are other
more
specific problems
with the work.
Modell's
attempt
to
portray
Benedict as an
early
feminist I find
unconvincing. Although
it
is
obviously
true that as a sensitive and brilliant
woman and wife she reflected
upon problems
of
role and
identity,
there is
nothing
in the book
itself to
justify
Benedict as feminist.
Similarly,
Modell remarks that Linton and
Benedict did not
get along
at Columbia and did
not like each other. We
may
well surmise that
obvious
problems
were created
by bringing
Lin-
ton in as chairman when Benedict would have
been a
logical
choice had she not been
female,
but there is no other
explanation
or detail of-
fered about this
relationship
or whatever con-
sequences
were
ultimately generated by
it. In
general, although
Modell does discuss
Benedict's
relationships
with other
anthropol-
ogists
such as
Boas,
Sapir,
Mead, and Malinow-
ski, there
is,
unfortunately
I
think,
far too little
on these
relationships
and
perhaps
too much on
her
poetry
and humanism.
I do not think the book is "a fair balance of
dispassion
and
empathy" (p. ix),
as the author
claims. Her admiration for Benedict is all too
apparent throughout
and it is not as critical as
one would
expect
a "critical
biography"
to be.
Indeed,
in the course of her
writing
this
biog-
raphy
Modell
reports
that she "became a Bene-
dictian
anthropologist" (p. 12), hardly convey-
ing
a sense of
dispassionate objectivity.
On a more
positive
note,
I found the
chapter
on folklore and
mythology
most
rewarding,
perhaps
because this is a side of Benedict I knew
little
about,
but I think more
probably
because
of the link Modell demonstrates between Bene-
dict's work on folklore and the
philosophy
behind Patterns
of
Culture and her
approach
to
anthropology
in
general.
I would
certainly
not want to
give
the
impres-
sion that the book is not a welcome and worth-
while
accomplishment
even
though
to me it has
its
shortcomings.
It is a readable and
insightful
portrait
of a
gifted,
influential,
and reflective
anthropologist.
The Invention of Tradition. Eric Hobsbawm
and Terence
Ranger,
eds. London:
Cambridge
University
Press, 1983. vii + 320
pp.
$29.95
(cloth).
Richard Handler
Lake Forest
College
The idea of invented tradition seems
by
defi-
nition
contradictory,
for "tradition" is
usually
understood as that which is handed down un-
changed
from the
past.
Yet the
ascendancy
of
ethnicity
as a focus of research has accustomed
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