An Invitation to Anthropology: The Structure, Evolution and Cultural Identity of Human Societies 9781782387503

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An Invitation to Anthropology

An Invitation to Anthropology The Structure, Evolution and Cultural Identity of Human Societies Josep R. Llobera

Berghahn Books New York • Oxford

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First published in 2003 by Berghahn Books www.BerghahnBooks.com

Editorial offices: 604 W. 115th Street, New York, NY, 10025 3 Newtec Place, Magdalen Road, Oxford OX4 1RE ©2003, 2007 Josep R. Llobera Paperback edition reprinted in 2007 All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of Berghahn Books.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Llobera, Josep R. An invitation to anthropology : the structure, evolution, and cultural identity of human societies / Josep R. Llobera p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-57181-597-X (cl.: alk. paper) – ISBN 1-57181-598-8 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Anthropology. I. Title. GN25 L38 2003 301—dc21

2002034457

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Printed in the United States on acid-free paper

ISBN 1-57181-597-X hardback ISBN 1-57181-598-8 paperback

Contents Introduction Aims Bibliography

vii viii viii

MODULE 1 The scope and method of anthropology Introduction Aims 1. Definitions 2. The sub-disciplines of anthropology 3. The concept of culture 4. Ethnography 5. The uses of history in anthropology 6. Sociology and social/cultural anthropology 7. The historical and comparative method 8. Fads and foibles of anthropology Summary Essay questions Test questions Bibliography Answers to test questions

1 1 2 2 4 7 9 11 13 14 18 26 27 28 28 30

MODULE 2 Conceptual and institutional overview Introduction Aims 1. Economics 2. Kinship 3. Person, self and individual 4. Religion Summary Essay questions Test questions Bibliography Answers to test questions

31 31 32 33 37 51 73 83 83 83 84 86

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MODULE 3 The evolution and structure of human societies Introduction Aims 1. Darwin’s theory of evolution 2. The human legacy: adapted mind or adaptable mind? 3. The study of humanity: assumptions, theories and typologies 4. Hunting and gathering, horticultural and pastoral societies 5. Agrarian societies 6. Industrial societies: the making of the mpdern world Summary Essay questions Test questions Bibliography Answers to test questions

87 87 88 88 97 103 114 130 155 174 175 175 176 181

MODULE 4 The politics of cultural identity: nationalism, ethnicity, race and multiculturalism Introduction Aims 1. Definitions 2. Nations and nationalism 3. Ethnicity 4. Race 5. The politics of multiculturalism Summary Essay questions Test questions Bibliography Answers to test questions

183 183 184 184 187 202 217 233 240 240 240 241 244

EPILOGUE Anthropology and the contemporary world 1. The anthropology of Europe 2. The process of cultural globalisation 3. Looking at the future: a clash of civilisations? Bibliography Index

245 245 250 252 255 256

Introduction This is an introductory course to social anthropology, which has a long pedigree in the United Kingdom and in the United States (where it is called cultural anthropology). Social anthropology is part of a wider, more generalising endeavour called anthropology. While in the past social anthropology had a clearly defined object of study – it dealt mostly with so called ‘primitive’ societies by means of fieldwork – at present the lines are much more blurred. If social anthropologists are no longer confined to the study of exotic societies, presently they have to compete with other social scientists, mostly sociologists, in these pursuits. In so far as they look at the past, and that happens now regularly, social anthropologists share the same reality as historians. Since the 1970’s the scope of social anthropology has been widening, taking on areas which lie within, the avowed general objective of anthropology: the study of humanity past and present. The shock of the end of the colonial order, in which social anthropology had tended to operate for the study of exotic peoples, forced a re-orientation of the subject matter. Social anthropologists began to take an interest not only in small-scale, simple, alien societies, but also in the world of modernity. A list of topics, taken by chance from a recent edited book, varies from anthropology and the contemporary world, to Aids, gender, tourism, ethnic cleansing, cultural imperialism, the future of ethnography, and a discussion on whether or not there should be an applied anthropology. Social anthropologists are, then, present in all areas of cultural and social life, offering a special perspective which stems from their fieldwork experience; that is, from their first-hand knowledge of a community, whether a small village in the Amazon or the European Commission in Brussels. When they generalise, they join different theoretical traditions in sociology, psychology and biology. This course consists of four modules: the scope and method of anthropology, a conceptual and institutional overview, the evolution and structure of human societies and the politics of cultural identity. There is also an ‘Epilogue’ dealing with important current issues. Module 1 is about basic definitions, and concepts. It establishes the scientific framework within which social anthropology develops its activities. Module 2 presents a conceptual and institutional overview as seen by social anthropology.

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Module 3 constitutes the main part of the course. It presents an evolutionary framework within which to compare different types of societies: hunting-gathering, horticultural, pastoral, agrarian and industrial. Module 4 is a more specialised and detailed treatment of an important topic within anthropology: the cultural politics of race, ethnicity, nationalism and multiculturalism. Social anthropology is a vast subject. Inevitably, this book is very selective and cannot be seen as a complete introduction to social anthropology. To complement it, three American textbooks, which provide a comprehensive treatment of the subject, are included in the bibliography. The final choice of topics reflects my personal vision of the discipline. I have offered a bird’s eye view, a framework within which to think rationally about the discipline. On the other hand, I have also provided the student with ethnographic vignettes so that she or he can savour some of the societies considered. There is no substitute, however, for the reading of at least one ethnographic monograph.

Aims The main aims of this Invitation to Anthropology are the following: 1. To acquire the basic concepts and theoretical tools of the discipline. 2. To emphasise that social anthropology is a scientific endeavour. 3. To highlight the centrality of fieldwork in the discipline, but also to show how that social anthropology uses other research techniques. 4. To come to terms with the concept of culture as the capacity to symbolise which distinguishes humans from animals. 5. To describe basic cross-cultural institutions. 6. To describe and explain the main stages of the evolution of mankind. 7. To offer a distinctive and comparative perspective. 8. To account for the mechanisms that change one type of society to another.

Bibliography General textbooks Bodley, J.H. (1997) Cultural Anthropology: Tribes, States and the Global System. Mountain View, Cal.: Mayfield. Ember, M. and C. (1997) Cultural Anthropology. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall. Johnson, A.W. and Earle, T. (1987) The Evolution of Human Societies. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University Press.

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Ethnographies Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (1940) The Nuer. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lee, R.B. (2002) The Dobe Ju/’hoansi. New York: Wadsworth. Lévi-Strauss, C. (1955) Tristes Tropiques. Paris: Plon (English translation by John Weightman, A World on the Wane. London: Cape, 1974). For Module 1 Harris, M. (1999) Theories of Culture in Postmodern Times. Walnut Creek, Cal: Altamira Press. For Module 2 Kottak, C.P. (1996) Mirror for Humanity. New York: McGraw-Hill. For Module 3 Gellner, E. (1988) Plough, Sword, Book. London: Paladin. For Module 4 Anderson, B. (1991) Imagined Communities. London: Verso.

MODULE 1 The scope and method of anthropology

Introduction This is a short module which introduces anthropology to the student. The subject tries to answer a numbers of questions concerning the origins, development and structure of human societies. Using scientific methods, the discipline seeks to discover regularities in human behaviour, as well as to describe and explain human diversity. Anthropology deals with a great variety of topics; it is also related to other disciplines such as sociology, biology, psychology and linguistics. It is customary to distinguish two major anthropological fields: physical anthropology, and social and cultural anthropology. The former deals with the biological aspects of humanity, the latter with the study of socio-cultural similarities and differences. Culture is one of the key concepts of anthropology; it is what a person has to learn to become a member of a given society. Cultures or societies can be studied by different methods, but anthropology is particularly well-known for fieldwork – a research technique which consists of participating, observing and recording the life of a community. In the past, social and cultural anthropology dealt mainly with small, simple, exotic, non-western societies. This is no longer the case. Today anthropologists investigate industrialised as well as developing countries. They may be found studying a small band of hunter-gatherers in southeastern Africa or a ghetto in Harlem (New York), a small village in the forests of New Guinea or the European Parliament. Anthropologists look more and more at the past, not only as a way of explaining the present, but also for its own sake. The comparative method, which is the cornerstone of the generalising dimension of anthropology, is only feasible if we examine both past and contemporary societies. Recently, anthropology has been seriously affected by relativistic creeds: postmodernism, third-worldism and feminism. Influenced by

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certain French philosophies and by cultural criticism, some anthropologists are no longer concerned with causal explanations; they are only interested in subjective knowledge, interpretation and meaning.

Aims In this module we analyse the nature of anthropology, its research techniques and its relations to other disciplines. The students’ main objectives are the following: 1. To understand the nature of anthropology. 2. To have an idea of the different branches of the discipline. 3. To grasp the central concept of culture, while recognising its definitional imprecision. 4. To realise the great importance that fieldwork has for the discipline and to have an understanding of what fieldwork entails. 5. To be aware of the close connections between sociology and anthropology, as well as those between anthropology, biology and psychology. 6. To have a sound understanding of the comparative method. 7. To be critically acquainted with the main relativist approaches affecting anthropology today.

1. Definitions What is anthropology? I take it to be the integrative human and social science par excellence. As such it encompasses a social/cultural as well as a biological/psychological dimension, an evolutionary/historical as well as a comparative approach. Anthropology studies both the past and the present, primitive and traditional societies as well as modernity. No discipline but anthropology can better embody Terence’s classic motto: ‘Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto’ (‘I am a human being, nothing human is alien to me’). Two major traditions have coexisted in the history of anthropology: the first, scientific anthropology, is concerned with the description and explanation of phenomena; the second, humanistic anthropology, is concerned with the interpretation of cultures and with the elucidation of cultural meanings. My position is that anthropology is a science that aims at generalisations and causal explanations. Humanistic anthropology can be seen as complementary to the scientific activity; in the end, however, anthropology has to be objective and its propositions have to be subjected to the ordinary scientific tests. As we shall see, postmodernists and other relativists reject the possibility of an anthropological science.

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The foundations of anthropology were laid at the end of the nineteenth century. It was the work of evolutionary thinkers, inspired directly or indirectly by the Darwinian Revolution; pioneers such as Lewis H. Morgan and Edward B. Tylor, both with a modicum of firsthand knowledge of primitive societies, established the basis of the comparative method and made substantive contributions to anthropology. Tylor instituted anthropology as the science of culture. At the very beginning of his book Primitive Culture (1871) he wrote that ‘culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society’. Morgan was the founder of kinship studies. As an academic discipline anthropology was born in the first decades of this century. This was the time when studies of primitive societies were undertaken, theoretical positions were stated, a few university appointments were made and anthropological societies were established. Three countries were essentially involved in this foundational period: the United States of America, France and Britain. The patriarch of American anthropology was a German by the name of Franz Boas; he pioneered fieldwork, challenged evolutionism and emphasised the study of individual cultures. The most important American anthropologists of the first half of this century were influenced by Boas; anthropologists such as Alfred Kroeber, Robert Lowie, Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict and many others. The American Anthropological Association, which had 300 members in 1910, had 2,260 in 1950 and has more than 10,000 today. The approach adopted by Boas and his students is usually referred to as historical particularism, because they thought that the best way to explain a cultural fact was by referring to its historical antecedents. Because of its emphasis on cultural patterns, the discipline is known in the USA as cultural anthropology. In France the developments were of a different type. The Durkheimian School (Emile Durkheim, Marcel Mauss, Henri Hubert, Celestine Bouglé, François Simiand, Maurice Halbwachs and many others) established sociology on a scientific footing; Durkheim’s sociology was comprehensive, incorporating all the other social sciences. Methodologically, Durkheim defined social facts, showed how to construct and compare social types and taught how to formulate scientific hypothesis. Durkheim’s most fruitful assumption about society is that the social structure of a society shapes the ideas of this society. This he demonstrated in his outstanding study of religion among the Australian aborigines (Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse, 1912; English tr., 1915). Durkheim’s influence on the theoretical development of anthropology, particularly in Britain, has been outstanding. The founders of British anthropology were Bronislaw Malinowski and A.R. Radcliffe-Brown. Malinowski provided anthropology with its most distinctive feature: fieldwork, that is, intensive participant observation

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in an alien culture. His work among the Trobriand Islanders of the Pacific is legendary. At the theoretical level he was the creator of functionalism. In this perspective, the task of the anthropologist is to discover the function of each institution (for example, religion satisfies the need for survival). As for Radcliffe-Brown, he considered anthropology to be a comparative branch of sociology, and conceived the latter largely along Durkheimian lines. His approach is called structural functionalism; it focuses on how institutions help to maintain the social system. It is centred on the concept of social structure that refers to the relations of groups within a society. Because of its specific focus on social structure, the discipline is known in Britain, and elsewhere, as social anthropology. However, the differences between cultural and social anthropology are largely a matter of emphasis rather than of content.

2. The sub-disciplines of anthropology As shown from the definition given above, the focus of anthropology is very broad. Anthropology is the study of mankind in all its dimensions. It is true that human beings are also studied by other disciplines, such as biology and psychology. On the other hand, historians, sociologists, economists, political scientists and other social scientists also study different aspects of mankind. Anthropology overlaps and complements all these other disciplines. At its most comprehensive, anthropology is the only discipline that is in a position to effect an integrative synthesis of all this knowledge. Traditionally, anthropology has been divided into a number of branches: biological/physical anthropology, archaeology, linguistic anthropology, and social-and-cultural anthropology. Psychological anthropology is seen as a sub-field of cultural anthropology. This division reflects a largely American perspective; their university departments of anthropology teach all these different branches, giving a good grounding in the subject; although eventually students tend to specialise in one particular area. In Britain, most anthropology departments specialise in social anthropology, and with no physical anthropology or archaeology; there are only a handful of departments that follow the American model. Students are much more likely to be influenced by developments in sociology than by anything else. Most anthropology students, whether in the USA or in Europe, specialise in cultural/social anthropology. For example, the Spanish model follows, to a great extent, the British model.

2.1. Physical anthropology Physical or biological anthropology is the study of humans as biological organisms within the framework of evolution; it emphasises the interaction between biology and culture. Humans are primates and they

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share a common past with pro-simians, monkeys and apes. It is through the examination of fossils and the observation of living primates that physical anthropology tries to understand what humans are today. Physical anthropology was born in the nineteenth century as a result of the concerns of natural historians for the origins and development of the human species. The biblical model was progressively subjected to criticism, and the limited antiquity of mankind was challenged. The discovery of Neanderthal fossils (the first one was found in 1856) gave impetus to this research. However, what fuelled the interest in human evolution was the publication of Charles Darwin’s The Origins of Species in 1859. Four major subdivisions are usually considered: palaeoanthropology, genetics, primatology and human ecology. 2.1.1. Palaeoanthropology It is probably the most important subdivision. It is the study of human evolution as it follows from the fossil record. By now palaeoanthropologists have collected thousands of fossils which cover up to four million years of human life and of mankind’s direct ancestors. 2.1.2. Genetics Genetics is the study of the mechanisms of heredity and biological variation. Major scientific confirmation of the genetic hypothesis came with the development of molecular biology in the 1950s. Genetics allows the study of evolutionary processes, and consequently adaptations. Genetic techniques are used to measure evolutionary distance between primates and humans; as well as between the different species that are the direct ancestors of human beings. 2.1.3. Primatology Primatology is the study of the anatomy and behaviour of non-human primates (pro-simians, monkeys and apes). Of particular importance is the observation of these animals in free-range environments. The study of great apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orang-utans), who are our closest relatives, has thrown great light on a number of areas (such as infant care, social behaviour, communication, and reproductive behaviour) that are relevant to the understanding of human behaviour. 2.1.4. Human ecology Human ecology studies human interaction with the environment. For any given population the environment includes other groups of peoples, non-human organisms and physical features. All the species who share a particular environment are referred to as an ecosystem. Topics such as nutrition, fertility, growth, physiological adaptation to climate and altitude, et cetera, are central to human ecology. A particularly important concept is that of adaptation which is the process by which human beings make effective use of an environment for productive ends.

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2.2. Archaeology Archaeology is the recovery, analysis and interpretation of material culture or material remains from the past with the intention of explaining human behaviour. Material culture deals with the physical manifestations of human activities in the forms of tools, pottery, buildings, burial urns, and others. Such objects, and how they were laid out when found, are clues to help archaeologists hypothesise about human behaviour. Archaeology takes us much further into the past than the 5,000 years of existing historical records allow us. Archaeology is a subdiscipline that requires precise measurements, descriptions and excavation techniques. The archaeologists of today are often involved in multidisciplinary projects, closely collaborating with palaeontologists, chemists, geologists, and others.

2.3. Linguistic anthropology To say that human culture rests on language is a truism. Spoken language is the most distinctive feature of human beings when compared to great apes. The latter communicate but have no speech, which is what has allowed humans to preserve and transmit their culture. Anthropological linguistics is concerned with the place of language in its wider social and cultural context. To a great extent it overlaps with sociolinguistics. Topics such as the language of colour terminology, of gender, and of politeness codes, the study of the languages spoken world-wide and the history of their connections, the evolution of language and culture and so on, are part of the domain of linguistic anthropology.

2.4. Cultural and social anthropology We have already indicated that the differences between cultural and social anthropology are the result of two diverse national traditions, namely the American and the British ones respectively. In theory, social anthropology has a narrower scope than cultural anthropology. Social anthropology usually comprises the study of kinship, economic, social and political organisation, and ideology (particularly religion and values). In addition to these topics, cultural anthropology deals also with the study of material culture, worldviews, art, personality, et cetera. Furthermore, one could say that cultural anthropology emphasises the study of symbols, while in social anthropology the focus is on social relations. In practice, however, students of anthropology cover similar ground, whether they are looking at cultural or at social anthropology. The reason is that the lines are much more blurred than the strict definitions might suggest. Cultural and social anthropology are really the same subject. We have seen how socio-cultural anthropology studies both society and culture, describing and explaining similarities and differences. In

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the American sense of the term it is customary to distinguish two different aspects of the discipline: ethnography and ethnology. Ethnography, as we shall see below in more detail, is the firsthand fieldwork conducted in a community usually by means of participant observation. Ethnology, on the other hand, examines and compares the results of ethnography with the aim of theorising or generalising. Nonetheless, the term, which was popular up to the 1930s, is used sparingly today. In the British tradition, however, ethnology refers, if anything, to the reconstruction of the history of a society or a group of societies in a given area. In much of continental Europe, and prior to the acceptance of the word social or cultural anthropology in the 1960s, ethnology was the preferred term for the comparative study of societies and cultures. Finally, in the Germanic and Scandinavian tradition ethnology was the study of mainly internal people (Volk) minorities. Today the term ethnology is fading away from the anthropological vocabulary; when used it tends to be as a synonym of cultural and social anthropology. In the popular mind there was, and to a certain extent still is, a perception that social and cultural anthropology deals exclusively with non-western peoples who exhibit bizarre and primitive customs. Generally speaking, it is true that for many decades cultural and social anthropology focused on these kind of societies; it was its strong specific contribution to what Radcliffe-Brown called a general social science or sociology. However, this is no longer the case. For some time, cultural and social anthropologists have delved into the modern, industrialised world; the discipline is no longer, or not only, an exotic adventure. This, as we shall see in the section on anthropology and sociology, has had important theoretical and methodological consequences. This text will be mostly, though not exclusively, concerned with cultural and social anthropology; I will use the term ‘anthropology’ for short.

3. The concept of culture As we have seen, culture is one of the key concepts of anthropology, particularly in the United States. E.B. Tylor’s definition of culture, as encompassing all of mankind’s social behaviour, still commands attention, at least as a first, general overview of the concept. In the nineteenth century the main concern of anthropologists, particularly Lewis Morgan, was to offer a series of cultural stages defined in technoenvironmental terms. It was assumed that the cultural forms of contemporary primitive peoples could be equated to those of prehistoric peoples at the same stage of development. Although when trying to explain the cultural similarities between two peoples the possible diffusion of cultural traits was not totally rejected, the main emphasis was given to evolutionary reconstructions.

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At the beginning of the twentieth century, in the USA, the hegemony of the Boasian approach emphasised was the study of cultural traits within different cultural areas. More and more attention was given to the study of synchronic socio-cultural processes, and less to historico-cultural reconstructions. The study of so-called ‘culture and personality’, became particularly popular, and was associated with the work of Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead. As we have seen, culture was still central to Bronislaw Malinowski’s functionalism. For A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, however, culture was a rather vague and slippery concept, not susceptible of scientific treatment; hence his focus on social structure, a concept centred on the realities of kinship and social organisation. In 1952 two American anthropologists, Alfred L. Kreober and Clyde Kluckhohn, published Culture, a book which surveyed the different concepts and definitions of culture in use from 1900 to 1950. The conclusion reached by the authors was that culture was a comprehensive concept that included all aspects of customary human behaviour, as well as its embodiments in artifacts (material culture). At the end of the book they proposed a synthetic definition of culture which reads as follows: ‘Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behaviour acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiment in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e. historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values; culture systems may, on the one hand, be considered as products of action, on the other as conditioning elements of further action.’ (1953:357)

In the 1950s and 1960s, the term culture became, at least in some quarters, more abstract; no longer envisaged as observed behaviour, but as a distillation of it. Culture was conceived in terms of codes of behaviour and also as organised systems of symbols and meanings. Claude LéviStrauss’s theory of culture emphasised the analogies between linguistic and cultural systems, as well as the idea that the mind generated specific cultural structures. At the risk of simplification one could say that in today’s anthropology there are two major conceptions of culture: a totalist or adaptationalist one and a mentalist or ideationalist one. The totalist view, which roughly corresponds to the classical conception, uses the word culture to refer to the totality of a people’s way of life. In more recent language, culture is seen as an adaptive mechanism, that is, the totality of tools, acts, thoughts and institutions through which a population lives and reproduces itself. Culture serves to relate human communities to their environment. Marvin Harris is a wellknown representative of this conception. For him culture embraces all components of social life and it refers to the socially conditioned set of activities and thoughts that are associated with a population. At a more specific level, culture is a collection of institutions designed to create the means and mechanisms for providing food, love, affection, sex and so on.

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The mentalist view operates with a more restricted definition of culture, which is equated to an ideational or conceptual system. Clifford Geertz is the best known contemporary representative; for him culture is essentially traffic in things which impose meaning. The aim of the anthropologist is to provide a ‘thick description’ (Geertz’s own expression) that clarifies the symbolic meaning of people’s behaviour. Culture is essentially a text which has to be interpreted. Most introductory American textbooks, when referring to culture, emphasise a number of features. For example, William Havilland (1993) lists the following: 1. Culture is shared. Culture is not something genetically inherited, although the predisposition for culture is. Culture is what makes an individual part of a given society. In other words, in a particular society all individuals share a common culture and that is why they can understand and predict each other’s behaviour. This is not to say that, particularly in modern societies, there are no subcultures nor people who are not excluded from some elements of a given culture. 2. Culture is learned. Culture is our social heredity and it is acquired by growing up in a given society. Culture is transmitted in many ways, consciously and unconsciously, directly and indirectly. Culture is also learned through observation. Language, of course, is a very important tool for learning a culture because it facilitates the transmission of ideas and sentiments. 3. Culture is symbolic. We owe to the American anthropologist Leslie White the observation that human behaviour stems from the use of symbols. By symbol we mean something verbal or non-verbal that stands for something else. A flag stands for a country; the crescent symbolises Islam. Symbols, however, are usually linguistic. The association between a symbol and what it stands for is usually arbitrary. Symbols, particularly language, facilitate the learning and transmission of culture. 4. Culture is integrated. Cultures are not just an assemblage of institutions; the different aspects of culture are interrelated. A feature of a culture cannot be understood without reference to the other features that make this culture. Cultures tend to function as interrelated wholes. This does not mean that there is perfect harmony or complementarity; strains occur, and they may lead to cultural change. On the other hand, changes in one part of a culture will usually induce changes elsewhere in the system.

4. Ethnography Although Bronislaw Malinowski has been credited with inventing ethnography, in reality other anthropologists such as Franz Boas had

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already practised it. The first ethnographic journey was the Torres Straits Expedition of 1898, which brought together a number of natural scientists (Alfred Haddon, W.H.R. Rivers, Charles Seligman, William McDougall and others) with the aim of studying a ‘primitive’ culture in its totality, on a group of islands off the northern Australian coast. Cultural and social anthropology have relied until recent times on fieldwork as the main way of collecting data. Ethnographic fieldwork involves the careful study of the life of a small community such as a band, a tribal segment or a section of a modern society, for a long period of time (one to two years). The ethnographer lives with the people being studied and learns their language and culture. Participant observation entails sharing the life of a small-size, manageable community, taking part in as many activities of this community as it is feasible. Fieldwork is not easy. Learning a language and getting use to new, rather different customs, can put a strain on the unseasoned ethnographer. In some areas, ethnographers may be exposed to a variety of diseases, while enduring considerable psychological stress. Generally speaking, the main objective in investigating a community is to develop a comprehensive picture of how the different aspects of the culture (kinship, economic, social and political organisation, religion, et cetera) fit together. Although the most alluring of ethnographies have always come from faraway, exotic places, a large chunk of ethnographic studies today comes from the different sectors (both rural and urban) of the modern industrialised world; in many cases, the researchers are doing ethnography at home. As we shall see later, participant observation is no longer the only technique used by anthropologists to study societies, although it is still a precondition for becoming an anthropologist and the ‘badge of honour’ that defines the professional identity of anthropologists. There exist many other research techniques such as surveys, censuses, interviews and life histories, as well as an array of modern ways (recording, filming, videotaping, and so on). Anthropologists are also concerned not only with the present, but also with history, and hence have to develop a certain expertise in handling historical records, as we shall see in the next section. Anthropologists often use the present tense to describe societies as they were in the past – either when they were first observed by Westerners or when the ethnographer writing the report conducted the fieldwork. This particular time is called the ethnographic present. Bronislaw Malinowski was the true creator of the ethnographic revolution in anthropology. His fieldwork research among the Trobrianders off the coast of New Guinea during the First World War is properly acknowledged as the beginning of a new way of doing anthropology. It heralded the emergence of the ethnographic monograph (the detailed

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description of the life of a people or community based on fieldwork). Prior to Malinowski, most anthropologists collected data on primitive societies by relying either on missionaries, colonial administrators, merchants, and others or on uprooted native informants. Malinowski settled down among the natives, learning their language and living with them for a long period of time (two years); this, Malinowski insisted, was the only way to understand what it meant to be a Trobriander. For Malinowski the three main tasks of the ethnographer were: to participate (to do things), to observe (to look at things) and to interrogate (to talk to people). In practice, Malinowski, like most anthropologists since his day, collected more information through observation and interrogation than through participation. The reasons are simple enough: on the one hand, most societies bar access to certain areas of their culture; on the other hand, there are ethical considerations that keep ethnographers from participating in certain activities (for example, war). We could summarise the rules of the ethnographic method according to Malinowski in the following way: 1. To be well-informed about the theoretical developments of the discipline prior to going to the field. 2. To live the life of the natives. 3. To apply a set of special techniques for the collection and handling of data. 4. To write an ethnographic diary in the strict sense of the term.

5. The uses of history in anthropology For both methodological and practical reasons many anthropologists were uninterested, for much of the past century, in history. The use of history had been debunked as a reaction against the speculative and fancy historical reconstructions that were typical of late nineteenth-century anthropology. The Golden Bough (1890) of James Frazer became the scapegoat of the founders of anthropology, both in the USA (with the work of Franz Boas) and in the UK (with the work of Bronislaw Malinowski and A.R. Radcliffe-Brown). To the anthropological founding fathers any kind of ‘conjectural history’ (Radcliffe-Brown) was unacceptable. Furthermore, the societies studied traditionally by anthropologists lacked written records. However, a change of mood took place in the 1970s, first in the form of an interest in local history and later in a more comprehensive vision of the past. Today history is more and more part of anthropology (and not only for those working in the West). The importance of history for anthropologists, and social scientists as a whole, varies quite radically according to the type of research in which one is involved. Evidently the time-dimension required when dealing with individuals and primary groups such as nuclear families or

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work groups will be rather short, possibly the lifespan of the individual or that of the group. However, if we are concerned with more complex associations such as government bureaucracies, a medium term perspective will be necessary. State institutions may require an even longer period. Finally, some questions about nations such as England and France may only be answered by using a very long-term perspective (hundreds of years). Historians are not always happy with the use that social scientists make of their raw materials and narratives; they often criticise the cavalier way in which anthropologists appropriate their data and arguments. At the most elementary level, history has to do with past events, and often with their effect on the present. When trying to reconstruct the past, a great variety of documents are available. A very well-known, and often incorrect, assumption, is that history consists essentially of narratives, that is, of chronicles, diaries, reports by first-hand participants, and so on. In fact, there are many more sources of information of an official type, such as papers from different social bureaucracies of society (army, government, et cetera), as well as material culture (monuments, tools, and others). It stands to reason that the importance of the type of historical record will depend on the objectives of the research. At the most basic level, history allows social scientists to greatly extend the range of comparisons. A given study will refer to a certain place (country, province, et cetera), to a certain period of history (modern, medieval, et cetera) and will often focus on a certain topic (economic, political, et cetera). Different theoretical orientations and changeable fashions will determine the type of questions in which historians are interested at a certain moment in time. For example, Marxist-oriented historians are likely to delve into the role of classes when trying to approach any historical period. On the other hand, political biographies are a very popular genre among historians in general. The main bulk of the evidence handled by historians is likely to consist of texts, although material culture may also play a role. It is from the often disperse and inconclusive literary remnants of long gone social life that historians reconstruct the past. It stands to reason that the usefulness of a text is a function of the specific subject matter studied. Political history will inevitably rely on autobiographies, letters, and so on, while economic history will look at data concerning production, prices, and other salient factors. Historians tend to sacralise the so-called primary sources, that is, data that are the result of direct observation of the period under analysis; these are, so to speak, raw materials that have not suffered any elaboration. Many of these sources are not easily accessible because they are written in an old-fashioned way (both linguistically and calligraphically), or are held in private collections or lie unclassified in town, provincial, regional or state archives.

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There is a great variety of practices among historians. Some reject theory outright and insist that history is about facts presented with a coherent argument or narrative. Others use theory to explain specific events (such as revolutions). In any case, the theoretical approach exhibited by historians will tend to be more specifically related to the agendas generated by the discipline than by the theoretical concerns of anthropology. Anthropologists using history are unlikely to have at their disposal the expertise and critical tools that historians have when dealing with their primary sources. On the whole, and given the constraints imposed by historical specialisation, it is likely that historical and comparative anthropologists will use only secondary and tertiary sources, that is, texts that present a more or less elaborate historical discourse. One of the things that may invalidate comparisons of different past societies is that there may not be enough common elements to warrant the comparison.

6. Sociology and social/cultural anthropology Historically, sociology and social/cultural anthropology have shared a large body of theory. The major differences between these two disciplines were methodological. Anthropology, in the aftermath of the ‘fieldwork’ revolution of Franz Boas and Bronislaw Malinowski, focused on simple, small-scale, traditional, non-western societies. Sociology, using a variety of research techniques, concentrated on complex, large-scale, modern, Western societies. The academic institutionalisation of anthropology and sociology as separate disciplines also helped to create a differentiated sense of identity and purpose. From common origins, anthropology and sociology diverged and developed specific methodologies, and to a certain extent, specific bodies of theories. In recent times, these divergences have halted, and for the following reasons. At the theoretical level, the emphasis has been on the common heritage as defined by three founding fathers (Marx, Durkheim, Weber). Furthermore, the revival of evolutionary and historical approaches in both disciplines has created an additional common ground for the exchange of ideas and for developing similar approaches. The renaissance of the comparative method is a concrete result of such a perspective. More important, however, are the methodological convergences. Fieldwork has ceased to be the prerogative of anthropologists because sociologists often use it in conjunction with other research techniques. At a more general level, there has been a sort of role reversal: often nowadays anthropologists study Western societies while sociologists study Third-World societies. Fieldwork raises a series of crucial problems in connection with the design of the project, the collection of data, the type of participant observation, the reliability of the data, the reification of the informants,

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and the writing of the monograph or report which social scientists can only ignore at their peril. Fieldwork is not the only research technique that a social scientist is likely to use. It would be useful for the student to be familiar with surveys and quantification, as well as with the varieties of qualitative research. Furthermore, a sound basis of descriptive statistics might help. At a more abstract level, it is important to discuss the problem of how to relate theory, method and research in the light of classical as well as contemporary authors. Social/cultural anthropology and sociology are often presented as trying to achieve different objectives. In practice, it can be shown that their approaches complement each other.

7. The historical and comparative method It could be said, paraphrasing what C. Wright Mills said of sociology, that all anthropology worthy of the name is historical anthropology; and the historical viewpoint leads to the comparative study of societies. I take it as a starting point that in anthropology there is no specific method called ‘historical and comparative’; that any anthropology that aims at being a generalising discipline, that is, one whose objective is to formulate general patterns about society, is by definition historical and comparative. Why? Simply because the only way to achieve a scientific anthropology is through comparisons both in time and space. One of the key differences between the natural sciences and the social sciences is that the latter lack the experimental method. In other words, while a physicist can, in principle, repeat an experiment in the laboratory as many times as may be necessary, changing the size, weight and combination of the variables, and by so doing might be in a position to prove or disprove a given hypothesis, the anthropologist, and the social scientist in general, is only given, so to speak, a variety of ready-made experiments. These are the different societies which exist in time and space. It is only by comparing these societies, or certain aspects of them (class, family, church, et cetera), that we may have the possibility of formulating scientific statements about society. As an illustration of the use of the comparative and historical method, I present Emile Durkheim’s ideas about the comparative method as they are put forward in The Rules of the Sociological Method (1895). This text exemplifies three major applications of the comparative method: 1. The analysis of variations within one society at one point in time. For example, the marriage patterns according to class in England in 1979 or suicide according to religion in Bulgaria in 1916. 2. The comparison of societies which are basically similar but which differ in certain aspects (either different societies or the same society at different historical periods). An example of the former would be a comparison of industrial organisation in England, France, and

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Germany today. An example of the latter would be industrial organisation in Spain in three different historical periods: today, 1936 and 1825. 3. The comparison of societies which are basically dissimilar yet sharing some features, or the comparison of different periods in the life of one single society after undergoing radical change. As an example of the former we could compare European and Japanese feudalism; as an example of the latter we could compare of France before and after the French Revolution. It would appear that at the simplest level the historical and comparative method involves at least two societies. It has been suggested that classical studies such as Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (1835) and Durkheim’s The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912), on the USA and the Australian aborigines respectively, can hardly be excluded from the comparative range, because at the limit they are implicitly comparative. It is also important to clarify the unit of study, which is usually a society, be it a modern state (or a subdivision within that state) or traditional culture. This is what we could call the level of analysis or the explanatory unit. As we shall see, authors like Immanuel Wallerstein maintain that the unit of study is not the state or the small culture but the world-system. Contemporary authors have also been sensitive to the question of how comparable very different types of societies are; for example, an industrial and a non-industrial one, or a Christian and a Muslim society. These are not issues that can be ignored, except when the aims of the comparison are rather limited. As a consequence of this, the researcher who focuses on contemporary modern societies will find that the number of comparable cases may be rather small, and precludes the use of statistical methods. Nonetheless, explanations can still be forthcoming if the variables are properly manipulated. In any case, the comparative method is used to discern the varied configurations that are the cause of particular social phenomena. It is possible to show how classical social scientists proceeded when the number of societies was very small. A case in point is that of Tocqueville in the aforementioned study of America. He noted that Americans are connected with English by their origin, their religion, their language and partially by their customs; they differ only in their social condition. It may therefore be inferred that the reserve of the English proceeds from the constitution of their country much more than from that of its inhabitants. In any case, single case studies (which are very common in anthropology), no matter how successful they are in generating hypotheses and even when they rely on implicit comparisons, have limited reliability because they exclude control. Of course, a time dimension in a case study can change the circumstances, converting it practically into a multiple case study.

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In practice, most comparative and historical studies fall into two categories: either in depth analysis of a few cases (fewer than five) or statistical cross-national or cross-cultural analysis (up to the number of existing states or the number of existing cultures). It is often suggested that social scientists who have intensive, hermeneutical, particularising interests will tend to compare at most two or three cases, while those interested in extensive, scientific, generalising concerns will tend to adopt a quantitative, cross-national or cross-cultural perspective involving many cases. A relevant example for the last type of approach is that of the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF), developed initially by G.P. Murdock in the USA, the most comprehensive and sophisticated bank of ethnographic data that exists. It highlights several hundred cultural traits of hundreds of cultures. Data are organised in such a way as to permit the use of statistical techniques in order to generate and test hypothesis about causality. It is regularly updated and it is now available on CD-ROM. Some social scientists have adopted an intermediate position and have tried to account, causally, for societal developments, while preserving the complexity of the cases under consideration. This type of studies tends to move back and forward between different explanatory hypotheses and detailed comparisons of the important dimensions of the cases under consideration. As by definition this type of analysis works with only a limited number of cases, it can only approximate the reliability of the statistical approach. Finally, approaches that see the world in global terms (for example, Wallerstein’s world-systems theory) try to escape from the idea that the unit of comparison is the state or the isolated culture. Some critics have pointed out that the most generalising type of strategies fail to provide a proper scientific explanation because of the difficulty of verifying the proposed hypotheses. Generally speaking, although the comparative and historical method is not as reliable as the experimental method of the natural sciences, it is the only substitute that the social sciences can muster. Most contemporary authors refer to and make use of two of John Stuart Mill’s methods: the Method of Agreement and the Method of Difference. Most discussions of case-oriented methods begin (and often end) with Mill’s presentation of experimental enquiry in A System of Logic (1843). The Method of Agreement is very popular in the social sciences, particularly among those who focus on a single case study. The task of the research is to eliminate possible causes of a phenomenon by showing instances in which although the outcome is present, all the hypothesised antecedents but one are not. This cause would be considered the crucial one. Of course, there is always the danger that there might be a hidden cause that the comparison has missed.

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In the Method of Difference a contrast is established between two set of cases: the first in which both cause and effect are present; the second in which both cause and effect are absent, although other circumstances would be similar. Both Mill and modern researchers agree that the latter method is more powerful and reliable than the former one. Peasant revolts are a fertile area for the Method of Agreement. The literature on this topic shows a number of potential causes for peasant revolts: a powerful middle peasantry, a landless peasantry, quick agricultural commercialisation, and traditionalism. Let us assume that all these four antecedents appear in a given case study. It is the task of the investigator to find other cases of peasant revolts in which one or more of the antecedents are absent. If the researcher is successful in finding cases in which peasant revolts are present but others such as traditionalism, a powerful middle peasantry and a landless peasantry are absent, then the only cause left – rapid commercialisation of agriculture – is the determining one. Following with the same example, with the Method of Difference we would first establish a series of instances of peasant societies in which revolts had occurred and see that they correlated with the antecedent of rapid commercialisation of agriculture. In a second move we would look at peasant societies in which both the effect and the cause were absent, that is, neither peasant revolts nor rapid commercialisation of agriculture existed. This double demonstration would strongly support the initial hypothesis that the cause of peasant revolts is the rapid commercialisation of agriculture. Some attempts have been made by Charles Tilly to systematise the different comparative and historical approaches used by social scientists. In his Big Structures, Large Processes and Huge Comparisons (1984) Tilly distinguished four types of comparison: the individualising, the generalising or variation-finding, the inclusive or encompassing and the universalising. These types are the result of combining two different dimensions: scope and number. Scope refers to the issue of whether the emphasis is placed on the particular (every characteristic of the case study) or on the general (characteristics of all the cases studied). Number refers to the question of whether the comparison entails a single or multiple forms of a particular phenomenon. According to Tilly, a purely individualising comparison treats each case as unique, taking up one instance at a time, and minimising its common properties with other instances. A pure universalising comparison identifies common properties among all instances of a phenomenon. The generalising or variation-finding perspective establishes a principle of variation in the character or intensity of a phenomenon by examining systematic differences among instances. Finally, the inclusive or encompassing type of comparison places different instances at various locations

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within the same system, on the way to explaining their characteristics as a function of their varying relationships to the system as a whole. The historical and comparative method is first and foremost for checking, for controlling whether generalisations are correct, that is, whether they are compatible with the evidence from the case studies under consideration. There exist other controls like the experimental method and the statistical method; unfortunately the former is difficult to apply to the social world, while the latter requires many cases, which do not always exist. In historical comparisons it is obvious that it does not make much sense to contrast either identical or totally different entities. To establish the comparability of two given entities a decision has to be made after a preliminary analysis of the cases. According to Giovanni Sartori, a number of traps await the inexperienced researcher: parochialism (ignorance of wider research), misclassification (creation of false categories), degreeism (excessive use of the idea of continuum) and concept-stretching (the use of vague categories). We have seen that the historical and comparative method ranges from the analysis of a single case (in which the comparison is implicit) to studies in which a few cases are considered (perhaps the most popular option) and cross-national or cross-cultural comparisons which may involve many cases. Of course, a number of anthropologists believe that, because of the incommensurability of concepts, only single, totalising and hermeneutically-oriented case studies make sense. Nonetheless, the raison dêtre of anthropology as a discipline are generalisations, and they cannot be arrived at except by the judicious and creative use of the historical and comparative method.

8. Fads and foibles of anthropology In this section I examine a number of trends which are currently prominent in the international anthropological community. These trends are affecting the epistemic well-being of the discipline in ways that I personally consider unhealthy. In depicting them, I am dealing essentially with composite photo-pictures, with all the limitations that such conceptual constructs have, highlighting the more extreme, but none the less real, examples of each of the trends that I consider. I would like to emphasise, however, that I am only concerned with the well-being of anthropology as a scientific discipline and that I do not judge the political or moral merits of the trends described. Since the late 1960s, anthropology has conducted the most exhausting and radical soul-searching exercise of its history. As a result, today we find ourselves in what I consider a situation of scientific bankruptcy. After over a century of anthropological development it would appear

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that the only heritage that the discipline now offers to the future is a cacophony of dissonant voices. The fault lies with the politicisation of anthropology. Marxism, ‘third-worldism’, feminism and postmodernism are to me the main culprits for such a sad state of affairs. From emphasising a moderate cultural relativism which was there to signify the respect owed to cultures and peoples, anthropology has now moved to embrace a total relativism which undermines any attempt to formulate scientific propositions. The scientific endeavour is therefore condemned off-hand as Euro-centric, reactionary, racist and sexist. While, in the early 1970s, Lévi-Strauss’s Tristes tropiques was as an de rigueur introduction to anthropology, today students are often recommended to delve into I, Rigoberta Menchù, the story of a Guatemalan political activist In this move there is a clear shift from anthropology as a scientificcum-exotic project to a discipline which places at its very centre the politicised discourse, in the form of the personal experiences of a third world, revolutionary, non-white woman. By doing that, by installing the political pamphlet as required reading material for anthropological novices, a serious disservice is done both to science and politics. Presentday anthropology has taken the subjective moment present in fieldwork to an extreme. In fact, what we can observe at present is an outburst of subjectivism combined with a rash of political correctness. The new ‘isms’ do not herald new ways, or new perspectives, or new theories within the discipline. They totally subvert it by denying the empirical validity of fieldwork, by emphasising the incongruity of systematisation and comparisons and by stating the impossibility of generalisations. In a word, to these ‘isms’ anthropology ceases to be a scientific project, and becomes an endeavour of cultural critique. I propose to examine the three major ideological standpoints that in my view have most contributed to the dissolution of anthropology as a scientific quest: postmodernism, third-worldism and feminism. I am well-aware that Marxism is another possible candidate, but in fact it is no longer visible as a distinctive alternative. Its presence is felt through the influence that it has had on the other trends.

8.1. Postmodernist anthropology The late Ernest Gellner, in Postmodernism, Reason and Religion (1992), presents a powerful indictment of postmodernist anthropology. To him, postmodernism is a rag bag of beliefs with one common denominator: relativism. Gellner rightly identifies the postmodernist trajectory with a move from positivism to hermeneutics. Both terms have to be taken with caution, particularly the former because it is regularly employed as a term of disparagement. Nothing can be more insulting in the language panoply of the relativist than the word positivist. To suggest that there

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are objective facts which can be ascertained and theorised independently of the status of the beholder is anathema to postmodernists. The implications for a scientific anthropology are ominous. As Gellner puts it, it effectively means in effect the abandonment of any serious attempt to give a reasonably precise, documented and testable account of anything, a refusal to countenance any independent social structures. They are replaced by the pursuit of ‘meanings’, both those of the object of inquiry and of the inquirer. This approach assumes would appear that objectivity was the greatest con of history, perpetrated by colonialism and imperialism. Gellner is right in suggesting that postmodernist relativism has its roots in the kind of Marxism that developed in the twentieth century, which he graphically describes as the move from ‘historical materialism to historical subjectivism’. While traditional Marxism still preserved the idea of an objective science of society – which none the less required an appropriate class position – the kind of Marxism which followed from the Frankfurt School was no longer concerned with establishing things as they were, but rather with changing them to what they ought to be. However, the Frankfurt School accepted that there was an underlying reality worth discovering; in this sense they believed in a kind of objectivity. The final step is taken when objective truth is replaced by hermeneutic truth. Hermeneutic truth respects the subjectivity both of the object of the inquiry and of the inquirer, and even of the reader or listener. This is the standpoint of postmodernism. The hermeneutic obsession in anthropology is partly an avoidance strategy for a world in which the traditional, isolated, self-contained societies studied by ethnographers have become modern, complex, postcolonial societies that are much more difficult to account for in scientific terms. If colonialism was what made possible the study of the indigenous inhabitants of the colonies, the ‘third-worldist’ ideology today is what allows a veil of mist to cover the ugly contradictions of many of the newly emerged postcolonial states. By focusing on meaning, on the problems of interaction between the observer and the observed, and by giving practically exclusive primacy to cultural values, the centrality of social-structural analysis, so crucial to the social sciences since Marx, Durkheim and to a great extent Weber, is lost. Humans are no longer perceived as being constrained by objective forces – of which they are often unaware and can hardly control. As Gellner remarks, it is one thing to say that concepts constrain and a very different, unacceptable, one to say that concepts alone constrain.

8.2. ‘Thirdworldist’ anthropology The second ideological position that I intend to consider is ‘third-worldism’. By such a term I designate the belief that there is no objective truth

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about the Other, but only the localised truths that are directly expressed by the different Third-World cultures. At its best, Western anthropologists can be a channel for these Third-World voices – the epistemic status of which is never to be challenged. The polemic between two famous anthropologists in the early 1990s, Marshall Sahlins (a University of Chicago professor and a specialist on Hawaiian history) and Ganath Obeyesereke (a University of Princeton professor but of Sinhalese origin), arose on the basis of a crucial anthropological issue: who has the right to talk of what within the discipline. Obeyesereke maintained that the interpretation proposed by Sahlins, that the Hawaiians took the explorer captain Cook at the end of the eighteenth century for a god, could only be the result of a eurocentric vision. In a wider sense, Obeyesereke defended the thesis that Western anthropologists are not in a position to understand the native categories; he, as a Third-World person, could better understand the realities of the countries dominated by colonialism. Sahlins defended the basic hypothesis that any anthropologist should aspire to scientific knowledge, with independence of his or her origins. The attitude of guilt is felt by many ‘thirdworldist’ anthropologists as the just expiation of the sins committed by the discipline during the colonial period. This places the anthropologist in an ineffective position, epistemologically speaking. Unfortunately, this often lends the ‘third worldist’ anthropologist to be uncritical because he or she is encumbered with a paralysing guilt. The fear of being accused of Eurocentrism or, even worse, of racism, stops the simple practice of calling a spade a spade. In addition there is also a cacophony of complaining voices from the Third World that do not only constantly denounce the misdeeds of the West, but also propagate inaccurate notions about themselves and their own pasts, which the ‘third worldist’ anthropologist assists in the perpetuation of these myths. The silence of an academic community that is not capable of facing this outpouring critically just because it is politically incorrect to do so, is an ominous sign of worse things to come. The work of Edward Said spans over a number of years. He is an internationally-renown literary critic and media personality. For our purposes he is the author of a ‘classic’ text – Orientalism (1978) – and has more recently published a controversial work: Culture and Imperialism (1993). His influence is widespread among anthropologists – his early text being compulsory reading in many courses. Presented in an unadorned way, his original thesis boils down to saying that Western writers have created a specious category – Orientalism – which, while purporting to be neutral and scholarly, is in fact an ideology for imperial domination. In other words, Orientalism is an ideological war-machine that makes little contribution to our understanding of the Orient. Such a blanket

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condemnation of more than two centuries of work on the Orient by thinkers of different countries, professions, and political persuasions, is suspect. Admittedly, Said saves some contemporaries from the general burning, but they are few and capriciously chosen. In my view, Said is not interested in forming a balanced, intellectual inventory of the Western contribution to the study of the Orient, but rather he creates a false category, Orientalism, with which to whip the ordinary ‘thirdworldist’ Westerner into submission. Said argues that only the insiders, the Orientals themselves, have access to their world, and the key to understanding it. Of course, this does not include all of them but only those who are politically correct, that is, those who agree with Said’s brand of politics.

8.3. Feminist anthropology The third and final ideological position that I propose to examine is feminism. There is now a growing number of radical feminists present in anthropology. In the course of a few years they have managed to subvert the established order, but their aim is much more ambitious: a sort of Nietzschean ‘re-evaluation of all values’, a total renewal not only of the discipline, but of the whole scientific endeavour. The starting point of feminism is power, or rather its unequal distribution in society. Power, radical feminists maintain, is not gender blind, but is rather monopolised by men – or, rather, by Western, white, middle-class, heterosexual men. The radical feminist assumption is that social divisions based on sex, race, class, and so on are socially constructed rather than natural; they insist that they are based on an inequality of power which they consider illegitimate and unjustified. But if in all hitherto existing societies social divisions, which hide power relations, have been of the order of the day, are they not socially quasi-natural? This is, of course, independent of whether we want to shape our contemporary society in a particular way – say in the egalitarian direction. Now my question is: should these concerns be the primary task of anthropology? The radical feminist answer is in the positive. But from a strictly social scientific perspective, the practitioner is only allowed to do two things: to study what is, and to ascertain the likely effects of engineered social change. If we are to be guided by the long-term social results of most of the revolutionary changes of this century, we can observe that the unwillingness to examine the possible deleterious effects of a radical reorganisation of society has been fatal; not only were the oppressed groups of society not freed, but even more groups were oppressed. Radical feminist theoreticians, not unlike psychoanalysts, have an answer for everything. They explain the reluctance of social scientists to see their ‘truth’ as a sign of resistance. According to them, men become very emotive when their privileges are challenged. True enough. But

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women who do not see the feminist truth are accused of having false consciousness (just as black people who do not embrace Afrocentrism are seen as ‘white stooges’). The feminist truth becomes circular. The important point to be made here is that feminists cannot, or will not, separate the scientific from the political, and the latter from personal experience. The fact that women were once excluded from science, as from many other spheres of society, has led some radical feminists to challenge the whole scientific enterprise as biased, precisely because it did not take into account women’s experience. What is at stake is how male domination of knowledge affects science. The key criticism against science is its rational character (seen as man-made), its emotional detachment. This is anathema for radical feminists, who would like to see emotion playing an equal role to reason in the scientific pursuit. As a consequence, objectivity ceases for them to be the main value of science. The immense powers of reliability, certainty and prediction that science exhibits are downplayed by sociology of science as it is largely practised today. In any case, it is perfectly within the remit of science to eliminate what in the long run might constitute biased or bad science. Strangely enough, it is only within the parameters of science, which requires practitioners to uphold the principles of objectivity and of the search for the truth, that it is possible to show that a given theory, category or piece of research is biased and should therefore be rejected. Returning to our discipline, the first thing that has to be said about anthropological theories is that it does not help to call these theories male, bourgeois, white and nineteenth-century. This may well be the correct, but it is epistemologically inconsequential. Theories are either explanatory, partially explanatory or plain wrong. It is quite correct to say that the classical social sciences did not emphasise the centrality of sex in society, and did not ‘see’ that gender division pervades the social structure and that women are generally subordinated. These are indeed important oversights that have come to light as the result of the feminist movement. The latter, in turn, could only have arisen in a type of society – the modern Western one – in which the role of women in the productive and reproductive processes had undergone radical changes when compared with all hitherto existing societies. How far classical theory can accommodate these new areas of research is essentially an empirical problem. Important new areas of research emerge as a result of this awareness. Progress will come from confronting the traditional social scientific opus with new problems, and consequent modifications. To talk about a feminist anthropology is a contradiction in terms. Scientific activity is the ability to describe phenomena objectively and to account for them in causal terms. Anybody who is willing to accept the rules of the game can participate and put forward commensurable

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theories. Any suggestion that a particular group has privileged access to knowledge is the end of science as a communitarian activity; theories become incommunicable when they are based on ineffable experiences. With this we enter the world of subjectivism. The claim made by many radical feminists that they can experience and conceive a social totality in a way which is barred to men (and, of course, to non-feminist women) is, to say the least, outlandish. If it is based on the assumption of a differential body and sexuality then it presupposes a biological separatism that should be made more explicit and the consequences of which are incalculable. In any case, the argument cannot be accepted without further demonstration. If there is a feminist science let us see how different it is from Soviet biology or Islamic physics. There have been plenty of attempts to downgrade science, but they litter the roads of history.

8.4. Scientific anthropology: the way forward It is time, once again, to ask: where did anthropology go wrong? When I first became interested in the discipline, I recall the intellectual exhilaration that I felt when confronted with the Lévistraussian project of mapping out the structures of the human mind. This seemed to me an endeavour worthy of enthusiasm and dedication, a truly scientific adventure. I took anthropology to be, literally, the unified science of man, bringing together the social and the biological, the evolutionary and the contemporary, the Self and the Other. Nothing human was alien to anthropology. Over the years, the discipline’s neglect of the natural sciences has been astonishing. In particular, many social and cultural anthropologists have abandoned all the ambitions to develop ‘a natural science of society’ (Radcliffe-Brown) or a ‘scientific theory of culture’ (Malinowski). Two facts corroborate the above statement. First, the theoretical lethargy of the discipline (not to say the practical avoidance of theory so typical of present day anthropology), immersed at best in narrow ethnographic interests. Second, anthropologists no longer frequent the literature of cognate scientific disciplines (be it biology or psychology in general, or more specifically sub-disciplines within each of these areas). Instead, they are only familiar with the latest fashion in postmodernist philosophy, in literary criticism and in cultural studies (not to speak of the feminist, ‘thirdworldist’ and generally speaking politically correct literature). An important lesson that should be learned from the past is that in the social sciences there should be no room for ‘isms’; only a unified science of man will do. An attempt must be made to create the conditions for the emergence of a single frame of reference on which anthropologists can agree. Anthropological theory should essentially be integrative, and separatism should be discouraged. Rather than nurturing either-or theories,

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the discipline should be constantly building bridges, blending and articulating what at first sight might appear to be incompatible theories. Epistemologically speaking, there is nothing to be gained by pursuing exclusivist strategies attached to specific authors: there should be no more Marxists, Durkheimians or Weberians; or evolutionists, functionalists and structuralists. Just social scientists who try out different hypotheses, but who are not blindly committed to any single dogma. In a different order of things, no specific research technique should have the monopoly. Since Malinowski, anthropologists have been obsessed with fieldwork as the distinctive and sole method of research for the discipline. This is a serious limitation. It is obvious that a research technique should not define a discipline, but too many anthropologists still believe that it can. Anthropological theory cannot be developed exclusively on fieldwork material. The discipline must make use of other data: historical and contemporary, qualitative and quantitative. I also believe that anthropologists have to forge their weapons, as they did in the past, in the workshops of natural science (biology and psychology in particular). It is a fact that these disciplines continue to produce an increasing amount of data concerning human nature and the place of human beings in the animal realm. In areas such as culture, language and consciousness, we can no longer afford to ignore the contributions from our cognate disciplines. It serves no purpose to take a defensive attitude and to raise the bogey of determinism. Too many energies have been wasted debating the nature-nurture dichotomy. More reasonable scholars see human behaviour as a precipitate of the interaction between genes and culture. But if Edward O. Wilson has toned down some of the simplistic triumphalisms which presided over the last chapter of Sociobiology (1975), Sahlins has not, to the best of my knowledge, modified his uncompromising stand against the presence of biology in the anthropological field which he presented in The Use and Abuse of Biology (1976). Science is not advanced when its practitioners politicise the field; whatever the merits and demerits of sociobiology (which explains the basis of human behaviour in terms of natural selection), it will not do to dismiss it as a purely reductionist approach. Reluctant as many anthropologists may be to operate within a wider social scientific framework, the suggestion that we may have something to learn from biology still creates clamours of indignation and of outright opposition. Nonetheless, I would still like to pose the question: can sociobiology help us to explain human behaviour? Because some scientists (including anthropologists) have taken the trouble to consider this issue seriously, I think that the least that we can do is to listen carefully to their arguments, rather than dismissing them with the typical accusations that whoever dabbles with sociobiological explanations is a biological determinist and a reductionist. But, as Robin Dunbar has remarked, genetic

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determinism is not a necessary component of sociobiological explanations, although it may be heuristically convenient to assume that it is. However, I do not believe that anthropology is going to find its salvation in biology or psychology. I am only saying that we should put away our prejudices against these disciplines, and listen carefully to what they have to say. At a different level, the theoretical contributions of sociology, and particularly of historical sociology, should also be engaged. This is already the case, as we shall see further on in this text. Whether the framework or hypotheses that we may borrow from these disciplines will be fruitful or not is an empirical matter.

Summary Anthropology is the scientific study of mankind; more specifically it examines the diversity of existing cultures with the aim of formulating evolutionary and structural principles.

Physical anthropology Archaeology Anthropology Linguistic anthropology Social and cultural anthropology

Fieldwork Contemporary Data collection

Others Historical

Scientific stages of social and cultural anthropology

Formulation of socio-cultural types

Comparisons

Generalisation

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Anthropology: scope and method

Biology Interaction with other disciplines

Psychology Sociology

Culture is learned Key anthropological concept:

Culture is shared Culture Culture is symbolic Culture is integrated

Postmodernism Main relativistic trends in anthropology

Third-world bias Feminism

Essay questions 1. To find out more about the ethnographic method please read Chapter 1 of Malinowski’s Argonauts of the Western Pacific (Vol I) and draw a list of the main points put forward by the author. 2. Can you think of the advantages and disadvantages of studying your own society? 3. What are the differences between sociology and social anthropology? 4. What are the main criticisms that can be addressed to postmodernism? 5. Enumerate and define the different meanings that you know of the word culture. 6. How do the contents of this module compare with your previous understanding of anthropology? 7. How did anthropology come to exist?

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Test questions 1. Anthropology is divided into two main branches, which ones are they? A. Ethnology and ethnography. B. Physical and cultural. C. Cultural and archaeology. D. Palaeontology and genetics. 2. Anthropology takes the totality of human experience as its subject of study. This perspective is referred to as? A. Functional. B. Sociological. C. Historical. D. Holistic. 3. The strategy that humans have to adapt to their environment is called? A. Adjustment. B. Culture. C. Instinct. D. Genetic. 4. Symbolic communication appears to be? A. Characteristic of apes and humans. B. Found in all primates. C. Unique to humans. 5. An essential difference between humans and animals is? A. Only humans have the ability to learn. B. Humans are born with culture; animals without. C. Animals are still evolving; humans are not. D. Humans must learn their behaviour anew in every generation. 6. What is a culture area? 7. What is meant by fieldwork? 8. Are scientific anthropology and humanistic anthropology compatible?

Bibliography Basic reading Havilland, W. (1993) Cultural Anthropology. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace (chs. 1 and 2). Kottak, P. (1996) Mirror for Humanity. NewYork: MacGraw Hill (chs. 1 and 2).

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Lett, J. (1996) “Scientific Anthropology”, Encyclopaedia of Cultural Anthropology. New York: Holt (vol. 4: 1141–48). Malinowski, B. (1922) (1962) Argonauts of the Western Pacific. London: Routledge (vol. I, ch. 1).

Further reading Borofsky, R. (ed) (1994) Assessing Cultural Anthropology. New York: MacGraw Hill. Garbarino, M. (1977) Sociocultural Theory in Anthropology. New York: Holt. Harris, M. (1999) Theories of Culture in Postmodern Times. Walnut Creek, Cal.: AltaMira Press. Kottak, P. et al. (1997) The Teaching of Anthropology. Mountain View, Cal.: Mayfield. Kuznar, L. (1997) Reclaiming a Scientific Anthropology. Walnut Creek, Cal.: AltaMira Press. McGee, R.J. and Warms, R.L. (1996) Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History. Mountain View, Cal.: Mayfield. Ragin, C. (1987) The Comparative Method. Berkeley: University of California Press. Scupin, R, and DeCorse, C.R. (1998) Anthropology. A Global Perspective. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall. Spradley, J. (1970) The Ethnographic Interview. New York: Holt.

References Burgos-Debray, E. (1984) I, Rigoberta Menchú. London: Verso. Darwin, C. (1859) (1968) The Origins of Species. Harmondsworth: Pelican Classics. Durkheim, E. (1895) (1982) The Rules of the Sociological Method. London: Macmillan. — (1912) (1995) The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. New York: The Free Press. Frazer, J.G. (1922) (1970) The Golden Bough. London: Macmillan. Gellner, E. (1992) Postmodernism, Reason and Religion. London: Routledge. Kroeber, A.L. and Kluckhohn, C. (1952) Culture. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Lévi-Strauss, C. (1955) (1969) Tristres tropiques. London: Cape. Mill, J. S. (1843) (1967) A System of Logic. London: Longmans.

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Obeyesereke, G. (1992) The Apotheosis of Captain Cook. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Said, E. (1978) Orientalism. London: Penguin. — (1993) Culture and Imperialism. London: Vintage. Sahlins, M. (1977) The Use and Abuse of Biology. London: Tavistock. — (1995) How ‘Natives’ Think. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Tilly, C. (1984) Big Structures, Large Processes and Huge Comparisons. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Tocqueville, A. de (1835) (1994) Democracy in America. London: Fontana Press. Tylor, E.R. (1871) (1958) Primitive Culture. New York: Harper and Row Wilson, E.O. (1975) Sociobiology. Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Answers to test questions 1. B 2. D 3. B 4. B 5. D 6. A geographical region in which separate societies have similar cultures. 7. A research technique which involves living with a group of people and participating in their activities, and observing and recording what happens. 8. Not always, because some humanistic anthropologists deny the possibility of objective descriptions and testable explanations of cultural phenomena.

MODULE 2 Conceptual and institutional overview

Introduction The purpose of this section is to provide the student with the basic conceptual tools and the modicum of institutional descriptions necessary for approaching ethnographic and anthropological literature. Given the vastness of the subject, particularly concerning the study of institutions, only a sketchy presentation will be possible, and only for institutions that are of central importance and not dealt with elsewhere in the text. Traditionally, anthropologists have conceived of society as consisting of different, more or less interrelated, parts or levels. A standard classification would probably include material culture, the economy, the kinship system, the politico-legal system and religion and values. Different authors might introduce other institutions such as art or associations. In recent times, gender constitutes an important factor in most institutional approaches. Most anthropologists are not much bothered by the coherence of the divisions; they take them to be flexible tools for research, or for organising knowledge, or for teaching purposes. Some schemes are more elaborate and comprehensive than others. Without committing ourselves to accept it as a whole, it may useful to consider in some detail the scheme that Marvin Harris offered in his book Cultural Materialism (1979). He distinguishes four major universal components (and a number of sub-components): 1. Infrastructure. Two major subdivisions: A. Mode of production. The technology and practices for producing food and other forms of energy, including technology of subsistence, techno-environmental relationships, ecosystems, work patterns, and so on. B. Mode of reproduction. The technology and practices employed to regulate population size, including demography, mating patterns, fertility, natality, mortality, nurturance of infants, medical control of demographic patterns, contraception, abortion, infanticide, and so on.

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2. Structure. Two major subdivisions: A. Domestic economy. The organisation of reproduction and basic production, exchange and consumption within domestic settings, including family structure, domestic division of labour, domestic enculturation, age and sex roles, domestic discipline, hierarchies, sanctions, et cetera. B. Political economy. The organisation of reproduction, production, exchange and consumption within and between bands, villages, chiefdoms, states, empires. It includes political organisation, division of labour, taxation, tribute, political enculturation, class, caste, urban and rural hierarchies, discipline, police/military control, war, and so on. 3. Behavioural superstructure. It includes art, music, dance literature, et cetera; rituals; sports, games, hobbies; science. 4. Mental and emic superstructure. This category means the conscious and unconscious cognitive goals, categories, rules, plans, values, philosophies and beliefs about behaviour elicited from the participants or inferred by the observer. It includes phenomena such as ethnobotany, ethnozoology, subsistence lore, magic, religion, taboos; kinship, political ideology, ethnic and national ideologies; symbols, myths, aesthetic, standards and philosophies. For Marvin Harris this is much more than a classificatory device; he is a probabilist, who holds that although there may be no absolute knowledge, the cultural materialist approach gives sufficient grounds for assuming that the infrastructure determines up to a certain extent the structure and this in turn determines up to a certain point the superstructures. I have already said that as a rigid strategy, cultural materialism is rather problematic, because many of its explanations are just re-descriptions of what we already know. When used as a guiding principle is perhaps more acceptable and may have a heuristic value.

Aims In this module, we introduce the conceptual and institutional dimensions of society from an anthropological perspective. The aim is to help the student: 1. To understand the basic concepts of economic organisation. 2. To know the basic terminology of kinship. 3. To appreciate the multi-functionality of kinship in a variety of societies.

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33

4. To consider the concepts of person, self and individual across societies 5. To understand the central role of religion in traditional societies. 6. To explore anthropological approaches to religion.

1. Economics 1.1 Economic organisation All societies must satisfy a number of basic needs to survive. Individuals must eat, drink, maintain a certain body temperature, defend themselves, avoid illness, and so on. These can be satisfied by material goods and by collaborating with others. Satisfaction of these needs takes place through an organised system of behaviour that allows people to have access to these goods and services. As it happens with other institutions, these arrangements vary according to time and place. Anthropologists studying different economic systems have approached these realities from two different perspectives: formalism and substantivism. The formalist approach holds that the classical definition of economics, which maintains that the economy refers to the allocations of scarce resources to alternative and competing ends, can be applied to all societies. Formalists insist that all societies must economise so as to maximise their scarce resources. It matters not what is being maximised: money, goods, prestige, et cetera. To the formalist the economy consists of all the decisions involved in economising. The substantivists, following the work of Karl Polanyi, define the economy as ‘a set of institutionalised activities which combine natural resources, human labour and technology, to acquire, produce and distribute material goods and specialised services in a structured, repetitive fashion’ (George Dalton 1969: 97). Substantivists deny that there is an economic sphere in primitive and archaic societies. What happens is that the economy is embedded in other institutions. Furthermore, the idea of maximisation is alien to many traditional societies. In the final resort the issue of the rationality of the economic actors cannot be solved in the abstract. Only when rationality is viewed from a capitalist perspective (meaning the maximisation of material profits) can we say that the economic behaviour of the simple societies is irrational. It would be more accurate to say that each society has its own rationality. At the descriptive level there are three major domains of the economy: production, distribution and consumption. We will focus exclusively on production and distribution because there is little that has been done in relation to consumption in pre-industrial, particularly primitive societies.

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1.2 Production Production is defined by reference to the activity of procuring the material means of existence and making them available for human use. The concept of production covers a vast range of activities from simple recollection to highly organised industrial production. In most societies the materials that people use are manufactured, ranging from a simple tool to a complex machine. Production depends on a number of factors: identification and allocation of resources, technology for obtaining and perfecting them, and the organisation of labour. 1. Resources For the manufacture of tools, shelter and transportation, human beings make use of raw materials that are often scarce. Consequently, most societies delimit the access and use of these resources. The idea of private ownership is alien to many primitive and archaic societies, where joint or common access to resources is the rule. This is particularly true of hunting-gathering societies. 2. Technology The system that allows people to produce objective changes in their physical and biological environment is called technology. It encompasses all learned categories and plans for action that are manifested in tools, techniques and skills used for the members of a particular society. Socio-structural changes occur alongside technological ones. The more specialised a society becomes the more specialised its technology. Finally, technological development is clearly connected with population size. The technology of primitive and archaic societies is extremely varied, showing great versatility in the adaptation of societies to a harsh environment. We have mentioned the three different elements of technology: tools, techniques and skills. Tool means any artefact that is used to increase our ability to intervene in the physical world. Tools have an adaptive function that is measured by the contribution it makes to the survival of a given group of people who make use of it. Technique means a set of plans intended to achieve a given objective. Techniques logically precede tools. A technique is directed towards some end (getting food, keeping warm, healing an infirm, building a canoe, and so on). Sometimes techniques are used symbolically, as when people shoot their arrows into the air to drive away plagues. Skills we refer to the acquired ability to apply a given technique in an effective way. Skills are very important and can only develop on the basis of technical knowledge. 3. The organisation of labour All societies organise labour in one form or another. From the principle that in no society is the individual entirely self-sufficient, it follows that co-operation between individuals is essential for survival. People live in

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constant economic interaction with other people. Robinson Crusoe is a myth of Western individualism, and so is the Hobbesian vision that primitive individuals are always at war with each other. Social living is the normal and necessary condition of human beings without which the newly born would not survive for very long. To meet the needs of human production people organise their work by means of the division of labour and by creating units of production. A. Division of labour. It refers to the rules that assign different tasks to different people, each of whom depends on the others to achieve a given end. Each society has a specific division of labour. Even in hunter-gatherer societies where the division of labour is not very advanced, there is at least a division of labour along gender lines. There is no doubt that for some activities men’s greater strength is an advantage. Also, pregnancy or small children limits female mobility. For other activities such as subsistence, women have an advantage because men are often engaged in activities (hunting, warfare, herding, and so on), which take them away from the household. When societies develop a more complex division of labour, men have historically tended to perform the more specialised tasks (when society required bakers, this household activity, performed traditionally by women, became a male profession). In addition to age and gender, there are other essential factors such as a skill or training. The more complex the technology, the greater the division of labour, and the more specialised the occupations. Furthermore, as Durkheim noted, the greater the specialisation, the greater the dependency of its members upon one another. B. Unit of production. In all societies production is the responsibility of a productive unit, that is, a group of people organised for that purpose. Families are usually the most important unit of production in band and tribal societies; families may be complemented by members of the lineages when the tasks require the participation of more people. Among the Yanomamo of Venezuela, the members of a family will have the different knowledge abilities to engage in the every in essential economic activities: planting and taking care of gardens, hunting and manufacturing tools, making clothes and pots. Some anthropologists use the expression domestic mode of production to refer to the economic production and consumption which takes place within the household.

1.3 Distribution Distribution deals with the allocation of goods and services; of course, not all products of a society may destined to distribution, but may stay with the individuals or the household that has produced them. Following Karl Polanyi we will distinguish three modes of distribution: reciprocity, redistribution and market exchange.

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1. Reciprocity Reciprocity is a mode of economic distribution in which resources are presented by one individual or one group to another individual or group with the expectation on both sides that sooner or later the second will return something of approximately the same value to the first. More plainly, it refers to the giving and taking between people who are bound by social ties and obligations. It ranges from gift-giving to equalised barter and self-interested cheating (although in the latter reciprocity is not involved). Reciprocity in crucial in primitive societies; it plays a fundamental part in hunting-gathering, horticultural and pastoral societies. Marshall Sahlins distinguished three subtypes of reciprocity: A. Generalised reciprocity. This is gift-giving without an immediate or planned return. No accounts are kept. It usually takes place between kin or close friends, but it is typical of the family, where parents feed and take care of their children with no calculation of expected return, although presumably one or more of their children will feed them and take care of them when they are old. Gift-giving is not altruism, but an affirmation of the importance of interdependence. People remember their gift-giving activities and if they were not reciprocated they would express strong disapproval. Generalised reciprocity does not collapse when resources become scarce; rather the opposite happens. However, under extreme scarcity (famine) the giftgiving system may break down or be limited to the household. B. Balanced reciprocity. In this system of gift-giving there is a explicit expectation that the gift will be returned within a short period of time by an object of similar value. This form of reciprocity tends to take place between more distant relatives or friends, who are not close enough to count as pseudo-kin (but are of equal status). This type of exchange is motivated by the desire to acquire a certain good. Many pastoral, horticultural and agricultural societies have systems of balanced reciprocity. Subsistence foods are often exchanged. Balanced reciprocity comes in different guises: from the kula ring of the Trobrianders, to the silent trade of the Pygmies. The hunting-gathering Pygmies of the Ituri Forest in north-eastern Congo have a trading arrangement with neighbouring horticultural populations. In certain, previously agreed, spots near villages, horticultural products and metal tools will be left to be collected by the Pygmies in exchange for forest products (meat). The transaction may continue for a period of time or be terminated by either part if dissatisfied by what they have obtained in return. There is no love lost between the Pygmies and their horticultural neighbours so perhaps this is the reason why the trade is ‘silent’. C. Negative reciprocity. In this system the objective is to get something for nothing or for very little. There are all sorts of ways to do that: from violence to cunning.

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2. Redistribution Redistribution is a mode of economic distribution in which resources are presented to a central authority that then allocates them to the members of the group. It means the reallocation of society’s wealth by means of obligatory payments or services. The central collecting source may be a chief, a king, a religious leader or the state. The resources collected are later re-allocated to the society as a whole in the form of community services, to support infrastructures or public institutions (army, state bureaucracy, et cetera) and to maintain the class system. In chiefdoms a number of resources are redistributed: hunting sites, unused land, food surpluses, and so on. By accumulating and storing resources, the chief is in a position to redistribute them in times of scarcity and hence guarantee an adequate subsistence for all the members of society. 3. Market exchange A mode of economic distribution in which resources are exchanged on the basis of prices established by supply and demand and expressed in generalised units of value. In other words, it is the trading of goods and services through a common medium of value-money. This is a type of transaction removed from social considerations of kinship and friendship. Not all market exchanges are impersonal; often, trading partners establish long-term relationships based on mutual trust. In the market situation it is common to have a broker or middleman who facilitates the dealings between sellers and buyers. In some traditional societies markets may be limited to certain goods, but land might be excluded from transactions. In modern, capitalist society everything is bought and sold. Table 2:1 Levels of socio-cultural integration, modes of subsistence and economic distribution Band

Hunting-gathering

Egalitarian

Reciprocity

Tribe

Horticulture/Pastoralism

Egalitarian

Reciprocity

Chiefdom

Horticulture/Pastoralism

Rank

Reciprocity/Redistribution

State

Intensive Agriculture

Class/caste

Market exchange

2. Kinship 2.1 Kinship: basic terms, symbols, diagrams All societies have to solve a number of fundamental needs related to the production and reproduction of human life. Domestic groups developed historically as an answer to these needs. It is within the framework of these domestic groups that many activities take place: co-operation for

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obtaining food, socialisation, sexual activity, procurement of shelter and so on. The traditional simple societies studied by anthropology are kinbased; that is, the articulating principle of social organisation is kinship. Generally speaking, kinship refers to relationships based on descent and marriage. It follows that there are two types of relatives: consanguineous (related by ‘blood’) and affinal (related though marriage). Kinship, it should be emphasised, is a cultural construct, or as Marvin Harris put it, an ‘emic concept’. Kinship was certainly one of the most important human inventions. We have suggested that in ‘primitive’ societies the idiom of kinship pervades the whole society. In other words, the variety of social roles that a person performs stems from her or his position in the kinship system. This is not the case, obviously, of modern Western societies where kinship has a limited role, while the state and the work place dominate the life of the individual. The study of kinship systems has played a central role in anthropology, to the extent that a number of practitioners have considered it the most distinctive, interesting and scientifically more advanced part of the discipline. Until around 1970, kinship studies constituted half of the anthropological literature. However, after more than a century of research and analysis of the topic, anthropology finds itself in the uncomfortable position of having to admit that there is a crisis in the concept of kinship. Of course, most anthropologists seem to agree that although kinship is based upon certain specific biological facts (copulation, gestation, birth, descent, filiation, death, et cetera), its social recognition and cultural elaboration are what makes it specifically human. For some specialists kinship is only a language for expressing economic, political, religious, and other relationships; for others kinship offers special characteristic symbols: consanguinity and affinity. Maurice Godelier has pointed out that in ‘primitive’ societies kinship is multifunctional. However, it remains to be seen whether kinship can or cannot be reduced to something else. It is true that human society would most probably not have been viable had there not been a strong principle of solidarity between its members, implying among other things the presence of co-operation, equitable distribution some degree of equality. Meyer Fortes has suggested that the principle of kinship can be reduced to the axiom of friendship (universal principle of altruism). Most ‘primitive’ institutions could therefore be seen as informed by this altruistic principle, while one should not forget that it is weakened by other social factors, such as age and sex, and, above all, settlement, territory and domination. But the altruistic principle remains within the family (nuclear or extended) and to a lesser extent within such groups such as the lineage.

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Kinship studies are no longer the central concern of current anthropology. The idea that kinship may not be a separate analytic domain has changed the attitude of many practitioners towards kinship studies. For most Marxists kinship is part of political economy, while for feminists the studies of kinship and gender cannot be separated. Even David Schneider, the leading specialist on American kinship, has concluded that kinship cannot be understood as a distinctive and autonomous cultural domain, but that it is closely related to religion and nationality. Other authors have suggested that kinship has strong links with domains such as class, ethnicity, et cetera. At a more general level, anthropologists have tended to concentrate on native perceptions and conceptualisations rather than on scientific categories within which to study them. It is not surprising, then, that very little comparative work takes place. As to theorising, it has come to a standstill. Kinship can be defined as a set of rules that determine the place of the individual and the group in the social structure. Among the most important rules are those of descent, marriage, residence, succession and inheritance. To understand kinship, anthropologists tend to use notational symbols, shorthand and diagrams: Symbols ∆ Indicates a male O Indicates a female Person of unspecified sex ∏ siblingship (co-descent) | descended from (as from parent to child) = marriage Shorthand F stands for father M stands for mother B stands for brother Z stands for sister D stands for daughter S stands for son H stands for husband W stands for wife C stands for child Other genealogical positions are obtained by combining these letters. For example, MB means mother’s brother or FFF means father’s father’s father. It could be asked whether there is anything wrong in, say, calling FFF great grandfather. The reason for using these abbreviations rather than our own words is that great grandfather is a term in the Western kinship system, but other kinship systems may not have it. By using the

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notation, we are pinpointing a neutral genealogical position in the kinship diagram, without making any assumptions about the relationships that follow. Kinship diagram Ego indicates the person on which the genealogy is centred or, in other words, ego is the point of reference for tracing relationships. Ego’s kindred

=

=

Ego’s father’s kindred

=

Ego

2.2 Kinship terminologies In his classical study Social Structure (1949), G.P. Murdock showed the complexity of kinship terminologies, that is, of the system of terms by which members of a kin group normally designate one another, and which denotes their relationship. He pointed out that on a purely genetic basis any person has hypothetically seven types of primary kin: father, mother, brothers, sisters, spouse, daughters and sons. If we move to the secondary kin the number of types rises to thirty-three and if we look at the tertiary kin the figure is one hundred and fifty-one. After that the number of types is huge. However, Murdock noted that in most societies the number of kinship terms is around twenty-five, a proof that societies make specific choices as to which connections are important. A number of criteria are used to emphasise or to ignore the possible distinctions between people. The most important principles were: gener-

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ation, sex, affinity and collaterality; followed by bifurcation, polarity, relative age, sex of speaker and death. A number of these terms may require clarification. Concerning affinity, in societies with unilineal descent (where descent is traced through either the male or female lines) father’s brother (FB) and mother’s brother (MB) are terminologically differentiated (another good reason why the word ‘uncle’ would be misleading if used to refer to both positions). Collaterality refers to the nearness of kin relations based on lineality. Bifurcation differentiates between kin linked by male or by female. Finally, polarity refers to a situation in which two brothers or two cousins, or any other pair, may or may not use the same term for each other. Applying these principles, we obtain six different systems of kinship terminology, which allow us to account for the world-wide empirical variation of individual systems: 1. Eskimo system. Also called lineal system. It emphasises the nuclear family by specifically identifying mother, father, brother and sister, while merging all male cousins, female cousins, uncles and aunts under one term for each of the categories. In other words, while, from the standpoint of a male ego, there is a different name for a sister than for a female cousin, all female cousins (FBD, MBD, FZD, MZD) are lumped together. 2. Hawaiian system. All relatives of the same sex and generation are referred to by the same name. Terms for siblings and cousins are the same, terms for mothers and ‘aunts’ are the same and terms for father and ‘uncles’ are the same. Following our previous example, the same term would be applied to Z, FBD, MBD, FZD and and MZD. 3. Iroquois system. Father and father’s brother are referred to by a single term, as are mother and mother’s sister. However, father’s sister and mother’s brother are given different names from those given to father and mother respectively. The same rule applies to the relatives in ego’s generation: parallel cousins (persons who are children of same-sex siblings) are classified with siblings, but not with cross-cousins (persons who are children of opposite-sexed siblings). A male Ego would call Z, FMD and MZD by the same term and MBD and FZD by a different one. 4. Crow systems. This is a mode of kinship terms associated with matrilineal descent (descent reckoned through the female line). Father’s sister and father’s sister’s daughter are called by the same name; mother and mother’s sister are merged under another, while father and father’s brother are merged under a third. Parallel cousins are equated, respectively, with brothers and sisters. 5. Omaha system. It is the patrilineal variant of the Crow systems. Thus the line of mother’s patrilineal kin is equated across generations.

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6. Sudanese system. Also called descriptive. All cousins are given distinct terms; in the first ascendant generation all relatives are distinguished by name. From the point of view of a male Ego, there are different terms for Z, FBD, MZD, FZD and MBD. An interesting point about the geographical distribution of these systems is that Eskimo terminologies occur at both ends of the evolutionary spectrum: hunting-gathering societies and industrial ones. The reason is probably the centrality of the nuclear family in both types of society. Pastoralism and agriculture, on the other hand, offer a great variety of kinship terminologies, emphasising either the patrilineal or the matrilineal side. The main reason why anthropologists are interested in how different societies classify their kin is simply because there is a definite relationship between the way people classify others and the way they behave towards them. Separating father’s kin from mother’s kin is a clear sign that a society regards these two groups of relatives differently. As we shall see, in some cases of prescriptive or preferential marriage, a given kin term denotes a prospective marriage partner. In other cases, the kin term does not reveal the expected behaviour towards that relative, but is only an indication.

2.3 Types of descent and descent groups One of the central categories of kinship organisation is that of descent. The concept of descent refers to the tracing of relationships through a number of generations. Many societies use the principle of descent as a basis for eligibility or recruitment for membership in a group. The principle of descent involves the cultural recognition of consanguineous or genealogical relationships based on the parent-child connection. There are two main types of descent: unilineal descent, when descent is traced through one line (male or female), and nonunilineal descent, when descent is traced through all progenitors (male and female). Descent groups, strictly speaking unilineal descent groups, are essentially collections of consanguineal kin united by presumed lineal descent from a common ancestor. These people interact on a regular basis, have obligations towards each other and have a sense of common identity. However, the fact that descent is reckoned through one line does not necessarily mean that relatives on the other line are not important; just that they are not part of the descent group. There are basically four types of unilineal descent groups: 1. Patrilineal or agnatic descent groups. This is perhaps the most widespread descent ideology and, in simple terms, means that children belong to their father’s descent group. In other words, descent is traced exclusively through the male line. A man’s son and daughter

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trace their descent back to the male line. Patrilineality and pastoralism are closely associated, though the former also occurs in agricultural societies. In evolutionary terms patrilineal inheritance is adaptive (in terms of reproductive success) for men. 2. Matrilineal or uterine descent groups. Under matrilineal descent sons and daughters are defined as members of the mother’s group. In other words, descent is traced exclusively through the female line for purposes of group membership. A woman’s son and daughter trace their descent back through the female line. Matrilineal descent tends to occur in agricultural societies where women play a important role in production. Matrilineal inheritance is adaptive for women and governs the resources over which they have most control. 3. Double or double unilineal descent groups. Descent is reckoned both patrilineally and matrilineally. In this systems descent is matrilineal for some purposes and patrilineal for others. Among the Yako of Nigeria the matrilineal group owns the land and the patrilineal one owns the cattle.

Diagram 2.1 =

=

=

Ego

Patrilineally related kin

Diagram 2.2

=

=

=

Ego

Matrilineally related kin

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4. Ambilineal or optative descent group. A form of unilineal descent in which the individual may decide to trace descent either patrilineally or matrilineally. Normally, when a decision has been made it cannot be changed. Descent groups are not just there to provide a sense of belonging, but because the people who belong to them share different types of interests, especially economic, legal, religious, and other ones. Economic functions are often emphasised as the most important aspects of descent groups. It is only when a permanent resource such as land becomes significant, that such groups evolve; it is rare to see hunters-gatherers with unilineal descent groups. Warfare is another factor that plays an important role in the making of unilineal descent groups (UDGs). Most societies with UDGs engage in warfare, often competing for resources. Another obvious function of these groups is the regulation of marriages (usually people cannot marry within their UDGs). Mutual support is also an important function provided by UDGs. Furthermore, they often play a political role, particularly where there is no centralised authority. Finally, descent groups act often as a repository of religious traditions; ancestor worship is a good example of a ritual that reinforces group solidarity. Anthropologists categorise UDGs in terms of inclusivity, that is, by reference to the number of generations included. Four major categories emerge: lineage, clan, phratry and moiety. 1. Lineage. A lineage is a group of consanguineal kin who are able to trace their genealogy through specific links to a common ancestor. Lineages extend to a few generations only. Traditionally, in many societies, being a member of a lineage meant legal and political status; religious affiliation also derived from membership of the lineage. An important feature of lineages is that they are corporate groups, that is, they have a perpetual existence, they hold property, they organise production, assign status and regulate inter-group relationships. Lineages tend to be exogamous (members marry out). 2. Clan or Sib. Over time, the members of a lineage grow to a critical point beyond which the size of the group makes it unmanageable. Then they tend to split (fission) and new lineages are formed. However, the recognition of a certain type of link is still acknowledged. It is from this situation that clans, also known as sibs, come into existence. A clan is a non-corporate descent group in which members claim descent from a real or mythical ancestor. One of the differences between clan and lineage is that the members of the latter usually reside in the same locality; this is not the case with the clan members. The main function of the clan is ceremonial, although it can also regulate marriage through exogamy. A phenomenon that tends to occur in clans is totemism, that is, the belief that there is a relationship between society and plants and animals. Totemic symbols identify the member of the clan and generate solidarity.

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3. Phratry. It occurs at a higher level of integration, and is based on some recognition of the relationship between two or more clans. The tradition of common descent is more tenuous, but it still helps to unite people. Phratries may exert political power. 4. Moiety. When an entire society is divided into two large unilineal descent groups, the French term ‘moiety’ (half) is used. Given their size, it is not surprising that moieties have rather limited functions, exogamy being one of them.

2.4 Non-unilineal or cognate groups Descent groups do not occur in all societies. When descent is traced bilaterally, that is, when one person is affiliated with relatives on both his and her paternal and maternal sides, we have a non-unilineal group. In theory, bilateral descent can be infinitely extended both generationally and laterally, and can generate an enormous aggregation of relatives. Usually, however, the group is reduced to a small number of close relatives on both sides; this group is called the kindred. That world-wide cognatic groups should be less common than unilineal groups may be at first sight surprising, but bilateral descent is a rather messy principle of social organisation. In industrial societies, where kinship is only one of the many principles of social organisation, a bilateral group may suffice; in hunting-gathering ones, where the society is small, it is also a satisfactory principle. Most non-unilineal societies, particularly in the Western industrialised world, recognise at least four ‘grandparents’ and at least second cousins descended from the same great-grandparents. Kindreds are very different from descent groups in that the former are never the same for any two persons, except siblings. Unlike descent groups, a kindred is not defined by the position of a common ancestor, but by people with a common relative ego. That is why kindred are usually ego-focused or ego-centred. As ego goes through the life cycle, so his or her kindred changes. While in infancy the kindred would consist of people from his or her own generation, and his or her parents, and grandparents, generations. Later in life descendants of these people are also incorporated into the kindred. In the West, members of the kindred tend to gather on special occasions that correspond to major life events or rites of passage (family reunions, weddings and funerals). Kindred are not groups in the strong sense of the term, mostly because of their egocentric and changing character. Generally speaking, they cannot perform any of the traditional functions of unilineal descent groups. However, kindred organise to a certain extent the life of the individual by structuring his or her relationships with others; they are also a framework within which mutual help takes place. At a more general level, they contribute to keeping society together.

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2.5 The nuclear family The family is a type of social arrangement which is important in all societies. However, it must be emphasised from the outset that it varies markedly from society to society. The so-called nuclear or conjugal family, consisting of husband, wife and children is near universal, but is not necessarily a ‘superior’ form of family. G. P. Murdock found that it was present in all of the 250 societies of his sample, even accepting though in many of them the man or woman belongs to more than one nuclear family (through polygyny and polyandry respectively). An extreme case that challenges the universality of the family is that of the Nayar of Kerala (southern coast of India). Until the late nineteenth century there existed a very peculiar type of ‘marriage’. Around puberty, Nayar girls entered into an arranged marriage. In a symbolic ceremony a girl was wedded to a man who belonged to a different, faraway, warrior caste. After the ceremony the couple might cohabit for a few days, with sexual activity permitted but not prescribed. Then the couple would separate and the girl would return to her mother’s village. There she was free to engage in sexual affairs and have children from different biological fathers. The children of these unions belonged to the mother’s kinship unit or matrilineage. The group included also men, such as the brothers of the girl and her mother’s brothers. it was up to these men to provide food and help to raise the children born into the matrilineage. They had also authority over the land of the group. What the Nayar case shows is that the ‘father’ is absent. The Nayar ‘family’ was considered a shocking anomaly at a time when anthropologists believed in the universality of the nuclear family. At present, of course, with single parenthood, a high rate of divorce, and so on, the nuclear family has lost the prominent place that it once had in Western societies. Some anthropologists, namely Claude Lévi-Strauss, have suggested that the true minimal social unit is not the nuclear family but what he calls the ‘atom of kinship’, that is, the mother-child relationship. This is the basis on which all societies develop their kinship systems, by addition and extension.

2.6 Other types of family In addition to the nuclear family we have polygamous marriages of two types: polygyny and polyandry. The former means multiple wives, the latter multiple husbands. Group marriage, that is, the marriage of two or more women to two or more men is very rare, although some anthropologists believe that it was typical of an early stage of social evolution. The monogamous family, perhaps because it was the norm for Western civilisation, was believed to be the most generalised and perfect of families. However, Murdock’s Ethnographic Atlas shows that only 16% of the sample were monogamous marriages. More recent studies with

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larger samples have shown similar results. With the high rates of divorce and remarriage that exist today in the West, some anthropologists have coined the expression serial monogamy to refer to this situation. Polygynous marriages are permitted in nearly 50% of Murdock’s ethnographic sample. Polygyny is spread worldwide, being particularly popular in Africa. In these societies, and for demographic reasons, monogamous marriages are still more numerous than polygynous ones. Polygyny tends to be the mark of a man’s wealth and of his high status. Conversely, where women are particularly powerful economically, a man can acquire additional wealth by plural marriages, as is often the case in West Africa. A study undertaken by Melvin Ember shows that excess of women and late-age marriage are strongly correlated with polygyny. Theoretically, a husband has the same rights and obligations towards his various wives, and he is the legitimate father of all the children born to each of them. Wives tend to have separate living quarters. It is not unusual, however, that one of the wives (commonly the first or the last) should be the favourite. Jealousy is common in polygynous marriages, but less so in the case of sororal polygyny (when a man is married to two or more sisters). Polyandrous marriages are rather rare; only three or four societies have attested polyandry. This type of marriage can be fraternal (where the husbands are brothers) or not. Some Tibetans, the Toda of India, the Sinhalese of Sri Lanka and the Marquesans of Polynesia are known for this type of marriage; fraternal polyandry is found in the first three cases. Shortage of women has been put forward as an explanation of polyandry, but sex unbalance does not always occur. Another explanation highlights specific adaptations to conditions of land scarcity, and the need to preserve undivided property rights. The expression extended family is used in anthropology to designate a domestic group consisting of two or more generations of related persons and their spouses all living together. Sometimes it also indicates a nuclear or polygamous family with other relatives living together.

2.7 Marriage rules The incest taboo, one of the true universals of human culture, forbids sexual relation and marriage between primary relatives (mother-son, father-daughter and sister-brother). In addition, many societies extend the incest taboo to a long list of relatives (both kin and affine). Conversely, some societies prescribe or favour marriage with certain relatives (normally cousins). There a few exceptions to the universality of the incest taboo, namely royal marriages between brother and sister in ancient Egypt, among the Incas of Peru and in Hawaii. In all cases royals were considered to be gods, so marriages with commoners were inconceivable. There are many explanations for the existence of the incest taboo, but these often confuse the prohibition with the actual behaviour. For

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example, it is suggested that the taboo results from a lack of sexual interest among relatives who have grown up together. But if this is the case, why do societies need a prohibition and why are there cases of incest? There are also biological explanations that emphasise the deleterious effects of inbreeding. But this knowledge about the long-term effects of inbreeding has only come with modern genetics, so it could hardly be known in primitive societies. However, an evolutionary explanation would suggest that in the distant past those groups of humans that avoided incest had a reproductive advantage over those that did not. The universality of the taboo is hence explained with the argument that the in-breeders would have become extinct. A final theory worth mentioning is that put forward by Claude Lévi-Strauss, who insists that the value of the incest taboo is that engenders co-operation among families. In the classic words of Edward B. Tylor; the only alternative to marrying out of the group was that of being killed out. When we consider the choice of potential partners we realise that all societies, in addition to forbidding incest, restrict marriages in other ways. Two forms of restriction are endogamy and exogamy. Endogamy means marriage within a specified group, while exogamy means marriage outside any specified group. Among the Trobrianders of Melanesia each individual marries outside his or her own clan and lineage (exogamy), but inside their own village (endogamy). Anthropologists have noted that, generally speaking, exogamy tends to promote trade relationships between groups. In his classic The Elementary Structures of Kinship (1948), Lévi-Strauss distinguished two types of marriage systems: elementary and complex. Elementary systems are those in which the rules specify whom should you marry: these are positive rules. Complex systems are those in which the rules state whom you cannot marry, but it is left to other mechanisms to decide whom you marry; these are negative rules. Among the preferential or prescriptive marriages it is possible to distinguish between cross-cousin marriages (in which a male ego marries a daughter of his mother’s brother or of his father’s sister) and parallel-cousin marriages (in which a male ego marries a daugther of his mother’s sister or of his father’s brother). To preserve the alliance between two groups, some societies have introduced the marriage rule of sororate and levirate. Sororate is a mechanism by which some societies want to preserve marriage relationships between two groups, even after the death of the original wife. To that end a sister (or a close female relative) of the deceased becomes a spouse for the widower. Levirate is a similar institution which comes into existence at the death of the husband; the widow remarries one her husband’s brothers (or a close male relative). Levirate goes often with polygyny, patrilineal descent and patrilocal residence. Levirate was found in Ancient Israel and resulted in an extended patriarchal family.

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Any children born after the second marriage were considered to be the heir of the deceased husband. Some traces of levirate are found in today’s Middle East. The Biblical prescription is found in the Old Testament: ‘If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband’s brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband’s brother unto her. And it shall be, that the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel.’ Deuteronomy, 25: 5-6

2.8 Rules of residence Many societies have specific rules about post-marital residence. The rules are few in number and all societies have adopted one or another of them, or a combination of them. The possibilities are as follows: 1. Patrilocal residence. The newly-wed couple settles in the locality of the husband’s parents. This is the most common form of postmarital residence: it affects 69% of all societies. 2. Matrilocal residence. The couple resides with the parents of the wife. This form is less common that the previous one: 13% of all societies. 3. Bilocal residence. The couple may choose to live near the relatives of the husband or of the wife, or may have to live for a period with the husband’s relatives and for another period with the wife’s relatives. Approximately 8% of societies conform to this rule. 4. Neolocal residence. A couple establishes its residence without regard to the residence of either partner’s family of origin. Only 5% of societies conform to this rule. 5. Avunculocal residence. It refers to a situation in which the couple lives with the husband’s mother brother. It affects 4% of all societies. 6. Separate residence. This situation occurs when the new couple does not live in the same locality: the husband lives in one place and the wife in another. This is a rare occurrence: only 1% of all societies.

2.9 Matrimonial strategies In most societies marriage constitutes an alliance between two kinship groups. There are a number of formalised ways of acquiring a spouse. The most important ones are: 1. Bridewealth. These are the goods given to the bride’s kin group by the groom or his kin group. It happened in practically all African societies, and it took the form of cattle payment. At a world level it occurs

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in 47% of the societies; generally speaking the price paid is substantial. It should be made clear that this institution can in no way be interpreted as the sale of a woman; the prestige of women is not affected by bridewealth. 2. Bride service. This is an institution that compels the man to work for his bride’s family either before or after marriage for periods of months or years. It occurs in 14% of societies. 3. Dowry. An important amount of goods or money is transferred to the bride by the bride’s family. Although only 4% of societies conform to this practice, it was quite common in different parts of Europe, particularly, but not only, in medieval times. 4. Gift exchange. Gifts of approximately the same value are passed between the families. Only about 4% of societies exchange gifts. Other matrimonial strategies such as marriage by capture or elopement are more unusual. Marriage by capture avoids the problem of payment, but it can attract the ire of the wife’s kinship group. As to elopement, it is a kind of safety valve for restrictive customs. It is usually justified by love, and although it is uncommon it occurs worldwide.

2.10 Termination of marriage Most societies do not conceive of marriage as sacrosanct, unlike what happens in Judeo-Christian culture. Permanency in marriage is not a necessary feature of the union; the majority of societies recognise that marriage bonds are fragile. Trial marriages occur in some societies to signify the difficulty of finding the right partner. The causes of marriage breakdown and divorce are various: adultery, sterility, sexual disability, neglect, et cetera. Most societies (96%) acknowledge the institution of divorce and recognise the right of both men and women to initiate the termination of the marriage.

2.11 Age sets We have mentioned that in primitive societies kinship is one of the key principles of social organisation. On the other hand, the development of the individual through a series of stages from infancy to old age is a process which many societies use for assigning persons to different roles. One of the most clearly defined age divisions is the passage to adulthood, which many societies demarcate with various ceremonies. Often, neither children nor adolescents are fully-fledged members of society. Adulthood is only reached upon marriage or the birth of the first child, and implies the possession of certain forms of knowledge and rituals. On the other hand, the elders usually enjoy certain privileges, as is the case among

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certain groups of Australian aborigines; in other cases, although they have no decision-making power, they are at least consulted and respected. In certain societies, especially in East Africa, age is a basic element in the formation of most of the groups making up the social structure. In these societies we find age grades through which all individuals pass. On the other hand, we sometimes find age groups or age sets: that is, groups which have a name, definite emblems and ornaments, and of which one generally becomes a member by participating in the same initiation ceremony. Every age set is a group that passes through the various age grades defined by their particular society, each stage implying certain rights and obligations. Usually, the transition from one grade to another is marked out by specific rites. The number of age grades varies considerably from one society to another. The Masai of Kenya, for instance, distinguish three age grades for males: uncircumcised males, circumcised youths and married men. Their neighbours, the Nandi, distinguish as many as seven grades. In some societies, age grades take on important political and military functions.

3. Person, self and individual 3.1 The category of the person according to Marcel Mauss It is often stated that in so-called primitive societies there is no room for individualism. The man who tries to set himself above the rest of the members of society in the economic, political or religious sphere is shunned – even if he does not have to face an openly hostile reaction or even expulsion from the group. This may well be true and most anthropologists would agree with the idea that individualism is a phenomenon essentially limited to modern Western civilisation. However, two points need to be made. In the first place, all societies have a concept of the person or the self worth considering. As Marcel Mauss put it succinctly: ‘There has never existed a human being who has not been aware not only of his body, but also of his individuality, both spiritual and physical.’ (Mauss 1985: 3)

In the second place, a comparative and historical approach of the concept of ‘person’ can help us to understand why individualism has only developed in the West and which societies may be envisaged as intermediary stages between primitive and modern man. In this section we will be using a cross-cultural perspective to explore the concept of the person. We will be considering both ethnographic and historical material to achieve this end. Prior to this exercise we will be looking at Marcel Mauss’s seminal essay entitled ‘A category of the human mind: the notion of person; the notion of self ’. This is a provocative and

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complex essay that, since its original publication in 1938, has shaped much of the research that has been undertaken on the topic. In his essay ‘A category of the human mind: the notion of the person; the notion of the self ’, Marcel Mauss takes the category of person from primitive societies (mostly American Indians) via Indian and Chinese civilisations to ancient Rome, and finally to Christianity. It is a masterly comparative and historical tour de force, given that it is limited to a regular size essay. The occasion was the delivery of one the most prestigious anthropological lectures in Great Britain: the Huxley Memorial Lecture for 1938. Before any further consideration of the topic, one must be aware that terms such as ‘person’, ‘self ’ and ‘individual’ have to be used with great caution when discussing societies other than Western ones. In the final instance, the meaning given to these terms, unless it is carefully specified, always returns us to our own societies. In other words, Mauss was well aware of the dangers of conceptual ethnocentrism. Although he does not start by defining the term ‘person’, he nonetheless delimits his field of study by referring exclusively to the areas of law and morality, that is, the institutional system. His essay examines the concept of the individual expressed by the value system of a society, but he explicitly leaves out other conceptions of the person, such as a psychological or biological ones. Mauss wanted to establish that in primitive societies there is a notion, of ‘role’ or ‘character’ (personnage in French) that will later evolve, in other type of societies, into the notion of the self or the person. How can we describe this idea of the individual in primitive societies? Here is the sketch proposed by Nick Allen (1985: 31–32): 1. The ‘character’ (personnage) is a member of a bounded society. Mauss is referring to a group with a certain attachment to a territory and a social charter. A certain genealogical depth is to be expected. Also the members will differentiate themselves in relation to other groups by having a distinctive name and a belief in a common ancestor. Finally, it is a common belief that outsiders are not considered human beings. 2. The tribe consists of a variety of segments. The prototypical ‘character’ would be a member of a totemic clan. Normally, clans bear the name of an animal. 3. The group has a fixed number of names, one for each ‘character’. 4. The carrier of a name is considered as the reincarnation of the original mythical carrier. 5. The name means something related to the totem of the clan. 6. A ‘character’ will take his name from an ancestor, usually his grandfather.

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7. Each carrier of a name has rights and duties associated with rituals; the most important one is to represent his original bearer. A mask may be used to symbolise the identity of performer and ancestor. 8. Dancing is often part of the ritual; it is learnt through the initiation process. 9. Not all members of the clan are ‘characters’. The reasons vary; children, women, and old men are excluded. Sometimes, they run out of names because of an increase in population. The standing of individuals who are not ‘characters’ is unclear; they are certainly different from outsiders. Perhaps they could be referred as quasi-‘characters’. How does this notion of ‘character’ evolves into the concept of ‘person’? Mauss mentions a number of factors which may help to account for this evolution. He refers, for example, to the appearance of the idea of conscience among the Jews, also to the existence of proselytising religions that transcend societal boundaries to embrace humanity, the idea of freedom in Roman law, and last, but not least, the so called egalitarian individualism of Christianity. However, he refers to Roman times as a particularly crucial period in the evolution of the concept of the person. It is a well-known fact that the Latin term persona originally meant a mask. At first we have the masks of the ancestors, a custom that is probably of Etruscan or even earlier (Greek) origin. Be that as it may, what we know is that in Roman society there are traces of an institution in which the actors adorn themselves with the masks that correspond to the names they bear. Some of the Roman rituals associate the members of a clan with an animal species (the wolf); in the rituals the members of the fraternity wear skins and masks, and bear the names that recall their association with the eponymous animal. How does Mauss go from this notion of person as mask to the notion of person as a legal entity? A number of steps were necessary, but popular revolts and the right of citizenship were perhaps the most crucial developments. At a certain stage, all freemen of Rome became Roman citizens, that is, they all became persons. In Rome, then, the word person may mean the world of masks and artificiality, but also the ‘true nature of the individual’ (Mauss 1985:17). As Mauss insists, only the slaves were not persons, because they were things; all features bestowed on the Roman persons (names, property, ancestors, et cetera) were denied to them. Finally, Mauss considered also the Christian idea of the person, albeit rather briefly. For Christianity, man is a moral person, a metaphysical entity. As he put it, in Christianity we see: ‘The transition from the notion of persona, of a man “clad in a condition”, to the notion of man, quite simply, that of the human “person” (personne).’ (Mauss 1985: 19)

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3.2 The concept of the person in West Africa Traditionally African societies were ignored and despised. Many philosophers, believed that Africa was outside ‘history’. For Hegel, for example, the Spirit had not touched the African continent. It was only with the anthropological studies of people like E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Meyer Fortes, John Middleton, Victor Turner, Robert Horton and many others that African philosophy came to the fore. Brian Morris (1994) has suggested that there are five basic observations to that have been made concerning the African concept of the person: 1. The conceptual world of the Africans is essentially religious in kind, although there is a practical dimension to African philosophy. 2. Unlike Western thought, African philosophy is characterised by the ubiquitous presence of the idea of a vital force. 3. The African concept of the self is complex and centrifugal, and without clear boundaries; in this sense it is different from the Western conception that sees the individual as a bounded entity. This does not preclude the existence, among Africans, of self-awareness. 4. While individuality is recognised, the person is always seen as linked to the group, the ancestors, and others. 5. It is not clear whether there is a single worldview that can be applied to all Africans. To illustrate the diversity of African conceptions of the person we will be considering two ethnographic examples: the Tallensi of Ghana and the Baga of Guinea. The Tallensi of Northern Ghana The Tallensi, studied by Meyer Fortes, exemplify the Maussian idea that the personality and the soul are determined by society. It follows, then, that society can confer the label personhood ‘on any object it chooses, human or non human, the living or the dead, animate or inanimate, above all, both on singular and on collective objects’ (Fortes 1987: 253). It is consistent with the Tallensi mode of thought, as in wider West Africa, that a lineage, a tribe, or a nation may be a person. It is also acceptable that in certain situations a crocodile might be labelled a person. However, it is fair to say that the basic model and the primary reference for the person is the human person. This issue of who a person is does not create a lot of curiosity among the Tallensi, nor does it originate mythological thought. Their attitude to these matters is rather pragmatic and instrumental; whatever beliefs and theories they have can only be inferred from their practices. The closer equivalent that we have in Tallensi of the word person is nit (plural niriba). This term has a wide range of meanings, often signifying

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people in the widest sense of the term. A sacred crocodile is a kind of person. What does that mean? Simply that if a crocodile is found dead, it is buried and given a funeral. One could say that a sacred crocodile is a person, but not human. For the Tallensi, being human is contrasted with other constituents of the wider category of living beings. In this category, animals come first, immediately after humans. Animals and humans do not differ biologically speaking: they are mobile, they reproduce, they have a comparable anatomy, and so on. The difference is that to kill a human entails desecration of the earth, while killing an animal does not (or not quite). Sacred crocodiles are the vehicles of ancestral immortality, that is why killing them is such a crime. It is interesting to note that mystical agencies are not considered persons. You must have a mortal body to be a person. Full personhood is only validated by death, by a death believed to be caused by an ancestral agent. As to individualism, the very opposite is true. Tallensi society is strongly communitarian and puts the emphasis on ascribed status that is rigid and inherited. The Baga of Guinea The Baga of the Republic of Guinea in West Africa, studied by Ramon Sarró (2001), have an original concept of the person that is worth describing. The Baga, like the Tallensi, are not individualists in the Western sense of the term, and forcefully reject what we would usually call egotistical behaviour. They believe that the person belongs to a social whole and that this is his primary reality. There are two concepts in Baga language that can be translated into English as ‘person’. In the first place, what they call fum, which would be the equivalent of ‘human being’. In the second place, the concept of buwaka, which would just means ‘Baga’. The latter should not be misconstrued to signify that only the Baga are persons, because this ethnic group clearly recognises that the category person can also be predicated of the members of other ethnic groups. There is another fascinating concept among the Baga: wan ka fum. This is an expression that is difficult to translate. It means approximately ‘son of person or ‘son of man’. The meaning of such an expression varies according to the circumstances. It can be seen as humanity, but has also a more restricted meaning, equivalent to ‘foreigner’ or ‘alien’. The Baga do not conceive of the person as an entity outside the social network in which he finds himself. They see the individual as a cog in the generational game, and that is why genealogy and descent are key concepts in understanding the Baga concept of the individual. In this sense, they clearly separate the animal from the human world. Only humans are endowed with kinship institutions. Finally, we can also observe that a dualist conception of the person is at work in Baga philosophy, in the sense that a person consists of a body and a spirit.

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There is a mechanism that controls the selfish outbursts among the Baga: witchcraft. The Baga fear that if they behave egotistically they will be severely punished. This social control that compels an individual Baga to share his wealth with the members of his lineage, so creating a basically egalitarian society. With death (at least the ‘good death’ that is not caused by witchcraft), the person does not disappear because the community is always defined as consisting of the dead and the living. The ancestors have a social role to play and may even return to life through the process of reincarnation.

3.3 The concept of the individual in India The study of the concept of the individual in India is marked by the influence of the work of Louis Dumont. In his Homo Hierarchicus (1967) and other texts he enunciated these four propositions: 1. Traditional society is holistic and modern society is individualistic. 2. Modern researchers do not understand the concept of hierarchy – they tend to equate it with inequality. In a traditional society hierarchy is perceived in terms of holism. 3. To interpret the principle of hierarchy one must see it in terms of the attribution of rank to each element in relation to the whole. 4. Unless one transcends modern ideology, that is, individualism, and embraces holism, one cannot hope to understand traditional society. In the course of his different works, Dumont has constructed two different ideologies: holism and individualism, which represent two completely different types of societies: hierarchical and egalitarian, respectively. The holistic ideology gives supreme value to the social whole and minimises the individual. In these circumstances, the society that emerges, like India for example, is hierarchical in that the parts (individuals) are subordinated to the whole (society). As its opposite end, the individualist ideology gives supreme value to the individual, who is defined as an independent, autonomous and essentially non-social being. This kind of ideology disregards the social whole. In this context hierarchy gives way to equality. The West is an excellent example of an individualist ideology. A serious problem facing researchers who study India is that that they tend to see the caste system in terms of economic inequalities; a system characterised by exploitation, segregation, et cetera, in a word, an intolerable system for the modern man. Dumont maintains that to envisage the caste system as iniquitous is to judge it from a perspective which is alien to Indian society: modern individualism. India is hierarchical, but makes a virtue out of this conception. What is not in dispute is that the orientation of Indian society is towards the whole, and not to the individual. However, that should not let us prejudge the caste system in

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terms of our own values. Holism and hierarchy are closely connected. As Dumont (1980: 10) put it: ‘We shall define hierarchy as the principle by which the elements of a whole are ranked in relation to the whole, it being understood that in the majority of societies it is religion which provides the view of the whole, and that ranking will thus be religious in nature.’

Dumont’s statement that traditional societies know nothing of equality and liberty as values, that is, they know nothing of individualism, should not be taken at face value. Two main types of criticisms (Béteille 1986) have been addressed to Dumont’s treatment of India. In the first place, Dumont’s discourse is about traditional Indian society, not the contemporary one; in the latter, equality and individualism are a central political concern, but Dumont fails to recognise that. The Indian constitution, for example, aims at putting equality in the place of hierarchy and the individual in the place of caste. In the second place, it concerns an idealised, that is, Brahminical view of India, which does not always correspond to the complexities of Indian reality. A systematic critique of Dumont’s work on India can be found in Brian Morris’s work (1978; 1994). The Dumontian assumption that the individual in India is essentially viewed as a member of a caste is at variance with many ethnographic studies on tribal Indian communities, particularly in the south of the country. This includes communities like the Paliyans studied by P. Gardner, the Yanadis studied by B. Raghaviah and the Hill Pandaram studied by Morris himself. In fact, these communities could be characterised by very extreme individualism, perhaps even more than Western societies. Among the Paliyans the patterns that emerge are the following: 1. A normative stress on symmetrical relationships and egalitarianism. 2. A normative stress in self-sufficiency. 3. Very weak social ties. Similar statements could be made about the Hill Pandaram and the Yanadis; of the latter, Raghaviah says that they exhibit an uncompromising individualism to the point that there is hardly any social life. In fact, many studies of hunters and gatherers the world over show that in these societies an emphasis is placed on the autonomy and self-sufficiency of the individual. In defence of Dumont it could be suggested that forest or tribal communities of India fall outside the strict, caste system; they are not part of the ritual hierarchy. However, many people have described these communities in similar terms to those used for the caste system. If we return to the question: are there any individuals in India? The answer has to be positive. It is indicated in language, among other things. Also individuals are recognised independently of the kinship group and caste to which they belong; kinship, for example, cuts across caste and carries egalitarian values which countervail the hierarchical

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values of caste. It is also important is to realise that caste ideology does not account for all aspects of Indian society. The concrete individual operates in a variety of social contexts; this implies a minimal degree of autonomy and rationality, as well as the belief that the person is an independent moral agent. Dumont does not only ignore the existence of many individualistic and egalitarian Indian tribal societies, but also does not refer to the fact that in the caste system the individual is not part of society but of the cosmic order. The collective idea of man does not refer to a social order, but to a dharma-like order. That is why when Dumont comes across individualism in India it is only in the context of somebody who is a world-renouncer. That is, individual identity is achieved by repudiating all ties that bind a person to the caste system and the world. What Brian Morris is suggesting is that the ‘self ’ is not identified either with the body or with society, but with a spiritual realm. The real self is spiritual, while the empirical self is weak and ephemeral. For Hindus the ‘I’ is neither an empirical self, the object of ‘I’, nor an ego, as an inner agency of the psyche, but rather it is pure consciousness (Atman). A final note on egalitarianism and individualism; going beyond the strict confines of the discussion on India. Islam, for example, combines egalitarianism with lack of individualism, at least this is the ideal. Islam, for example, does not recognise differences of race or status; however, the individual is subordinated to the ummah or community. Some Islamic societies, the nomad ones, reach the highest level of egalitarianism. However, when the populations became agriculturalist, settle down in towns and develop commerce, individualism appears and supersedes the egalitarianism and social cohesion of traditional societies. This would correspond to the classical historical model put forward by Ibn Khaldun and defended by Ernest Gellner. However, as ethnographers and historians have repeatedly shown, in the real Islamic world inequality of wealth and status is rife.

3.4 Social structure and individualism in medieval England In his famous book The Origins of English Individualism (1978: 5), Alan Macfarlane has forcefully maintained that from the thirteenth century onwards: ‘The social structure of England has emphasised the rights and privileges of the individual against the wider group or the state … It is the view that society is constituted of autonomous, equal, units, namely separate individuals, and that such individuals are more important, ultimately, than any larger constituent group. It is reflected in the concept of individual property, in the political and legal rights of the individual and in the idea of individual’s direct communication with God.’

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To say that by the thirteenth century England exhibited an original and different economic, social and legal system to that of other European and non-European societies is to go against the grain of established opinion. This includes the classical position of Marx and Weber, who considered that this kind of society made its appearance at a much later stage (sixteenth century onwards). For Macfarlane, medieval England was not a peasant society in the traditional sense of the term, and for the following reasons: 1. There was already a developed market and mobility of labour. 2. Land was treated as a commodity and full private ownership was established. 3. There was considerable geographical and social mobility. 4. A complete distinction existed between family and farm. 5. Rational accounting and the profit motive were widespread. (Macfarlane 1978: 196) It should be noted that Macfarlane’s thesis represents a radical departure, because what he is really saying is that by the thirteenth century England was already a capitalist society. Or, expressed in a slightly different way, that social and economic individualism in England preceded the major changes that many authors have for a long time associated with the Renaissance and the Reformation, or even with a later period. Macfarlane’s medieval Englishman stood already alone, with an egocentred kinship system that separated him from his European contemporaries. If we look at the other dimensions of individualism, namely equality and liberty, we can see that the implications of Macfarlane’s work are far-reaching. From Montesquieu to Dumont, via Tocqueville, we have been told that individualistic societies are a recent occurrence (from the sixteenth century onwards). The fact that England can be described, for at least seven centuries, as an agrarian country where the individual has been more important than the group and where the hierarchy of ranks was permeable, highlights the limitations of Dumont’s thesis. Macfarlane’s characterisation of Western civilisation is presented along rather uncontroversial lines. For him the West exhibits six main differential features: 1. Industrialism (a particular technique of production). 2. Capitalism (a set of relations within the productive process). 3. Individualism (a prominence of the individual over society). 4. Rationalism (a certain attitude towards getting wealth). 5. Science (a method for obtaining deeper understanding). 6. Democracy (a particular political system).

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Among the many factors that contributed to the advent of Western civilisation Weber pointed to the following: city formation, feudalism, disenchantment of the world (attack on magical religion) and the religious (Calvinist) work ethic. He also mentioned the change in family systems, that is, the disappearance of the extended family and of the wider kin groups (clans, lineages, et cetera). Macfarlane’s contribution is in this area. In a less well-known paper (Macfarlane 1994) he has maintained that the peculiarities of the Western family systems (particularly the English) long precede the other changes (capitalism, industrialisation, et cetera) and that they should be envisaged as causes and not as consequences. While in the past, social scientists assumed that the modern nuclear family, with its flexibility and small size, was the result of the process of industrialisation that took place in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, new research accumulated from the 1960s onwards has challenged this conventional wisdom. It is a well-known anthropological fact that most family systems give primacy to the group rather than to the individual. A comparative study of kinship systems shows that in so-called unilineal systems descent is traced through one line, usually the male, but sometimes the female. In this unilineal descent groups, clustering relatives of one given line are formed. This is common in Asia and Africa, but not in Europe, at least since the seventh century. The Western family is, on the contrary, cognatic, that is, traces relatives through both the male and the female lines. The end result is the formation of ego-focused groups. This kinship system was typical of the Germanic peoples, as anthropologists like A.R. Radcliffe-Brown had emphasised a long time ago. What are the consequences of such a system? Macfarlane (1994: 6) ventures the following ideas: ‘It predisposes a society towards flexibility, networks and the concept of the individual as more important than the group. Indeed, there are no groups, just ego-centred networks of people. Each individual’s kin (except brothers and sisters) is different. This is a central underpinning of an individualistic way of looking at the world. Already present at the time of the Anglo-Saxons, the movement away from strong family blocks – Weber’s defamiliarisation of society – had began to occur.’

In Western civilisation, particularly in England, the Eskimo kinship terminology strongly separates the modern family from the other relatives. By having special terms for the members of the nuclear family (father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter), while lumping together, through the use of classificatory terms, relatives on either side categories like cousin, aunt, nephew, et cetera. This reinforces the independence of the nuclear family and minimises the role of the wider circle of relatives. Jack Goody (1983) has shown that this system of terminology has existed in England since the eighth century. The existence of such institution for over a millennium has predisposed the English people to

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behave in a more individualistic way that they would otherwise have done. Another distinctive feature of the Western kinship system is the rule of monogamy. This is indeed a rare institution when we look at the issue cross-culturally. It is practically limited to Europe, both within the GrecoRoman cultures and the Anglo-Saxon world. Monogamy separates the husband and the wife from their respective kin and makes possible the workings of the cognatic system. A final distinctive feature is the inheritance system. In the English case what we have is not an automatic process of wealth transmission, but rather an optional and flexible system. In most societies, children (often male ones only) are the heirs to their parents’ property. Nobody is singled out and nobody is excluded of the inheritance. In a word, the parents cannot exercise choice; they are constrained by the rigid rules of the system. In England, excluding the high aristocracy, there has existed since at least the thirteenth century a system in which the idea of family estate or property is alien. The children have no guaranteed rights to the wealth of their parents. The latter may decide to sell or do away with their riches as they wish; or, as it often happens, they may favour one of the children (usually the eldest male). Again, looking at this system it is obvious that it encourages individualism, that is, the power of a free decision as to how to dispose of the wealth. The phenomenon of male primogeniture, which was common in England from the thirteenth century to the twentieth century, does not occur in many cultures. Comparative studies have shown that it is a rarity, even in Europe. We know well the effects of primogeniture: 1. It prevents the continuous dispersal of property, particularly land. 2. It makes possible the growth of capital which is the basis of modern capitalist society. 3. It encourages economic individualism, sacrificing wider emotional and social bonds. Macfarlane insists that the English system was not only peculiar because primogeniture is extremely rare, but because it went even further: it made it possible to exclude the eldest child from the property. In other words, primogeniture was not a fixed rule: other arrangements were possible. In the final resort, what emerges from this system is that there was no legal bond between family and landed property. The freedom to dispose of the property was the outstanding feature of the system. As Engels put it rather bluntly: England is one of the few countries where the parents have total liberty to give their wealth to anyone and are entitled to disinherit the children at will. The effect of this kinship system is easy to outline. It bred insecurity in the children and a desire to acquire wealth for themselves. Children

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tended to leave home after they had received their education, usually in their teens. It was rare that married people lived with their parents. It is plain that from an early age a child was educated to be an independent agent and that sooner rather than later he would leave for good. It is an observable fact, that in each generation the social unit is destroyed and the ‘children’ dispersed. An appropriate question at this stage would be to ask what happened in the households after the children left, in their teens. Recent studies have shown that up to a third of English households in the thirteenth century had servants or labourers. This situation persisted up to the Industrial Revolution or even longer. It would appear, then, that in the mind of many scholars (Macfarlane, Laslett, Goody, Hajnal, and others) by the end of the thirteenth century England was endowed with a peculiar kinship system in which individuals held property rather than by groups. A system where the rules of inheritance were flexible and children had no automatic right of inheritance. All in all this encouraged the development of the type of economic individualism that is at the basis of capitalism and industrialism. These authors, particularly Macfarlane, see the connection between the kinship system and the development of capitalism in causal terms, although it would be erroneous to see it as the sole cause. A comparison between England and Japan shows that their kinship systems exhibit striking similarities. The fact that Japan was the only country in Asia to have an autonomous capitalist development gives us food for thought. England and Japan shared, as Marc Bloch remarked long time ago, what could be called a strong feudalism, which must have been somewhat connected with the type of flexible family that both countries had. What seems to be the case is that: ‘The family system in England and Japan placed few inhibitions on capitalist growth, and indeed through setting the individual free, giving him little assurance or certainty, encouraged each man to strive for success, a striving which sometimes produced economic wealth as a side product.’ (Macfarlane, 1994: 36)

In conclusion, Macfarlane has provided us with a picture of medieval England in which, unlike other European and non-European societies, the individual appears to be at the centre of social relations. No single factor explains these developments, but there is little doubt in Macfarlane’s mind that the originality of the kinship system accounts, to a great extent, for the appearance of individualism in medieval England.

3.5 American individualism: a paradigm for modern times If any country has been identified with modern individualism, it is the USA. From its very inception, American society has been impregnated with individualism, a term which for most Americans (both scholars and the common man) has been said to carry positive connotations. The American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson, writing in the early half of the

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nineteenth century, could confidently embrace the common belief in the divine sufficiency of the individual. The Gospel of Emerson was the apotheosis of individualism; this is what made the Union great. On the other hand, the sociologist William Graham Summner, writing in 1871, had mixed feelings about individualism. According to David L. Miller (1967), individualism, at least in its political and social sense of the term, originated in England but found its most fertile soil in the social usages of America. Individualism is deeply embedded in the psyche of the American people. He distinguished three stages in development of American individualism: the formation of individualism (beginnings to 1816), the embodiment of individualism (1816–1920) and the reckoning with the social component of the self (1920–to the present). We will be using this scheme throughout this section. 3.5.1 The formation of individualism (from the beginnings to 1820) It is a well-known fact that most of the colonists who settled in what was later to be known as the USA, were scattered small groups of people with strong religious convictions. The first important move to unite the different colonies came in 1754, although this initiative, began by Benjamin Franklin, failed. The Declaration of Independence of 1776 and later developments did not quite solve the issue of what kind of political ideals the new nation was committed to. If anything, however, there was a strong assertion of individual rights and freedoms, as we can see from a passage from the Declaration of Independence: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter it or abolish it.’

Americans got their political inspiration from the English tradition (from John Locke to Edmund Burke), but also from the French tradition, namely Montesquieu and Rousseau. John Locke was perhaps the most influential author for philosophers and politicians who were involved in American independence. Carl Becker (1922) has maintained that Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of America, did little else than to gloss the Lockean doctrines. In this respect, he insists that the American Revolution was not so much inspired by the French Enlightenment as by the English parliamentary struggle of the seventeenth century. The concept of individualism was clearly connected with some of Jefferson’s most valued ideas: self-government, the rights of man and a free society. Another important element is that it gave democracy a

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philosophical, if not religious, undertone. One could also say that laissez-faire contributed to this belief system. However, by calling late eighteenth-century Americans individualists we may commit a solecism. Barry Shain (1994) has maintained that most revolutionary literature is not individualist in orientation, but rather reflects what he calls a Protestant communal world of ideas. In this sense, it is a myth to characterise the American beginnings as individualistic. In fact, between 1770 and 1790, Shain writes (1994: xvi): ‘The vast majority of Americans lived voluntarily in morally demanding agricultural communities shaped by reformed-Protestant social and moral norms. These communities were defined by overlapping circles of family and community assisted self-regulation and even self-denial, rather than individual autonomy or self-defining political activity.’

The main foundations of American society are reformed Protestantism, Scottish common-sense philosophy and English law. Early American political thought was dominated by Protestantism, namely by the idea of the personal and political limits of the individual. In the ideology of American revolutionaries much of the political doctrine is explained in terms of the centrality of the Fall. Spiritual liberty could only help to recover a part of mankind’s lost paradise. It is true, however, that by the late eighteenth century a small, but powerful, intellectual elite began to elaborate a more individualistic ideology. Their nationalist individualism confronted the reformed Protestantism of the rural majority. Shain envisages the history of America in later centuries as a repetition of this initial dispute. 3.5.2 The embodiment of individualism (1820–1920) From 1820 onwards, there was a massive move of Americans westwards. It was a way of putting into practice a number of the ideals preached by Jefferson: self-reliance, self-determination and self-made man. He wanted to create a democracy of independent farmers. Americans need new land to realise these objectives of owning and managing their own land. The ideal of man labouring in unison with nature was a Lockean idea that fructified in American soil. As good puritans, the migrants also believed in hard work and saving their money. There is little doubt that the westward expansion of the original American colonies created a type of person characterised by natural shrewdness, intuitive insight, and personal ingenuity. A person had to be physically strong, and exhibit a rigorous discipline. An individual was judged by whether he succeeded or failed through his own means. This is where the expression rugged individualism originated. To a great extent, the social component of the self disappeared. The individual relied only on nature and God. This is, anyway, how many Europeans see American individualism, not how they see themselves.

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The best example of American individualism of this period is perhaps Andrew Jackson, the poor orphan boy who went from the plough to the presidency. He exemplified strong will and hard work. He was a Benjamin Franklin minus learning and social refinements. It was through his influence that America underwent a wide range of momentous economic, social, political and institutional changes. Another consequence of this state of self-reliance and self-confidence as a nation was the rejection of any dependence in relation to Europe. On the contrary, it was widely felt that Europe was an artificial and contrived society, while America was authentic and close to nature. Not surprisingly, there followed in the nineteenth century an intense American nationalism doubled with isolationism. No better author than Herman Melville, in his famous novel Moby Dick, to exemplify this American stand: ‘This august dignity I treat of, is not the dignity of kings and robes, but the abounding dignity which hath no robed investiture. Thou shalt see it shining in the arm that wields a pick or drives a spike; that democratic dignity which, on all hands, radiates without end from God. Thou who didst pick up Andrew Jackson from the pebbles; who didst hurl him upon a war-horse; who didst thunder him higher than a throne! Thou, who in all Thy mighty, earthly marchings, ever cullest Thy selected champions from the kingly commons; bear me out in it, O God.’ (1851)

It is arguable how far this individualism went and how it should be judged. We should mentioned that European critics passed, on the whole, a negative judgement on American individualism. Some Americans have also argued that perhaps the nineteenth century went too far in that it encouraged a distorted vision of the individual which led to isolationism and the distrust of outsiders. Also, this communalism as a social component of the self, which according to Shain, flourished in eighteenth-century America, gave way to so-called rugged individualism. Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, published in 1855, spoke for all the Americans of that time, emphasising the spirit of freedom and the importance of the self. 3.5.3 Foreign critics of American individualism: Alexis de Tocqueville. The term individualism did not enter of current use in the USA until the last two decades of the nineteenth century. It is not that Americans were not aware of it or did not celebrate the concept before then (Emerson is a case in point). But in practice in the mid-nineteenth century there emerged terms like ‘self-made man’, ‘self-reliance’ and ‘self-help’, among others,which expressed Americans’ strong confidence in the power of the individual. Interestingly enough, the first author to study America and use the label individualism to refer to its defining features was Alexis de Tocqueville. Other Europeans like Chevalier and List had also some

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influence in contributing to raise the profile of the term individualism. If one common feature defines all these authors it is the negative connotations of the term. The best known critic of nineteenth-century American individualism was the French political scientist Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859); he was a thinker of the first rank. Born in an aristocratic milieu, he studied democracy in modern times. His two major contributions are: Democracy in America (1835; 1840) and The Ancient Régime and the French Revolution (1856). Tocqueville conceptualised individualism as one of the two main diseases of democracy, the other one being, of course, the tyranny of the majority. How does Tocqueville define individualism? His definition is idiosyncratic, but it was nonetheless very influential, partly because it was one of the first to be put forward. In fact, it would be more correct to say that there are two definitions of individualism in Tocqueville. According to the first one, which he assures us is of recent origin, individualism expresses a feeling which leads a person to isolate himself from the rest of society, except for his family and a reduced circle of friends. His society is not the larger society, but the reduced one. Individualism should be carefully distinguished from egotism; while the former is a considered and calm sentiment, the latter is a passion which leads human beings to show an excess of love for themselves. Individualism is not interested in public affairs and at first is not as damning as egotism. However, the long run it merges with egotism. Individualism originates only in modern democratic regimes, but it attacks the very principle of democratic societies because it encourages people to opt out of public affairs. As a result, democracy dies from indifference. In other words, individualism is the generalisation of a very well-known tendency in modern societies: abstentionism. Tocqueville insists that individualism is as much a danger for democracy as the tyranny of the majority. When individualism rules, it destroys the desire of the citizens to take up their civic responsibilities. It is interesting to note that Tocqueville accepts that individualism is of democratic origin. The reason is simple: only in democratic societies does the cult of the individual allow a person to retreat into his or her self. Individualism flourishes in egalitarian societies; the more human beings resemble each other, the more hierarchies disappear. In such a society, the bonds that unite human beings are weakened; men appear not to need each other. The assumption that human beings do not need each other is a fallacy that afflicts modern societies; in fact, human beings could not survive without a certain division of labour. The issue of individualism dominates Book II of Democracy in America, in the same way that the tyranny of the majority presided over Book I. For Tocqueville, both are the consequence of the development of egalitarianism. This phenomenon causes both conformism and passivity.

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That is why Tocqueville believes that, in the long run, individualism leads to the destruction of the individual. We have mentioned above that Tocqueville offers a second definition of individualism. This has to do with the appearance of the modern society as materialistically-oriented society. Tocqueville observes that modern democracies exhibit an excessive love of material pleasures. This creates a strong sense of envy in society, because not everybody manages to accumulate the same riches. Envy is a typically democratic sentiment that does not occur in hierarchical societies. This sentiment encourages economic activity and is conducive to capitalism. It is not by chance that the development of the latter coincides with democracy. In this context, individualism acquires a completely different meaning. If a person refuses to be a dutiful citizen it is because he prefers to be a businessman; it is because the pursuit of wealth allows him to stray from the public interest. Tocqueville feared that this economic interest would cloud the mind of humans and that they would behave in a purely selfish way. Individualism is little more than an extreme form of a particular interest. In this second concepts, individualism is caused by materialism and it is probably more serious than the previous form, which Tocqueville considered more an intellectual error than a passion. In conclusion, for Tocqueville democratic societies were sometimes turbulent, particularly those which had emerged through the destruction of aristocratic privileges (as in France); but this was not the case of America, which was a free-born country. He certainly saw ways of counterbalancing individualism, namely by the creation of certain institutions like free associations that could be interposed between the isolated individual and centralised strong state. At the institutional level, the separation of powers, the autonomy of the government and the independence of the judiciary are the essential pillars of democracy. Other correctives, like freedom of the press and freedom of association, could also contribute to the control of individualism. Finally, religion, with its emphasis on brotherhood, could also become a guarantee of civic virtues, a remedy against individualism. A Frenchman and contemporary of Tocqueville, Michel Chevalier also visited the USA and wrote in his Letters from America (1839) that Yankees were individualistic par excellence. For Chevalier individualism was a revolutionary force which liberated societies from the authority of tradition. The USA was the country which had reached the highest level of individualism. Unlike Tocqueville, Chevalier did not consider individualism to be a totally negative force. It was against central authority, and yet capable of creating new forms of social life through individual selfdetermination. Chevalier thought that individualism was compatible with American patriotism; in fact, American republicanism was the product of individualism.

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Although less influential than Tocqueville and Chevalier, the German economist Friedrich List, whose National State of Political Economy (1845) also introduced the term individualism, criticised the theories of the free-trade school. List defended the American protectionists and believed that individualism sacrificed the welfare of the nation to the altar of private, selfish interests. Furthermore, List equated individualism with materialism and particularism. 3.5.4 An inspiration to American individualism: Herbert Spencer Herbert Spencer was an English philosopher and sociologist of the late nineteenth century who developed a strong anti-statist individualism. This he exemplified in his famous work Man versus the State (1884). His individualism touched a raw nerve of ordinary late nineteenth-century Americans. To give a flavour of Spencer’s philosophy and style nothing is better than a extract from his book, in which, in his inimitable style, he puts the case for limiting the role of the state to a bare minimum (Spencer 1981: 185–7): ‘Is the government instituted for the purpose of regulating trade – of dictating to each man where he shall buy and where he shall sell? Do the people wish to be told what religion they must believe, what forms and ceremonies they must practice, or how many times they must attend church on Sunday? Is education the object contemplated? Do they ask instruction in the administration of their charity – to be told to whom they shall give, and how much, and what manner they shall give it? Do they require their means of communication – their roads and railways – designed and constructed for them? Do they create a supreme power to, direct their conduct in domestic affairs – to tell them at what part of the year they shall kill their oxen, and how many servings of meat they shall have at a meal? In short, do they want a government because they see that the Almighty has been so negligent in designing social mechanisms, that everything will go wrong unless they are continually interfering? No; they know, or they ought to know, that the laws of society are of such a character, that natural evils will rectify themselves; that there in society, as in every other part of the creation, that beautiful self-adjusting principle, which will keep all its elements in equilibrium; and, moreover, that as the interference of man in external nature often destroys the just balance, and produces greater evils than those to be remedied, so the attempt to regulate all the actions of a community by legislation, will entail little else but misery and confusion. What, then, do they want a government for? Not to regulate commerce; not to educate the people; not to teach religion; not to administer charity; not to make roads and railways; but simply to defend the natural rights of man – to protect person and property – to prevent the aggressions of the powerful upon the weak – in a word, to administer justice. This is the natural, the original, office of a government. It was not intended to do less: it ought not to be allowed to do more.’

The influence of Spencer in America in the late nineteenth century was pervasive; it affected all strata of society: farmers, ministers, workers, businessmen, judges, lawyers, politicians, academics, and others. They all made use of his ideas and slogans. His theory of the harmony of the

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universe was extremely popular, and was applied widely. He was seen as representing the best of the English spirit of liberty; his attacks against state intervention were particularly celebrated. His theory of individualism was seen as being presented in a clear and exemplary way. Republicanism and Spencerism went hand by hand. Even the Protestant churches, which were initially critical of his evolutionism, came to terms with it. Many ministers declared that evolution and religion were perfectly compatible. Spencer’s impact was also felt in the judiciary; court decisions often implement the principle of laissez-faire using Spencerian arguments. The Dawes Act of 1887, which formulated federal policy for native Americans, was partially inspired by Spencer’s doctrines. It aimed at integrating American Indians into the mainstream of American life, making settled agriculturalists out of them. It also entailed the destruction of tribal organisation, particularly the idea of communal lands. It was agreed that the natives had to become citizens, individuals, and participate in the American economy. In conclusion the reasons for Spencer’s appeal, according to Arieli (1964: 332), can be attributed to five of his principles: 1. His concept of individuality as the end of cosmic and social evolution. 2. His ethic of competitive individualism. 3. His unswerving suspicion of the state. 4. His almost anarchistic doctrine of the self-sufficiency of economic society and his belief in laissez-faire policy. 5. An optimistic theory of cosmic progress culminating in a perfect adjustment between individual and society. 3.5.5 Reckoning with the social component of the self What happened in the twentieth century when American society moved away from a predominantly agrarian society to an industrial one? In one sense, the power of the rural lobby has survived, and many Americans still believe that the values of this dwindling population have a strong moral claim to be the dominant values of the society as a whole. This is why free enterprise, individual initiative and self-dependence are still valuable ideals. This is not to say that there has ever been a policy of total laissez-faire. There are certain provisions that the state has to fulfil: 1. It has to prepare the individual for self-development. 2. It has to provide the right conditions so that individuals can express their initiative and can succeed in life. 3. It has to do what is consistent with the common good. This is certainly a minimalist state, but nonetheless it allows scope for a certain amount of planning.

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Returning to the issue of how twentieth century American society differs from that of the nineteenth century, it could be said that the traditional ideals have persisted but are not always interpreted in the same way. For example, in the nineteenth century it was held as sacred that no income transfers from the rich to the poor should be effected. It was believed that property and the earning of livelihood were within the reach of each individual and that there should be no limits to the freedom of enterprise or to the wealth accumulated by an individual. These, one must insists, were ideals. How far governments adhered to them is an empirical question. It can be safely said that they were not always adhered to in an absolute way. As a matter of fact, the state has always been involved in the planning of provisions. In a nutshell, although accepting that individualism was ingrained in the American psyche, the question was always, to what extent can government intervene in society? It is important to see that the planning of provisions was practised even at the height of the individualist philosophy in the mid-nineteenth century. For example, the Homestead Act of 1862 gave 160 acres per family to those who were willing to move West and work the land. In addition to that, the federal government established colleges where farmers could study the new agricultural techniques. The federal state also facilitated the creation of the railway system by providing free land to the railway companies. Furthermore, a number of states gave free land for a variety of purposes. Have these measures ever been conceptualised as interventionist? The answer is no. But it is plain that the government subsidised individuals and companies. Abraham Lincoln (1991: 82) defined the role of the state very clearly: ‘The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do for themselves, in their separate and individual capacities. In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere.’

It would be fair to say that only after the Second World War did Americans started to discuss these issues with relish. Some authors began to realise that perhaps the defence of a rugged individualism did not benefit the whole population, but only certain interest groups. It was not easy, however, to overcome the extreme emotionalism attached to the terms such as self-sufficiency, free enterprise and individual initiative. Recent studies (Bellah 1985:142–3) have confirmed that American individualism is still quite robust. It is still at the core of American culture. Americans still ‘believe in the dignity of, indeed, the sacredness of the individual’. Americans want to think for themselves, make their own decisions, live their own lives as they wish. These are perceived as sacred rights. However, individualism creates also serious problems for American society. Bellah does not suggest that the American should abandon individualism, which would be the same as to say that they

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should abandon American culture. The issue is how to develop an individualism that relates to the larger community. It is plain that the main dispute is between those who insist upon sticking to a minimum of provisions and those who believe that an open society requires an increase in the provisions of the state. American society is obsessed with the dangers of collectivism, and that is why reformers have to tread carefully. But anarchy is also a danger that befalls American society if state intervention is phased out. How to balance what the individual can do for himself and what he can do only in cooperation with others, is the crux of the matter. This is indeed the conundrum that American individualism has to face in the twenty-first century.

3.6. The present as individualism The strength of individualism in the latter part of the twentieth century has continued unabated, while collectivism was faded away with the defeat of the fascist states in 1945, the collapse of the communist states between 1989 and 1991 and a general retreat of socialism in the liberaldemocratic world from the 1980s onwards. This has created a climate in which individualism is becoming a world-wide creed. The great battle of the past few years and of the predictable future is that between individualism and equality (Béteille 1986; Hayek 1980). It is well-known that economists like Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman and others of the same persuasion, that is, writers who are strong individualists, do not openly reject equality, although they are in favour of limiting it or they equate it to equality of opportunity. For Hayek the individual is the basic unit of the social world. Society’s stuff is subjective because it is composed of individuals and and because no two individuals are alike. Hayek disputes that individualism assumes that man is selfish or egotistic. It rather says that individuals should be allowed to follow their own values and preferences, instead of somebody else’s; in a word, the individual should be the final judge of what hem or she wants. In this conception there is room for the existence of social ends, but they should be seen as a voluntary agreement between the people and the state. Hayek’s original defence of individualism was put forward in reaction to the dangers that socialism, particularly, but not exclusively, in its totalitarian versions, represented for the survival of the individual. An obsession with equality of results, argued Hayek, would lead progressively to an interventionist state which would endanger the freedom of the individual. This would be a stepping stone towards totalitarianism. For Hayek men are born unequal, they have different life opportunities at birth, and no state should change that. Some people will be better endowed or more intelligent than others: some people will grow up in a

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family which teaches them how to make the best of life opportunities. Why punish all these people, asks Hayek rhetorically? It is a law of life that freedom tends to create inequality. Treating individuals in the same way means recognising they are unequal, both at the level of character and intelligence, but also at the level of wealth. Social intervention, particularly in the form of redistribution, is to be avoided if we want to preserve the right of the individual to be himself, as well as preserving the basic principle of freedom. The only social unit that an individualist like Hayek recognises is the family, and to a certain extent linguistic and religious communities which strive to preserve whichever standards they choose, be they moral or material. There is a certain compromise here that Hayek effects with the family, the ethnic group and the caste, but ‘never with the state’. Most societies, even the USA, take into account distributive equality. However, the right to equality is one thing and a state-engineered policy of equality is quite another. Individualists are vociferously opposed to the second because it entails enlarging the sphere of state influence and intervention. They are particularly incensed at the policies of positive discrimination or affirmative action on the basis of race, ethnicity or gender. The final lesson on individualism which we can learn, comes from one who is perhaps the greatest social scientists of all times: Emile Durkheim. He is rightly presented as a holist, that is, as somebody who gave primacy to the society over the individual, at least in the epistemological and ethical senses. For Durkheim, society produces the concrete individual through the process of socialisation. This individual can only exist socially by living in community with other individuals and identifying with a social group. However, modern industrial societies exhibit a system of beliefs and representations that transform the individual into an object of cult, practically a divinity. In other words, man has become a god for man. Durkheim traces these ideas back to the Enlightenment, although the moral individualism that he defends is slightly different from its eighteenth-century ancestor. In his text ‘L’individualisme et les intellectuelles’ (1898), Durkheim seized the idea of contemporary France as a society united by the common cult of the individual. In this article, which develops ideas expressed by Durkheim in his early studies, he defends individualism and the right of the intellectuals to take sides. This individualism is that of Kant and Rousseau, and also that of the French Revolution. In defending the reopening of the trial of Dreyfus, Durkheim states that individualism is a central value of political life, because it is a central value of social life. As a sociologist Durkheim seeks to explain the origins of individualism. For him the French and American revolutions enabled prior

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developments to be recognised as social facts. Although Christianity helped in the development of individualism, giving the person a certain autonomy, it was only with the Enlightenment that individualism develops a political project with man as the fundamental moral value. For Durkheim, state and individual should not be opposing each other; on the contrary, he believed in a state that guarantees the freedom and autonomy of individuals living in it. Durkheim, while upholding the importance of the cult of the individual or the person in modern society, was ambivalent about modern individualism because he feared that it might lead into the legitimisation of selfishness and the apotheosis of private interest which is typical of utilitarian individualism. To conclude: with his cult of the individual Durkheim was pinpointing at what we could call the religion of modern man; as he put it (Durkheim 1971: 46): ‘It is a religion in which man is at once the worshipper and the god. But this religion is individualistic, since it takes man as its object … The individual is placed in the ranks of a sacrosanct object.’

4. Religion 4.1 What is religion and what is it for? Each culture or people has its own Weltanschauung or world view, that is, a cognitive view of life and of the total environment. Within a given culture, individuals experience the world through a given set of assumptions. Religion is the part of that experience which deals with supernatural beings from specific gods to vague forces, including spirits, demons, and so on. Understood in this way, there is little doubt that religion is universal and that, on the basis of archaeology, history and ethnography, we can say that it has existed in all societies for at least 40,000 years. In primitive societies it is not always easy to separate the religious sphere from the sphere of politics, or the sphere of economics, or the sphere of kinship. Power and the sacred are particularly intertwined and are hard to distinguish with clarity. Religion is clearly related to the life cycle and the emotional feelings and problems of the individual. Without trying to be exhaustive, because we shall return to the subject, and simply as a mode of illustration, we can refer to a number of existential problems to which religion is a partial response (Spradley and McCurdy 1980: 250–1): 1. The problem of meaning. This has to do with existential questions of the following type: Who are we? Where do we come from? Where do we go? and so on.

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2. The problem of death. Each culture has different responses to the knowledge that each human being is mortal. One of the issues which appears to be particularly important is whether or not there is a sort of life after death. Most societies tend to regulate death rituals in great detail. 3. The problem of evil. Evil is present in most societies and it tends to take the form of beliefs in forces which are beyond the control of the individual. Misfortune, disease, inequality, and so on can all can be seen as the result of evil forces present in society. 4. The problem of transcendent values. By going beyond the selfish and aggressive feelings of individuals, society offers values which may be legitimized by supernatural beings.

4.2 Evolutionary typologies of religion Although most anthropologists refrain today from putting forward evolutionary typologies of religion, except rather general ones (like, for example, Ernest Gellner who distinguishes between community-oriented and universalistic religions), this was not always the case. In the 1960s, numerous attempts were made at sequentially ordering the great variety of religious practices that exist. Anthropologists, however, still often operate with implicit evolutionary schemes. The purpose of this section is not so much to insist on the accuracy of such schemes, but rather in using them to introduce a number of concepts which may be useful independently of anything else. I shall concentrate on three complementary schemes: those of Swanson (1960), Bellah (1964) and Wallace (1966). Guy Swanson, in The Birth of the Gods (1960), suggested that it was possible to correlate each type of society with a different pattern of religious beliefs. His findings can be presented as follows: 1. Animism. This is a belief in spirit beings. It is associated with simple societies in which the nuclear family is the central kin group and it tends to correspond with low levels of socio-cultural integration: the hunting-gathering band. Animatism, as a variant of animism, is the belief that the world is animated by impersonal supernatural forces. It is also a common belief in simple societies (including horticultural ones). 2. Ancestor cults. This is a belief in ancestral spirits deriving from the idea that human beings have a body and a soul. It is related to a system of social organisation characterised by the existence of unilineal descent groups. The cult of ancestral spirits is found around the world, but it is particularly developed in Africa and in China.

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3. Polytheism. A religion based on the beliefs in many gods and goddesses (a pantheon), each of them sometimes specialising in one sphere of activity. Polytheism tends to occur in more complex societies, with more marked social divisions. 4. Monotheism. A religion based on the belief in one god. It appears in societies which are socially complex and politically divided. Judaism, Christianity and Islam, all originating in the Middle East, recognise only one god – who created the universe and watches over human affairs. In spite of being monotheistic, all these religions recognise and accommodate, albeit within a hierarchy, other supernatural spirits (angels, demons, witches) and deify their saints and prophets. Robert Bellah’s article, ‘Religious Evolution’ (1964), is a courageous attempt, coming from a sociologist, to provide a broad evolutionary interpretation of religion. Bellah tries to show that religious systems have evolved from compact to complex ones; that religion and other spheres of social life have progressively differentiated form each other; and that the personalization of religion developed rapidly after the period he calls of historic religion. Bellah is well-aware that his stages are provisional. In his scheme there is no sense of inevitability and a great variety of types are allowed within each stage; furthermore, he is conscious that some cases escape easy classification. Bellah puts forward the following stages: 1. Primitive religion. At this stage religion is essentially the belief in a mythical world. This mythical world is closely related to the detailed features of the real world and is characterized by the extreme fluidity of its organization. At the level of religious action what matters is identification and participation, that is, ritual, and not worship or sacrifice. In the ritual the participants are one with the mythical beings. In primitive religion there is no separate religious sphere; religion is part of the social structure. Finally, the social implications of rituals is that they reinforce the solidarity of the society and socialise the young into social norms. The Australian Aborigines and some other hunting-gathering societies have historically provided the ethnographic material to construct this type. 2. Archaic religion. This stage includes a great variety of religions: most African and Polynesian ones, some of the New World, and also the earliest religions of the Middle East, China and India. What distinguishes this stage is the appearance of true cults, with the accompaniment of gods, priests, worship, and sacrifices; in some cases we also have divine or priestly kingship. Religious symbols are much more elaborate than in the previous stage; it becomes clearer that humans are subjects and gods are objects. With the emergence of a two-class system in many agricultural societies, the upper status group tends to monopolise the religious sphere.

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3. Historic religion. This stage corresponds to a much more recent historical period, for which there are historical records. Historic religions appeared in literate societies. The main feature which distinguishes historic religions from primitive and archaic ones is the element of transcendentalism. The supernatural realm is clearly ‘above’ this world; also both the earthly and the supernatural worlds are organised hierarchically. Religions tend to focus much more on life in the other world, which may be either much better (heaven) or much worse (hell). Salvation, through particular religious actions, is central to historic religions. In terms of organisation, there appears a new religious elite which claims direct relation to the other world. The emergence of historic religions tends to go hand in hand with the evolution from a two-class society to a four-class one (a politicalmilitary elite, a cultural-religious elite, a peasantry and a class of merchants and artisans). The function of religion was, for most of the time, to legitimate and reinforce the existing social order. Nevertheless, religion could also subvert the establish order by being the ideology for many rebellions and reform movements. 4. Early modern religion. This type is best represented by the Protestant Reformation which abolished the hierarchical structuring of both this and the other world. Salvation is not achieved by withdrawing from this world, but rather by engaging with it. Furthermore, salvation is no longer mediated by the clergy but it becomes a personal concern. Much of the religious symbolism of medieval Christianity disappears; rituals are streamlined. Religious action is understood to be identical with the whole of life. The emphasis was on faith, which is something belonging to the inner dimension of the person. As to the social implications of early modern religion, many, following the lead of Max Weber, attribute great significance to a series of developments from capitalism to law, not forgetting education and science. 5. Modern religion. This is perhaps a debatable stage. The central characteristic of modernity, within the West, is the collapse of dualism. Following Kant, the question is no longer that of two worlds, but that of as many worlds as there are ways of apprehending them. Religion is grounded in the structure of the human situation. Whether it is at the intellectual level, where de-mythologisation has progressed at an accelerated pace, or at the level of mass religiosity, where there has been a massive reinterpretation of the Christian dogma, a personal vision of religion is widely accepted. The churches have indeed lost the monopoly of religion. What best represents modern religious organisation is Thomas Jefferson’s dictum ‘I am a sect myself ’ or Thomas Paine’s one ‘My mind is my church’. The social implications of modern religion are not yet clear; some people see a collapse of meaning and a failure of moral standards. This is certainly

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possible, but the new situation can also be seen as providing new opportunities for creative change in many spheres of human life. In his Religion: An Anthropological View (1966), Anthony Wallace has proposed the following evolutionary typology of cults: 1. Individualistic. These are personal cults and although they are culturally shaped, each individual is a religious specialist. At this level beliefs are of the animistic type and animatistic kind. These are usually the only cults that can be found in hunting-gathering societies. 2. Shamanistic. Most cultures have at least part-time religious specialists. Shamans (a word derived from the Tungus-speaking peoples of Siberia) are thought to possess powers acquired through their own initiative, by being in contact with the supernatural; by divine inspiration rather than from memorised ritual. Shamans deal with anxiety-producing situations. When applied to other non-Siberian cultures, the word shaman may refer to a variety of practitioners: magicians, curers, diviners, mediums, and others. These people usually perform a service in exchange for a tangible or intangible recompense, be it money, prestige or power. Shamanistic cults are usually the only type of cults which exist in primitive societies. 3. Communal. These cults are also performed by non-specialists associated with lineages, age grades and other types of communal forms of beliefs and practices. These cults are considered essential for the survival of the group, and they may be regular or occasional. The important things to note is that religious practitioners revert to ordinary activities after the ceremonies, although the person may be an accomplished musician, dancer, et cetera. 4. Ecclesiastical. At this level of organisation there appear full-time specialists or priests. As a group, the priests form a church which monopolises the rituals in the name of a group or a whole society. Unlike shamans, who are essentially mediums or mouthpieces of the supernatural beings, priests are intermediaries between people and the spirits to whom they wish to address themselves. Priests are associated with more complex societies that have developed a state. In many societies the priestly and ruling classes are closely connected. As it is implicit in the description of each of these stages, more complex levels subsume the previous ones. In other words, each level is preserved, to a certain degree and more or less modified, in the subsequent one.

4.3 Theoretical traditions in the study of religion The anthropological study of religion has a long pedigree in the discipline; it appeared at a time – the second half of the nineteenth century – when the dominant idea was that science would ultimately destroy religion. The study of primitive religion became one of the central concerns

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of the discipline; in the hands of Edward B. Tylor, Sir James Frazer, Emile Durkheim, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl and many others, a growing body of literature tried to account for the variety of religious phenomena. Following John Skorupski (1976) we can distinguish a number of stages which characterise the classic anthropological approach to the study of religion. They are best expressed through the following four questions: 1. Why do people in primitive cultures engage in magic and religious actions? The answer to this question is utilitarian: traditional peoples believe that these actions will bring about the desired objectives. In the case of magic, for example, the spells are meant to make sure that the crop will grow. At another level, belief in supernatural beings who cannot normally be perceived, can have an effect on the lives of individuals. In many societies people see themselves as members of a larger community within are superstructural beings, with whom there is a network of reciprocal commitments. 2. Why are these beliefs, which inform magical and religious behaviour, accepted? The reason is apparently simple: people are socialised into certain beliefs as members of a given society. These beliefs are part of their culture and it seems natural to accept certain cosmological and religious doctrines. 3. Why do people go on believing the religious and magical doctrines which underpin their rites? Edward Tylor provided a number of reasons for that. But the first thing is to discard the idea that primitive religion is based on deceit. Many of the rites are practised along with empirically effective technologies such as the planting of seeds or they are performed to produce certain effects which would happen without the rites (harvest). Failures can always be explained by suggesting that the rites were not properly performed. 4. How do religious beliefs originate or are adopted? The short answer is the need to understand and control nature. This was the answer provided by Tylor and Frazer. In other words, primitive religion functions as a set of hypotheses about the world which correspond to certain levels of technological and social structural development. In this sense, they have the logic and rationality which are appropriate to a given stage of development. The most influential book on the study of primitive religion is undoubtedly Durkheim’s The Elementary Forms of Relgious Life (1915). He set himself a number of objectives: 1. To show that religion is an essential and permanent aspect of humanity. To that end he studied what he believed to be the most primitive of religions: Australian totemism. 2. To show how the categories of the mind (time, space, class, number, cause, and so on) are the product of religious thought.

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3. To show that religious ideas reflect the social structure of society.

4.4 The belief in supernatural beings. Supernatural beings are forces that affect human life and destiny; some are beneficent, others are harmful. All religious have devised ways of coping with supernatural beings, although there is an enormous worldwide variation in the ways this control is attempted. Generally speaking it is possible to classify supernatural beings in two major groups: those which are similar to human beings (ghosts and ancestral spirits) and those which are not (gods and devils). On the whole, the former are close, the latter are remote. There are also supernatural forces which are embedded in objects (whether people use them or not) and are propitious, that is, bring luck to the individual who touches them, possesses them or is imbued with them. The term mana (a Maori word) indicates this state of things. Conversely, certain things are dangerous, harmful, and are to be avoided (certain foods are not to be eaten, certain animals are not to be killed, certain objects are to be avoided). The term taboo (a Tongan word) refers to this prohibition. Gods come in all forms and shapes: anthropomorphic (human form), zoomorphic (animal form) and naturalistic (winds, clouds, et cetera) or celestial bodies. Gods are self-generating and are also the creators of the universe; some are more active than others in the affairs of their works. Spirits tend to be less distant than gods, and they influence human life in a more direct way, sometimes positively, sometimes negatively. Most societies also believe that after death humans turn into ghost and ancestor spirits, and that their presence is being felt. Ghosts are commonly deceased people. As to ancestor spirits they are typical of societies with unilineal descent groups. Most societies combine belief, in different types of supernatural beings, although they tend to classify them in order of importance.

4.5 How to influence the supernatural Most societies have designed a number of strategies to get in touch and affect the decisions of the supernatural forces and beings. The best known and the most widely-spread are: 1. Prayer. Prayer is a request addressed to the supernatural beings in the form of a staement of faith and/or a request for help. There are different types of prayers: communal or personal, spoken or silent. 2. Sacrifice. Sacrifice is the giving of something animated or inanimated with the purpose of influencing the supernatural beings. It can be interpreted as a gift to obtain something in exchange for something else or as an act of faith. Animal and human sacrifices, particular the former, are not uncommon.

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3. Witchcraft. Witchcraft refers to people who are endowed with a supernatural force which is used, consciously or unconsciously, for evil. In this sense we can talk about the dark, malevolent side of belief. A classic study of witchcraft is Edward Evans-Pritchard’s Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande (1937). 4. Magic. Magic is a technique for gaining external control over supernatural powers. The magician has a set of well-defined technques which, when performed accurately, and barring outside influence, will achieve the expected results. Bronislaw Malinowski said that magic begins when technology ends. Among the Azande magic has many uses: to gain sexual potency, to increase crops, to hunt dangerous animals, to protect against witches, and so on. There are different types of magic. Sir James Frazer distinguished between imitative magic (when the formulas used by the magician imitate the sought ends) and contagious magic (when the magic is constructed on the belief that what occurs to one thing will occur to another if the two are closely associated). 5. Sorcery. Sorcery refers to a magic which is used for antisocial or malevolent purposes. Sorcery is a non socially-sanctioned form of aggression against fellow humans or their possessions. Sorcerers use both medicines and spells to control supernatural forces. It is rare when sorcerers are allowed to practise openly.

4.6 Rituals A religious ritual is the means by which a person relates to the sacred. Belief and ritual are embodied in formalised and stereotyped behaviour. Rituals often manipulate complex systems of symbols and reinforce group solidarity. Two major categories of rituals are identified by anthropologists: 1. Rites of passage. This term was coined by Arnold van Gennep. They refer to the rites that help the individual through the major life-crises: birth, puberty, marriage, parenthood, old age, death. Van Gennep distinguished three separate phases: first, separation; second, transition; and third, incorporation. For example, in the transition from childhood to adulthood, the first stage is a ritual that signifies the symbolic end of childhood; the second is a period of physical exclusion from community life; then the third and final stage is a ceremonial of re-integration into society as an adult. In other words: first, there is the ritual removal of an individual from society; second, there is the isolation of that individual; third, there is the re-incorporation of the individual into society, but with a new status.

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Among the Ndembu of Zambia, studied by Victor Turner, the rite of passage from boyhood to manhood is called makanda and lasts for a few months. The rite of separation involves a farewell night of celebration, feasting, singing and sexual freedom. Before leaving the community, the initiates are given a last meal by their families (mothers). The rite of transition begins when the boys are taken into a camp, where they will remain isolated for a long time, except for the presence of a group of male supervisors. In this camp they endure a number of ordeals, including circumcision; they are also lectured and harangued on the values of manhood. When it is time to return to their families, the are previously painted with clay to signify rebirth. Having gone back to the community, the rite of incorporation involves the initial mourning by the mothers, followed by the jubilation that their boys have become men. After being washed, the neophytes are given new clothes and perform the war dance that corresponds to their new stage in life. 2. Rites of intensification. These rites usually mark situations of crisis in the life of society as a whole. The purpose of these rites is to reinforce or bolster some natural process which is essential to the survival of society. Among the situations that may generate rites of intensification are droughts, the appearance of an enemy army, et cetera. In some horticulturalist societies, these rites are associated with planting, first fruits and harvest times, that is, with the critical moments in the economic life of the community.

4.7 The functions of religion Why people believe what they believe or why do they find some religions more appealing than another? By suggesting that religion has a number of functions, we cannot say that the list is exhaustive nor that we have looked at all the dimensions of religion. 1. Religion as explanation. This means that religion answers important existential questions about the origins of the universe, of humankind, as well as issues concerning the meaning of life and death. The explanatory dimension is often left to myths, that is, stories that embody the values of a culture and have an aura of sanctity because they explain the supernatural. In many cases, religious explanations cover a vast array of subjects. How convincing the explanations are, is, of course, another matter. Religion often provides answers in areas in which secular explanations are not available. It is true that the explanations offered are often illusory, but they also have a practical dimension on how to cope with everyday problems.

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2. Religion as comfort. In periods of crisis, and when pain and disappointments occur, religion may be a source of comfort. In this sense, religion can help the individual to psychologically adapt to society. For example, the concept of life after death may facilitate the often traumatic transition from life to death. Religion may also reduce anxiety by providing answers to the imponderables of human existence. 3. Religion as adaptive. Many religions contain important information about the environment and incorporate certain moral obligations which may be beneficial to the survival of a given people. For example, among the Cree of Canada hunting is subjected to a number of regulations (a limited number of killings, a comprehensive use of the game, and so on) which promote a careful use of resources. It might appear that, at first sight, some customs, like the Hindu prohibition killing cattle, are maladaptive. But Marvin Harris has shown that cattle produce three essential things: fuel, fertiliser (both from the dung) and traction to plough the fields. If the animals were killed for food, it would only produce a short-term advantage. 4. Religion as a charter. It is often the case that human institutions are justified by reference to religious myths. Human institutions are more strongly supported when they are an integral part of the plan of the universe and they are backed by supernatural beings. A case in point is the Biblical passage of Genesis (3:16) which gives supernatural backing to the inferiority of women: ‘And the Lord said to the woman: ‘I will terribly sharpen your birth pangs, in pain shall you bear children. And for your man shall be your longing, and he shall rule over you.’

The use of religious myths to legitimise social structures is spread world-wide. 5. Religion as a source of social solidarity. This is the idea that through participation in religious rituals individuals are encouraged to accept the values and moral imperatives of the group. The idea that religion is an expression of social solidarity is a point that, as we have seen, was emphasised by Emile Durkheim. In this sense religion helps to promote unity and stability. However, religious beliefs can also be a catalyst for social change, as in the revitalization or nativistic movements – when a religion provides an answer to changing cultural needs. This happens at times of strain and tension, when a social order is about to collapse. In the colonial past, this type of movements were common.

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The Ghost Dance of the Sioux (American West) in the 1880s is a case in point. This religious movement expressed the belief that the ancestors of the Sioux and other tribes would soon return on trains and with all the technology of the whites. There would be a huge explosion which would eliminate many whites. This vision became a rallying point for many Indian groups. The Sioux challenged the US army in the belief that if they performed the Ghost Dance and wore a special shirt they would be shielded against the white men’s bullets. The movement was eventually defeated in 1890 with the killing of 200 Sioux at Wounded Knee.

Summary This is a module that covers traditional and important areas of social and cultural anthropology: economic organisation, kinship, person (as well as self and individual) and religion. This kind of structure is often reflected in the structure of the traditional British anthropological textbooks. Political organisation is presented, for logical reasons, in Module 3.

Essay questions 1. To what extent can we say that the witchcraft of the Azande is rational? 2. To which social conditions are religious beliefs related to? 3. Is the Marxist concept of ‘mode of production’ still useful? 4. Is there room for individualism in primitive societies? 5. Outline the contribution of Marcel Mauss to the study of the person. 6. Are all societies sexually hierarchical?

Test questions 1. What is a group of unilineal affiliation? 2. What is the difference between witchcraft and magic? 3. How can you differentiate individualism from egotism? 4. How can you characterise the formalist and substantivist approaches in economic anthropology? 5. What, according to Marvin Harris, are the major universal components of society? 6. What is a communal religion? 7. What is an age-set?

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Bibliography Basic reading Bodley, J. (1997) Cultural Anthropology: Tribes, States and the Global System. Mountain View, Cal.: Mayfield. Dumont, L. (1966) (1980) Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and its Implications. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Fried, M. (1967) The Evolution of Political Systems. New York: Random House. Harris, M. (1995) Cultural Anthropology. New York: Harper. Johnson, A. and Earle, T. (1987) The Evolution of Human Societies. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Macfarlane, A. (1978) The Origins of English Individualism. Oxford: Blackwell. Service, E. (1966) Primitive Social Organization. New York: Random House. — (1975) Origins of the State and Civilization. New York: Norton. Vivelo, F. (1994) Cultural Anthropology. New York: Lanham.

Further reading Allen, N. (1985) ‘The category of the person’ in Carrithers, M. et al (eds) The Category of the Person. Cambridge University Press. Arieli, Y. (1964) Individualism and Nationalism in American Ideology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Bellah, R. (1964) ‘Religious evolution’, American Anthropologist, 29: 358–374. Bellah, R. et al (1985) Habits of the heart. London: Hutchinson. Béteille, A. (1986) ‘Individualism and Inequality’, Current Anthropology, 27: 121–134. Borofski, R., ed. (1994) Assessing Cultural Anthropology. New York: McGraw Hill. Durkheim, E. (1971) On Morality and Society, ed. by Robert N. Bellah. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Fortes, M. (1987) Religion, Morality and the Person. Cambridge University Press. Goody, J. (1983) The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harris, M. (1979) Cultural Materialism. New York: Random House. (1985) Culture, People, Nature. New York: Harper. Havilland, W. (1993) Cultural Anthropology. New York: Holt.

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Hayek, F. (1946) (1980) Individualism and Economic Order. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Kottak, P. (1996) Mirror for Humanity. New York: McGraw Hill. Macfarlane, A. (1994) On Individualism. Lancaster: Centre for Cultural Values. Mauss, Marcel (1985) ‘A category of the human mind: the notion of person’ in Carrithers, M. et al (eds) The category of the person. Cambridge University Press, p. 1–25. Miller, D.L. (1967) Individualism. Austin: University of Texas Press. Morris, B. (1978) ‘Are there any individuals in India?’, Eastern Anthropologist, 31: 365-77. (1994) Anthropology of the Self. London: Pluto Press. Sarró, R. (2001) ‘El concepte de persona en els baga de Guinea’, Revista d’Etnografia Catalana, 18: 58–65. Shain, B. (1994) The Myth of American Individualism. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Skorupski, J. (1976) Symbol and Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Spradley, J. and McCurdy, C. (1980) Anthropology: The Cultural Perspective. New York: Wiley. Swanson, G. (1960) The Birth of the Gods. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press. Upham, S. (ed.) (1990) The Evolution of Political Systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wallace, A.F.C. (1966) Religion: An Anthropological View. New York: Random House.

References Chevalier, M. (1836) Lettres sur l’Amérique du Nord, 2 vols.. Paris: Gosselin. Dalton, G. (1969) ‘Theoretical Issues in Economic Anthropology’, Current Anthropology, 10: 63–112. Durkheim, E. (1898) ‘L’individualisme et les intellectuels’, Revue bleu, 10: 7–13 (English tr., ‘Individualism and the Intellectuals’, in Emile Durkheim on Morality and Society. Chicago; University of Chicago Press, 1973). Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (1937) Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Lévi-Strauss, C. (1948) (1969) The Elementary Forms of Kinship. Boston: Beacon Press.

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List, F. (1845) ( 1959) The National State of Political Economy. London: Longmans. Lincoln, A. (1862) (1991) Great Speeches. New York: Dover Publications. Melville, H. (1851) (1967) Moby-Dick. New York: Norton. Murdock, G. P. (1949) Social Structure. New York: Macmillan. (1981) Ethnographic Atlas. Pittsburgh: University Of Pittsburgh Press. Spencer, H. (1884) (1981) Man versus the State. Indianapolis: Liberty Classics. Tocqueville, A. (1835-1840) (1994) Democracy in America. London: Fontana Press. (1856) (1966) The Ancient Régime and the French Revolution. London: Collins/Fontana. Whitman, W. (1855) (2001) Leaves of Grass. New York: The Modern Library.

Answers to test questions 1. It is a group of consanguineous kinship united by a supposed lineal filiation that stems from a common ancestor. 2. Witchcraft is a type of magic with antisocial or malign objectives. 3. While individualism is a neutral sentiment, egotism is excessive selfcentredness. 4. The formalist approaches defends the idea that all economies aim to maximise scarce resources; the substantivist approach considers that maximisation is alien to primitive and archaic societies in which the economy is encompassed in other institutions. 5. He distinguishes four major components: infrastructure, structure, behavioural superstructure, and mental and emic superstructure. 6. According to Anthony Wallace this type of religion is carried out by social groups that organise community rituals led by non-professionals who run different types of ceremonies. 7. A group organised by age and sex (usually male) which commands property and has other functions (political, military).

MODULE 3 The evolution and structure of human societies

Introduction This is the central and longest module of the book and it contains a comprehensive treatment of the major substantive items that constitute anthropology as it is understood today. The module is organised using an evolutionary framework which presents in a sequential order the modes of subsistence that have characterized the totality of human history. It also considers, if relevant and feasible, the mechanisms that explain the transition from one mode of subsistence to the next. Although the book deals essentially with social and cultural anthropology, it also makes use of some developments in physical anthropology and archaeology to provide the desired encompassing perspective. Hence the module begins with a brief excursion into the immediate ancestors of humanity and also explores our inheritance from a past we shared with the ancestors of the modern apes. Since the module presents an evolutionary scheme, it is only natural that some discussion should take place on the different evolutionary models available. Anthropology, like any other discipline, cannot operate without concepts. In dealing with societies a number of concepts and typologies have been put forward over the years by the practitioners of the discipline; they constitute a more or less coherent body of ideas. At the level of theory, however, the divergences are more pronounced. A large part of the text is dedicated to the study of the successive modes of subsistence that have marked the evolution of humankind. Specifically, we shall be looking at the following types of societies: hunter-gatherers, horticultural, pastoral, agrarian and industrial. Attention is also paid to such issues as the origins of agriculture, the origins of civilisation and the state, the origins of capitalism and industrialism, and so on. For each mode of subsistence corresponds one or more modes of socio-cultural integration.

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A note about terminology. Some terms which were widely used by anthropologists in the past are often avoided today for a variety of reasons, mostly because they reflect a sense of Western superiority. However, when referring to past literature, it is not always easy to adapt the terminology to the needs of the present. I have retained some of the words but used them in a neutral sense; in particular, the word ‘primitive’ is not used in any derogatory sense, but simply to indicate a mode of subsistence and of socio-cultural integration that came early in the history of humankind and can be defined by a combination of characteristics.

Aims In this module we consider the evolution and structure of human societies; the main aims are: 1. To offer an introduction to the work of Charles Darwin. 2. To give a panoramic view of human evolution. 3. To familiarise the student with the main schemes of evolution. 4. To acquire the conceptual, typological and theoretical tools required to understand the basic anthropological literature. 5. To understand the main features of the hunting-gathering band. 6. To examine the different theories that try to account for the transition from hunting-gathering to the domestication of plants and animals. 7. To see pastoralism as a specialised adaptation to certain types of environment. 8. To consider in some detail the theories that try to explain the origins of the state. 9. To compare the different types of agrarian societies on the basis of their civilisation and religion. 10. To have a good grasp of the major theories of the origins of capitalism. 11. To know what is meant by a world-system perspective.

1. Darwin‘s theory of evolution 1.1 Why bother with Darwin? On 22nd September, 1994, the world press had some unusual headlines. For once, they had nothing to do with politics or economics, or even with

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wars or sleazy scandals. The Guardian put it in the following way: ‘New missing link? A four-million year-old find pushes back the frontier of history’. What was all the fuss about? Simply that some scientists working in Ethiopia had unearthed a fossil which is the closest link so far discovered to the common ancestor of both human beings and chimpanzees. This new being, named by anthropologists Australopithecus ramidus (meaning root of the Southern Ape), is the latest in a long chain of evidence which confirms Darwin’s theory of evolution. Darwin predicted that the most ancient signs of human evolutionary history would be found in Africa. On 11th July 2002 the world press saluted a new dramatic discovery: that of an even older hominid: in the skull of a seven-million-year-old ancestor. He was referred to as the Sahelanthropus tchadensis and was named Toumaï, that is, the ‘hope of life’. Darwin is a fashionable author. Many scholarly and popular books and articles are currently being published on his work. In 1992 Penguin issued a long but eminently readable biography by two historians of science: Adrian Desmond and James Moore; it was simply called: Darwin. In 1995, Michael White and John Gribbin have published a more scientific biography entitled Darwin. A Life in Science. Last, but not least, Daniel Dennet’s Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. Evolution and the Meanings of Life (1995) was being heralded in the daily and weekly press as a major contribution to the understanding of Darwin’s immense scientific revolution. As to Janet Radcliffe Richards’s Human Nature After Darwin: A Philosophical Introduction (2000), it is a vivid and clear presentation of Darwinism. What is the interest of Darwin for us as social and cultural anthropologists? First and foremost because he is an exemplary scientist from whom we all can learn. Second, because he worked in an area (biology) which has implications for the anthropologists. Third, because social evolutionism has been an important theory, particularly but not exclusively in the nineteenth century. Fourth, because the supposed application of his theories to human affairs gave rise to pernicious social doctrines referred to under the general rubric of social Darwinism. Darwin’s scientific standing Modern genetics (that is, the science that studies biological inheritance; that deals with DNA, genes, and so on) and palaeontology (that is, the study of the past through fossils or mineralised remains of plants and animals) have demonstrated the soundness of Darwin’s ideas. They have shown that the publication of The Origins of Species in 1859. was a portentous revolutionary event. At the dawn of a new century many intellectual idols of the twentieth century have shown that they have feet of clay (and I am thinking particularly of Marx and Freud, whose theories have been widely criticised and demonstrated to be largely

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wrong). But this is certainly not the case with Darwin who emerges as a towering figure, comparable only to Copernicus, Galileo and Newton. Darwin as a scapegoat So, I have come to praise Darwin, not to bury him. He was indeed a child of his time: nobody can deny that. Shakespeare warned us that ‘The evil that men do lives after them; the good is often interred with their bones’. Interspersed in Darwin’s writings one may find statements that reflect the prejudices of his class, race, gender and nationality. But is there anything more inane and futile that to project our own morality, which is the product of our own era and hence transitory, upon the Victorian past? To do that may give us a sense of moral superiority, but it is unavoidably anachronistic, out of place. What is important to emphasise in the case of Darwin is that, beyond the vagaries of his own environment, his theory of evolution has not only withstood the test of time, but has come out reinforced. Darwin is a model scientist in whom theory and observation are beautifully and productively intertwined. His magnum opus, The Origins of the Species (1859) is a classic: a reservoir of ideas, hypotheses and intuitions. Darwin’s method: was he an inductivist or a deductivist? When describing scientific practice, philosophers of science refer to two major methodological approaches: inductivism and deductivism. Induction is about accumulating experimental facts and drawing up a theory from them. Deductivism, or the hypothetico-deductive method as is often referred to, suggests that scientists proceed by formulating general hypotheses which are later tested empirically. If I mention these two visions of how science proceeds is because Darwin often presents his scientific method as inductivist. We can read, for example, in The Origin of Species (1859) that his method consisted of ‘patiently accumulating and reflecting on all sorts of facts which could possibly have any bearing on it’. In his Autobiography (1887: 119)) he says explicitly: ‘I worked on true Baconian principles, and without any theory collected facts on a wholesale scale’. On the other hand, if we look at Darwin’s scientific notebooks and correspondence, it is obvious that he entertained the hypothesis of the evolutionary transmutation of the species shortly after returning from the voyage of the Beagle. Why the discrepancy? There are good reason why Darwin was cautious about being seen to use the deductive method. First, because in his time the word hypothesis was often used to refer to metaphysical speculation without any substantial basis. Darwin believed that the sociologist Herbert Spencer was guilty of this crime! Second, because he was worried of being accused of subjective bias in the evaluation of empirical evidence.

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How to account for Darwin’s success? In his Autobiography (1887) Darwin thought about his own success as a scientist in these terms: ‘I have steadily endeavoured to keep my mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved (and I cannot resist forming one on every subject), as soon as facts are shown to be opposed to it’ (1887: 141) ‘Love of science, unbounded patience in long reflecting over any subject, industry in observing and collecting facts, and a fair share of invention {imagination?} as well as common sense.’ (1887: 145)

It has often been said that Darwin appeared at a moment in time when the idea of evolution was ripe, but it is his great merit to have articulated a comprehensive solution to the puzzle of evolution. Only Alfred Russell Wallace had reached, independently of Darwin, the conclusion that the key to evolution was natural selection. It should be remembered that the pre-Darwinian doctrines of evolution had two important weaknesses: 1. They could not provide a well-organised body of evidence to show that evolution had occurred. 2. They could not provide a verifiable explanation of how it had occurred.

1.2 The Darwinian Laboratory: The Voyage of the Beagle (1831–36) Between 1831 and 1836 Darwin travelled in South America and the Pacific as a naturalist on the Beagle. His observations concerning the relations between animals in islands and those of the nearest continental areas (animals which were akin, but not the same) and between living animals and fossils found in the same areas – here again related but not the same – laid the foundations for his later work. The idea of the modification of the species stems from these observations. De Beer (1971) has suggested that when Darwin first sailed in the Beagle he had no reason to challenge the view that the species and plants alive on earth had been there since the creation. Doubts came only step by step and arose from four different types of evidence: 1. In some areas species had become extinct. Darwin found huge fossil armadillos in South America. But armadillos of similar form still live in the same region. This meant that ‘existing animals had a close relation in form with extinct species’: Why? 2. In areas of close proximity in South America, Darwin found one species replaced by different but similar species. For example, in certain parts of Argentina, he found ostriches; further south, in Patagonia, he found a very similar but smaller species of ostrich. Why were there two similar species of ostrich, different from those of the African ostriches? The same could be applied to many other species.

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3. Another question was posed by the observation that inhabitants of islands near the neighbouring continent resemble the species of the latter. Why? 4. Darwin noticed that the different Galapagos Islands, although identical in climate and physical features and very close to each other, had nonetheless very different species. Why? Darwin did not find an immediate answer to these questions. But in the years after his return to England, and very slowly and gradually, the answer came. All these questions and many other could only be answered if species did not remain immutable but changed into other species and diverged, so that one species could give rise to two or more species. For example, it is because they have a common ancestor that South American armadillos resemble each other. The differences between birds in the Galapago Islands were the result of adaptations to suit different ends: they were the result of isolation. The idea then came to Darwin that animals and humans alike have a common ancestor.

1.3 Darwin’s Notebooks These Notebooks (1856) served as a preparation for The Origins of Species. Early on, by 1837, Darwin saw that selection was the keystone to man’s success in the domestication of plants and animals. This idea only came to him after he collected data on the formation of the breeds of plants and animals. The problem was how to apply selection to organisms living in a state of nature. This was a mystery. For a while, Darwin followed two false paths: Laws of change which affect species and finally lead to their extinction (analogy with the causes that bring about development, maturing and death to an individual. Species must give rise to other species or else die out, just as an individual dies completely if it bears no offspring.

The Impact of Malthus In October 1838 Darwin read Malthus’s An Essay on the Origins of Population (1798). This mathematician and cleric had pointed out at the end of the eighteenth century that the human population of the world would increase in a geometrical progression were it not that a large fraction of the progeny in each generation failed to survive and to reproduce, whereas food production would only increase arithmetically unless technology improved. By 1838, Malthus’s ideas and his observations convinced Darwin of the struggle for existence and led him to write: ‘Under these circumstances, favourable variations would tend to be preserved and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of a new species. Here, then, I had a theory by which to work.’ (1887: 120)

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The Long March Towards a Theory of Evolution. In 1842 Darwin wrote a sketch of his theory and by 1844 he had written an essay 230 pages long. Illness, however, stopped progress. Darwin took a long time, however, to realise that progressive divergence was an advantage in itself, because competition is most severe between closely related organisms (since members of the same species go for the same food). In 1844 Darwin wrote a letter to Sir Joseph Hooker with the following passage: ‘At last gleams of light have come and I am almost convinced (quite contrary to the opinion I started with) that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable.’ (1995: 173–4)

Darwin continued the preparation of a treatise on evolution, but illhealth and the sheer magnitude of the endeavour delayed its completion In 1856, his friend, the great geologist Sir Charles Lyell, urged him to finish the work, but by 1858 he was only halfway through it. Then, in that year, Darwin received a letter from Alfred Russell Wallace, at that time ill somewhere in the Moluccas; enclosed was an essay which presented in a summarised way his theory of evolution by natural selection. Darwin had been forestalled! To be fair to both Darwin and Wallace, Hooker and Lyell decided to send Wallace’s essay, as well as an abstract of Darwin’s work, to the Linnean Society, the scientific society for biologists in Piccadilly. The title of the joint scientific communication was On the Tendency of Species to Form Varieties and of the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Means of Natural Selection. This paper was read on July 1st, 1858, and published the same year (Darwin 1993). As part of Darwin’s submission was a letter he had sent to the American botanist Asa Gray. This was Darwin’s first attempt to present his theory of natural selection. Because of its concision and clarity it is an excellent means by which to consider Darwin’s theory. There are three points in this letter that are worth highlighting: 1. Man has domesticated breeds of animals and plants by selection, conscious or unconscious, of very slight or greater variations. Human beings had been practising human selection for several thousand of years, deliberately choosing the parent of the plants and animals to perpetuate and improve the desired qualities. 2. How could selection operate in nature? Darwin had observed that the material for selection exists in nature, namely slight variations of all parts of the organism. He had also observed that some species are better adapted than others to life in particular environments (that is, they leave more descendants), while the less adapted may diminish and disappear. 3. The ‘unerring’ power that sift these variations is natural selection which selects exclusively for the good of each organic being. The rate

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of increase is such that only a few in each generation can live. Hence the continuing, insufficiently appreciated, struggle for life.

1.4 The Origin of Species The Origins of the Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life was published in November 1859. The first edition (1,250 copies) was exhausted on the day of publication; six more editions followed during Darwin’s lifetime. Darwin saw evolution as the change that species undergo in relation to their adaptation to the environment. According to Goudge (1973) Darwin’s theory was aimed at proving the following propositions: 1. All species of organisms now on earth have descended by a long, gradual process of modification from a small number of very different species in the remote past. 2. The chief cause of the transmutation of species is natural selection, which acts on populations of organisms having varying and inheritable characteristics. As a result there is differential survival and reproduction in the population, depending on the extent to which the characteristics favour or handicap the organisms in the struggle for existence. 3. Natural selection accounts for the adaptations of viable organisms to widely different conditions of life. It also tends to improve those adaptations, and conversely, it leads to the extinction of poorly adapted species. A brief summary of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection can be found in De Beer (1971): 1. The number of individuals in species in nature remains more or less constant. 2. There is an enormous overproduction of pollen, seeds, larvas, eggs, and so on. 3. Therefore there must be high mortality. 4. All individuals in a species are not identical, but show variation and differ from one another in innumerable anatomical, physiological and behavioural aspects. 5. Therefore some will be better adapted than others to their conditions of life and to the ecological niches which they could occupy, will survive more frequently in the competition for existence, will leave more offspring, and will contribute most of the parents who will produce the next generation. 6. Hereditary resemblance between parents and offspring is undeniable.

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7. Therefore, successive generations will not only maintain but improve their degree of adaptation to their modes of life, that is to say, to the conditions of their environments. As these conditions vary in different places, successive generations will not only differ from their parents, but also from each other and give rise to divergent stocks issuing from common ancestors.

1.5 The impact of Darwin’s work The impact of The Origins of Species on Western culture was tremendous. Perhaps the single most important effect was to destroy the quasi-theological frame of mind in the sciences, so that biologists no longer concerned themselves with Genesis, the Biblical story of the creation of the species, or geologists with the story of the Flood. Darwin’s proof that species change in a gradual orderly way under the influence of natural causes used the same uniformitarian principle (that is, that ancient changes in the earth’s surface are caused by the same physical principles that act today) that made Lyell the founder of scientific geology. The adaptations of plants and animals to their environment, were accounted for by Darwin without any reference to divine purposes. The living world was explained by Darwin in naturalistic terms. The importance of Darwinism to the conception of man was central; many of the social and human disciplines were radically affected by Darwin’s revolutionary work. From The Origins of Species (1859), it was clear that human beings were not the descendants of a historical Adam created by God in 4004 BC, but from remote pre-human ancestors. Some of the implications of Darwin’s work in the area of bodily traits were presented by Thomas H. Huxley in his Man’s Place in Nature (1863). In a later work, The Descent of Man (1871), Darwin tried to show the evolution of mental, moral and social traits. There is no doubt that for Darwin things like conscience, religion, and powers of reasoning had evolved in man, and were not immutable. In other words, these psychological features were affected by natural selection. However, he was also aware that natural laws could be affected by education and imitation. Because there had been an unequal progress of the races, Darwin was convinced that Western civilisation was intellectually superior to other ones, although as he put it at the end of the book: ‘The main conclusion arrived at in this work, namely that man is descended from some lowly organised form will, I regret to think, be highly distasteful to many persons … But there can hardly be a doubt that we are descended from barbarians.’ (1871: 404)

Darwin’s ideas found a lot of resistance even among scientists like Lyell, Wallace, Gray and others. However, in the great dividing line between the racialism and pro-slavery of the Anthropological Society of London and the abolitionism of the Ethnological Society of London, Darwin was

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definitely with the latter. By the end of the century, and particularly after the discovery of various proto-hominid fossil remains, the ‘death of Adam’, as John Greene has suggested, was widely accepted. The Darwinian theory found stiff opposition among theologians, but there also was a popular reaction against it. On the other hand, the upper classes felt that it threatened their privileges. They associated the doctrine of evolution with the atheistic material that had been part of the French Revolution. The ancient regime was overthrown by those who believed that human beings could improve their lot by their own efforts; many believed Darwinism to belong to this family of radical ideas. Many Victorian conservatives felt the doctrine of evolution by natural selection was a threat to Church and State, though Darwin had declined Karl Marx’s offer to dedicate the first volume of Capital to him. The success of the Darwinian scheme of explanation was felt in a number of methodological points which influenced subsequent science (Goudge 1973): 1. Darwin showed that explanation can be historical without losing its scientific character. In biology one often has to explain phenomena by showing how they originated and developed. To understand the tree of life ones has to understand how it grew. 2. By retaining idealist elements in his treatment of natural selection, Darwin established evolutionary science on a scientific basis. He then introduced ‘statistical’ or population data to permit generalisations to be made about the changes which selection produces in individuals. 3. The Origins of the Species explained what happened in evolution as an outcome of both orderly and accidental events. Natural selection is an order-generating process. The occurrence of variations, the survival and reproductive success of organisms, and so forth, are matters of accident or chance. It thus became clear that a discipline does not need to establish what must necessarily happen according to universal laws in order to be a science. 4. The Darwinian explanation showed that although adaptations are not the result of design, they are nevertheless purposive. They serve certain ends and must be so studied. Thus a scientific concept of teleology can be admitted, but at the same time theological and metaphysical teleology are rejected.

1.6 Darwin: important dates 1809. 1825. 1831. 1833.

Birth of Charles Darwin. Darwin entered the University of Edinburgh. Darwin embarked on the ‘Beagle’ as a naturalist. Darwin found in South America the remains of large, extinct mammals, associated with marine forms similar to modern ones.

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1835. 1836. 1837. 1838. 1839. 1844. 1846. 1854. 1858.

1859. 1871. 1872. 1882.

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Darwin landed in the Galapagos Islands. His arrival in Australia and return to England. He began the first notebook on the transmutation of species. Darwin began to read Malthus’s Essay on Population. He published a book on coral reefs. First draft of work on the evolution of species. Second draft of book on species. He began to study barnacles. Darwin finished his monograph on barnacles and started fulltime research on the species. He received Wallace’s manuscript on the evolution of species. Joint paper by Darwin and Wallace read before the Linnean Society (‘Evolution by Natural Selection’). Publication of The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex published. Publication of The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Death of Darwin.

2. The human legacy: adapted mind or adaptable mind? 2.1. Hominid evolution When Darwin suggested in The Origin of Species (1859) that humans were descended from apes the statement created a tremendous uproar. To many, both on the left and on the right, religious and non-religious, the claim that humans had originated from the apes was extremely demeaning for the human condition. The Darwinian revolution, however, has had durable effects, although Darwin’s theory of evolution is still poorly understood by many. Most social scientists believe that evolutionary biology is irrelevant to the study of human societies because humans have culture, rather than being genetically programmed. In the past few years there has been rapid development of the different disciplines that deal, in an evolutionary framework, with the origins of mankind. Evolutionary theory allows us, by studying the fossil past, to unravel how modern humans came to be what they are. In tracing back human evolution one can consider a very distant past or a relatively more recent one: this, of course, depends on the purpose of the study. Modern humans have inherited an accumulation of different traits. For example, the earliest anthropoids (the common ancestors of humans, apes and monkeys) lived approximately 40 million years ago, and it is at this point that slow reproductive rates, a strong mother-child bond, sociality, a rudimentary system of communication and food malleability were introduced. Or we could fix our attention on the African apes who

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lived 10 million years ago in the tropical forest. Here there is a geographical heritage which has to do with the specific African environment (all humans and human ancestors are of African origin). Furthermore, they were mostly terrestrial. Finally, we could consider the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees, an ape who lived around 7 million years ago. In this case the traits are quite impressive: consumption of meat, rudimentary technology, group defence, flexibility in the size of communities, and understanding of social roles and relationships. However, most physical anthropologists consider that the earliest true ancestor of humans lived in the tropical forests of Africa from 5 to 7 million years ago, but we have few remnants from this population. The direct ancestors of modern humans, usually referred to as hominids, began around 5 million years ago. The earliest known fossils are those of Ardipithecus ramidus of East Africa, who lived around 4.5 million years ago. The earliest well-known species is Australopithecus afarensis (3 to 4 million years ago). In 1974, a partial skeleton of an individual belonging to this species, named ‘Lucy’, was found in Ethiopia. It was a young and petite female (3 to 4 feet), with a small brain (400 cm3) and a gracile figure. A close examination of the fossils of this species revealed that this early hominid probably walked bipedally like modern humans. This is their main legacy. The australopithecines were otherwise ape-like, and probably behaved accordingly. What caused these animals to become bipedal? It was probably their change of environment: they moved from the forest to more open woodland and eventually to the savannah. In this new environment resources were less abundant and they had to go longer distances to procure them. The knuckle-walking of apes was not so efficient in the new environment, but walking upright was – hence the success of the adaptation. A whole range of later australopithecine species evolved between 3 and 1 million of years ago. They were basically similar to Australopithecus afarensis, bipedal, small brained vegetarians. Some become heavy or robust eating hard foodstuff of low nutritional value. At the same time, between 2.5 million and 1.8 million years ago, there lived a new hominid species: Homo habilis. With them begins the genus Homo. The name given to the species, Homo habilis, means just ‘handy man’, indicating that they were supposed to be toolmakers (simple tools like flakes, chipped stones and broken bones). They had a bigger brain than Australopithecines, probably around 650 cm3. The growth of the brain has been attributed by some authors to the indirect effects of bipedalism. Another important feature of H. habilis is that they diversified their food sources by including meat that they obtained through hunting and scavenging. The next species in the Homo line made its appearance around 1.8 million years ago. It is called Homo erectus and to some is the real ‘missing link’ between humanity and apeness. It probably also originated in East

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Africa, but it was the first hominid to expand over the Old World. It was in Java, 1.8 million years ago, and in China and in parts of Europe 0.9 million years ago. With an average brain size of about 900 cm3 and a height of 1.7 meters, H. erectus had similar skeletal proportions to those of modern humans. The face, however, was larger, with robust jaws and larger teeth. A meat eater, perhaps a hunter, though probably still relying on scavenging, it used bifaced handaxes, stone chopping and scraping tools. Its technology did not improve much during the 1 million years or more of existence of the species. Charred remains in camps used by Homo erectus, suggest that they had the control of fire, which allowed them not only to cook food, but provided a sense of community as well as defence against predators. Changes in the pharynx and larynx suggest the existence of a rudimentary language, perhaps the naming of objects and animals. In addition to that they may have communicated through cries, facial expression, whistling and sign language. It is quite likely that there was a greater investment in offspring that lead to the creation of stronger bonds between males and females. Between 0.5 and 0.3 million years ago, Homo sapiens evolved from Homo erectus in most parts of the world, though Homo erectus persisted in Java until 50,000 years ago. The early specimens, which had expanded brains and other developments, are referred to as ‘Archaic’ Homo sapiens to differentiate them from modern humans who are usually called Homo sapiens sapiens, and they are quite variable. One important example are the fossils from Atapuerca (Burgos) in Spain. Many physical anthropologists believe that Homo sapiens sapiens only originated in Africa and spread over the world; this is called the ‘Out of Africa’ theory. Some authors, following Milford Wolpoff, maintain that local populations of H. erectus around the world evolved into ‘Archaic’ Homo sapiens and then into Homo sapiens sapiens; this is called the ‘Multiregional evolutionary’ theory. Anatomically, ‘Archaic’ Homo sapiens was somewhere in between Homo erectus and modern humans, with the skeleton and jaws of its predecessors, but with a brain capacity in excess of 1,000 cm3. The fact that had a expanded parietal region and a larynx has led Chris Stringer to suggest that ‘Archaics’ might have developed speech. The rate of evolution seems to accelerate. The improvement of technology was also fast. The European form of archaic Homo sapiens was Homo neanderthalensis or Neanderthals for short. They lived approximately between 150,000 and 30,000 years ago in Europe and also in Western Asia. They occupied unusual environments, being adapted to the very cold weather of the Ice Ages; they were stocky and muscular. They had an elongated head with a cranial capacity of up to 1,750 cm3, that is much larger than that of modern humans. However, a protruding face and receding cheek bones gave them a ‘bestial’ look. They were skilled hunters of mammoths, cave bears, reindeer, oxen and bison. Their technology included composite tools (a blade attached to a stick) and the ability to work hides and wood.

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Signs of symbolic behaviour can be observed in the burial rituals. It is doubtful that the Neanderthals had the same linguistic abilities as modern humans, but given their cultural level they must have had some rudimentary language. Anatomically they also show signs of increased abilities to produce complex speech. Overall the Neanderthals were a hominid species who made a number of important adaptive advances over their ancestors. This is what made it possible that they could live in areas previously uninhabitable by hominids. They were both a culmination of a long past and the heralds of modern humans. The last Neanderthal fossils that we know go back to 30,000 years ago. It means that the populations of Neanderthals were progressively replaced by modern humans. There is neither evidence for violent confrontation between the two species nor of cross-breeding. However, whether Neanderthals were the ancestors of modern human beings, as they became extinct as modern humans invaded from Africa, remains a much debated question. Hominid evolution List 3:1. 4.5 million years ago

First australopithecines

4 million years ago

Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy)

3.5 million years ago 3 million years ago Gracile australopithecines 2.5 million years ago Robust australopithecines Homo habilis 2 million years ago 1.5 million years ago

Homo erectus (Turkana boy)

1 million years ago 0.5 million years ago 0.2 million years ago 0.03 million years ago Present

Archaic Homo sapiens Neanderthals Modern Homo sapiens

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2.2 Human biological evolution In evolutionary terms, then, present-day humans are a recent species which has only existed for about 150,000 years. Humans are very apelike, but compared with apes they have evolved three distinctive features, recapitulated below: 1. Bipedalism. Humans are the only mammals who walk on two feet. This is a unique form of efficient locomotion. 2. Brain-size. Humans have an exceptionally large brain compared to the size of the body (1350 cm3). 3. Size of teeth. Humans have a chewing apparatus (teeth, jaws and associated muscles) which are very small compared to the size of the body. These may seem a short, prosaic list of human distinctions, but many of the features that we use to define humanity originate from these three. In particular, the human capacity for language, sophisticated culture (including the development of technology) and complex social organisation were possible or indeed have been the cause of the evolution of a large brain. There are many debates about why humans evolved such a large brain. What is certain is that its evolution must have enabled improved survival and reproduction. However, whatever the initial cause of the increase in brain-size, it may also have been a pre-adaptation for other functions that developed later (by pre-adaptation we mean a feature that serves some function, although it originally evolved for some other purpose). Some researchers believe that that the evolution of language abilities was the cause for the initial evolutionary development of the brain; others, however, think that language developed later, making use of an already existing large brain. Anthropologists have put forward other causes for the development of human evolution. For example, the appearance of hunting, it has been suggested, triggered off a number of developments: it lead to higher levels of social co-operation, which in turn favoured the development of language, and that made possible the creation of complex cultures. Equally all-embracing explanations of human evolution are found in the making of tools or the division of labour. The problem with these ‘first causes’ is that they have lost their power since it was discovered that these conditions also occur among chimpanzees, but chimpanzees have not evolved into humans (Foley, R. 1995). As to the question of the origins of modern humans, palaeoanthropologists, the scientists who study human origins, differ, though at present the hypothesis that most practitioners favour is the so-called ‘Out of Africa’ model. Defended very vigorously by Chris Stringer, it states that Homo sapiens sapiens originated in Africa within the last

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150,000 years and spread all over the world, completely displacing the existing populations of hominids which existed at the time. It assumes that the only transition from ‘Archaic’ Homo sapiens to Homo sapiens sapiens took place in Africa. The theory also insists that modern humans are a different species from ‘Archaics’, including Neanderthals. The support for this hypothesis is both genetic and morphological. The second model, perhaps more outlandish, is called the ‘Multiregional Evolution’ model and has been defended by Milford Wolpoff. He believes that local populations in Europe, Asia, and Africa, each continued their autonomous evolutionary development from ‘Archaics’ to modern humans. The similarity in the morphology of the different populations of the world is explained by reference to their common ancestor, Homo erectus. Furthermore, it is also assumed that some gene flow (migration) took place between ‘Archaic’ populations around the world, so maintaining parallel evolutionary development. Table 3: 1 A comparison between human beings and chimpanzees Human

Chimpanzee

Habitat

World wide; adapted to different ecological zones, including extreme cold

Africa; basic adaptation to tropical forests, and adjoining woodland savannas

Locomotion

Bipedal; upright stature

Walks on all fours; knuckle walking; arboreal and terrestrial

Brain

Large; mean capacity size 1,350 cm3

Smaller; mean capacity 400 cm3

Sexual patterns

Copulation independent of female oestrus periods

Copulation confined to female oestrus periods

Social life

Complex social patterns; monogamy and polygamy common; father, mother and child bond

Complex social patterns; no permanent male-female bonds; mother-offspring bond

Culture

Very complex, with symbols; complex technology

No culture; simple tools

Communication Language (After W. Foley 1997:49)

Calls

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Table 3: 2 A comparison between archaic and modern humans Archaic

Early Moderns

Heavy musculature

Lighter musculature

Robust skeleton

Gracile skeleton

Thick cranial bones

Thin cranial bones

Moderate to large brain

Large brain

(Before 40,000 BC)

(After 40,000 BC)

Widespread and stable stone tool assemblages

Varied and rapidly changing tool assemblages

Simple tools, mostly stone (spears, knives, scrapers and others)

Composite and hafted tools (bows, boats, use of bone and so on)

No domesticated animals

Domesticated dogs

No art

Art, ornaments

Natural storage

Social storage

Corpse disposal

Burial and ritual

Short-distance transport

Long-distance transport

Limited language ability

Full language ability

Occupation of habitats with predictable plant and animal resources

Occupation of habitats with high density, rich resources

Small, face-to-face societies, narrow band of tolerated population densities

Intensification of social life, expansion of networks to cope with high and very low population densities

(Adapted from R. Foley (1989) and Gamble (1994))

3. The study of humanity: assumptions, theories and typologies 3.1 Towards a new evolutionary social science? According to Barkow, Cosmides and Tooby (1992) attempts to apply evolutionary theory to human society have not been very successful for the simple reason that they have not taken into account the mediation of the psychological. Until recent advances in the study of the human mind, evolutionary anthropology could not explain human adaptability

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and differentiation. Different disciplines have contributed to solve the puzzle: evolutionary biology, cognitive science, behavioural ecology, psychology, hunter-gatherer studies, social anthropology, biological anthropology, primatology and neurobiology. This has given rise to what could be called the ‘integrated causal model’ which links, or rather vertically integrates biology, psychology and anthropology. This model is based on three essential assumptions and eight key principles. The three basic assumptions are: 1. There is a universal human nature which exists primarily at the level of evolved psychological mechanisms not expressed in cultural behaviour. This universality is not challenged by variability, rather the latter provides insights on the structure of the psychological mechanisms that helped to generate it. 2. These evolved psychological mechanisms are adaptations constructed by natural selection over evolutionary time. 3. The evolved structure of the human mind is adapted to the way of life of the Pleistocene hunters and gatherers (from approximately 2 million to 10.000 years ago), and not necessarily to our modern circumstances. The eight principles are: a. The human mind consists of a set of evolved information-processing mechanisms inherent in the human nervous system. b. These mechanisms, and the developmental program that produces them, are adaptations produced by natural selection over evolutionary time in ancestral environment. c. Many of these mechanisms are functionally specialised to produce behaviour that solves particularly adaptive problems such as mate selection, language acquisition, family relations and cooperation. d. To be functionally specialised, many of the mechanisms must be richly structured in a content-specific way. e. Content-specific information-processing mechanisms generate some of the particular contents of human culture, including certain behaviours, artifacts, and linguistically transmitted representations. f. The cultural content generated by these and other mechanisms is then present to be adopted or modified by psychological mechanisms situated in other members of the population. g. This sets up epidemiological and historical population-level processes. h. These processes are located in particular ecological, economic, demographic and intergroup social contexts or environments.

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3.2 Evolutionary theories The concept of evolution has played a very important role in the development of the social sciences, and particularly in anthropology. Many nineteenth-century social scientists (Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, Karl Marx, Lewis Morgan, Edward Tylor, James Frazer, Emile Durkheim, and others) were socio-cultural evolutionists. After a ‘functionalist’ parenthesis of a few decades, evolutionism returned to the social sciences in the 1960s. Evolutionary theories, in both the biological and the social sciences, try to account for changes by reference to specific requirements which are the result of certain given conditions at a certain moment in time. Socio-cultural evolutionism operates through the use of taxonomies and typologies. Although it is not always easy to separate the former from the latter, for the purposes of our approach taxonomies tend to be empirically based, that is they classify existing entities, while typologies tend to be logical constructions, a priori categories. They both provide the basis for further theoretical development and for innovative research. I will use the term ‘typology’ to cover both categories. As we shall see, social scientists have proposed a variety of evolutionary typologies, as well a number of non-evolutionary ones. Good typologies should be unambiguous, that is, they should use criteria that allow researchers to know with clarity and precision which set of objects belong to one given type. Generally speaking, typologies should not be simplistic but rather richly nuanced. Finally, a typology should be informed by the most powerful independent variable. These criteria are not always easy to obtain. Discreteness of types is hard to achieve, hence the overlapping between types which sometimes occurs. On the other hand, when classifying societies, social scientists are not in agreement as to which independent variable is the most important one. Evolutionary typologies that are comprehensive, that is, those that consider the full range of human societies from prehistoric times to the present, are much more likely to perceive the importance of, say, the technologies of subsistence, than those typologies which have a much more limited time-dimension (Lenski 1994). In its most sophisticated, present-day formulation (Sanderson 1990; 1995) a theory of socio-cultural evolution consists of a number of assumptions or propositions: 1. There are general, directional trends in world history, that is, there are patterns of historical change that are common to a number of societies. Both parallel evolution (when two or more societies evolve at the same pace and in the same direction) and convergent evolution (when two or more societies which were originally different evolve in such a way that they end up being similar) are considered. Of course, there is also historical uniqueness and divergence.

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2. The fact that some societies remain static, or revert to an earlier evolutionary stage, or become extinct should be also explained in terms of the same evolutionary framework. 3. Modern socio-cultural evolutionism, unlike its nineteenth-century precursor, is openly anti-developmentalist and anti-teleological; that is, it does not accept the idea that there is a predetermined plan that unfolds or that evolution serves some purpose. 4. Socio-cultural evolution occurs both at the micro level (family) and the macro level (world-systems). 5. One of the important forms that evolution takes is the increase of socio-cultural complexity; in spite of what some social scientists think, this is not, however, the only important process. 6. Although socio-cultural and biological evolutionism share a number of general traits, there are also marked differences (for example, biological evolutionism arises randomly and operates in a different [much longer] time-dimension. 7. In trying to account for socio-cultural evolution causal priority should be given to the material base, that is, ecological, demographic, technological and economic factors. The reason is because they are closely related to the production and reproduction of human life. The relative causal importance of each of these factors varies from one historical period to another. 8. Socio-political and ideological factors should not be envisaged as pure reflections of the material base; they have a life and a causality of their own, particularly once they have come into existence. 9. Evolutionary events are adaptations, that is, processes in which individuals initiate social patterns aimed at satisfying certain needs. Not all adaptations benefit the individuals who have originated them. Hence, adaptations should not be understood as social progress. 10. The units of adaptation are individuals who act in their own interest; the units of actual evolution are not individuals, but social systems of different sizes and complexity; these systems are the result of the aggregation of a great number of individual actions. Social systems are often constituted in terms unintended by individuals. 11. In traditional settings, socio-cultural evolution can be explained by reference to factors originating within society. However, societies are often integrated into wider networks and world-systems which influence their evolutionary dynamics. Hence, both endogenous forces (from within a society) and exogenous ones (from without a society) have to be taken into account. 12. Socio-cultural evolution takes places sometimes in a slow and gradual way (gradualism), sometimes in a sudden and rapid way,

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through invasions, revolutions, wars, and so for (punctuationalism). Modernity brings an accelerated pace of evolution. This is a rather general framework which can be useful provided that it is not read too dogmatically. In remains tentative and open to contention. It is meant to guide the reader so that he or she can introduce some scientific order among the baffling variety of archaeological, historical and ethnographic facts. The same considerations apply to the next section on evolutionary typologies.

3.3 Evolutionary typologies The first evolutionary typology was put forward in the second half of the eighteenth century by Adam Smith, one of the key representatives of the Scottish Enlightenment. His scheme was made possible by two assumptions: first, the idea that society is a social system, that is to say, it is an interrelated whole consisting of different levels; second, that society could be explained in evolutionary and materialist terms. By evolutionary I mean the idea that history can be best expressed by reference to a succession of stages. By materialist I mean the idea that the economy (and the environment) plays a leading role in determining (or at least strongly conditioning) two things: the transition from one stage to another and the different levels of the social totality (economic, political, ideological). Adam Smith proposed, in outline, a scheme in which he distinguished four main stages: hunting, pastoralism, agriculture and commerce. One of Smith’s main concern was to study the origins and development of social institutions, particularly the origins of the state (what he called civil government). He noticed that the state did not appear until the development of pastoralism; in his own words (Smith 1776: 715) ‘The appropriation of herds and flocks which first introduced an inequality of fortune, was that which first gave rise to regular government.’

The greatest achievement of Adam Smith, however, was not so much to have traced the origins of a given social institution (civil government) to a particular stage of socio-economic development, but to have generalised and tried to establish a necessary relationship in each stage of evolution between the mode of subsistence (that is, hunting, pastoralism, and so on) and the other levels of society. Another member of the Scottish Enlightenment, William Robertson, emphasised the importance of the mode of subsistence; according to him, the political and legal systems are influenced by changes in the mode of subsistence. Another evolutionary scheme which was put forward during the Scottish Enlightenment was that of Adam Ferguson who distinguished three main stages: savagery, barbarism and civilisation. This is also a materialist scheme, although superficially it seems to emphasise ideological factors. This three-fold scheme was later adopted by the American anthropologist Lewis Morgan in the nineteenth century, and through him was later

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popularised by Frederick Engels in his Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. For Morgan, the major divisions (savagery, barbarism and civilisation) represent respective stages in the development of subsistence technology: hunting, agriculture, industry. It remained an assumption of nineteenth-century anthropologists trying to explain the progression from one stage to another, that the ‘arts of subsistence’ (Morgan) were the driving mechanism. Evolutionary schemes based on Marx’s ideas have been popular in different historical moments, but as the following contrast between Joseph Stalin’s rigid, unilineal typology and Krader’s flexible, multilineal proposal shows, there is no agreement about the basics. In contemporary evolutionary theory schemes based on the dynamic relationship between technology and population (modes of subsistence) are perhaps the most popular, even when the strict and dogmatic materialism implicit in some of them is rejected by others. Most anthropologists would agree, with variations, that hunting-gathering, agriculture and industry constitute the three main stages in the evolution of mankind, or at least that this is the most useful way of looking at our history. The minimalist position adopted in this book tends to agree with Ernest Gellner’s standpoint that the productive basis ‘bestows on the societies which use it radically different sets of problems and constraints, and hence that societies of these three different kinds can be usefully treated as three fundamentally different species’ (Gellner 1988: 20). However, as it will be obvious in the course of this text, each mode of subsistence is compatible with a great variety of social, political and ideological forms. There are two major transitions in human history which are the result of two major revolutions: the Neolithic and the industrial revolutions (some authors, following Gordon Childe, refer to a third revolution: the urban one, which gave rise to civilisation and the state around 3,000 BC). There are some specialised modes of subsistence like pastoralism and horticulture which do not quite fit into this simple scheme, although they tend to be considered as part of the developments which came along at more or less the same time as agriculture. One of the first modern major syntheses based on the mode of subsistence, and which was subsequently widely imitated, was that of Gerhard Lenski (1966) His scheme distinguishes between hunting/gathering societies, simple horticultural societies, advanced horticultural societies, agricultural societies and industrial societies (other taxons such as herding, fishing are also mentioned). In a nutshell, Lenski defines each of the stages in the following way: 1. Hunting/gathering. They exhibit some common features: exclusive reliance on muscular energy, society equals community, small population, nomadism or semi-nomadism, few possessions, no specified roles. Power and prestige are largerly a function of personal skills and ability. Among their variable features are: physical environment, belief systems, and kinship.

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2. Horticulture. Two types are distinguished: simple and advanced. The main features of simple horticulture are: the use of digging stick, the existence of more than one community, a population size between 100 and 3,000 people, specialised production, secret societies, warfare, limited nomadism. Political inequality is by virtue of office; some people (big men) are wealthy. Status is due both to personal qualities and office-holding. The main features of advanced horticulturalism are: use of a metal hoe, chiefdoms, growth of the state and urbanisation. 3. Agrarian societies. Among their common features we can list the following: substantive advances in productive and military technology, urbanism, increased volume of trade, warfare, monetary economy and literate elite, occupational specialisation, religion closely associated to the state, substantial growth in the power of the state and the size of the territory, vast control of populations (empires), classes (retainers, merchants, priests, peasants, artisans, and so on). 4. Industrial societies. Main common features: new sources of energy, diversification of raw materials, increase in size and complexity. The appearance of independent modern national states marked the first significant reversal in the evolutionary trend toward greater inequality. As to the mechanisms that explain the transition from stage to stage Lenski mentions the following causes: increasing rate of population growth, exploitation of new environments, technological advances and the growth in production of goods and services. More recently, in a textbook published in 1991 – Human Societies – he has made explicit his belief that socio-cultural evolution is multilinear. Overall, Lenski’s inspiration is Marxian, at least in spirit. Another popular element used by anthropologists to generate evolutionary schemes is that of sociocultural levels of integration. This idea is a development of the well-known principle first put forward by Herbert Spencer of the evolution from the simple to the complex. Human societies grow by creating more comprehensive levels of organization which subsume the pre-existing ones. In The Rules of the Sociological Method (1895), Emile Durkheim proposed such a scheme. Elman Service is the author of the most influential evolutionary typology based on levels of sociocultural integration. In his classic Primitive Social Organisation (1962) he distinguished the successive levels of band, tribe, chiefdom and state. While Service focused on social organisation, his colleague Morton Fried, in his book The Evolution of Political Society (1967), emphasised social control and came out with a scheme in which societies were egalitarian, rank, stratified and state-based. There was a rough equivalence between the two typologies: band societies were egalitarian, tribal societies were rank and chiefdoms were stratified.

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Most social scientists interested in evolution tend to use Service’s scheme, albeit sometimes in a modified form. A recasted version of it can be found in The Evolution of Human Societies (1987) by A. Johnson and T. Earle; they identify three levels of socioeconomic integration: The FamilyLevel Group (family/camp and family/hamlet), the Local Group (tribes) and the Regional Polity (chiefdoms and states). Given the importance of this kind of typology it is perhaps worth examining each level in some detail: 1. Family-Level Group (the band). Service conceived the band as the most elementary form of social organisation; he believed that the bands were small, patrilineal and exogamous hunting units. As we shall see, it is not so much hunting, but gathering, that characterises most bands. Furthermore, recent research has shown that the family (5 to 8 persons) is the primary subsistence group. A number of these units may find themselves together in a camp or hamlet, but they are mobile. Population density is quite important in determining the size of the family-level group. Where the density is low (1 person per 10 square miles) camps tend to consist of a maximum of fifty people. There are usually no camp leaders and the division of labour is based on gender. These societies do not tend to engage in warfare, but homicide occurs. There is no sense of territorial imperative; then the density is higher, say 1 person for 2 square miles, more permanent settlements tend to develop (hamlets), but many of the features of the previous type persist. The main difference is the existence of food storage, incipient gardening and the domestication of animals. 2. The Local Group (tribal level). At this level of integration several extended families live together in villages of up to three hundred people. Usually organised in kinship groups (clans and lineages) for a number of purposes. Service emphasised the importance of age-grades, secret association, pan-tribal associations, and so on, as a means of tribal integration. Recent research, however, seems to indicate that many of the regional organisations were created by the colonial powers. In this sense, then, local villages are rarely integrated into wider units, but rather at war with each other. Different modes of subsistence occur at the local group level: bountiful hunters/gatherers, horticulturalists, pastoralists, and others. This pattern corresponds to what are usually called acephalous (leaderless) local groups. There is another type of tribe or local group which is integrated into regional networks by Big Men. These are societies with higher density, and generally more prosperous. Local communities are large (500 people) and are represented by entrepreneurial and charismatic leaders or Big Men. His role is to manage the community and to establish links and alliances with other groups. 3. The Regional Polity (chiefdoms and states). The main difference between chiefdoms and states lies in the scale of integration. Chiefdoms integrate a number of communities within a region. They are characterised by economic specialisation, the existence of an economic

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surplus, a redistributive economy, the presence of ranked lineages and the centralising office of political chief. For Service, however, chiefdoms lack true government backed by force. Chiefdoms are the result of conquest and incorporation of local groups. States (and empires) are internally differentiated by a number of factors: class, specialisation, diverse population. On the whole, they are larger than chiefdoms, have a bureaucracy, an army, a judiciary and a state religion. In some cases (as in the so-called Asiatic or tributary mode of production), they engage in major technological improvements, namely land irrigation, which require a centralised control of the economy. The culture-scale approach is a concept that has been used to identify the main features of a given type of society. This approach elaborates on the previous evolutionary schemes. Cultures are classified as small, large and global. Rather than offering a detailed description the following table should suffice: Table 3:3 The scale of world cultures

Population

Technology

Economy

Society

Polity

Ideology

Small

Large

Global

500–1000

10,000 or more

1 million or more

Low density

High density

Urban

Foraging

Intensive

Industrial

Gardening

Agriculture

Fossil fuel

Herding

Monocrop

?

Subsistence

Tribute tax

Markets

Display

Wealth

Corporations

Reciprocal

Specialists

Capitalist

Exchange

?

Consumer

Egalitarian

Ranked

Class-based

Kin-based

Class-based

Literate

Age-grades

Castes

?

Acephalous

Chiefdoms

National states

Bigman

Kingdoms

Supranational

Descent groups

Empires

?

Animism

High gods

Patriotism

Shamanism

Divine kings

Monotheism

Ancestor cults

?

Progress

(From Bodley 1997:17)

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The last evolutionary scheme that I intend to consider is the worldsystems theory inspired by the work of Immanuel Wallerstein. The central assumption of this theory is that most societies, except perhaps the very simple ones, are not autonomous but part of a more or less large network. As we shall see, Wallerstein’s concern has been mostly with the development of capitalism as a world-system. Other authors, following on his original ideas, have tried to apply the world-system perspective to pre-capitalist societies. For Wallerstein a world-system is a multicultural division of labour in which the production and exchange of basic goods and raw materials is necessary for the everyday life of its inhabitants. Anthropologists who have looked at this definition and have tried to apply it to pre-capitalist societies have found it wanting. André Gunder Frank and Jane Schneider (Chase-Dunn and Hall 1991) have both insisted that the exchange of luxury goods is quite important for the reproduction of local groups. In this sense world-systems should be envisaged as inter-societal networks in which the interactions (trade, warfare, intermarriage) are important for the reproduction and the change of the local structures. Frank posits a continuity between the system that emerged in Mesopotamia 5,000 years ago with the birth of civilisation (states and cities) and the present. According to Wallerstein there are two basic types of systems: minisystems and world-systems: 1. Mini-systems are entities that have within them a complete division of labour and a single cultural framework. Such systems are found only in very simple, hunting/gathering or horticultural societies. They are basically small, autonomous, reciprocal, subsistence economies which were rare in the past and have practically ceased to exist at present. Wallerstein insists that what are commonly called societies or social systems are not mini-systems because they participate in larger networks. 2. World-systems. The expression ‘world-system’ should not be understood as encompassing the whole world, but as being geographically rather larger than a mini-system. World-systems are characterised by a single division of labour and a variety of cultural systems. There can be two varieties of world systems: one with a common political system (world-empires) and one without (world-economies). a. World-empires. In them there is a single political system over most of the area, although its degree of political control may be rather weak. World-empires are basically redistributive in economic form and tend to generate long-distance traders (albeit their overall economic importance is limited). They have been common for at least six thousand years. b. World-economies. In these entities there is no single political system controlling all the geographical area. Prior to capitalism,

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world-economies were rather unstable structures, heading towards disintegration or conquest by an empire. China, Egypt, and Rome are examples of world-economies transformed into world-empires. On the other hand, modern empires (British, French, and others) were not, strictly speaking, world-empires but states with colonial appendages operating within the framework of the world-capitalist economy. One of the crucial concepts that Wallerstein uses to characterise the structure of the modern world-system is that of core/periphery. These are basic, complementary terms that define the modern world-economy (somewhere in-between core and periphery Wallerstein places the semiperiphery). It refers to the division of labour and the differential accumulation of wealth between the centre and the rest of the system. However, this ‘exploitative’ relationship does occurs in all pre-capitalist world-systems. Hence the idea put forward by Christopher Chase-Dunn that two types of core/periphery relationships should be distinguished when dealing with the comparative study of world systems: core/periphery differentiation and core/periphery hierarchy. a. Core-periphery differentiation means the existence of societies, of different levels of complexity, which interact with each other in a non-exploitative way within the same world-system. b. Core/periphery hierarchy refers to the existence of economic exploitation, political domination and ideological control between different societies within the same world-system. At the economic level the relationship can take different forms: raids, tributes and taxes. Chase-Dunn has elaborated the following typology of world-systems: 1. Stateless world-systems in which bands, tribes and chiefdoms are engaged in various types of economic exchange. This system corresponds to kin-based societies. 2. Primary world-economies which involve regional systems of core/periphery specialisation among the pristine states, but without any imperial political structure. Examples: Lower Mesopotamia, Egypt, Indus Valley, Ganges Valley, China, Mexico, Peru. 3. Primary world-empires or the earliest forms of core/periphery specialisation to have acquired an imperial structure. Examples: Akkad, Old Kingdom Egypt, Chou China, Teothihuacan. 4. Complex secondary world-systems, in which primary world-empires were combined into larger world-empires. Examples: Near East, India, China, Mesoamerica, Peru. 5. Commercializing world-systems or pre-capitalist world systems with an unusually high level of commercialization. Examples: Near East, Indian Ocean, China.

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6. The capitalist world-economy, first centred in Europe in the sixteenth century and then expanding to become a truly global modern worldsystem. (Sanderson 1995:114–119)

4. Hunting-gathering, horticultural and pastoral societies 4.1. Hunting and gathering societies In approximately 10,000 BC the world consisted only of widely distributed hunters and gatherers all around; there were perhaps 10 million of them. By 1500 AD the world population was about 350 million, of which only 3.5 million were hunters and gatherers. Today there a few thousand left, mostly in marginal areas. In modern terminology huntergatherers are also called foragers, a more general term which just indicates searching or rummaging for food, be it wild plants or animals (including fish). However, these terms should not blind us to the fact that foragers produce their food. This involves not only the construction and manipulation of tools, as well as social cooperation, but also the presence of self-conscious planning. Traditionally, hunting and gathering populations were depicted, paraphrasing Hobbes in Leviathan (1651) (Part I, Ch 13, p. 89)), as having ‘no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’. The symposium Man the Hunter, edited in 1968 by Robert Lee and Irving DeVore, which brought together anthropologists and archaeologists, established a completely different picture of huntergatherers. For the first time a proper comparative approach was presented, which was followed by many endeavours of a similar type, exploring the different dimensions of this type of mode of subsistence . Lee and DeVore put forward a model in which variations of social organisation, lifestyle and culture were accounted for in terms of ecological constraints. In this model, hunter and gathering societies were essentially nomadic and lived in small groups which varied in size according to seasonal variations. Their system was seen as highly adaptive and ecologically sensitive. There was a certain romanticisation of this mode of subsistence, perhaps best expressed in Marshall Sahlins’s characterisation of hunters-gatherers as the original affluent society. What was meant by this expression is that hunter-gatherers, or at least some of them, had a short working week (4 to 5 hours work each day) to obtain food and process it, and few worries. They had plenty of leisure time that they could spend as they desired (mostly in sexual activity and gossiping). The point was also made that these societies made sensible economic decisions, avoiding starvation and population growth. To many anthropologists the

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question was no longer why had hunter-gatherers remained so ‘primitive’, but that they had managed to escape the drudgery, hard-work, lower living standards and poor health of agriculturalists. Traditionally, anthropologists and archaeologists have tended to emphasise the hunting element in hunting-gathering societies. The assumption that hominids, at least since Homo erectus, have depended mainly on meat for their diet is well-established among archaeologists. Since hunting tends to be practised mostly by men, there follows a strong legitimisation for male aggression. However, as we have said before, hunter-gatherers tend to be egalitarian, with no clear system of domination of males over females. However, many contemporary hunting and gathering societies have a hunting ideology, meaning that they value meat highly, perhaps because it is difficult to obtain. Hunting is also a collective task that requires co-operation and consequently social organisation and a developed language to co-ordinate activities. However, as the next table shows, modern studies on hunting-gathering societies show that only about 20 to 30% of the diet consists of meat. This was probably even more so in early times. In this context it should be made clear that the findings about contemporary hunters-gatherers cannot be projected into the past without caution. We cannot assume that the Australian aborigines of today, or rather of two hundred years ago (prior to the European settlement), are the same as their ancestors of 10,000 years ago. The idea that we can we find a pristine hunting-gathering society among the hunter-gatherers of today is a chimera. While ethnographers have to be aware that all contemporary hunters-gatherers suffer the effects of the contact with wider societies, archaeologists deal with a very long temporal dimension and wide geographical ranges. If both approaches suggest one common conclusion, it would be the great sociocultural variability of foraging populations. We have mentioned above that the idea that contemporary huntergatherers are in any sense ‘pristine’ is extremely misleading. Studies published in the early 1980s, and specifically the book Politics and History in Band Societies edited by Eleanor Leacock and Richard Lee in 1982, have shown that many foragers had been in contact with farming societies for hundreds if not thousands of years. It was in the context of the study of the colonial world and with the vantage point of the worldsystem perspective that many of these ideas came to light. Whether the original hunting-gathering band lacked property rights, had little leadership and kept gender inequalities to a minimum, is open to contention. If it is true that there are some contemporary societies such as the Cree, the !Kung San, the Inuit and the Mbuti, that approximate this model, while others, like the Californian Indians, do not. To suggest, however, that the former constitute the truly original huntinggathering type is to forget that all societies have been subjected to

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exogenous influences; in fact, some features of the former (flexibility, processes of fusion and fission, and so on) are a likely indication of a resistance to alien control. But that does not make them more ‘pristine’. One of interesting developments of the 1980s is the emphasis on tracing back the history of some contemporary hunter-gatherers. A collection of papers published under the title Past and Present in HunterGatherer Studies (1984) was edited by C. Schrire. One interesting conclusion of some of the papers is that, in the long term, there often emerges a pattern of change in modes of subsistence, including processes of devolution. There is enough evidence to suspect that some societies which shifted from being hunter-gatherers to cultivators or herders, reverted later on to their original condition of either because changing ecological conditions or because of pressure from other societies. Another important contribution of this volume is how, by focusing on the artistic creations of hunters and gatherers, we can throw light on the complexity of kinship relations, including the ideology that informs them and the rituals that legitimise them. One of the issues that has captured the imagination of the anthropological community in recent times is that of primitive communism. The idea is that hunter-gatherers, as well as some horticulturalists and pastoralists, have lived for thousands of years in small, kin-based societies with common ownership of resources (including land), sharing of food and no political domination. Should this be a seen as a romantic notion? And even if it is true, is it the result of poverty conditions? Richard Lee, a specialist on the !Kung of Southwest Africa, has staunchly maintained that primitive communism was ‘an historically valid and workable social system’. Whether we call it primitive communism or something else, it is a fact that there is plenty of ethnographic evidence to indicate the existence of this type of societies. It is also worth emphasising that the way the system is reproduced is by strong rules that forbid accumulation or inequality. In hunting-gathering societies there is a constant process of levelling out. There is a ceiling for the accumulation of goods beyond which nobody is allowed to go, but also a lower floor beyond which nobody is allowed to sink. Hoarding is definitely outlawed. There is no easy answer as to how inequalities originate. Obviously pastoralism and agriculture allow for the creation of a surplus that can be appropriated by a few, but how that happens is another matter, and why people accept it is still another. The status of women in hunting-gathering societies has been the object of recent discussions. Eleanor Leacock has insisted that in these societies women were separate but equal. In other words, women were autonomous in the sense that they made their own decisions concerning their own lives and activities. This is a well-established ethnographic fact; the existence of different roles for men (hunting) and women (gathering) has always been postulated as a result of a biological underpinning (pregnancies, childbearing and suckling) which makes hunting (particularly

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big game) more difficult or impossible for women. Leacock insists that equality was maintained despite the existence of different roles for men and women. The absence of authority and the fact that decisions were taken communally helps to explain the absence of hierarchies. But what about the fact, mentioned before, that hunting brought power and prestige to men? The first point to be made is that women also engaged in hunting (particularly small game) and that men were also involved in gathering. In the second place, most hunting-gathering societies lack a hunting ideology (the most important exception being the Australian Aborigines). Third, motherhood was also a prestigious role. Not all scholars agree with Leacock’s characterisation of ‘primitive’ bands as egalitarian. However, it is always possible to explain away hierarchies by reference to external influences, hence projecting male-female equality to a distant, hypothetical past. Although one should be careful not to assume that the hunting-gathering societies of today are like those of prehistoric times, it is now reasonably established that many of the latter were ‘affluent’. On the other hand, the rather rare stratified societies of the north Pacific coast of the USA may also have existed in the past. There were complex hunter-gatherers that exploited rich hunting or fishing sites, with high population densities. These societies were sedentary, stored food, were engaged in long-distance trade, were occupationally specialised and exhibited hierarchical systems headed by Big Men or chiefs. These societies came only to exist not long before the eclosion of incipient agriculture and appeared in situations of great abundance. One should insist, however, that these type of complex hunting-gathering societies are the exception rather than the rule, both in modern and in prehistoric times. To all ends and purposes, most hunting-gathering societies tend to be egalitarian rather than stratified, mobile rather than sedentary and democratic rather than hierarchical. The band, as we have said, is the level of socio-cultural integration of the majority of hunting-gathering societies. The outstanding feature of this type of social organisation is that all socio-cultural functions are carried out by a limited number of associated bands. Each band or camp is formed by related nuclear families (5 to 8 persons) that independently make use of scattered resources. The entire economic, political and religious organisation is contained within the band. It is quite likely that the band was the only form of social organisation known to mankind for many thousands of years, well into the period preceding the Neolithic. According to the ethnographic data available, the majority of band societies are patrilineal (with band exogamy as a requirement) and virilocal. Strictly patrilocal bands (Australian aborigines, Semang, Pygmies, Californian Indians) are found in societies that occupy extremely varied environments, a fact that precludes environmental determinism as an explanation for the existence of this level of sociocultural organisation in general. It is possible that virilocal residence is

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the result of the necessity to keep together the group of men who hunt, and to defend the camp site united. With the intensive process of acculturation suffered by many bands, it is not unusual to find what are now composite bands, in which there are neither exogamous rules nor postmarital rules of residence. Many patrilocal bands practice restricted exchange, which is also known as bilateral cross-cousin marriage (a male ego marries a woman who is both his mother’s brother daughter and his father’s sister daughter). Generally, two groups establish a relationship in which they exchange women generation after generation. As a result of all the kinship rules mentioned before, a man belongs to the band in which he was born and will develop close ties of co-operation and solidarity with his brothers and his parallel uncles and male cousins. A woman, on the other hand, lives with her father’s band until she is married and then becomes a member of her husband’s band. Although the average figure given for a band is that of 50 persons, bands oscillate between 50 and 150 persons. It appears that the usual number of men required for collective hunting is about 8, a fact which would explain why a good number of bands consist of between 30 and 50 individuals. It is possible to say with some confidence that populations sharing the same language and culture organised into bands tend to be quite small, usually no more than 500 persons. The spatial distribution of members of the same band varies according to the abundance of resources. In desert areas, families are usually self-sufficient. On the other hand, when resources are bountiful we may find other bands camped in the same area. Furthermore, hunting, especially large game hunting requires a form of economic co-operation, while gathering can be done individually (although it is normally done in groups). The Pygmies of equatorial Africa illustrate a case where the technical requirements of large game hunting dictate that all members of the band reside in the same camp. Other factors, related to the presence or absence of conflict among members of the same band also affect the distribution of its members. If resources are scarce, families may have to co-operate with other families who are not from the same band. There are specific mechanisms (like extending kinship relations to all members of the linguistic group) aimed at creating unity and solidarity; equally, rituals and myths can also be shared. In referring to hunters and gatherers, there is no way in which can we say that they have a sense of territorial imperative, that is, of a group’s instinctive defensive attitude toward the territory that a band occupies. In fact, territoriality is far more dependent upon culture than upon some innate aggressiveness. It is true that bands define themselves in terms of the territory that they occupy and often call themselves and the territory by the same name. However, this does not necessarily imply

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a form of territorial imperative, for members of other bands often freely enter the territory. The !Kung of Southwest Africa One of the best examples of the band level of socio-cultural integration are the !Kung Bushmen (scattered over Botswana, Namibia and Angola) as described by Lorna Marshall (1976) and Richard Lee (1979) among others. The !Kung are a nomadic people living in bands, the members of which are related through consanguineal and affinal links. Through the band organisation and its leadership, people have rights over the game, edible plants, other foodstuff, and waters of a large territory. Among the !Kung, the band is the most structured socio-political group: each band is autonomous and no leader of any one band has jurisdiction over the affairs of any other band. Each band establishes itself in a territory through peaceful means; to be inhabitable, a territory must have sufficient food and water. Territorial limits are respected, although they are not well-defined. The customary way of hunting requires that hunters confine themselves to their own territory. In fact, 500 people occupy a zone of several thousand square kilometres. Divided into about 20 bands, the !Kung have sufficient territory for their needs. Large game is cut up and distributed to all members of the band. !Kung social organisation consists of two types of groups: the family and the band, both of which are based on ties of consanguinity and affinity. The band organises rights over possession of wild food and wells. Individuals’ access to essential resources is by virtue of band membership, which also allows several families to reside in the same place. A band is permanently associated with a given territory. An important person of the band is the custodian of the territorial rights, who might be called the leader or the head of the band. Leadership, however, is minimal and informal. The members of the band are related to its leader through kinship ties. Being a leader conveys no privilege. The person occupying this position must work like the others, carry his possessions and share his meat. There is no form of honour, insignia or tribute attached to this social position. Thus, there is little rivalry among members to become a band leader, since his ‘authority’ is limited to the management of territorial resources, that is, to calculate the best time to move from one place to another, to choose which resources should be consumed first, an so forth. The !Kung lack a tribal organisation which would structure the bands into some sort of political unit. The bands, as discrete units, do not engage in economic, ritual or other kinds of activities with one another, although the individuals of different bands frequently encounter one another. An important motive for these encounters is the arrangement of marriages. Furthermore, when the resources of a band become

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scarce, they often shift from one territory to another. The extension of kinship, through an ingenious naming system, unifies the various bands in an all-encompassing social structure. Hunter-gatherers: major features List 3:2 Small groups (50 persons); bands or camps that may occasionally and temporarily be larger. Flexible social organisation, with groups splitting or uniting depending on ecology. Simple technology (spears, sticks, bow and arrow, and other tools and weapons). Nomadism; following the dictates of ‘nature’ (environment). No real authority, but the leader’s influence is based on personal ability. Age and gender as principles of organisation; simple division of labour (‘Man the hunter, Woman the gatherer’). Egalitarian society, with neither rank nor class. Food sharing in the band. No individual control of resources, nor clear sense of exclusive territoriality, although there is resistance to other groups penetrating their hunting area. No internal fighting within the group, but small-scale feuding for several reasons (adultery, sorcery, aggression, and so on). They may make war against invaders. Polytheistic religion; no full time priests (but shamans may be present); deification of nature (plants, animals, mountains, sky, et cetera). Based on Elman Service’s The Hunters (1966) and Primitive Social Organization (1971) and Frank Vivelo’s Cultural Anthropology (1994).

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4.2 Horticultural societies Horticulture is the first form of agriculture and it is based on the working of small plots (garden cultivation) with the simple technology of the digging stick and hoe. The most common type of horticulture is called slash-and-burn (or shifting or swidden) agriculture, that is, a technique by which fields are cleared, trees and brush are burnt and the soil, fertilised by the ash, is then planted. Horticulture tends to be accompanied by a variable amount of hunting, fishing, gathering and animal husbandry. At the level of social organisation, horticultural societies show much more variation than hunting-gathering societies. There is evidence of early cultivators-cum-herders from a variety of areas: Middle East (wheat and barley), Southeast Asia and China (sorghum and millet). In America cultivation (corn, beans, and other crops) did not appear until much later than in other areas. The transition from hunting-gathering to horticulturalism is still poorly understood as there is no obvious advantage to it: it required harder

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work for less food. In the long run, increased productivity and a more stable production worked in favour of horticulture. This led to population growth which in turn led to migration and the expansion of horticulture to other areas. We have mentioned that the methods of cultivation used by horticulturalists are rather simple; this specifically excludes ploughs, draft animals and irrigation. At the end of the day horticulturalists rely exclusively on human energy. Compared with intensive agriculture, the productivity of primitive farming is rather low. Because slash-and-burn allows the use of plots for only three years or so – then the farmers have to move to another plot – the total land required is rather large (low people-to-land ratio). The extensive cultivation method of horticulturalists contrasts with the intensive cultivation of the agriculturalists. Horticulturalists tend to be self-sufficient, but they have little surpluses to exchange with other societies. Most horticultural societies occupy tropical or arid regions, and they have to develop certain strategies and concentrate on certain crops to survive. In the past, horticulture was extended much more widely. Swidden horticulture was practised in Europe for a long time and in America until the conquest. One of the distinctive characteristics of horticultural societies, when compared with hunting-gathering ones is their sedentariness, that is, the establishment of a permanent settlement for the greater part of the year. With stable sites and increased productivity comes, as mentioned above, population growth. However, there is still a need for movement and the need to build new villages every few years. Social complexity is also a feature of horticultural societies. Although the household is still the basic unit of production and consumption, large kin groups (lineages and clans) make their appearance. On the basis of belonging to unilineal descent groups claims can be made for differential access to crops. If differences in wealth are relatively small, there are some differences in power. Headmen or Big Men emerge with defined positions of authority. Headman is referred to political leader who co-ordinate the activities of the group; it is usually the spokesman of the village but has coercive power and only governs by consent. As to the Big Man, it is a self-made leader whose position is temporary and depends on his abilities and on being accepted by his followers Both type of leaders play a role in the settlement of disputes as well as presiding over religious rituals, feasts, and so on. We have mentioned that the term ‘horticultural societies’ encompasses different types. Following Yehudi Cohen (1968) and Frank Vivelo (1994) we can distinguish the following ones: 1. Minimal horticulture. It refers to societies where food production by means of horticulture does not exceed 10% of the diet. These are people who still move around in pursuit of game or to gather plants and fruits for part of the year and then return to their settlements for

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the harvest. Owing to the swidden techniques employed, people have to move regularly to other settlements. In terms of social structure they are not that different from hunters-gatherers, with limited leadership and group flexibility (fission). 2. Dependent horticulture. These are societies which still depend more on hunting-gathering than on horticulture. They are more settled and their local groups more stable. We see the beginning of lineages and clans, but authority is still diffuse. Division of labour operates along gender lines: men clear the bush, hunt, fight and care for the domesticated animals, while women take care of the household and work in cultivation. Density is still low and settlements tend to be dispersed. 3. Primary subsistence horticulture. This is the first stage in which horticulture dominates, while hunting-gathering activities become less important (30% of the diet). Population increases and settlements become more permanent. At the political level we see the appearance of more stable and better defined leadership, with more authority. The importance of unilineal descent groups becomes more central. 4. Advanced horticulture. These societies rely almost on horticulture alone. They have much higher density than the previous types and the communities tend to live in close proximity, as well as have permanent villages. Kinship groups are still going strong. In so far as a political organisation is concerned, this type of society can sustain chiefdoms, as is the case in Polynesia. As a way to exemplify horticultural societies we will refer to the Trobrianders of New Guinea. The Trobriand Islanders, who live close to the eastern coast of New Guinea, are a horticultural society who have developed an ingenious system of trade (kula ring) with the peoples of the nearby islands. First studied by Bronislaw Malinowski, they were described by him as ‘the argonauts of the Western Pacific’. The kula, which may be 2,000 years old, is a multidimensional trading system in which scarce goods and highly valued necklaces and arm shells are exchanged in a competition for prestige. There is a variety of islands involved in the trade – from small rocky ones to larger and more fertile ones. Some islands specialise in food production (taro, yams, pigs), others in the building of canoes, pottery and other handicrafts. The trade seems to be dominated by the exchange of the highly appreciated valuables (arm shells and necklaces). Some of these valuables have long histories and are in great demand. Armshells (mwali) travel always in a counter-clock direction, necklaces (souvala) travel clockwise. No man keeps these valuables for very long, but their possession is a precondition for starting the trade. People have trading partners in

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different islands, as distant as 100 miles. Prestigious big men (some anthropologists refer to them as chiefs) may have a great number of partners, sometimes over 100. A partnership tends to last for life and assumes mutual trust; it ensures not only the trade of valuables but also ordinary trade. While the exchange of valuables is ceremonial, other goods are haggled. The kula brings fortune, fame and power. In conclusion, the kula cannot be envisaged as a purely economic transaction. It brings together many things: ceremonies, travel, politics, economics, magic, among others. While, with very rare exceptions, hunting-gathering was correlated with one single socio-cultural integration – the band – horticultural societies appear at different levels of integration, although the tribe is the most common. Advanced horticulture is associated with chiefdoms. The tribal level of socio-cultural integration only appears after the domestication of animals and the beginning of horticulture. The latter discoveries permitted a higher level of productivity than that existing in hunting-gathering societies, and therefore an increase in population. Tribes, in the sense of small-scale societies with no centralized political authority, are found essentially among horticulturalists and pastoralists. The major characteristic of the tribal level is an increase in the number of kinship groups and a greater degree of specialisation of functions among these groups and the presence of new mechanisms for their integration. A tribe is not merely a conglomerate of bands. In fact, the ties linking different tribal segments are stronger than mere marriage exchange. Exogamy and patrilocal residence alone cannot easily maintain group solidarity if the society grows beyond a certain limit since, with an increasing number of residential groups, reciprocity is increasingly diffuse. On the other hand, tribes lack specific political or governmental institutions and no tribal segment dominates the others. Pantribal associations are the mechanism through which the various segments of a tribe are integrated. Such associations include clans, age grades, secret societies and various sorts of brotherhoods (of warriors, or ceremonial). It is quite possible that the development of these nonlocal associations was due more to the competition between societies at the beginning of the Neolithic age than to environmental factors. Of course, the environment fixes the size, stability and number of residential groups, but social cohesion at the tribal level appears to be linked to the presence of external threat. Some anthropologists have suggested than pantribal associations are the result of colonial influences. A tribe is composed of residential or local segments which are economically autonomous. Leadership is charismatic and personal, and there no political offices with real power. Tribes are generally egalitarian. However, some systems, like in Melanesia, are highly competitive and status-minded. In this case it is possible to discuss what Morton Fried calls social ranking, that is, societies with elaborate distinctions

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based on status, but in which there are, nonetheless, no noticeable differences in wealth or in power. We have mentioned that advanced horticulturalism allows for the development of chiefdoms. The ethnographic literature has examples of this type of occurrence in both Africa and Polynesia. Chiefdoms, according to Robert Carneiro, are autonomous political units that comprise a number of villages under the permanent control of a paramount chief. They are, hence, regional systems that integrate a number of communities into a single polity. It is important to indicate that except for the very simple types (which only exhibit social or status ranking), chiefdoms are hierarchical and stratified. On the other hand they come in very different sizes: simple chiefdoms comprising about a thousand people, complex chiefdoms encompassing tens of thousands of people. The chiefdom transcends the tribe in two respects: on the one hand, productivity is higher, thus enabling a higher population density; on the other hand, society is more complex, containing economic, political and religious centres of co-ordination. The development of chiefdoms appears to be related to specialisation in production and the redistribution of the products. There are two sorts of specialisation that can lead to redistribution: regional specialisation and large-scale co-operative works. Many chiefdoms are found in areas where there is great ecological variation and one finds a degree of local specialisation (especially in cases where farming is sedentary). In such a case we find economic exchanges taking place between the various zones. In principle, the greater the specialisation and the sedentary nature of the population in these zones, the greater the necessity for exchange, and consequently, the greater the possibility for the emergence of a chiefdom. Exchange requires the organisation of production so that an economic surplus is produced; it also necessitates a degree of organisation for the redistribution of the product received in exchange. Both activities require the existence of powerful leadership. While crafts exist at the tribal level, the work is not carried out by true specialists. In chiefdoms, artisans usually receive subsidies (in the form of food, and other goods) from the re-distributive centre. This allows for the development of hereditary specialisation. If it is true that specialisation permits an increase in productivity, some specialisms are not socially necessary and hence they do not exist. Furthermore, chiefs appropriate part of the economic surplus and accumulate several wives and servants. The office of chief allows the incumbent to enjoy a higher rank than ordinary mortals. Chiefdoms are distinguished by marked social inequality (differences in power and prestige) and economic inequality (differences in access to consumer goods). We have mentioned that, when compared with bands and tribes, chiefdoms are noted for the marked inequality between persons and

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between groups. A person’s rank depends upon his genealogical connection with the chief. The political ordering of a chiefdom is accomplished through a combination of taboos and prescriptions which affect the various spheres of social life. Two fundamental rules support chiefdoms. First, we have a set of rules that separate the chief from the rest of the population (such rules sanctify or legitimise and codify his rights, privileges and duties); among those rules we could list his distinctive way of dressing, the ornamentation and position in rituals, differential access to women and the goods and services that he is given. Second, the rules of succession to office. In the majority of chiefdoms, the office of chief is handed down from father to the first-born son (in matrilineal societies the office of chief is handed down to the first-born son of the chief ’s sister). Once established, a chiefdom is a stronger mechanism for expansion than a segmentary lineage, whether expansion is accomplished through peaceful incorporation or through conquest. When they enter into contact with a stronger, state-based society, chiefdoms tend either to disintegrate or to develop into states. As an example of advanced horticulture we will consider the case of ancient Hawaiian society, which had its own form of advanced horticulture that incorporated complex irrigation. In our terminology Hawaii would be classified as a complex chiefdom, although some authors use the expression proto-state. At the time of the European contact in 1778 the population of the islands of Hawaii was around 300,000, divided into four competing chiefdoms. The major anthropological source for Hawaii is Marshall Sahlins’s Social Stratification in Polynesia (1958). Hawaiian society was divided into three ranks (some authors prefer to call them classes): the chiefs and their families, an intermediate group composed of persons who administered the different parts of the chiefdom and who were distant relatives of the chief, and the plebeians or commoners who made up the mass of the population. The commoners were farmers, fishermen and artisans; depending on birth, priests could belong to any of the ranks. The paramount chief controlled all land, although he delegated territorial administration to his subordinates. The use of the land by the commoners depended on the payment of annual taxes. Lands could be redistributed as a result of a chiefly decision; this tended to happen when a new incumbent came into office. High ranking chiefs could also initiate the construction of irrigation works and control the use of water. Any plebeian who refused to help in the construction or the upkeep of the canals or other works could be dispossessed of his lands. Chiefs could also mobilise commoners for the construction of canoes, houses, and other tasks. Neither the chief nor his family carried out productive tasks. The differences in wealth and power between chiefs and commoners were quite pronounced. The economy of Hawaii was of the redistributive type. Goods extracted from producers were used to compensate those

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not engaged in direct production (chiefs, administrators and warriors, religious specialists, and craftsmen). Those of high rank accumulated a vast amount of food and manufactured goods which were distributed at feasts. Certain consumer goods were reserved for chiefs, but their obligation to redistribute insured that all received sufficient amounts. On the other hand, certain types of costly ornaments (feathered capes, helmets, necklaces, and others) could only be used by chiefs. The same administrative hierarchy that operated at the economic level did also operate at the political; and social levels. In this sense, the Hawaiian chiefdom stands out for its despotic power. Although there is no evidence that warfare took place between the local communities, Hawaiian warfare was conducted between rival chiefdoms with the aim of expanding their territorial basis and hence increase their tributes. The control exerted by chiefs was consolidated by the presence of a number of religious institutions and rituals. Different type of shrines existed in Hawaii: large shrines dedicated to the god of war (where ceremonies supervised by the paramount chief would take place prior to warfare) and local shrines which were used annually for the land and fertility rites (in which the chief also participated). In all these ceremonies the chief acted as direct descendant of the divinity. A series of spectacular rituals surround the birth, initiation, inauguration and death of paramount chiefs. The taboo system around chiefs was striking. People, excluding servants, were not allowed to be closer than four metres from the chief ’s back and had to prostrate themselves when he went by. The shadow of a person could not fall on the chief or his house. Breaking the taboo was punishable by death. In fact, paramount chiefs had arbitrary powers over the life and property of their subjects. Some commentators have reported that the preferred marriage for the highest ranked chief was with his full sister; the son of such a marriage was called a deity and possessed the most powerful taboos. A final point. In relation to the factors that might account for the creation and maintenance of chiefdoms, Timothy Earle (1991) has indicated the following ones: 1. Giving and feasting. 2. Improving the infrastructure required for subsistence production. 3. Encouraging circumscription. 4. Use of force against members of the chiefdom. 5. Forging external ties. 6. Expanding the size of the dependent population. 7. Seizing control of the existing principles of legitimacy (the past, the supernatural, nature).

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8. Creation or appropriation of new principles of legitimacy. 9. Taking control of internal wealth production and distribution. 10. Seizing control of external assets. Factors 1 to 2 refers to attempts to control the means of production and distribution; factors 3 to 6 are usually achieved by the use of force (warfare being quite common in chiefdoms); and factors 7 to 10 depend basically on the power of ideology (myth of origin, myth of a Golden Age, and so on).

4.3. Pastoral societies Pastoralists are people who breed and care for livestock and who survive on the products of the animals they herd. Two basic elements characterise this mode of subsistence: the presence of animal husbandry and the use of natural grass. Pastoralism tends to coexist with agriculture (extensive and intensive). It is often the case that within the same tribe people in some segmentary divisions are cultivators while others are pastoralists. Anatoly Khazanov (1994) has suggested that the specialisation of pastoralists goes hand in hand with their dependence on sedentary farmers. Furthermore, pastoralists do not only have an economic dependence on sedentary societies, but they are also culturally and ideologically dependent on them. It would appear that pastoralism was distributed world-wide; however, some areas such as North America and Australia before the European presence lacked appropriate animals for domestication. Pastoralism allows men to live in rather inhospitable climates: deserts and tundra, mountains and steppes. The keeping of animals does not constitute, strictly speaking, pastoralism. In modern societies, animal husbandry is a sedentary activity closely connected with farming and conducted along capitalist lines. By pastoralism as a mode of subsistence we mean a relatively autonomous groups of people specialising in nomadic herding. An essential feature of pastoralism is the fact that people move around in search of pastures and water the availability of which changes seasonally. It can be said that pastoralism is more efficient than hunting-gathering. While the former can increase the reproductive and survival rates of their herds through breeding techniques, the latter just kills them. Population density among pastoralists tends to be low; it is a function of how suitable is the land to the animals herded. On the other hand, cultivators can produce ten times more food than pastoralists. However, pastoralism tends to develop in areas which are not very appropriate for farming; the animals, by consuming grasses and shrubs, produce things that humans can consume (milk, blood, meat, and not to speak of the use they can make of hair and hide). Furthermore, these products do not

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require immediate consumption, and if need be they can be exchanged for farming products. Given the great variety of pastoralist societies it is useful to look at the main variables involved (Lefebure 1979): 1. The nature of the relationship between pastoralism and agricultural production. To say that there are no pure pastoralist types is a truism. However, there is a great range of variation concerning this kind of involvement. The Masai of Kenya would appear to be practically selfsufficient, except in times of scarcity. At the other end the scale, there are some pastoralist sub-Saharan tribes that engage in farming as a subsidiary activity. Some pastoralists obtain cultivated foodstuffs through raids or exacting tributes from sedentary cultivators. 2. The nature of the terrain where the herds are kept. Generally speaking, it is possible to distinguish two major types: mountainous areas and flat lands. In the former there is downward vertical movement from summer to winter (transhumance). As to flat lands, they come in different guises: deserts, dry plains and tundras. However, in all these cases movement is horizontal and less predetermined. 3. The nature of the animals herded. There are two basic types of animals: large animals (cattle, camels and reindeer) and small animals (sheep, goats, llamas, alpacas). In addition to these animals, the horse should also be mentioned; it is usually a prestige animal and a tool of warfare typical of the steppe and the desert, and is also used as a weapon. The combination of cattle and camels appears primarily in the desert and semi-desert (Middle East, Southwest Africa, Eastern Central Africa, and elsewhere). Sheep and goats appear primarily in the steppe, while cattle dominates the savannah. As to the reindeer, it is only herded in the Arctic tundra. 4. The way of travelling. Here the main distinction is between those pastoralists who are mounted and those who travel on foot. This has important implications for mobility, speed and the distance travelled. At the political level, non-mounted pastoralists may find it difficult to organise themselves in great numbers. The social organisation of pastoralists depends on the necessity for mobility and the requirements of the animals kept. Generally speaking, the basic socio-economic unit of pastoral societies is the camp, that is, a group of small households who are co-resident, often dwelling in tents, co-ordinating the herd and attending to other economic activities. Because of the constant movements, the centrality of the household is even more pronounced. The herding group or camp is rather unstable, its members changing quite often. The reasons for this are various: ecological constraints, disputes about the selection of pastures, and personal conflicts (arising from theft, adultery, and so on). There is little

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division of labour among pastoralists beyond that of gender. On the whole, men tend the cattle, while women are engaged in the domestic chores. However, milking is sometimes done by women. Pastoralist households are largely self-sufficient, and if they need extra goods they obtain them from agricultural societies or itinerant traders. Beyond the level of the household, pastoral groups tend to be patrilineal, segmentary and lack any form of centralised leadership. Life is centred on the lineage; it is at this level that major decisions are taken. Local corporate groups tend to contain about 200 people, who share joint access to wells. However, lineages have only the use of land, but it is the tribe as a whole that owns it. Because pastoral groups tend to move to new territories, they tend to clash with other pastoralists or cultivators. Furthermore, internal feuding is also common. The segmentary lineage is a typical non-residential group common in some pastoral societies. Genealogical distance is very important in that it determines what sort of political alignments will occur in case of conflict among lineages. On the other hand, when intertribal conflict occurs, all the segments unite since they consider themselves descended from a common ancestor depicted as the founder of the tribe. This mechanism enabling the fusion of all the segments into a single political and military unit when intertribal conflict occurs, allows such tribes to pursue an expansionist policy towards neighbours whose tribal cohesion is weaker. This was the case of the Nuer of Sudan, studied by E.E. EvansPritchard (1940), in relation to their neighbours the Dinka. The Nuer of Sudan At the time of Evans-Pritchard’s study, in the 1930s, the Nuer numbered around 300,000. The Nuer see themselves as essentially pastoralists. If they accept farming as part of their activities they only due it because of economic pressures. Cattle are the most precious possession of the Nuer: they are even given names and remember the ancestors of their favourite oxen. Talking about cattle is the only topic that interests the Nuer. This obsession with cattle is also reflected in the profuse terminology that they have to refer to the different parts of the animals; they have many everyday-life expressions describing cattle. The Nuer live in an area which is not appropriate for farming, but is good for pasturage. The economic uses of cattle products are multiple: milk, blood, meat, dung, skin, and so on, can all be exchanged. Cattle also plays an important role in marriage since they use as bridewealth. The Nuer are characterised by segmentary lineages which are patrilineal and exogamous. Lineages are not residential groups, although the Nuer associate their lineages with a locality. In fact, settlements are formed by persons belonging to various lineages. Nuer marriage involves rights over cattle and women, and it is basically an arrangement decided by the families of both sides. The position of

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women is quite strong and they have considerable freedom to take lovers, leave their husbands, and so on. The Nuer are an acephalous society, that is, a polity without central authority or permanent leaders. Evans-Pritchard described their system by saying that they were organised by clans, lineages and territorial groups. The clan was the all-embracing descent unit and it was composed, in descending order, of maximal, major, minor and minimal levels. In other words, each lineage is part of a larger patrilineal group, and in turn, the latter is part of a still larger group and so forth until we come to the tribe as a whole. The lineage has no leaders; decisions are taken by an informal council of elders, who decide about seasonal migrations, participate in the negotiations of marriages, conduct sacrifices, prevent feuding, and so on. When there is a conflict between different lineages there are special religious practitioners, called leopard-skinned chiefs, who mediate; they have no political power and can only use ritual sanctions. Nuer religion turns around life-cycles and periods of crises. They distinguish between the material world (creation) and the immaterial one (spirit); both worlds stand in complementary opposition. A balanced and problem-free life can only be obtained if these two world are kept separate. Most pastoral societies are roughly egalitarian, and their level of socio-cultural integration is the tribe. In some cases, pastoralists have developed chiefdoms and even states. In many historical periods, pastoralists using the segmentary lineage principle were able to unite large groups ready to raid settled populations. Often known as ‘the scourge of God’, pastoralists repeatedly waged war on farming communities. At an ideological level, many pastoralists practice ancestor worship, although in many areas of the world they converted to Islam.

5. Agrarian societies 5.1. The origins of agriculture How did it come about that farming developed independently, in a number of world centres (the Southeast Asian mainland, Southwest Asia, Central America and Lowland and Highland South America, Equatorial Africa)? Agriculture developed slowly among populations that had an extensive knowledge of plants and animals may be going back for many thousands of years. Changing from hunting-gathering to agriculture has no immediate advantages. To start with, it forced the population to become sedentary, to develop methods of storage and often systems of irrigation. While huntergatherers had always the option of moving elsewhere when the resources were exhausted, this became more difficult with farming. Furthermore, as the archaeological record shows, the state of health of agriculturalists was worse than that of their contemporary hunter-gatherers.

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Since agriculture developed independently in a number of areas world-wide, and more or less at the same time, there must be a reason for such a move. Traditionally, it was believed that the transition to agriculture was the result of a world-wide population crisis. It was argued that once hunter-gatherers had occupied the whole world, the population started to grow and food became scarce; agriculture would have been a solution to this problem. We know, however, from contemporary hunter-gatherer societies that they control their population in a variety of ways, including infanticide. The idea of a world population crisis is therefore unlikely, although population pressure might have arisen in some areas. Climatic changes, namely at the end of the glacial period 13,000 years ago, have been proposed to account for the emergence of farming. The temperature increased dramatically in a short period of time (years rather than centuries), allowing for a growth of the hunting-gathering population due to the abundance of resources. There were, however, fluctuations of the climatic conditions, with the consequence that wet conditions were followed by dry ones, so that the availability of plants and animals oscillated brusquely. In the study of the archaeological site of Abu Hureyra (in present-day Syria), Gordon Hillman has shown these changes in some detail: from a time when a large variety of plants were collected to a period one thousand years later when very few were available. This took place between 9,000 and 8,000 BC: about 8,500 BC hunter-gatherers abandoned the area completely. The site was re-populated by the year 8,000 BC, but by farmers rather than horticulturalists It would appear that the instability of the climatic conditions led populations which were originally nomadic to settle down, developing a sedentary style of life which led in turn to population growth and to the need to increase the amount of food available. Farming originated in these conditions. Later on it became very difficult to change because such populations had reached a point of no return. It could be argued, however, that these conditions are not sufficient to explain the origins of agriculture. After all, the earth had experienced previous periods of climatic change, and yet agriculture had not been developed. It is Steve Mithen’s thesis, brilliantly developed in his book The Prehistory of the Mind (1996), that approximately 40,000 years ago the human mind developed cognitive fluidity, that is, the integration of the specialised devices of the mind: technical, natural history and social intelligence, and the linguistic capacity. Technical intelligence is the ability to manipulate and transform physical objects. Natural history intelligence is a series of content-rich cognitive processes geared towards understanding the behaviour and distribution of natural resources (animals, plants, features of landscape). Social intelligence is a series of cognitive processes used for developing friendships and alliances, for use

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in deception and cunning in social strategies, and for inferring what other members of the group are thinking and how they are likely to behave. It is cognitive fluidity that explains the appearance of art, religion and sophisticated speech. Once humans possessed such a mind they were able to find an imaginative solution to a situation of severe economic crisis, such as the farming dilemma described above. Mithuen proposes the existence of four mental elements to account for the emergence of farming: 1. The ability to develop tools which could be used intensively to harvest and process plant resources. This arose from an integration of technical and natural history intelligence. 2. The propensity to use plants and animals as the medium to acquire social prestige and power. This arose from an integration of social and natural history intelligence. 3. The propensity to develop ‘social relationships’ with plants and animals structurally similar to those developed with people; specifically the ability to think of animals as people (anthropomorphism) and of people as animals (totemism). 4. The propensity to manipulate plants and animals arising from the integration of technical and natural history intelligence. The fact that some societies domesticated animals and plants, discovered the use of metal tools, became literate and developed a state, should not us make forget that others developed pastoralism or horticulture, but remained illiterate and at low levels of productivity; a few entered the modern period as hunting-gathering societies. Eurasia took the lead, while in Australia and in parts of the Americas and of sub-Saharan Africa hunting-gathering societies predominated until recently. It is an important anthropological question to enquire into the conditions that made some societies leap forward, while others remained hunter-gatherers or horticulturalists. However, it should be kept in mind that many societies which knew of agriculture more or less consciously avoided it. Whether Mithen’s explanation is satisfactory is open to contention, but some authors have recently emphasised the importance of other factors. In Guns, Germs and Steel (1997), Jared Diamond has emphasised the importance of the following conditions for the development of agriculture (which partly complement, partly disagree with Mithen’s thesis): 1. An environment with an abundance of plants and animals that are easy to domesticate. 2. Geographical conditions that allows for an easy diffusion of innovations and for the easy movement of people. 3. Population growth, which in turn calls for competition and for the introduction of innovation.

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Transition from foraging to agriculture in Europe We have stated that Homo sapiens sapiens was a forager for most of its existence; it was only about 10,000 years ago that humans began to domesticate plants and animals. Domestication spread from the original six centres of irradiation (Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, India, Mesoamerica and Peru) towards the rest of the world. In a few thousand years, agriculture became the main mode of subsistence for most of the peoples of the world. We will consider as a case-study the issue of the transition from foraging to agriculture, by examining the case of Europe. Europe was not one of the original centres of agriculture; in fact, European agriculture came from the Middle East. Approximately 8,000 years ago agriculture started to expand from Anatolia (Turkey) towards northern Europe at a rate of about one kilometre a year. In 2,000 years farming had reached the southern tip of the Iberian peninsula, as well as southern England and southern Norway. The archaeological record shows that a number of items associated with agriculture – from pottery to wheat and barley, as well as the remains of sheep and goats – have been found along the route of diffusion. The question has arisen in recent times as to whether the spread of agriculture into Europe was the result of massive migrations of Middle Eastern peoples or a far more limited movement of populations. In his classical text Archaeology and Language (1987), Colin Renfrew, while rejecting the thesis of mass migrations or violent conquests, maintains that that the spread of farming into Europe went hand in hand with the spread of Indo-European languages; in other words, that the peoples who migrated to Europe carried both the new agricultural techniques and the new languages. The expansion was mostly gradual and peaceful, and more importantly consistent of relatively small numbers. This points to the idea that most European foragers were not generally wiped out, but rather adopted farming and the languages carried by the farmers. Recent genetic research has provided new light on the issue of the migrations of farmers from the Middle East to Europe. All researchers seem to agree that the numbers of migrants was relatively small, but the fact that only the Basque country, Hungary, Finland and Estonia have retained pre-Indo-European languages, suggests that the migrants went nearly everywhere else. Furthermore, since these peoples who do not speak Indo-European languages, look physically similar to other peoples who live in Europe today, the chances are that the greater part of European population is of Palaeolithic origin (descendants of the population which arrived in Europe 50,000 years ago). Researchers disagree as to how large was the contribution of the immigrant farmers into the modern European gene pool; while Luigi Cavalli-Sforza suggests a figure of about 27%, Brian Sykes believes that it was not superior to 15% (Lewin 1997).

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5.2. Basic features of agrarian societies By agrarian societies we refer to those based on intensive agriculture, that is, those societies which rely on the plough and draft animals. It involves, among other things, tilling, selection of seeds, weeding, harvesting and storing; it is labour-intensive. In some cases, large-scale irrigation, whether of a centralised type or not, also occurs; other technological developments tend to be associated with agrarian societies: metallurgy, the use of the wheel (although this was unknown in America prior to the discovery) and advanced building techniques. Intensive agriculture means the domestication of plants and animals and involved a close association and co-evolution between humans and plants and animals. That is, the varieties of plants and animals which were more attractive to humans are those which prevailed in the long run. However, from thousands of existing plants humans only used a few hundred and only about twenty-five of them became staple foods. Table 3:4 Table of domesticated plants and animals Near East and Greece

Mexico

Goats and Sheep: 10,000 – 8,000 BC Wheat: 9,800 – 7,200 BC Lentils: 9,800 – 8,000 BC Barley: 9,800 – 7,000 BC Cattle: 9,000 – 6,700 BC Dog: 9,000 – 8,500 BC

Maize: Beans: Squash: Peppers: Dog: Cotton:

Western Mediterranean Europe

Peru

Cattle: Wheat: Lentils: Barley: Beans:

Beans: Llamas: Maize: Squash: Cotton: Peppers:

6,000 BC 6,000 BC 6,000 BC 6,000 BC 6,000 BC

7,000 BC 7,000 BC 7,000 BC 7,000 BC 5,800 – 4,200 BC 5,000 – 4,200 BC

8,100 BC 5,500 – 4,500 BC 5,500 – 4,500 BC 5,500 – 4,500 BC 5,500 – 4,500 BC 3,200 BC

China Cattle: Dog: Millet: Rice:

6,000 – 5,000 BC 6,000 – 5,000 BC 6,000 – 5,000 BC 6,000 – 5,000 BC

South East Asia Beans: Peppers: Rice:

8,500 BC 8,500 BC 7,000 – 5,000 BC

Nile Valley Barley: Wheat: Flax: Cattle: Sheep: Goats: Pigs: Sorghum: Millet:

7,000 – 6,000 BC 7,000 – 6,000 BC 7,000 – 6,000 BC 7,000 – 6,000 BC 7,000 – 6,000 BC 7,000 – 6,000 BC 7,000 – 6,000 BC 7,000 BC 7,000 – 6,000 BC

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The transition from horticulture or incipient agriculture to intensive agriculture was rather slow. By 3,000 BC only the Middle East, parts of Southern Europe and northeastern China knew full agriculture. By the beginning of our era, agriculture had expanded significantly, to the extent that it would not be incorrect to say that it had extended world-wide (with the notable exception of America, where even Mexico and Peru were based on intensive horticulture). The effects of agriculture on social organisation were momentous. An important effect of the sedentary life that went with agriculture was a remarkable increase in population, leading to a further diffusion of this mode of subsistence. It is within the context of the development of agriculture that cities, the state and civilisation came to exist. It should be emphasised, however, that not all states were based on agriculture and vice-versa. As we have mentioned, some intensive horticulturalist and pastoralist societies developed states. The major difference between horticultural and agricultural societies is the increase in productivity owing to a number of factors (which may or may not be present simultaneously): more intensive labour, the use of animal traction, the use of a more advanced technology (plough), the use of fertilizers and the use of irrigation. The Catalan anthropologist Angel Palerm, in a study of Veracruz (Mexico), showed that with horticultural techniques (slash-and-burn) 100 families would need, to feed themselves, 1,200 hectares, while with the use of canal irrigation and crop rotation, 89 hectares would suffice. Agriculture changes the environment, but the people who work the land have to manage the artificial environment that they have created (particularly with the irrigation systems). This may involve quite an effort in terms of labour because the canals have to be fixed from time to time, seeds have to be improved, the traction animals kept free from disease, and so forth. While hunter-gatherers, horticulturalists and pastoralists, tend to live in kin-based societies, in which kinship dominates at both the level of the domestic group and the social and political levels, agrarian societies tend to depend less on kinship with regard to economic activities and social relations. The state encroaches in the life of the individual, allocating resources, exacting tributes, controlling techniques, intervening in markets, and so on. As to ownership, there is more privately held land and the means of production become more extended. However, the fact that we are dealing with a stratified social system means that only certain classes are able to accumulate wealth. The division of labour is more pronounced; there appear a variety of specialists at different levels: economic (artisans, merchants, and others), political (administrators, warriors, and others) and ideological (priests, literati, and others). Territoriality is an idea that tends to develop within agrarian societies and it is much more strict and defined than in previous modes of subsistence. Both warfare and feuding are common in agricultural societies;

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they can be accounted for not only in terms of territoriality but also population pressure and stratification. Inter-communal feuding is condemned by the state (which is meant to have the monopoly of force), but it may be used as an excuse to increase the domination of the state over the population. The different agricultural communities that live in the same state are not kept together by kinship, or by economic and cultural ties alone; force is often needed when administrative control through bureaucracies fails – and this happens quite often. Force was exerted by the state often via local office-holders or landlords, who were not always loyal to the centre. Because states are by definition expansionist (since more land is needed to increase the revenues of the state), warfare was the common way to do it; conquests would also bring slaves or booty. Of course, other reasons also account for war: glory, distraction against internal problems, increasing the legitimacy of rulers, and so on.

5.3. The emergence of civilisation Since 5,000 BC human history has been marked by the rise of cities and states. This can be seen as part of the wider process that is often referred to as the rise of civilisation. This term has a variety of uses, but in the present context it refers to a specific combination of technological, socioeconomic, political and ideological features. The best-known definition of civilisation was offered by Gordon Childe in Man Makes Himself (1936); it is still used today. It is based on the presence of the following traits: 1. An increase in the settlement size towards urban proportions (cities of between 7,000 to 20,000 people). 2. The centralised accumulation of surplus wealth (or capital) resulting from taxation following on from intensive land use and increased productivity. 3. Monumental public works and buildings. 4. The invention of writing. 5. Elaboration of exact and predictive knowledge such as arithmetic, geometry and astronomy. 6. The development of a number of non-agricultural occupations such as artisans, merchants, priest, bureaucrats, soldiers, and others. Appearance of long-distance trade on luxuries.. 7. The emergence of a society divided into different classes, that is, based on the unequal distribution of social surplus. 8. The creation of an urban centre, freeing part of the population from agricultural tasks (subsistence).

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9. An instrumental form of political organisation (state) based on residence instead of kinship, with a clearly demarcated territory and the monopoly of the use of force. 10. The flourishing of representational (naturalistic) art denoting the mastering of techniques and a sophisticated conceptualisation of reality. It should be made clear that this is not a list that should be used in a dogmatic way. Some civilisations, like the Inca, lacked writing. Among the Maya, for example, proper cities did not exist. However, most of the research following Childe’s outstanding contribution has focused on the urban revolution and on the origins and development of the state. We have already mentioned that cities are large agglomerations of people who are settled in a compact area (2,000 persons in a square kilometre) and are characterised by a system of social stratification. A city is also a central place in which political bureaucracies, with their various economic and political functions, live. Cities were often also trading, religious and craft centres. The first cities appeared in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) around 4,000 BC; cities were built on towns, which in turn had been built on villages. Uruk, one of the biggest Mesopotamian cities, was a religious, political and economic centre. With the development of social stratification, the traces of which we find in chiefdoms, the network of kinship relations that hold together the social organisation begin to weaken as the corporate, stratified kinship groups increasingly demonstrate their exclusivity and conflict becomes endemic. The state is the organisation of power in a society where internal relations transcend kinship relation. The maintenance of general order, through a series of institutions and special groups, is entwined with the maintenance of a specific system of social stratification. Normally, the state revolves around a number of organisational principles: hierarchy, unequal access to basic resources, obedience to officials and the defence of the territory. The state, or more precisely, the early state, to differentiate it from the modern one, is, according to Henri Claessen and Peter Skalnik’s The Early State (1978), an independent socio-political organisation with a bounded territory and a centre of government. Its economy is characterised by agriculture (and in some cases by pastoralism or a mixed economy), supplemented by trade and a market system and by the presence of specialists. The surplus product in agriculture, together with the taxes levied on trade and market, form the basic income for the government, represented by functionaries exempted from material production. In a state, the population is divided in more or less flexible social strata. The main division is between the ruling class (the ruler and his relatives and the aristocracy) and other classes (which may also be hierarchically ordered (bureaucracy, merchants, craftsmen, servants,

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smallholders, tenants, et cetera). It is common that the small communities should be subordinated to the centre. Different groups compete for power, prestige and influence. The status of the ruler is often sacred and is underpinned by the presence of a mythical charter and a genealogy that connects him to ancestors, spirits and gods. The distinction between chiefdoms and states is not always clear, especially the distinction between complex chiefdoms and incipient states. One criterion that helps separating these two types of sociocultural types of integration is the absence (in the case of chiefdoms) of a sufficient monopoly of force over a given territory. In this sense we have a Hawaiian chiefdom and an Inca state. It is important to distinguish between pristine states and secondary states, that is, between those which are original and those which are formed as the result of contact with another state. States started to appear around 3,000 BC. Some years ago, it was believed that there were only six major centres of state irradiation: Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, India, Meso-America and Peru. Recent research shows that this is not the case, since pristine states appeared also in Africa and Europe. The first state appeared in 3,000 BC in the region between the Euphrates and Tigris, in what is today Iraq, Syria and Iran. As we have said before, it was centred around the city of Uruk (Sumerian civilisation). The Mesopotamian farmers used irrigation and the plough to produce the high yields that were required to make possible a complex urban centre. There existed long-distance trade to acquire the raw materials needed, as well as a thriving merchant class and artisans. A number of more or less autonomous city-states existed within this civilisational space. The ruler was a god-king who was surrounded by an aristocratic class. The Egyptian state developed in the Valley of the Nile, more or less at the same time as the Mesopotamian one. This area was the only fertile area bounded by deserts to the east and the west. The Nile not only renewed the soil without eroding it, but it was also an accessible and useful system of transport for raw materials, goods, people and information. At some stage in its development, land recovery, flood control and irrigation were organised by the state. While Mesopotamia had a decentralised system, the Egyptian state was highly centralised and had a well-organised bureaucracy. The class system was quite pervasive, but it lacked a strong mercantile class. The pharaohs were god-kings and were inaccessible to ordinary people. Egypt fits nicely into most of Gordon Childe’s list of traits, with a monumental architecture, developed arts, writing, and so forth. The first Chinese state dates from approximately 2,000 BC, and it appeared around the Huang Ho river (Northeast China). It was the Shang dynasty that unified the territory. They developed an efficient intensive agriculture based on irrigation and the ox-drawn plough. The remnants of networks of building clusters show the presence of a strong centre that

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extended over an area of thirty square kilometres. The first Chinese state was densely populated and highly stratified. Major public works were undertaken and there existed written records. The state controlled a large number of villages. From the centre, bureaucrats and priests directed and organised a number of the activities of the state (economic, political, religious, et cetera.). As with the other states, the ruler was a god-king. In India the first state flourished in the Indus Valley (today’s Pakistan) around 2,500 BC. It was an advanced urban civilisation with centres like Mohenjo-daro (40,000 people) which represented one-fifth of the whole population. The inhabitants practised irrigation and used silt as nature’s artificial fertiliser. The state was not centralised, but it engaged in monumental works. Trade was quite developed both internally and long-distance (as far as Mesopotamia). The society was not markedly stratified, although there was a lot of occupational specialisation. Generally speaking we know rather little about the Indus Valley civilisation because their written language has not yet been deciphered. New World civilisations developed much later than in the previous cases. In Mesoamerica they appeared around 1,000 BC, while in Peru they developed in the first millennium AD. They were different from other civilisations, as might be expected, given the different environments in which they developed. In Mesoamerica technology was Neolithic; three major civilisations developed: Olmec, Maya and Aztec. Before the appearance of the state there were settlements followed by ceremonial centres; later on cities appeared and writing was introduced. In some areas irrigation was used. The last of the Mesoamerican states – the Aztec Empire – was not centralized and it collapsed after the numerically feeble Spanish invasion. The Incas conquered all their neighbours: they built cities (small ones), roads, large-scale irrigation projects. The Inca state was theocratic, ruled by a god-emperor, who controlled both land and labour.

5.4. The origins of the state When we compare the independent development of all these civilisations over a relatively short period of time, the first thing that we notice is that they followed remarkably similar paths. Anthropologists and archaeologists have put forward a number of theories that try to account for the development of the state. Some of them are limited to a simple example, others try to generalise and provide a comprehensive theory that aims at explaining the more or less simultaneous emergence of multiple states at the same time in different areas of the world, and independently of each other. One of the classical theories of the origins of the state is the Marxist one (which is also held by social scientists who are not necessarily Marxists). It is based on the idea that the state is the agency of the dominant

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class. This assumes that we have a stratified society with dominant and subordinated classes. The emergence of the state is a direct consequence of the dominant class trying to protect and consolidate its economic position and exploitation against the rebellion of the subordinate groups who obviously resent this exploitation. The state is concerned to create an administrative and military structure that will protect the upper stratum of society. From a historical and ethnographic viewpoint, it could be said that not all socially stratified societies have developed states (Polynesian chiefdoms), although all states are stratified. This would suggest that this condition – social stratification – is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the development of the state. An extremely popular theory of the origins of the state is population growth. How does population pressure work? For some authors it increases scarcity, which in turn increases the demand for land; in the long run this creates social stratification which produces a centralised power. Other authors see population growth forcing societies to look for more efficient ways of producing food: the administrators who oversaw the production of food were the most important members of the state bureaucracy. The irrigation hypothesis was put forward by Karl Wittfogel in his famous Oriental Despotism (1957). According to Wittfogel, large-scale irrigation was the prime causal mechanism in the development of the despotic state. The so called ‘hydraulic state’ originated in arid zones where water was vital to agriculture. The construction, maintenance and defence of such hydraulic works (canals) required a complex organisation of rulers and officials. Wittfogel never meant to offer a general theory of the state, but many historians and social scientists have interpreted it in such a way. As a comprehensive theory of the state Wittfogel’s approach is clearly insufficient because, on the one hand, certain states emerged before largescale irrigation came into existence (the Maya state for example), while, on the other, some societies with large-scale irrigation (like the Ifugao of the Philippines) never developed state apparatuses. As a theory about the origins of the despotic state, Wittfogel’s perspective is still valuable. Robert Carneiro (1970) has put forward what is perhaps the most convincing and comprehensive theory of the origins of the state. It is referred to as circumscription theory because its main emphasis is on the idea that the state appeared in areas where there were geographical barriers (mountains, deserts, and others) to further population expansion. Circumscription can also be social, when the barriers are not physical, but constituted by other populations. Carneiro’s approach assumes a first stage in which there is population growth. According to him, there is also evidence of warfare during the early stages of the formation of states. Populations fought against each other for land. However, it was only with geographical or social circumscription that population pressure and warfare led to the development of the state. An important issue is that of why people accepted

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the state, as it brought little advantage to them. The answer is that coercion was a key element of state formation.

5.5. Advanced agrarian civilisations In this section we will be considering three classical agrarian civilisations: imperial China, brahmanic India and pastoralist Islam. Christian Europe will be dealt with in the next section. Agrarian civilisations combine a world religion with an agrarian system of production. The purpose of this exercise is to present three different civilisational models, which can later be contrasted with that of Christian Europe. It will be argued that in the former civilisations there were a number of social and economic blockages which, ultimately did not favour, unlike Christian Europe, the development of capitalism. We will present some of the ideas of John Hall’s Powers and Liberties (1985), Ernest Gellner’s Plough, Sword and Book (1988) and Michael Mann’s The Sources of Social Power (1986). One of the features of world religions is that they offer salvation to ordinary people. More importantly, each religion shaped the civilisation in its own image. The priestly class often exerted a monopoly of cognition (including literacy) which manifested itself in the emergence of scriptural systems of belief and legitimisation. There are four agrarian civilisations, although similar in some ways, were noticeably different, reflecting not only the variety of religious beliefs, but also the peculiarities of each system of production. It should be made clear that agrarian civilisations were in no way homogeneous cultural areas. Agricultural producers were, indeed, part of societies, whose norms they shared with a number of people. An empire would consist of a number of these societies, which were ruled by layers of military, administrative, clerical and commercial elites. Agricultural producers were often unaware of belonging to the wider imperial polity, although they were obviously affected by it. Conversely, the ruling elites were not able to exert their power, except for taxation, beyond the local level. Here again the differences between the four civilisations are important. For example, only imperial China had an overarching state structure. As to the capacity of the elites to penetrate deep into society, the Brahmans went much further than the Chinese mandarins, the Islamic ulama and the Christian priests. Perhaps the reason was that because Hinduism was willing to compromise with traditional beliefs. Finally, Christian Europe was the only civilisation where landlords had a powerful social influence on their subordinates and where the individual states grew progressively more powerful and stable, but also less arbitrary and more rooted in society. 1. Imperial China Although the Chinese empire existed nominally for about 2,000 years (until 1911), it went through long periods of political decadence and

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disunity. Economically the progress was obvious because the Chinese managed to increase their rice productivity. At the technological level the list of discoveries is staggering: iron-casting, wheelbarrows, gunpowder, paper, and so on. In retrospect, however, this was not sufficient to give dynamism to the system and prepare China for industrialisation. The main obstacle was the stifling effects of the imperial bureaucracy. Nonetheless, the Chinese empire managed to integrate its vast lands militarily, although not economically. There was always the pressing question of raising enough revenue to maintain the armies. A number of solutions were available: booty, increase in agricultural productivity, and so on. As to the collection of taxes, the it was the mandarinate’s function to procure them, but it was far from efficient. The mandarinate was a bureaucracy inspired by Confucianism; this belief system, which originated in the fifth century BC, emphasised the notion of family duty performed in a courteous fashion. Confucianism encouraged the need for ritual from the emperor downwards. The followers of Confucious sought employment in government service, to which they brought a meritocratic ethic. This was encouraged and facilitated by the state. Neither salvation nor radical politics were concerns of Confucianism, which was only a religion in the Durkheimian sense of the term (emphasising that society is sacred). The Chinese literati required many years of study and this was only available to wealthy families; in this sense, there was a fusion of landlords and intellectuals. In one of his conversations (analects) Confucius (1962: 86) said: ‘In private life be courteous, in handling public business be serious, with all men be sincere. Even though you go among barbarians, you may not relinquish these virtues.’

Confucianism was never a popular religion. Buddhism, which originated in India in the sixth century BC and was a salvationist religion emphasising self-enlightenment and an ethical code of conduct, spread to China. Its monasteries followed the Asian trade routes and played an important role in production and commerce. Buddhism had a wider social penetration than Confucianism and appealed even to the rulers. However, it had to contend, unsuccessfully in the long run, with the establishment of the mandarines, who watched its institutional development with great suspicion. China had also Taoism, a combination of magic, science and ethical principles. In the long run, Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, and the cult of ancestors combined to give China a distinctive religious blend. The history of China reflects a cyclical pattern in which the empire disintegrated only to be reconstituted later. The mandarinate was the moving force behind the imperial idea; the ruling elites could not govern without the acquiescence of the bureaucracy. At the economic level, the distance between the ruling elite at the top and the culturally different societies at the bottom was never harrowed. Although medieval China had

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a flourishing commercial economy, with free markets and autonomous cities, this happened only at a time of political disunity. When the empire regained its force, it no longer encouraged economic activity; cities were controlled, foreign trade banned, Buddhist monasteries forbidden, and so forth. The rigid and hierarchical system of social stratification was maintained at all costs, because the mandarins needed to keep the status quo. Any horizontal type of relationship which bypassed the state was shunned, and as a consequence economic activity suffered. 2. Brahmanic India Indian civilisation is based both on a religion (Hinduism) and on a system of social stratification (caste). In Indian history Hinduism and the caste system go together, it being difficult to determine which came first. For Marx, the fundamental reality of India was, for 2,500 years, the stability of the self-sustaining village. Beyond the vagaries of the dynasties that united India politically (the Mauryans in 400 BC, the Muslim Moghuls in the sixteenth century and the British in the eighteenth century) the social order remained largely intact. The centrality of caste, a phenomenon especially studied by French anthropologist Louis Dumont in his classic Homo Hierarchicus (1957), is difficult to separate from the religious principles of Hinduism. The caste system is about ideology, but it does not ‘float’ on society; rather it organises it in a way that transcends the social sphere. At the simplest level it indicates a hereditary, occupationally specialised and endogamous form of social stratification. Purity is an important feature of the caste system; in the hierarchy each caste has not only more power and prestige than those below, but it is also purer. The caste system combines two categories varna (ranks) and jati (lineage). In descending order of purity the ranks are as follows: Brahmins [or Brahmans] (priests), Kshatriyas (lords and warriors), Vaishyas (farmers and merchants) and Shudras (servants). In addition, a fifth varna was added later at the bottom of the scale: the Untouchables. The classification goes as far as back as the Vedic texts (1,400 BC – 400 BC). The three top castes were probably of Aryan origin, the fourth consisted of conquered natives. The Untouchables brought pollution and were kept outside social life. The jati is a local lineage group; it tends to reproduce the whole caste system at the local level, but it contains a great variety of subcastes. As André Béteille (1959) has noted, the Indian caste system puts an emphasis on purity, hierarchy and specialisation. The origins of Brahmanic India stem from the Aryan conquest of the Indian subcontinent between 1,800 BC and 1,200 BC. From the RigVeda texts, which original hymns were composed between 1,500 and 1,000 BC, we know that by the year 1,000 BC the conquerors were organised in a tribal confederation led by a class of warriors which ruled over small territories in a feudalistic way. They brought with them

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advanced agricultural techniques (ox and plough). Their religion was Indo-European (myths and sagas). A priestly class, called Brahmans, had developed and played an important part in social rituals. Neither warriors nor priests were hereditary groups. Resistance to conquest led probably to a consolidation of a system in which big states appeared. These states were ruled by lords with the help of warriors. The conquered peoples – the native Dravidians – engaged in servile labour and eventually became the fourth caste or shudras. They were darker than the other three castes – a characteristic which is noted in the clasification of castes. In the songs of the Vedas we find the wonder of human beings before natural events: the rising and setting of the sun, the clouds and the storms, fire and water, et cetera. However, as the following quote shows, we also find a sense of oneness as if there as if there were one God who dominated the pantheon (Mascaró 1965: 9): ‘We praise thee with our thoughts, O God. We praise thee even as the sun praises thee in the morning: may we find you in being thy servants. Keep us under thy protection. Forgive our sins and give us thy love... May the stream of life flow into the river of righteousness. Loose the bonds of sin that bind me. Let not the thread of my song be cut while I sing; and let not my work end before its fulfilment.’ Rig Veda II. 28

To account for the consolidation of the Brahmans it is useful to look at the religious texts called Brahmanas (900 BC – 800 BC). Unlike the preceding Rig-Veda, which focused on practical issues of physical survival, the new texts were much more concerned with the divine order (dharma) and the consequences of magical rituals for regulating social relationships. Sacrifices become more important (marking the main points in the life of an individual) and an exclusive province of the Brahmans. Concern with theological matters was not central to this doctrine. Finally, the system was not theocratic because kingship was not seen as being of divine origin. Buddhism made its appearance around 500 BC; it was a salvationist doctrine which had no place for priests or sacrifices. Its main feature is the existence of a group of people, monks and their followers, in search of enlightenment. Buddhism denied extreme asceticism and permanence of mystical communion. The way that Buddhists preached was a moderate life of contemplation and self-control to achieve the true path to enlightenment (Mascaró 1973: 62): ‘Even the gods long to be like the Buddhas who are awake and watch, who find peace in contemplation and who, calm and steady, find joy in renunciation ... Do not what is evil. Do what is good. Keep your mind pure. This is the teaching of the Buddha. Forbearance is the highest sacrifice. NIRVANA is the highest good. This say the Buddhas who are awake.’ The Dhammapada, 14

At its inception, Buddhism was a relatively simple doctrine: the human world is full of suffering and only correct knowledge and an appropriate life can put an end to that suffering. The organisation of monasteries

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was rather democratic. A sort of church emerged, but without hierarchies or public cults. At a later stage Buddhism changed and public cults centres on shrines were added. Generally speaking, Buddhism represented a challenge to Brahmanical religion, although not in a direct way. Under Emperor Asoka (272 BC – 231 BC), of the Mauryan dynasty, the Brahmanic idea of Dhamma (moral system) was redefined. The emphasis was no longer on fulfilling one’s own position within the social and religious order, but an attitude of tolerance towards all religious practices. Asoka converted to Buddhism and favoured this religion. In the long run, however, Buddhism and Empire did not quite match. For one thing, Buddhism was democratic and did not favour rulers; furthermore, the many donations to monasteries and the growing power of the latter were seen with suspicion by the Brahmans. To that should be added that Buddhism was concerned exclusively with salvation, but offered no real guidance for everyday life. Nonetheless, Buddhism was the dominant religion for a few centuries, until the Brahmans, making use of the Vedic texts, managed to achieve their imperial ambitions. Without the Muslim invasion, in which many Buddhist monasteries were destroyed, Buddhism would have perhaps lasted longer. Hinduism emerged as a synthesis of different religious movements, although it is firmly anchored in the Brahmanic tradition. After the collapse of the Mauryan empire in 185 BC, the Vedic tradition reasserted itself by accommodating different religious traditions. While seemingly becoming monotheistic, it accepted the various Buddhas (‘teachers’) into the pantheon; it also responded to the popular demand by incorporating tribal gods into the synthesis. The presence of Brahmans in education and in local rituals was increased. By the beginning of the Christian era, the domination of Hinduism was total. No doubt this success can be attributed to the collapse of the empire (which had favoured Buddhism) and the general mass appeal of Hinduism, while the alternative religions were much more urban and elite-oriented. Hinduism, by attaching itself to the regional states (which handed over much of their power to the Brahmans) helped to preserve social order. Its power come from the following factors: 1. An intense ritual penetration of everyday life. 2. The monopoly of literacy and education. 3. The sole source of law. 4. An extremely well-organised and widely spread priestly caste. 5. The ability to regulate through the caste system the relations between different ethnic groups and the division of labour.

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What was the influence of Hinduism on the economic development of India? There is little doubt that the caste system, with its hierarchical conception of social life, its rigid division of labour and its rules of ritual purity, weakened economic life, creating a stagnant economy. Trade expanded at times, but caste regulations made it difficult to pursue commercial activities for the upper castes, due to the danger of contamination when travelling to foreign lands. As to science, which could have helped to improve technology, it was considered secret knowledge and it was monopolised by the Brahmans. Perhaps a more important obstacle was to economic development was the instability of political life which was the result of the pervasiveness of the Brahmanic organisation of social life. There was no loyalty to the state, only to an individual king. This encouraged policies of regal accumulation, but did nothing to encourage trade or productive activities. The Muslim invaders unified India but they did not uproot the caste system; economic stagnation continued. 3. Pastoralist Islam Islam did not emerge within an empire, but in the midst of the nomadic and trading tribes of Arabia. The context was that of the rebellion of the junior members of the ordinary clans against the elders of the merchant and princely clans who dominated society and accumulated wealth. The struggle was for a return to egalitarianism. Muhammad was the man who united a motley group of dissatisfied tribesmen and provided them with a monotheistic, salvationist, ethical and universalist religion. The success of his military exploits meant that Islam spread quickly. Islam is a religion that is based on a few and simple beliefs. The credo is essentially contained in the well-known sentence: ‘There is no god but Allah. Muhammad is the Messenger of God’. Repeating this declaration suffices to make one a Muslim, although there other four Pillars or religious duties: worship or prayer five times a day facing Mecca, alms-giving or compulsory charity of about 2.5% of one’s capital above a minimum sum, fasting from dawn to sunset during Ramadan (this applies to food, drink, sexual activity and smoking) and a pilgrimage to Mecca, at least once in a lifetime. But if we look for all the fundamental principles laid down in the Quran they are all found in the first sura (chapter) (Arberry 1964:1): ‘In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate Praise belongs to God, the Lord of all Being, the All-Merciful, the All-Compassionate, Master of the Day of Doom. Thee only we serve; to Thee alone we pray for succour. Guide us in the straight path, the path of those whom Thou hast blessed, not of those against whom Thou art wrathful, nor of those who are stray.’ Quran 1: 1–7

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Implicit in the Islam’s sacred book or Quran is the idea of community of believers. This is a concept which transcends kinship and emphasises the possibility of universality. Islam was open to all human beings and this was a factor which unified first the Arabian tribes and then went much further afield. From its very inception, Islam was an expansive and militaristic religion. This may incidentally explain its strong patriarchal character and the subordination of women. In less than a hundred years, that is between 630 AD and 711 AD, Muslim domination reached as far as India in the East and the Iberian peninsula in the West. These conquests were the result of a powerful caste of professional cavalry men who were sustained by a religious vision, but also by the booty and the alms tax. They possessed force and value. Islamic expansion came only to a halt when the Byzantines and the Franks defeated the Islamic armies in Constantinople (718 AD) and Poitiers (732 AD), respectively. After that, the empire collapsed and split, never to be reborn. The survival of Islam can only be explained, in addition to the use of force, through the control of the cognitive sphere. The scholar-priest or ulama controlled the sacred law (Shariah), as well as literary Arabic and education. Interpretation of the law may vary with time and place, but the Shariah itself is considered to be a timeless manifestation of God, subject neither to circumstance or history. Islam distrusted political power and refused to accept the higher civilisations of the conquered peoples. By the eighth century Shariah law had been codified; it exuded nostalgia for the old egalitarian tribal order. In this setting the relations of politicians to the community were rather feeble, while the ulama spoke to and on behalf of the community. In spite of their reluctance, the ulama could not ignore political power. The reason came from the nature of pastoralism. As we have seen before, pastoralists rely to a larger or lesser extent on agricultural societies for some foodstuffs and on cities for manufactured goods (metal tools, clothing, craft-work, and so on). However, cities require some sort of government to make transactions regular, safe and orderly. The key question is: how far are nomadic tribal conquerors able to provide this kind of government? Historically, this phase did not last very long, as the ruling houses fell foul of the strict norms of Islam and the ulama thundered against them, facilitating their substitution. There is, in this sense, a circulation of elites. The universalism of Islamic civilisation facilitated commerce, but because the state was predatory and very unstable there were deleterious economic effects, interference with justice and curtailment of the autonomy of the cities. In other words, there was a tendency in Islamic societies to import military force from outside civil society. This was not only the recurrent use of nomad tribesmen to conquer and rule the polity, but also the import of military slaves

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(mamelukes) from the frontiers of Islam. In the long run, all these factors precluded the development of capitalism in Islamic lands.

5.6. Feudalism in medieval Christian Europe The first thing to emphasise about medieval Europe, particularly after the ninth century, is its dynamism. This applied more specifically to northwestern Europe – an area with productive soils and abundant rain. The agriculture that emerged was not based on irrigation, and gave rise to a rather decentralised civilisation, with no overarching empire and, as Alan Macfarlane has noted, a great emphasis on individualism. It should not be forgotten, however, that medieval Europe was indebted to the Roman Empire; perhaps its most important inheritance was Christianity. Rome converted to Christianity at the beginning of the fourth century, after having gone through a rather eclectic set of religious beliefs and practices. Central loyalty, however, was owed to the gods of Rome. Roman authorities were on the whole tolerant of alien religions. Christians, however, were persecuted because they were blamed for all the ills that befell Rome. Furthermore, Christianity was a religion of the people, not of the elite. Or rather it appealed to the people in the middle (artisans, aliens, freedmen, traders) who lacked a sense of community. Doctrinally, the origins of Christianity are clouded by mist. It is not clear whether Jesus was a prophet or the Son of God, nor to whom the doctrine was addressed (whether exclusively to the Jews or to everybody), whether it was exclusively spiritual or also mundane, and so on. The recent discoveries about the Essenes (a group of Jewish Zealots who flourished between 200 BC and 200 AD, they lived ascetically expecting the imminent end of the world) and the Gnostics (a Christian sect which flourished in the second and third centuries AD, similar in doctrine to Manicheism, that is, an eternal struggle between good and evil and who practised meditation with the aim of achieving enlightenment) show how the Christian canon was constructed. An important aspect of the history of Christianity was the fact that it spread outside its original setting – Palestine – and that it settled in Rome. In this sense, St. Paul’s version of Christianity is that of a universalist religion. Furthermore, it was also a salvationist faith made possible by Jesus’s crucifixion. With Constantine’s conversion, Christianity became the most dynamic force in the empire. By becoming a state religion, the Christian Church did very well financially (land grants) and also ideologically. Christianity soon managed to become the only accepted faith. Paganism was forbidden by the end of the fourth century and heretics were persecuted militarily. The church realised that they could not do without the state. When the Roman Empire collapsed, the Christian Church was in a strong position to negotiate with the barbarians. The Germanic tribes converted with relative ease. The Church carried the prestige of Latin civilisation, as well as the

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promise of salvation. It adapted remarkably well to the new circumstances and provided the new emerging societies of medieval Europe with an ideological justification as well as with a solid legal framework. Prior to capitalism, the system that defined Europe is referred to as feudalism. Scholars disagree about the precise dates of feudalism; some authors insist that it lasted from the collapse of the Roman Empire until the fifteenth century; for others it emerged in the late eighth century and did not quite disappear until the eighteenth century. According to the well-known formulation of Marc Bloch in Feudal Society (1939) the main features of feudalism are: 1. A peasantry subjected to the control of a landed class. 2. The compulsory military service given by lords to feudal superiors in return for landed tenures. The term for such a relationship is the fief. 3. Political supremacy of a class of specialised warriors, in which land tenure and military leadership were fused. 4. Vassalage, that is, the personal tie between a vassal and his overlord, signified by the vassal’s swearing of an oath of fealty. 5. The fragmentation of political authority. The feudal world can be looked at from two different angles. From the politico-jural perspective the system is centred on the lord-vassal relationship. From the economic perspective it is centred on the lord-serf perspective. From the first perspective a feudal society appears as an immense hierarchical pyramid established on the basis of vassalage (protection exchanged for military service). From the second perspective, a feudal society appears as a myriad of more or less autonomous economic modules (manors), with the progressive development of towns, money and markets. It is important to emphasise that neither land nor labour were commodities. Pervading the whole system, as we shall see below, is the Church. As one can read in a French document of 1610: ‘Some are devoted to the service of God; others to the preservation of the state; still others to the task of feeding and maintaining the country by peaceful labours. These are the three orders or estates general of France: the clergy, the nobility and the third estate.’

The complexity of the feudal world is best captured by focusing on the social relationship of dominion. The first thing that we realise is that the originality of the feudal system lies precisely in that it gives the feudal lord almost total power over both land and human beings. The fief is then the sphere, both in the territorial sense and in terms of the social group, over which the feudal lord has immediate domain, although the eminent or ultimate domain is in the hands of the king. As an agrarian society which had emerged as a result of the Germanic invasions and the collapse of the Roman Empire, medieval Europe was a mosaic of

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small principalities with an average size of 10,000 square kilometres. Some of them corresponded to geographical areas, others were the result of military considerations and still others were the result of dynastic accidents (for example, accretions by marriage). Feudalism was essentially organised on a military basis; the basis of vassalage was military prestation or service. Marxs said in Capital (Vol. 1) that Catholicism reigned supreme in the medieval period; he added that it was the mode of production that explained religion’s dominant role. It is certainly the case that religion dominated the medieval world. The Catholic Church was an institution parallel to that of feudalism. For the Church, all those who were members of Christendom belonged to a community; they shared in the mystical body of Christ. Inspired by the ideas of Alain Guerreau (1980: 201–210) it is possible to draw a comprehensive, but nonetheless non-exhaustive, inventory of the controls exerted by the Church in the medieval period: 1. The Church controlled a sizeable amount of land (from one-fifth to one-third of the lands). In addition to that the Church had other incomes like the tithe which was the equivalent of one-tenth of all products. The structure of the Church (easy recruitment and no problems of inheritance) facilitated a accumulation of immense wealth. On the whole, the Church was a good administrator. 2. The Church controlled time. This type of control, which is rarely mentioned, strikes at the very heart of social relationships. There was, for example, the time of the year (calendar), the time of work (clocks), leisure time (religious holidays), the time of peace, the time of abstinence and the time of history (creation; before and after Christ; final judgement). 3. The Church controlled space. This is to be understood in the sense that the limits of the community were the limits of Christendom. Outside this world there lay the Muslim or the pagan worlds, where rules ceased to apply. Furthermore, many regional divisions followed religious lines (dioceses, parishes, and so on). 4. The Church controlled kinship and marriage. The Church imposed monogamous marriages, forbade divorce and defined exogamy in a wide way, excluding many consanguineous and affinal relatives. Spiritual or pseudo-kinship, usually referred to as godparenthood, was very important. All these things together created a very specific type of society in which social networks originated in quasi religious institutions. 5. The Church controlled education. Church schools controlled knowledge. Through sermons and confession there was also a control of beliefs and morality. Sanctions against those who broke the rules could be physical (persecution, torture, death) or moral (exclusion from the Christian community, namely, excommunication).

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6. The Church controlled health and social services. The only existing hospitals were those established by the monastic orders; the same applied to hospices and similar institutions. Charity for the destitute was organised and sustained by the Church. 7. The Church controlled the process by means of which the political authority (king) legitimised its power over its subjects. The sacred power of kings (which is crucial, as Marc Bloch has shown, to understanding royalty in the Middle Ages), could only be authenticated, ratified, by the Church’s intervention. In this context, the coronation ceremonies of royal anoinment (consecration by smearing with oil). were particularly important It was only with the progressive development of the medieval states that the role of the Church began to dwindle, although this was a very slow and a painful process. For a long period, the king was, in some respects, like another lord; his political power over the whole kingdom was rather weak. The development of what John Hall has called an organic state during the medieval period is connected with the following processes (Strayer 1970): 1. The existence of a political unit with a defined territory and a time dimension. The presence of a core area that acts as a centre and drives the process of state development is quite important. Only the end of the era of invasions made a more stable society possible and allowed for the continued presence of people in a given area. 2. The existence of long-lasting institutions served by a permanent, impersonal, and specialised bureaucracy. The Church often served as an institutional model. 3. The existence of sentiments of paramount loyalty towards the king, overriding all other loyalties (family, religion, province). 4. The appearance and hegemony of the idea of sovereignty. This was related to the idea that the monarch was the final legal authority and the guarantor of justice. Here the impact of Roman law is obvious. We have already said that in spite of the ingrained myth that sees the medieval period as the Dark Ages, as an era of techno-economic stagnation and cultural poverty, the picture that emerges from recent research is very different. Authors like George Duby (1974) and Mark Postan (1975) have suggested that there was a noticeable economic revival accompanied by political, military and cultural achievements (particularly among the Franks and the Normans), starting somewhere between the ninth and the eleventh centuries. In any case, between 1050 and 1250 there was a true renaissance. Certainly, no European monarch had at that time the power that some Oriental leaders had, but after the year 1000, European agriculture started to leap ahead when compared with other civilisations. The following précis of the dynamics of feudalism is based on Mann (1988).

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The first thing to look at is demographic trends. By the year 800 population reached the highest levels known under the Roman Empire. From 800 to 1086 the population of England doubled, and by the beginning of the fourteenth century it doubled again. This pattern can be generalised to the whole of Western Europe. The plagues of the fourteenth century meant the loss of at least one-third of the population, but by 1450 the population had started to rise again. Population growth is a sign of economic dynamism, more noticeable in northwestern Europe than in Mediterranean Europe. How was the population supported? 1. By bringing more land into cultivation. 2. By increasing the yield ratios of the existing cultivated land. The main technological developments whose geographical diffusion allowed the increase of productivity in the Middle Ages were: 1. The water mill (sixth century). 2. The heavy plough diffusion in northwestern Europe from the seventh century onwards. 3. The three-field system (from the eighth century onwards). 4. The horseshoe (from the ninth century onwards). As a result of these innovations a new system of agriculture appeared which was the most productive that the world had ever seen. Along with these developments, there flourished a local market for subsistence goods. Ecological variability allowed a great number of things to be produced: grains, meat, fruit, olives, wine, salt, metals, wood, animal skins and furs, and others. The high proportion of coastlines and navigable rivers made trade possible. But only with the end of the late barbarian invasions (Vikings, Magyars, and others) was it possible to have a certain amount of peace that allowed the progress of trade and markets. Furthermore, the nascent medieval state soon learned that it was more profitable to tax traders than to pillage them (with taxes the revenues are continuous, with pillage the traders move out sooner or later). This also contributed to the preservation of social order. After the eleventh century town and merchant guilds started to develop. What fostered these developments was, of course, the increase in agricultural productivity, which allowed for a bigger surplus and allowed the lords to acquire luxury goods that came from long-distance trade (as far as the Orient). Furthermore, the military technology of the feudal age soon required specialised artisans (fortifications, weapons, armours, and so on). These people wanted to be independent from the lords, and this is how towns emerged. Foreigners were often involved in trade. For example, in England there were Flemings, Jews, Lombards, and others. Both merchants and artisans constituted themselves in guilds, which were self-regulating. This is how commodity production

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started. The manor and the village were affected at the level of the lord, while the peasants continued with their production for use; markets were important to them as well. A final word on the feudal system. It is not true to assert that the system worked smoothly – no system does. There is evidence to suggest that the peasants never truly accepted domination. The number of peasant revolts grew towards the end of the Middle Ages. The fact that many people escaped from the countryside to the relative security of towns is another sign that serfdom was not popular. Not even the ideological hold of the Church stopped always – the growing number of heresies hint at that. In Montaillou, E. Le Roy Ladurie (1980) has told the story of one of those heresies – the Albigensian one in the fourteenth century. From the records of the Inquisition we know that the village heretics did not spare pope or king. As they said: ‘The pope devours the blood and sweat of the poor. And the bishops and the priests who are rich and honoured and self-indulgent, behave in the same manner... Whereas Saint Peter abandoned his wife, his children, his fields, his vineyards and his possessions to follow Christ.’ (1980: 333) ‘There are four great devils ruling over the world: the Lord Pope, the major devil whom I call Satan; the Lord King of France is the second devil; the Bishop of Pamiers the third; and the Lord Inquisitor of Carcassone the fourth.’ (1980: 13)

5.7. Peasant societies Peasants are agriculturalists who, while being part of a wider society are essentially dependent in the sense that they do not own the land or the necessary capital to engage in their farming activities; neither do they control the sale of the produce, nor totally their own labour. Since they live within a state, their lives are at the mercy of rulers, functionaries, tax collectors, middlemen, merchants and, last but not least, the army. A more or less large percentage of the surplus produced by peasants is siphoned to the cities to feed urban people and to allow the elites a high standard of living. Eric Wolf, in his classic study Peasants (1966), examined the way in which peasants allocate their produce. In addition to feeding themselves, peasants use the rest of the produce to create three different funds: ceremonial, replacement and rent. 1. Ceremonial fund. This is the surplus destined to social and religious activities. This includes births, weddings, funerals, but also religious and secular feasts. There is a sense in which this fund also has a purpose of redistribution from richer to poorer families. 2. The replacement fund. This is the surplus destined to substitute the varied technology that is required for the maintenance of the agricultural system. As we have already mentioned, this is a vast area that also includes the technical management of the land, particularly

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in the case of irrigation. Seeds may also have to be bought. The peasant has to operate within a market and may have to borrow money at punitive rates of interest from local usurers. 3. The rent fund. This surplus is destined to pay for the use of the land, usually absentee to an landlord. In addition to that, provincial and/or state taxes are usually due. Payment can take place either in kind or in money form; labour prestations are another form of payment. This fund is often the most onerous one and tends to keep peasants in permanent poverty in some parts of the world. It should be made absolutely clear that peasants and capitalist farmers are very different categories. The latter are free to develop their capital and labour, although they still have to pay taxes and perhaps even rent. On the other hand, in advanced capitalist countries, capitalist farmers are often a formidable and well-organised pressure group. We have mentioned that peasants do not own or control the land that they cultivate. Who controls the land that peasants use? The answer to this question is variable, depending on the existing political conditions of the state in which the peasants live. Following Eric Wolf we can distinguish four types of domain: patrimonial, prebendal, mercantile and administrative. 1. Patrimonial domain refers to a system in which the land was controlled by ‘feudal’ lords who operated within a weak and decentralised state, and held the domain by hereditary right. The peasant was allowed to cultivate a small plot in exchange for payments in cash, labour or produce. The system was rather paternalistic. It was typical of Western and central Europe in the medieval period. 2. Prebendal domain is similar to the previous one, but without the hereditary element. It occurred in highly bureaucratic states like those of China, Moghul India and the Ottoman Empire. This was the realm of despotic rulers who tried by all means to control vast imperial territories. The system worked by allocating, to an individual who had served the emperor well, the right to collect peasant tributes in a given region. The position, however, was not hereditary, so the incumbent would change regularly. There were also ceremonial elements in the appointment. 3. Mercantile domain. In this case there was private property of the land and the owner collected a rent. In certain circumstances this system allows for improvement of production if the landlord is willing to reinvest part of his rents in the property. It developed in Europe after the thirteenth century and also in other areas like the Ottoman Empire in the late nineteenth century. In this system the peasantry could also suffer financial pressures even if the land had high yielding, provided that the landlord wanted to squeeze out as much rent as possible.

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4. Administrative domain. The twentieth century produced a system in which the state has control over the land and appropriates a large percentage of the peasant’s produce. The state also manages the farms, determining the major variables (product, labour, technical expertise, and so on). This system was typical of communist societies. It is an understatement to say that the peasant’s lot is not a happy one. Historically, peasants have been an oppressed and subordinated class, but they have not accepted their destiny without a struggle. In different parts of the world, both in the past and in the twentieth century, they have mobilised and have often been involved in peasant rebellions and revolutions. However, the grasp that the peasant might have of the wider societal picture is rather dim, which is why many peasant revolts have an utopian air, a quasi-religious yearning for justice and equality (Wolf 1969). Peasants usually lack organisational and leadership skills, and these are usually provided by political outsiders. Most peasant revolts have been a failure, followed up by a bloody state repression which forces them back into conformity. Many twentieth-century revolutions have started as peasant rebellions, and because of the weakness of the state, have managed to overthrow the established order. This was the case in Mexico, Russia, China, Cuba and Nicaragua. However, after the revolution, peasants progressively lose control and urban, politically minded, educated elites take over. Peasant life may become as though as before or even worse, as the process of forced agricultural collectivisation in the USSR showed.

6. Industrial societies: the making of the modern world In the past, anthropologists were often accused, perhaps not without reason, of studying exclusively small, isolated, primitive societies; when they started to investigate Western societies their objects of study were usually small villages or marginal peoples. This is no longer the case. Today one can truly say that nothing human is alien to anthropologists. Many practitioners study within the advanced industrialised world, although there is still certain reluctance to engage the big theoretical issues. This occurs perhaps because what anthropologists do is largely determined by their fieldwork experience, and macro-categories such as capitalism, world-system, imperialism and many others are beyond the reach of the ethnographic method. However, anthropologists have been and are consumers, sometimes reluctant ones, of these categories. To discuss them is not to enter a forbidden or an alien territory, but to give oneself the tools to begin to understand modernity.

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6.1. Capitalism: what’s in a name? Some authors (Henri Pirenne and Robert Lopez) plainly place the origins of capitalism within the manufacturing and commercial centres of northern ‘Italy’ and in the ‘Low Countries’ in the middle Middle Ages. The classical sociological tradition (represented by Karl Marx and Max Weber), as well as many contemporary social scientists (such as Fernand Braudel, Immanuel Wallerstein, Alan Macfarlane and Michael Mann) prefer the long sixteenth century as the crucial period for the transition from feudalism (whichever way this is defined) to capitalism. Still others (such as David Landes), do not consider capitalism to be fully-fledged until the Industrial Revolution of the mid-eighteenth century, or even later, when the major technological innovations (iron, coal, railways) came to life in the second half of the nineteenth century. Finally, André Gunder Frank and Jonathan Friedman have insisted that, for thousand of years, capitalism was an important aspect of the Eurasian world system. The question of the nature and origins of capitalism, as well as of its development and future demise, is essentially an issue which arose originally in socialist circles, particularly that of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels; later on, it was taken up by followers and opponents of Marx alike, and it has been, since the late nineteenth century until the present, a key concern of social scientists. Marx, unlike Weber, did not use the expression ‘capitalism’, but the concept is implicit in his work. He characterised capitalism as an ongoing economic system in which the bourgeois entrepreneur is involved in buying the means of production, labour power and raw materials in order to produce commodities with a view to selling them for profit in a market. Capital accumulation is obviously a central feature of the system, which requires the presence of a moneyed bourgeois class and a dispossessed proletariat forced to sell its labour power. Marx was not always consistent on the question of the beginnings of capitalism, but from his writings in the 1840s it is obvious that the emergence of capitalism had to be rooted in a number of developments that had started by the eleventh century. They can conveniently be summarised in the following points: 1. The separation of town and country. 2. The appearance of a commercial social group. 3. The extension of commercial relations over an extended area. 4. The appearance of manufacture. 5. The extension of the commerce over the whole world because of the discovery of America and colonisation. 6. The domination of the world market by a single nation: England. 7. The development of the forces of production so as to respond to an ever increasing demand.

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In his later work, and Capital (Vol. 1) (1867) in particular, the capitalist epoch is reckoned to begin in the sixteenth century, though Marx also admitted that there was an early period in which some economic activities could be designated as capitalist. Max Weber‘s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904–5) has had the ill-fortune of being read and used for the wrong purposes, that is, mostly to refute Marx’s alleged economic determinism. In fact, Weber’s main purpose was to establish that there was an elective affinity between the ethic derived from certain Protestant sects (Calvinism in particular) and the mental outlook of the capitalist entrepreneur. It is important to emphasise that the connection that Weber postulated was not that the Protestant ethic caused the spirit of capitalism, and even less that it caused the development of capitalism as an economic system. Simply, it was that the spirit of capitalism was enhanced and legitimised by the appearance of a religious ethic which allowed, if it did not necessarily encourage, a Weltanschaung, that is, a world outlook propitious to rational economic activity. In his analysis Weber favoured a particular, albeit essential, historical period in the development of capitalism: that in which the process of Western rationalisation reached a high point. Weber’s definition of capitalism was centred on the application of the principle of economic rationality to the obtainment of profit through peaceful exchange. Weber was well aware of two things. First, that the spirit of capitalism and a number of capitalist institutions had originated in the medieval period. He rejected the idea that the spirit of capitalism was nothing but the result of the influences of the Reformation. Weber was well aware that many forms of capitalist organisation were older than Protestantism, and this was sufficient for him to refute the simplistic interpretations of his doctrine. Secondly, he admitted the existence of different types of capitalism (booty capitalism, and others), but what was typical of the modern capitalism of the seventeenth century was the rational organisation of free labour. He also insisted on the novelty of the early modern period, which he characterised precisely in terms of the impressive flourishing of the capitalist spirit. How, then, did capitalism come into existence? Weber’s explanation is not easy to pinpoint, not only because it is dispersed in a variety of his writings but may be, as J. Baechler (1975) has noticed, that it does not exist or rather is multiple. For Weber, however, there are a number of building blocks which are essential to the development of capitalism. R.J. Holton (1985) has summarised them conveniently for us: 1. Separation of productive entreprise from the household and from considerations of kinship. 2. The influence of Roman Law. 3. The development of the occidental city.

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4. The emergence of the rational-legal nation-state administered by a bureaucracy. 5. The Protestant Ethic in the context of the Judeo-Christian religion. 6. The separation of direct producers from the land so as to create free wage-labour. Fernand Braudel (1979) has dedicated three substantial volumes to the development of capitalism from 1400 to 1800. Braudel’s definition of capitalism is somewhat unusual. He distinguishes three different and practically autonomous sectors of the economy: material life or material civilisation, market economy or economy properly speaking, and capitalism in the strict sense of the term. Material life is the sector of self-sufficiency and barter of goods and services within a short distance. It refers to the everyday life of the majority of the population. The next sphere is that of competition; it has to do with the ‘mechanisms of production and exchange linked to rural activities, to small shops and workshops, to banks, exchanges, fairs and markets. This is the economy that was theorised by the likes of Adam Smith. Finally, for Braudel, capitalism should be restricted to those ‘social hierarchies which could manipulate exchange and create anomalies in the system. This was the area of speculation of all sorts and it is the one that prefigures the activities of modern capitalism’. While the economy properly speaking can be defined as an area of competition, capitalism is the area of monopoly. Braudel refers to capitalism as a superstructural phenomenon and it was between the fifteenth and the eighteenth centuries that capitalism extended wide its field of action; the realm of economic life was considerably enlarged as well, but even by 1800 most people in Western Europe still lived at a humble level of material life, that is, outside both the market economy and the capitalist order. The major changes were produced by the Industrial Revolution. Braudel locates the origins of capitalism in the profits made through the existence of the world market. Long-distance trade, especially of luxury goods, made possible the accumulation of capital in early modern Europe. Capitalism par excellence was first located in a few areas of Western Europe (first Venice, then Amsterdam, later London) where capital could be invested and yield great profit. Capitalism is hence defined by Braudel by its capacity to generate exchange values, which leads in turn to the accumulation of money. Capitalism is firmly anchored in the sphere of circulation, practically as a sub-product of the kind of market exchange that yields high profits. Capitalism is first of all commercial, Braudel will say, though after the eighteenth century it shifted towards industry and banking. However, by focusing mainly on exchange relations, and hence ignoring or minimising the role of production, consumption and distribution, Braudel cannot account for the hegemony of capitalism in the modern world. This is no doubt the result, as A. Tenenti (1986) has pointed out, of

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Braudel’s refusal to see in the radical and multilayered transformations of the Industrial Revolution, the sign of true capitalism. In the end it would appear as if Braudel’s capitalism is atemporal, although its forms are ever changing. Not even the Industrial Revolution succeeded in changing its essential nature. More recently, and within the perspective of a dialogue between Marx and Weber, and in the light of Wallerstein’s contributions (see 6.4) and of modern historical sociology in general, authors like Anthony Giddens and Michael Mann have attempted to look at capitalism not as a mode of production stricto sensu, but in terms of a non-deterministic and dynamic conception of the world system. The starting point of Anthony Giddens’s A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism (1981) is an attempt to separate capitalism from industrialism. The development of capitalism, he argues, antedates that of industrialism. The former was the necessary condition for the emergence of the latter but each system has its own specific characteristics. Building on the work of Marx and Weber, he defines capitalism as a system emerging in the early modern period and characterised by the tendency to a total process of commodification (including land and labour). Giddens distinguishes between capitalism as an economic system and capitalist society, the latter meaning a type of society shaped by the economic influences of the former. He is basically against the idea of industrial society on the grounds that, while capitalist society refers to the dynamism of the accumulation of profit through market exchange and the shaping of the social totality, this is lacking in the former. One should be aware, however, that for Giddens ‘capitalist society’ is a ‘society’ only because it is also a nation-state, having delimited borders which mark off its sovereignty from that claimed from other nationstates’ (Giddens 1985: 141). It is important to see in this statement a rejection of economic determinism. In the end, Giddens will agree that, although the development of capitalism and the Industrial Revolution have affected the rise of the nation-states, the modern world-system in which we live is the result of the intersection of capitalism, industrialism and the nation-state system. In his pathbreaking book The Sources of Social Power (Vol. I) (1986), Michael Mann has also tried to come to terms with the distinction between capitalism and industrialism. In a sense the Industrial Revolution was an event of such magnitude and with such an important impact on history that it is difficult not to see medieval and early modern Europe as preparing the way for it. Mann’s definition of capitalism emphasises commodity production, private monopolistic ownership of the means of production and a type of labour which is free and separated from the means of production. In this sense capitalism was prior to the Industrial Revolution. Although this mode of production came into existence only after 1500, it cannot be accounted unless we are

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aware of a longer European economic dynamic, which is manifested between 800 and 1155, in a stage of economic organisation, and in a second phase (1155-1477) in the widening of commodity networks. In turn, this dynamic cannot be strictly seen in terms of economic power, but as a combination of the different types of power that Mann distinguishes (economic, political, military and ideological). Paramount in his mind is the role played by competition among national states in the development of Europe, which was largely determined by military considerations, but also the impact of Christianity as a normative order. There is nothing in the essence of capitalism that forced the development of the multi-state system in Europe; in fact the states were already there at the end of the medieval period. Later on, by the time of the Industrial Revolution, capitalism was already contained within a civilisation of geopolitical states. Mann has great trouble in pinpointing the nature of this civilisation, though we are told that the unity was no longer provided by Christianity; in the end he uses the vague word ‘European’ to refer to it. In Mann’s scheme it is unacceptable to predicate one-sided determinisms or even determination in the last instance. In the period preceding the Industrial Revolution, the decline of the ideological (Christianity) meant that it became a subordinated power, but we still have to see the modern world as a combination of the other three power networks: economic, political and military. It is not exaggerated to say that the interpretations of capitalism offered by Marx and Weber have dominated a great deal of the theoretical thinking and empirical research of the twentieth century in anthropology as well as in the other social sciences. Undoubtedly this is a sign of the extraordinary calibre of both thinkers and of the richness of their theoretical contributions. Yet, the fact that Marx and Weber could be conveniently opposed, to signify, respectively, a materialist and an idealist vision of history, also explains what brought about this sterile polarisation. From the hindsight of the present it is difficult to understand why the few voices who emphasised the convergences rather than the divergences between Marx and Weber were not heeded, but no doubt the entrenchment can be accounted for, in the final instance, in terms of specific developments in the production of social knowledge, namely the influence of politico-moral considerations. Arguments against or for capitalism have dominated our century and it would be naive to expect that social scientists could or would avoid being entangled in them. Furthermore, it is only since the 1970s that there has been an open dialogue between Marxians and Weberians, and that a synthesis of both approaches has been possible. C. Wright Mills maintained that Weber had complemented Marx by providing a materialist interpretation of the political structures of capitalism. It is not surprising then that in recent interpretations of capitalism the state has come to play a major role.

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There is a point which is worth emphasising in connection with the different conceptualisations of capitalism: it is that whether we choose to find convergences or divergences in these definitions is to a great extent a function of our own theoretical presuppositions. A case in point, as I have mentioned above, is the now largely defunct opposition between Marx and Weber. What matters is that neither Marx nor Weber believed that one single factor could account for the development of capitalism; so, even if the sixteenth century were a focus for major changes, these would have been inconceivable without a number of prior developments. Furthermore, both Marx and Weber, as well as other authors, were well aware that the technological innovations starting in the mid-eighteenth century had revolutionised the modern world. Whether capitalism changed qualitatively is a moot point. There are, however, two main areas in which classical and contemporary social thinkers differ. First, there is a transition from a societal approach to one based on the concept of world-system (or its equivalent). Second, modern authors have a much clearer tendency to take the state as an independent variable than past writers did (particularly Marx).

6.2. Preconditions for the transition to capitalism: Japan and Europe A comparison between Europe and Japan is required if we are interested in finding out why capitalism originated initially in these two areas of the world and not elsewhere. Following Sanderson (1995), it is possible to draw a list of similarities that can be interpreted as preconditions for the development of capitalism. Because the context of this change in the mode of production is rooted in the long term historical expansion of commercialisation (including urban, regional and long-distance trade), it is fair to say that capitalism would have emerged sooner or later elsewhere. The list of similarities reads as follows: 1. Size. Both Japan and the European countries that developed capitalism (Holland and England) were small when compared with empires. The main advantage of small size is that the cost of the state does not become an obstacle to economic development. 2. Geography. Both areas are surrounded by the sea, hence maritime transport was more important than overland transport. This also aplies to protocapitalist developments in the earlier period (Italian cities, and so on). 3. Climate. Both areas lie in temperate climates. This has been suggested as another important reason for the later success of the USA. Warm climates have proved to be more appropriate for plantation agriculture and export of raw materials; temperate ones for the production of manufactured goods.

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4. Demography. Both Japan and Europe saw an impressive growth in their population during the latter stages of feudalism and the early period of capitalism. Population pressure may have helped changing the mode of subsistence. As important as population growth is the form that it took: a process of urbanisation. With towns we see the growth of artisans and the development of markets. 5. Political structure. Proper feudalism only existed in Europe and Japan, which had very similar systems over more or less the same period in history. In practical terms, this meant that merchants were freer than in any other system known at the time; this was made possible because both areas lacked large bureaucratic states.

6.3. The Industrial Revolution 6.3.1. General points The expression industrial revolution denotes the first instance of the breakthrough from an agrarian, handicraft economy to one dominated by industry and machine manufacture. It began in England in the eighteenth century, spread in an uneven fashion over the European continent and in a few areas overseas. In two generations it transformed Western society; in two centuries it has transformed the whole world. To guide us through the complexity of the topic we shall be following David Landes’s classical work Prometheus Unbound (1969). The industrial revolution produced a number of technological innovations: 1. Human skills were replaced by mechanical devices (machines) 2. Human and animal forces were replaced by inanimate power (particularly steam). 3. There was a marked improvement in the getting and working of raw materials (specially in the metallurgical and chemical industries). 4. There was a shift from handicraft to manufacture. There are a number of important concomitant changes associated with the industrial revolution. The following are perhaps the most notable: 1. The growth in the size of the productive unit. The concentration of manufacture made possible and necessary by the introduction of machines. First apperance of factories and mills. 2. The factory system relates capitalists and workers through the ‘wage nexus’ (economic relationship) and through supervision and discipline (functional relationship). 3. Continuous innovation of technology in the following successive sectors: textiles, steel, chemicals, steam engineering and railway transport.

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4. Increase in productivity (by the order of several thousand in some cases, like spinning) and invention of new objects. As Fernand Braudel has remarked, there were major changes in the material civilisation of Europeans since the 1800s. Until the Industrial Revolution introduced all these changes, the material world of the English peasant in 1750 was very similar to that of the inhabitants of England at the time of Julius Caesar. One of the consequences of the Industrial Revolution, perhaps the most important one, was the movement of labour and resources from agriculture to industry. Two main reasons account for this state of things: 1. The increase in the demand for manufactures grew faster than the increase in the demand for food. 2. Productivity in industry grew much faster than in agriculture, hence the drop in the price of manufactured goods was more intense than in agricultural products. The effects of the industrial revolution were varied; it was not only the mode of production that was affected, but also the social, institutional and governmental orders, as well as the areas of science and values. Societies were able to generate material and cultural wealth and accommodate further change. The concept of modernisation is used to refer to the following five interdependent but partly autonomous elements: 1. Urbanization (concentration in cities, which became modes of industrial production, administration and culture). 2. Demographic transition (reduction in both death rates and birth rates). 3. Bureaucratization (effective, centralised, bureaucratic government). 4. Education (training and socialising children into the industrial society). 5. Technological know-how (acquisition of the ability to use an up-todate technology). It has been often the case, particularly in the third world, that many societies modernised but did not quite industrialise, because they failed to acquire an adequate technological know-how. 6.3.2 The British industrial revolution Three types of elements must be distinguished in looking for the causation of Britain’s industrial revolution: general prerequisites, industrial and regional expansion and rapid economic development. 1. Necessary prerequisites: A. Improvements in agriculture. This was, of course, necessary since an increased number of people were working in industry. Furthermore, the increase in population required advances in agriculture.

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In Britain it meant the increase in grain production and of the sheep population. The former was made possible by exploiting more land and by practising rotation; the latter required the improvement of pastures and root crops. All in all, agricultural improvements played a modest part in stimulating the industrial revolution. Improvements in transport. The turnpiking of the main roads in England was completed by 1760. The payment of tolls allowed the improvement and extension of the road network. By the early nineteenth century other forms of transportation were introduced, namely water transport (coastal waters, rivers, canals). Evolution of a sophisticated monetary system. From the late seventeenth century a modern banking system was developed, with cheap and convenient access to commerce credit, a flexible and comprehensive range of paper money and easy transfer of cash settlement both at home and abroad. Increase in the availability of capital. The accumulation of capital must precede the expansion of industry. A favourable rate of interest also helps in this direction. Provision of an eductional system. It meant the replacement of a single scheme involving a curriculum for a small aristocratic and middle-class elite by a dual provision: a curriculum more relevant to commerce and industry for a new, broader middle-class elite and an elementary education catering for the industrial needs of the working class. Both developments had appeared in England by the early eighteenth century with the Church establishments for the middle classes and the charity schools for the lower ranks. In Scotland there existed universities for the middle classes and parish schools for the workers. Non-interventionist state. Existence of an environment which was relatively free from governmental regulation, although the laissezfaire policy did not come into existence until the nineteenth century.

2. Industrial and regional expansion: A. There was a noticeable growth in the following industrial sectors: iron, textiles (cotton and wool) and chemicals. B. Industry developed in a limited number of locations: Derwent Valley (border of Duhram and Northumberland), Stour Valley (Worcestershire), Upper Trent Valley and London. 3. Rapid economic growth. A. Population growth. B. Expansion of markets (at home and abroad). C. New technology (for social and intellectual reasons, as well as for economic ones).

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It is important to emphasise that expansion alone, plus all the others factors listed above, do not add up to the industrial revolution. There may be necessary conditions, but with these processes there was no guarantee that growth would accelerate in the future. Of the three causes of the rapid economic growth that took place in Britain in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, there is little doubt that the key factor was the appearance of a new technology.

6.4. The modern world-system When dealing with the issue of evolutionary typologies, the last scheme that I considered, and in some detail, was that of Immanuel Wallerstein. I also introduced some of his basic concepts. In addition to his work, perhaps the best example of how the European-based world-system affected the rest of the cultures of the world appears in Eric Wolf ’s Europe and the People without History (1982). A particular aspect of capitalism as a cultural world-economy can be found in Sidney Mintz’s Sweetness and Power. The Place of Sugar in Modern History (1985). It is now the moment to look in some depth at the application of the idea of world-system to the development of capitalism. The ideas that Wallerstein put forward for the first time in 1974, have had a major impact, directly or indirectly, in the development of anthropology. His approach was a call of attention to those practitioners who behaved as if the societies they studied were to all intents and purposes isolated and autonomous. World-systems theory emphasised not only the interconnectedness between societies, but the fact that they constitute a single whole; no longer could societies be taken as separate objects of study, with independence from other societies. To give a flavour of the scope of Wallerstein’s undertaking we will begin with a significant quote from his The Modern World-System (1974): ‘In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century, there came into existence what we called a European world-economy. It was not an empire, yet it was as spacious as a grand empire and shared some features with it. But it was different and new. It was a kind of social system the world has not really known before and which is the distinctive feature of the modern world-system. It is an economic but not a political entity, unlike empires, city-states and nation-states. In fact, it encompasses within its bounds empires, city-states and emerging ‘nation-states’. It is a ‘world’ system, not because it encompasses the whole world, but because it is larger than any juridical defined political unit. And it is a ‘world-economy’ because the basic linkage between the parts of the system is economic, although this was reinforced to some extent by cultural links and eventually, as we shall see, by political arrangements and even confederate structures.’ (1974: 15)

A world-system is a social system with its boundaries, structures, member groups, rules of legitimation and coherence. Within the system there are conflicting forces as a result of the fact that each group is trying to achieve certain advantages. There is a sort of equilibrium based on tension. The system changes: it is shaped and re-shaped by the different

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groups. Wallerstein uses a biological analogy to characterise the system; in this sense the world-system is like an organism in that it has a lifespan over which its characteristics change in some respects and remains stable in others. The structures of the system are sometimes strong and sometimes weak, that being a function of the inner workings of the system. Before looking at the stages of the modern world-system it is perhaps useful to consider two main conceptual areas: the structure and the development of the system. When considering the structure three elements have to be looked into: 1. Expanding economy. Although economic expansion may appear under the guise of national or colonial economies connected by trade, what we have is one economy at the world level. This economy becomes progressively more truly universal as time goes by, and can be characterized by single or axial division of and integration of labour processes (division of labour), which is both organised and paralleled by a single set of accumulation processes, between its more advanced, historically enlarging and geographically shifting core, and its less advanced, disproportional enlarging and geographically shifting periphery. 2. Expanding states. With the development of the world-system, national states increase their jurisdiction and new states appear. There is a continuous rivalry between them, and a constant attempt to dominate other states and to expand into the external peoples and form an empire. 3. Capital-labour relationship. The process of accumulation operates through that relation and reproduces it continuously. This is the socio-political framework that progressively organises production interrelations and intra-and-inter-state politics. If we look now at the development of the world-system, Wallerstein insists that the expansion of states and of the economy, plus the capitallabour-system, create the periods of expansion and stagnation within the world-system. On the other hand, the basic contradiction of the system, that is, the existence of one economy and multiple states, moulds the long-term social changes that occur within the system. There are four major epochs within the world-system (Wallerstein 1974; Sanderson 1995): 1. 1450–1640: origins and early conditions of the world-system. This is the period dominated by the expansion of Spain and Portugal into America. Colonies were established in a number of places: the Caribbean, Mexico, Peru and Brazil. Two native empires – the Aztecs and the Incas – were subdued and destroyed by the Spaniards. The latter instituted new systems of production, based on forced labour, in the extractive sector (mineral products) and in agriculture. In Brazil, the

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Portuguese created a plantation economy based on slave labour imported from Africa; their main crop was sugar. Due to the cost of maintaining a cumbersome empire in Europe and a huge bureaucracy at home, Spain lost quickly its hegemonic position within the world-system. It was Holland which took the economic lead, particularly in world trade. By the middle of the sixteenth century, Holland became a money centre, producing textiles as well as other manufactured goods. In addition to the Dutch Republic, which was the hegemonic power, France and England, as well as Spain, were also economic competitors. In the meantime, in Eastern Europe a process of ‘re-feudalisation’ was taking place in which peasants became serfs. The system was geared to the production of grain for export to the core. At this stage in the development of the world-system, the capitalist world-economy was a small proportion of the world (involving 20% of the population). 2. 1640–1760: consolidation of the world-system. This is a period in which there was limited change. The main rivalry was between Dutch domination and the growing competition from France and England. Both economic and military confrontations characterized the period. In the end, Holland was unable to keep the momentum, and England took over. The rivalry between France and England continued unabated in a number of fronts, both in Europe and elsewhere (America, West Africa, India); by the end of the period England was dominant. Other countries began to play a role in the semi-periphery: Prussia, Sweden and the English colonies of North America. The European demand for a number of commodities like sugar, coffee, tea, chocolate and tobacco grew substantially. The Caribbean, Brazil and other areas were the main suppliers. The plantations were worked by imported African slaves. However, Africa, Asia, and Oceania were still outside the capitalist world-economy, although they were part of their external arena; there were different types of contacts, but not yet integration within the system. At the level of a rather specific development one can refer to the fact that in his book Sweetness and Power (1985), Sidney Mintz emphasises the alluring power of sugar and sugar-made products. No culture has been able to resist their appeal. As to the European working classes, they could have not performed their repetitive and exacting industrial tasks without the cheap calories provided by sugar and the stimulation provided by tea or coffee. 3. 1760–1917: conversion of the world-economy into a global enterprise made possible by the technological transformation of modern industry In this epoch there was a major change within the world-system as a result of the industrial revolution. It could be said that because Britain

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took the lead in the process of industrialisation it was able to establish hegemony by the beginning of the nineteenth century. The two main features of this period were the independence of most of the American colonies, north and south, and the incorporation of Asia, Africa, and Oceania into the capitalist world-economy as peripheries. Russia was incorporated as a semi-periphery. Britain was able to defeat France between 1792 and 1815. By the latter date Britain was also leading in a number of sectors: agriculture, industry, trade and finances. It also made possible the success of British textiles in world markets. The incorporation of the rest of the globe to the world-capitalist economy took often, but not always, the form of overseas empires; Britain, but also France, Portugal, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Russia, and others expanded in this way. Britain lost its hegemony in the late nineteenth century; its main rivals being Germany and the USA. 4. 1917 to the present: consolidation of the capitalist world-economy. This was a period of intensive rivalries between countries at the core of the system; it produced two world wars. The communist revolution in Russia was seen by many as the beginning of a new world order, and, as such, as an alternative to the capitalist world-economy. After World War II, the Soviet system appeared to be about to change the world. During the twentieth century both Germany and the USA sought hegemony. American hegemony was short-lived: it lasted between 1945 and 1970. Today the core consists of Western Europe, Japan, the USA and Australia. Other countries like Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea and Hong Kong are moving up towards the core. Some of the features of this period are massive mechanisation and automation, and the growth of trans-national corporations. It is arguable whether this represents a qualitative shift. Parts of the core have become de-industrialised, while some peripheral and semi-peripheral countries have industrialised. Some authors have used the expression ‘post-industrial society’ to refer to these developments. It is true that that the service sector (health, science, education) may predominate over the industrial one. For one thing, manufacturing is still important in the so-called post-industrial societies. As to the change in the composition of the class structure, it is not so clear that the intelligentsia created by the new services is in a dominant position; it would rather appear that the levers of the economic system are still in the hands of the capitalists. The recent demise of state socialism at a worldlevel is an important phenomenon, which is still poorly understood. At first sight, it would appear to reinforce the capitalist world-economy, hence dispelling, at least for the foreseeable future, some of Wallerstein’s forecasts about a socialist alternative to capitalism.

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6.5. The age of imperialism 6.5.1. Introduction Since the 1970s anthropologists have had to face the accusation that their discipline had colluded with the colonial interests, and that their products – the ethnographic monographs and, generally speaking, the anthropological theories that accompanied them – were tainted by this association. In the words of Kathleen Gough, anthropology was the child of imperialism. The long-term effect of such a belief have been devastating for the epistemic claims of the discipline. Postmodernists and other relativists, for example, equate the anthropological project with capitalism and imperialism. From this position it is a short step to say that anthropology is just a reflection of colonial ideology and that it essentially served the interests of the colonial powers. In this section we are not concerned with looking at the farfetched accusation that there was complicity between colonialism and anthropology. We can accept that biases entered the discipline as a result of having to work in the colonial context, but nonetheless this does not delegitimise the scientific approach in anthropology; it simply shows deficiencies which can be corrected. What we will be looking at is the concept of imperialism itself. It should be said from the outset that imperialism is an extremely emotional term and that it is not easy to use it scientifically because it is part of the repertoire of weapons of ideological warfare. In the modern context we could say that imperialism is the direct or indirect domination of colonial or dependent territories by an industrial state, usually Western. The age of imperialism refers to the rush for colonial expansion typical of the late nineteenth century. For example, statesmen like Jules Ferry in France and Joseph Chamberlain in the UK represented those who pushed for colonial empires in Africa, Asia and the Pacific on the basis that the peoples in these parts of the world were incapable of self-government and needed political tutoring. Of course, Lord Salisbury said that this argument applied to the Irish as well. The age of imperialism came to a close in the 1960s. with the process of decolonisation. In his rather controversial book Imperialism and the Anti-Imperialist Mind (1989), the American sociologist Lewis Feuer maintains that not all imperialisms were of the same type. He distinguishes between two major types of imperialism: progressive and regressive. By progressive imperialism he means one in which energies are liberated for the advancement of civilisation and creative activity; there is a possibility of participating and even integrating at all echelons of Empire. The classical examples would be Greek and Roman imperialism; in modern times only the British empire fits this type. Regressive imperialism is one in which the main aim is a perpetual exploitation or extermination of

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peoples, independently of whether or not they are civilisationally advanced. Nazi Germany demonstrated that kind of imperialism; to a certain extent the Mongol and Spanish empires approximated this type. 6.5.2. Colonial typology of European expansion It is possible two distinguish two main types of colonies: colonies of settlement and colonies of occupation. There exists a third category which combines features of both. A fourth category is added to provide a detailed comparative study of two colonies: Ireland and Algiers. 1. Colonies of settlement. They come in two forms: A. Countries such as the USA, Australia, Canada. They were colonies in the Greek sense of the term. In these cases the migrants settled in areas with weak native populations, both numerically and civilisationally. They soon became independent from the mother country. B. Latin-American countries. Mixed plural societies of Europeans, Amerindians and Africans. They also obtained early independence. 2. Colonies of occupation. We can distinguish two forms. A. Asian countries. Very weak European presence in societies with complex civilisations. B. African countries. Weak European presence in mostly tribal societies. Two major exceptions: Algeria (with 1 million French settlers) and South Africa (with a substantive presence of Boers and British). 3. Mixed colonies. The best example is the Russian (Czarist) empire. It survived because it was an unbroken continental mass, there was little sense of racial distinctions and imperial citizenship was open to all colonial peoples. Under the Bolsheviks there was some cultural autonomy combined with rigid political and economic centralisation; however, the difference between the standard of living in the metropolis and in the colonies was not so pronounced. 4. Two colonial failures: British Ireland and French Algeria. What is the difference between state-building and imperialism? In the Weberian sense of the term they are both authority structures, not proper social formations. Their starting point is the same: the incorporation into the state of some territory as a dependence. However, the only way to distinguish one from the another is to look over a relatively long historical period. We could try to apply the following two rules: A. If after several generations the indigenous population of the newly acquired territory ascribes legitimacy to the central political authority exercised over it, we can speak of state-building conducive to the emergence of a national state.

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B. If, after several generations, the indigenous population is still prone to consider the political authority exercised over it from the expansive core as illegitimate, then an empire has been formed. The failure of state-building in Ireland and Algeria was due primarily to the use of settlers who interrupted the successful application of co-optative techniques that helped to legitimise and stabilise the central state rule in other outlying territories. The case exemplifies a colonial situation in which substantial settler communities live among large native majorities – neither expelling, annihilating or otherwise overcoming the demographic preponderance of the indigenous inhabitants. However, it is only with the hindsight of the present that we see Ireland and Algeria as colonies of Britain and France, respectively. The original intention was permanent incorporation into the metropolis. The fact that Ireland and Algeria were culturally very different and geographically separated by the sea, is not a sufficient reason for their failure. Other peripheral and culturally distinct regions were integrated. For example, Wales was also a colony of England, and Brittany and Corsica were both colonies of France. Why did the integrationist policies of Britain and France failed? The reasons, according to Ian Lustig’s State Building in British Ireland and French Algeria (1985), are the following: 1. The settlers controlled the information about the territories, fostering images of Irish Catholics or Algerian Muslims as being primitive and hostile. 2. The colonial administrative staff was recruited mostly from settlers. 3. Natives were not properly represented in metropolitan governments. 4. Settler were strategically placed to respond to changing circumstances in the metropolis. 5. Failure to co-opt native elites and extend political participatory rights to wider native strata.

6.5.3. Theories of imperialism J.A. Hobson was the first to develop a theory of imperialism. Following the Boer War he used the word imperialism to refer to the expansion of European states all over the world. For Hobson, imperialism was essentially political control and it originated in the financial milieu of the metropolis (other groups such as missionaries. statesmen, and soldiers played a subordinated role). Hobson, who not a socialist but rather a liberal, attributed pro-imperialist jingoism in the press to the pressures from financial capital. Personally, he was in favour of free trade and was concerned with the well-being of the working class in the UK. He insisted that the workers did not have an adequate share of the national product

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and so a surplus capital emerged. Hobson’s Imperialism. A Study (1902) was read avidly by Marxists; it influenced specifically the work of Rudolf Hilferding, Nikolai Bukharin and Vladimir Lenin. Hobson tried to correlate expansion of empire with massive financial overseas investment. According to him this was due to the fact that capitalists needed to find markets abroad when the home markets were saturated; on top of that, profits were higher abroad. Hobson insisted that imperialism benefited only the plutocrats, and not the metropolis as a whole. He recommended the increase of the purchasing power of the worker so that the home market could increase and the was no need of capitalist investment abroad, and hence no need for imperialism. The Marxist theory of imperialism was first put forward in Rudolf Hilferding’s Finance Capital (1910) and in Nikolai Bukharin’s Imperialism and World Capital (1915). Heavily influenced by Hobson, the Marxixt theory insisted that there was a falling rate of profit in capitalist countries and that profit was higher in the colonies. Lenin, in his Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916) produced a highly political contribution, which theoretically followed the previous authors, especially Hobson. For Lenin capitalism was in its agonistic phase and to survive had to use all possible means, including the displacement of capital abroad and imperialist wars to grab further colonial possessions. For Lenin the imperialist stage of capitalism presents five major features: 1. The creation of monopolies at all levels of capitalism. 2. The appearance of financial capital representing an alliance or a union of industrial with banking capital. 3. Crucial importance of exports of capital rather than commodities. 4. The creation of international cartels (a union of manufacturers with the aim of controlling production, markets, prices, and so on) with the intention of dividing the world among themselves. 5. A territorial division of the world among the largest capitalist powers. As a general theory of the age of imperialism, the Hobson-Lenin theory is unsatisfactory. Empirical research has shown that that there was no causal connection between the need for financial capital to find outlets with the scramble for imperialist possessions. Another critique of the Hobson-Lenin thesis is that the 1870s does not represent a break in the continuity of imperial expansion. Politically, many annexations followed from previous ones, with a view to assuring the survival of the early ones. Economically, there is little doubt that there was a commercial and financial expansion of European capitalism at a world-level, but it was not qualitatively different from what had been going on before; more importantly, it was international in character. In any case, imperial possessions were valued

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by all European countries, whether they had capital to export or not. Otherwise, how do we explain the imperial designs of Italy? Hobson had grasped that imperialism was an irrational phenomenon, but had placed the emphasis in the wrong place. In fact, imperialism had a lot to do with ideas of national prestige and grandeur, which proved to have a popular appeal. Ideas of racial superiority had also a large appeal and were used to justify imperial domination. In this sense, imperialism was based on an irrational myth and was part of a series of phenomena such integral and aggressive nationalism as well as fascism. The historian Eric Hobsbawm insists that imperialism cannot be divorced from the specific development of capitalism in the late nineteenth century, yet he admits that monocausal economic explanations are insufficient to account for the age of imperialism. Other authors, like Michael Mann, maintain that economic explanations play a role alongside political motivations.

6.5.4. Imperialism and culture In addition to acts of conquest or overseas possessions, imperialism was also a body of ideas about the conquest and administration of nonwestern countries and peoples. The focus is on what imperialists thought, that is, their attitudes, values and goals. From the perspective of the present, their attitudes often appear as arrogant, exhibiting a sense of superiority. Domination was regularly justified in terms of racial-cum-civilisational superiority. In condemning past ideas we should be aware that we are speaking with hindsight. Philip D. Curtin’s (1971) (ed.) Imperialism is recommended to those who are interested in imperialism as a body of European ideas about the conquest and administration of non-Western countries and peoples. It contains a selection of original texts on the topic. The first thing that can be said about imperialist thought is that, beyond the variety of imperialist policies, we can speak of an imperialist European mind in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is not helpful to say that non-Europeans were first and foremost envisaged as exotic peoples who were presumed to behave in curious and unexpected ways. The starting point must be to examine the ideology of the ruling class of each imperial country. The ruling classes recognised themselves as part of the ‘civilised’ world, that is, the West, though they might think that they were more typical and civilised that other European ruling classes. How was the Other conceptualised? The classical tradition of Greece and Rome had plenty of categories to deal with alien peoples; the most commonly used was the term barbarian. Christianity brought also another term: pagan or heathen. Up to the sixteenth century the other peoples were mainly seen in religious terms, that is, as infidels or heathen. In the early modern period another word became popular:

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savage. In England this term was applied to the Irish in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and to Scottish Highlanders in the eighteenth century. Another term that came to be used was unpolished peoples. The idea of European superiority which developed from the sixteenth century onwards was based originally on religious arrogance and ordinary xenophobia. With increasing technological superiority, which manifested itself in a variety of economic fields, there also came superiority in military technology. Superiority was demonstrable both at the level of the mode of production and at the level of the means of destruction. As we shall see in the section on race (Module 3), the development of natural history, which led to a hierarchical classification of beings from the lowest to the highest, placed European man at the top of the scale. Race came to dominate the age of imperialism. Combined with social Darwinism it created an extreme doctrine that assumed the struggle of races as part of the evolutionary order of things and expected inferior races to fade away, to become extinct. Less extremist thinkers, while accepting racial inferiority, took it to be a form of weakness. Hence the idea that the lower races, like women, children and the working classes in Europe, deserved protection and tutoring. At the legal level, the hegemonic view was that culturally inferior peoples, that is, savages, had no right to their lands because they had no status in the international family of nations. If they had any rights, the so-called lower races should be treated like minors-in-law. This kind of thought was also the rationale behind the protectorates, mandates and trusteeships of the League of Nations.

Summary This module started with Darwin because his work is of great interest to social anthropology. He developed a scientific theory of biological evolution, based on simple, observable facts that was very influential in the development of social evolutionism. Modern humans have existed for about 150,000 years and their hominid ancestors for about 4.5 million years. The crowning achievement of human evolution was the appearance of culture, which allows human beings to adapt successfully to different environments. For many tens of thousands of years humans survived as hunters-gatherers, with simple tools and organised in small egalitarian bands. Then, approximately 10,000 years ago things began to change; a major revolution took place: the domestication of plants and animals. This changed the face of the earth in a few thousand years. Societies became larger and more complex; inequality and social stratification appeared.

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Five thousand years ago, in a number of independent centres around the world, urban-based, state societies came to exist. With it we see the beginning of civilisations, but also of class-societies, with a ruling elite and a group of subordinated people. Trade and specialisation flourished; monumental art and literacy developed. Agrarian civilisations lasted from 3,000 BC until the last few hundred years. They came in different forms and shapes, but they were all class-based, militarised and relatively stagnant. Some of the best-known agrarian societies have been empires allied to universalistic religions. The transition to capitalism and to an industrial type of society took place in north-western Europe. Why it was this part of the world, and not others, has exercised the best social-scientific minds of the past 100 years or more. Capitalism became progressively a true world-economy, penetrating, changing and shaping the whole world in its image. With it went political and cultural domination.

Essay questions 1. Why do cultures change? 2. What does the term ‘affluent society’ mean in relation to a foraging society? 3. What are the major features of pastoralism described in EvansPritchard’s The Nuer (1940)? 4. How did agriculture come into existence? 5. What passages in Genesis indicate that the Bible was written from a patriarchal viewpoint? 6. ‘Caste is a social, not a religious matter’. Discuss in relation to some ethnographic or historical reading on the topic. 7. What is modernisation? 8. What are the present-day trends in the evolution of culture?

Test questions 1. Different models have tried to explain the origins of modern humans. Name the main author who is associated with each of the following models: A. Origin in Africa and migration to displace and interbreed. B. Origin in Africa and migration to displace populations elsewhere. C. Several origins, in various regions, that evolved from local populations.

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D. Separate origins in Africa and China with migrations to displace populations elsewhere. 2. Name the main stages in the evolution of humankind? 3. How would you define a band? 4. What is the meaning of the concept of environmental circumscription? 5. What is a unilineal descent group? 6. What is the difference between magic and sorcery? 7. How would you characterise formalists and substantivists in economic anthropology. 8. Please provide a list of the pristine civilisations. 9. Why did Buddhism fail to become a state religion? 10. What is the defining element of capitalism according to Max Weber? 11. How do state systems obtain people’s allegiance? 12. In addition to kinship and marriage, which other principles of social organization are used in pre-state societies ? 13. Among peasants, what is the ceremonial fund?

Bibliography Basic reading Bodley, J. (1997) Cultural Anthropology. Tribes, States and the Global System. Mountain View, Cal.: Mayfield. Gellner, E. (1988) Plough, Sword, Book. London: Paladin. Johnson, A. and Earle, T. (1987) The Evolution of Human Societies. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Kuper, A. (1994) The Chosen Primate. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Sanderson, S. (1995) Social Transformations. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell. Service, E. (1966) (1971) Primitive Social Organization. New York: Random House. — (1975) Origins of the State and Civilization. New York: Norton. Vivelo, F. (1994) Cultural Anthropology. New York: Lanham.

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Further reading Augé, M. (1994) Pour une anthropologie des mondes contemporaines. Paris: Flammarion Baechler, J. (!975) The Origins of Capitalism. Oxford: Blackwell. Baechler, J. et al. (ed.) (1988) Europe and the Rise of Capitalism. Oxford: Blackwell. Barkow, J., Cosmides, L. and Tooby, J. (eds) (1992) The Adapted Mind. New York: Oxford University Press. Bellah, R. (1964) “Religious Evolution”, American Anthropologist, Vol 29: 358–374. Béteille, A. (1969) Castes: Old and New. London: Asian Publishing House. Bloch, M. (1939 (1972) Feudal Society. London: Routledge. Borofski, R. (ed.) (1994) Assessing Cultural Anthropology. New York: McGraW Hill. Braudel, F. (1977) Afterthought on Material Civilization and Capitalism. Baltimore: John Hopkins Carneiro, R. (1970) ‘A Theory of the Origin of the State’, Science, 169: 733–38. Cavalli-Sforza, L. and F. (1995) The Great Human Diaspora. Reading, Mass.: Addison. Chang, C. and Koster, H. (eds.) (1994) Pastoralists at the Periphery. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Chase-Dunn, C. and Hall, T. (eds) (1991) Core/Periphery Relation in PreCapitalist Worlds. Boulder, Co.: Westview Press. Childe, G. (1936) (1950) Man Makes Himself. London: Watts. Cohen, Y. (ed.) (1968) Man in Adaptation. The Cultural Present. Chicago: Aldine . De Beer, G. (1971) ‘Darwin’, Dictionary of Science Biographies, Vol. III Diamond, J. (1997) Guns, Germs and Steel. London: Thames. Dumont, L. (19570 (1972) Homo Hierarchicus. London: Paladin. Earle, T. (ed.) (1991) Chiefdoms, Power, Economy and Ideology. Cambridge: CUP. Featherstone, M. (ed.) (1990) Global Culture. London: Sage. Foley, W.A. (1997) Anthropological Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell. Foley, R. (1989) ‘The ecological conditions of speciation’. In P. Mellars & C.B. Stringer, (eds) The Human Revolution. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Foley, R. (1997) Humanity before Humans. Oxford: Blackwell

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Fried, M. (1967) The Evolution of Political Systems. New York: Random House. Galaty, J. and Johnson, D. (1990) The World of Pastoralism. London: Guilford Press. Gamble, C. (1994) Timewalkers: the Prehistory of Globalisation. Stroud: Alan Sutton. Geertz, C. (1973) The Interpretation of Culture. New York: Basic Books. Giddens, A. (1981) A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism. London: Macmillan. Goddard, V., Llobera, J.R. and Shore, C. (eds) (1994) The Anthropology of Europe. Oxford; Berg. Goody, J. (1990) The Oriental, the Ancient and the Primitive. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. — (2000) The European Family. Oxford: Blackwell. Goudge, T. A. (1973) ‘Evolutionism’ in Dictionary of the History of Ideas, ed. P. P. Wiener et al., vol. 2, pp. 174–189. New York: Scribner. Hall, J. (1985) Powers and Liberties. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Hannertz, U. (1992) The Global Economy. New York: Columbia University Press. Harris, M. (1979) Cultural Materialism. New York: Random House. — (1985) Culture, People, Nature. New York: Harper. — (1995) Cultural Anthropology. New York: Harper. Havilland, W. (1993) Cultural Anthropology. New York: Holt. Holton, R.J. (1985) The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism. London: Macmillan. Huntington, S. (1996) The Clash of Civilisations. New York: Simon and Schuster. Ingold, T. (ed.) (1994) Companion Encyclopaedia of Anthropology. London: Routledge Ingold, T. et al. (eds) (1991) Hunters and Gatherers. Oxford: Berg. Khazanov, A. (1983) (1994) Nomads and the Outside World. Madison, Wisc.: University of Wisconsin Press. Kottak, P. (1996) Mirror for Humanity. New York: McGraw Hill. Leacock, E. and Lee, R.(eds.) (1982) Politics and History in Band Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lee, R. and DeVore, I. (eds.) (1968) Man the Hunter. New York: Aldine. Lefebure, C. (ed.) (1979) Pastoral Production and Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Lenski, G. (1966) Power and Privilege. New York: McGraw Hill. — (1994) ‘Social Taxonomies’, Annual Review of Sociology, 20: 1–26. Le Roy Ladurie, E. (1980) Montaillou. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Lewin, R. (1997) ‘Ancestral Echoes’, New Scientist, July 5, 2089: 32–37. Lustig, I. (1985) State-Building in British Ireland and French Algeria. Berkeley: University of California Press. Mann, M. (1986) The Sources of Social Power (Vol. 1). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mithen, S. (1996) The Prehistory of the Mind. London: Thames. Renfrew, C. (1987) Archeology and Language. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Sahlins, M. (1958) Social Stratification in Polynesia. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Sanderson, S. (1990) Social Evolutionism. Oxford; Blackwell. Service, E. (1966) The Hunters. New York: Prentice Hall. Schrire, C. (ed.) (1984) Past and Present in Hunters-Gatherers. Orlando, Flo.: Academic Press. Skalnik, P. and Claessen, H. (eds) (1978) The Early State. The Hague: Mouton. Skorupski, J. (1976) Symbol and Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Spradley, J. and McCurdy, C. (1980) Anthropology. The Cultural Perspective. New York: Wiley Strayer, J.R. (1970) The medieval origins of the modern state. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Swanson, G. (1960) The Birth of the Gods. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press. Upham, S. (ed.) (1990) The Evolution of Political Systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wallace, A.F.C. (1966) Religion. An Anthropological View. New York: Random House. Wallerstein, I. (1974) The Modern World-System I. New York: Academic Press. Weber, M. (1961) General Economic History. New York: Collier. Wittfogel, K. (1957) Oriental Despotism. New Haven: Yale University Press. Wolf, E. (1966) Peasants. New York: Prentice Hall. — (1969) Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century. New York: Harper and Row. — (1982) Europe and the Peoples without History. Berkeley, Cal.: University of California Press.

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References Arberry, A.J. (1964) The Koran Interpreted. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Braudel, F. (1979) (1981–4) Civilisation and Capitalism: 15th- 18th Century. London: Fontana Press. Curtin, P.D. (ed.) (1971) Imperialism. New York: Harper and Row. Darwin, C. (1856) (1974) ‘Notebooks’ in Gruber, H., Darwin on Man. London: Wildwood. — (1859) (1968) The Origin of Species. Hardmondsworth: Penguin. — (1871) (1981) The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. — (1872) (1965) The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. — (1887) (1969) Autobiography. New York: Norton. — (1993) The Portable Darwin. (ed. by Porter, D and Graham, P.). New York: Penguin. Darwin, F. (1902) (1995) The Life of Charles Darwin. London: Senate. Dennet, D. (1995) Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. London: Allen Lane. Desmond, A. and Moore, J. (1992) Darwin. London: Penguin. Duby, G. (1974) The Early Growth of the European Economy: Warriors and Peasants from the Seventh to the Twelfth Centuries. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson. Durkheim, E. (1895) (1982) The Rules of the Sociological Method. London: Macmillan. Engels, F. (1884) (1972) The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Feuer, L. (1989) Imperialism and the Anti-Imperialism Mind. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers. Giddens, A. (1985) The Nation-State and Violence. Cambridge: Polity Press. Guerreau, A. (1980) Le féodalisme: un horizon théorique. Paris: Le Sycomore. Hobbes, T. (1651) (1991) Leviathan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hobson, J.A. (1902) (1988) Imperialism. A Study. London: Unwin Hyman. Landes, D. (1969) Prometheus Unbound. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lee, R. H.(1979) The !Kung San. London: Cambridge University Press.

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Lenin, V.I. (1916) (1966) Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism. Moscow: Progress Publishers. Marshall, L. (1976) The !Kung of Nyae Nyae. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Marx, K. (1867) (1974) Capital, 3 vols. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Mascaró, J. (1965) ‘Introduction’ to The Upanishads. London: Penguin. (1973) ‘Introduction’ to The Dhammapada. London: Penguin. Mintz, S. ((1985) Sweetness and Power. The Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York: Viking Penguin. Postan, M. (1975) The Medieval Economy and Society. Hardmondsworth: Penguin. Richards, J.R. (2000) Human Nature after Darwin: A Philosophical Introduction. London: Routledge. Sanderson, S. (1995) Social Transformations: A General Theory of History. Oxford: Blackwell. Service, E.R. (1966) The Hunters. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall. Seton-Watson, H. (1986) ‘State, Nation and Religion’ in Alpher, I. (ed.) Nationalism and Modernity. New York: Praeger. Smith, A. (1776) (1976) An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tenenti, A. (1986) ‘Le capitalisme: continuité ou mutation? in Un leçon d’histoire de Fernand Braudel. Paris: Arthaud-Flammarion. Weber, M. (1904–5) (2001) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. London: Routledge. White, M. and Gribbin, J. (1995) Darwin: Life in Science. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Answers to test questions 1. a): Trinkaus; b): Stringer; c): Wolpoff; d): nobody 2. Hunting-gathering, agriculture and industry. 3. A small family group of hunter-gatherers, who occupy the same territory and are self-sufficient. 4. Geographical obstacles to the further expansion of growing populations. 5. A group of consanguineal kin united by presumed lineal descent from a common ancestor. 6. Sorcery is a kind of magic used for anti-social or evil purposes.

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7. Formalists state that all economies must maximise scarce means; substantivists believe that maximisation is alien to primitive and archaic societies where the economy is embbeded in other institutions. 8. Mesopotamia, China, Egypt, India, Mesoamerica and Peru. 9. Because it was a democratic religion that did not favour rulers. 10. The rational organisation of free labour. 11. Coercion. 12. Sex, age and rank. 13. The surplus destined to social and religious activities.

MODULE 4 The politics of cultural identity: nationalism, ethnicity, race and multiculturalism

Introduction In this module we explore an important dimension of the modern world – that which is articulated around the politics of nationalism, ethnicity, and race. We will be considering not only these ideas, but also the attitudes and behaviour associated with them. These are phenomena that, for reasons that we will examine, generate strong passions among human beings. The emotions involved are often of the most primary type; in extreme cases, it leads people to die, and to kill, for the survival of their own group. However, there is also a creative dimension in these emotions, which manifests itself in economic, political and artistic ways. Manifestations of national identity, ethnicity, and race are widespread world-wide, but present peculiar features in each civilisational area. Many of the issues considered here are only typical of modern times, and hence can only be projected towards the past with great caution. In any case, our objective is to describe and account for what is typical of modernity. It is essential to keep in mind from the outset that nationalism, ethnicity, and race, as cognates, are terms which, neither in the ordinary, everyday use, nor in the social scientific one, are unequivocal in their meaning. The reason for such a state of affairs is partly the fact that these terms are value-laden and symbolically charged; they are not always scientific concepts, but expressions used in ideological struggles. Furthermore, there are different intellectual traditions reflecting the specific experiences and worldviews of the countries which have made important contributions in these areas, namely the USA, Britain and France and, more recently, others.

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The reader should always try to work within the parameters of the definitions provided in the text, and should be constantly aware, when reading other texts or using his or her own notions, of the possibility of serious terminological discrepancies.

Aims In this module we analyse the politics of nationalism, ethnicity and race. These issues are considered conceptually, historically and comparatively. The main objectives that the author of the text has set out are the following: 1. To clarify the key terms used in the literature. 2. To outline the main stages of the development of nationalism. 3. To compare the main theories that try to account for the emergence of nationalism and ethnicity. 4. To explain the salience of ethnicity in modern human societies. 5. To look at ways of regulating ethnic and national conflict. 6. To examine the impact of race on Western thought and on Western political practices. 7. To explore the concept of multiculturalism.

1. Definitions As a preliminary, working definition of nationalism I propose the following: ‘Nationalism is a doctrine and a movement designed to promote and to safeguard the existence of a nation’ (Seton-Watson 1986: 19). This is a rather simple, but nonetheless useful definition provided that we are aware of the historical implications of such a statement. Any attempt at coming to terms with the concept of nationalism requires the clarification of some basic terms, and particularly of the following: state, nation, ethnic community (ethnie) nation-state and race. But a word of caution. There is no agreement about how to use these terms – the word ‘nation’ being especially controversial. Now, ‘state’ is perhaps the easiest term to define and the one that creates the least divergence. I define the state as a centralized, territorially defined, sovereign polity. By centralized I mean the existence of a single centre of power; by territorially defined I refer to the existence of clearly defined physical borders; and by sovereign I simply mean an autonomous, non-dependent entity. Finally, polity is simply another word for political organisation. This is, I think, an economical but nonetheles accurate definition of the state.

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Now, of course, we could add other features to define the state. Max Weber referred to the monopolisation and concentration of the means of coercion, that is, the monopoly of force as a key feature of the state. We could also mention bureaucratisation, that is, the existence of a permanent body of officials, what we call in modern terminology a civil service. Again, legitimation is an important characteristic of the modern state, as it is, at least ideally, culturally and linguistically homogenous. When it comes to defining the nation, the problems begin. The term nation is much more vague and ambiguous than the term state, with which it is sometimes confused, both in common parlance and in scientific literature. Part of the confusion arises from the fact that we have inherited, from the late eighteenth century, two major definitions of the nation: one political and one cultural. Rousseau was the founder of the political conception of the nation in so far as he equated nationhood with the expression of a people’s collective will. In Rousseau’s definition, which was adopted by the French Revolution, the emphasis is on the conscious, subjective element. Nationality and citizenship are co-terminous, which is why in the English, American and French traditions, the nation is essentially viewed as the liberal-democratic state. The German philosopher Herder was the founder of the cultural conception of the nation. Herder equated nationhood with the ethnic characteristics of a people. In this case, the emphasis is on objective criteria, namely common descent, common culture and common language. Other factors can also be brought to bear: history, religion, race, law, territory, character, and so on. Nations and ethnies are closely related; for Smith an ethnie is ‘a named human population with shared ancestry myths, histories and cultures, having an association with a specific territory and a sense of solidarity’ (1986: 32). Ethnies are also known as ethnic communities or ethnic groups. While ethnies are ubiquitous historically and spatially, nations are essentially a modern phenomena. However, in modern times ethnies are easily transformed into nations. The term ethnonation has been coined by Walker Connor (1994) to refer to stateless nations, though they are often referred to in the literature with a variety of names: nationalities, national minorities, subnations, and so on, as well as the more inadequate term of ethnies. The terminological ambiguity arises because the real world is extremely varied and fluid. A final point, worth emphasising, is that the expression ethnic group is also used to refer to migrants who have settled outside their homeland or ancestral territory, whether it is in the same state or in another one. Let us look more carefully at how Anthony Smith, one of the leading world-specialists in the area, contrasts ethnie and nation:

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Table 4: 1 Ethnie and Nation ETHNIE

NATION

Named human population

A collective proper name

Myth of common ancestry and shared historical memories

Common myths of ancestry and shared historical memories

One or more differentiating elements of common culture

A common, mass public culture

An associated homeland

A separate homeland

A sense of solidarity for a significant sector of the population (elites)

A sense of solidarity for the majority of the population.

None

Common legal rights and duties for all members

None

A common economy

(A. Smith 1991)

It is clear from the scheme that what differentiates an ethnie from a nation are a common, mass public culture, a sense of solidarity and a common economy. In accordance with this definition of the nation, it is obvious that nations can only exist in modern times (after the year of the French Revolution, 1789), for the simple reason that the extra criteria required to qualify as nation (a mass culture, a common economy and common equal rights) only developed in rather recent times (the past two hundred years). Modern nations commonly developed from old ethnies through the standard processes of expansion, fusion, absorption, and so on. Of course, ethnies have existed for a long time and we have enough historical evidence to state that they occurred in different parts of the world. The Israelites, the Persians, the Egyptians and the Greeks were wellknown ethnies of antiquity; some of them, for example, the Israelites after Moses, came very close to being a nation. Nonetheless, the most common form of cultural existence in the premodern world was that of the fluid ethnic category, by which is meant a cultural unit of population, with a sense of kinship and ancestry, a few shared memories and gods and the sharing of closely related dialects. On the other hand, ethnic categories lack a sense of awareness and of solidarity. With the colonial expansion of the West, ethnic categories became ethnies as a result of external observers (missionaries, colonial officers, anthropologists) giving them a sense of cultural unity. This process is known as ethno-genesis.

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We have not yet defined ethnicity, perhaps the most recent of concepts in this area; it is simply another word for ethnic identity, or more precisely, a property shared by those who belong to an ethnie. Another term which stems from the same root is ethnocentrism; it is a universal phenomenon and can be defined as the attitude of cultural superiority displayed by one’s own human group in relation to all other groups. The study of race was and is a potential minefield. No other notion is as controversial as that of race; many anthropologists have banned the term as a scientific concept, with the argument that, from a strict biological point of view, race is not a category that refers to anything substantial which could be said to measure differences in intelligence or character. Race is just a skin-deep phenomenon; genetics has recently shown that the variations among human beings are of a minor character and, on the whole, do not correspond to variations in skin colour. It is nonetheless useful to distinguish between biological and social race. By biological race is meant a group of humans who share genetically inherited body features (skin colour, body shape, hair colour, et cetera). Social race is defined as a group of humans perceived as somatically different by another group. In the first case we are dealing with a biological construct, in the second with a social construct. Combining both definitions, Pierre van den Berghe has proposed the following definition of race: ‘A human group that defines itself and/or is defined by other groups as different from other groups by virtue of innate and immutable physical characteristics. These physical characteristics are in turn believed to be intrinsically related to moral, intellectual and other non-physical attributes or abilities.’ (1978: 9)

Racial classifications in the form of the classical distinctions between three (Caucasoid, Mongoloid and Negroid) or more racial types are no longer extant. For the reasons mentioned above, physical anthropologists are no longer interested in such taxonomies. As to racism, it can be defined as a set of institutionalised beliefs, attitudes and practices aimed at perpetuating all kinds of discrimination against the members of socially-defined racial groups.

2. Nations and nationalism 2.1. Preliminaries Nationalism is, along with liberalism and socialism, one of the most powerful ideologies of modernity. I use the word ideology in a minimalist, neutral sense to mean a system of ideas and values prevalent in a give milieu or social environment. In Durkheimian terms, nationalism as an ideology is a set of collective representations that are typical of modern societies. Two main reasons explain the salience of nationalism

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in the world in which we live. First, the sacred character of the nation, which has religious elements; and second, the will of the people to defend their sense of cultural community. I shall come back to these issues. Nationalism is an ambiguous word, with a variety of mostly pejorative meanings. In everyday usage, but also often in the scholarly literature, nationalism is preferentially employed as a term of abuse; it refers to an irrational and extreme love of nation, to which everything else is sacrificed. The emotions involved in nationalism are of the most elementary type (hence the label ‘tribalism’ often attached to it); people are willing to die, but also to kill, for their nation. I do not have to remind you of the litany of horrors emerging from former Yugoslavia – a conflict which media and politicians alike enjoy presenting as a consequence of unchecked nationalist rivalries. There are other ways, of course, of defining nationalism. If we equate nationalism with the love of one’s nation – for which the term ‘patriotism’ is often used – the pejorative dimension may be somewhat neutralised, and a different picture of nationalism emerges. In this picture, nationalism incorporates sentiments which may be channelled in a productive and positive direction, be at the material level (the economy) or at the spiritual level (the arts and literature), not forgetting the political domain of nationbuilding. I insist, then, that nationalism has no predetermined content; as a container of meaning, nationalism can refer to both the good and the evil realities of the nation. There is a liberal and democratic conception of the nation, as there is one tainted with totalitarianism (of the communist, fascist or religious fundamentalist varieties). Tom Nairn has insisted in The Break Up Great Britain that ‘the task of a theory of nationalism must be to embrace both horns of the dilemma. It must be to see the phenomena as a whole, in a way that rises above these ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ sides. Only from this fashion can we hope to escape from a moralising perspective’ (1977: 332) and rise to a more scientific one. As social scientists we should ‘spend less time decrying it – which is a little like cursing the winds – and more in trying to figure out why it takes the forms it does and how it might be prevented from tearing apart even as it creates the societies in which it arises, and beyond that the fabric of modern civilisation’ (Geertz 1973: 254).

2.2. What is a nation? ‘A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things, which in truth are but one, constitute this soul or spiritual principle. One lies in the past, one in the present. One is the possession in common of a rich legacy of memories; the other is present-day consent, the desire to live together, the will to perpetuate the value of heritage that one has received in an undivided form… More valuable…is the fact of sharing, in the past, a glorious heritage and regrets, and having, in the future, a shared programme to put into effect… A nation’s existence is…a daily

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plebiscite… The wish of nations is, all in all, the sole legitimate criterion, the one to which one must always return.’Ernest Renan (1882) (1990: 19–20) Qu’est-ce que une nation?

One of the most popular definitions of the nation to have emerged in the past few years is that of Benedict Anderson in his book Imagined Communities. He characterises the nation as ‘an imagined political community – and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign’ (1991: 6). By ‘imagined’ Anderson means the fact that ‘the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion’ (1991: 6). Another feature of Anderson’s definition is that nations are finite, have boundaries; in other words, no nation can encompass the whole of mankind; a nation assumes the existence of a world of nations. The sovereignty of the nation refers to the fact that the nation legitimates itself, without any reference to a divine order (the people are the nation, as the French revolutionaries boldly asserted in 1789, and no divinelyordained monarch could stop them). As to the idea of the nation as a community it points to an essential element of nationhood: the belief in a sense of fraternity or ‘horizontal comradeship’, with independence of other considerations (class, gender, and so on which may separate individuals) (Anderson 1991: 7). We are now in a position to define the common expression ‘nationstate’. In theory a nation-state is a state which is a nation; that is, a state which comprises a nation. But since we have two definitions of nation, we also have two definitions of nation-state. Let us take the example of the United Kingdom. According to the ‘political nation’ principle the UK can be envisaged from the perspective of its citizens, or crown subjects who have a sense of loyalty towards the monarchy and the British state. In this sense we can say that the UK is a nation-state. If we adopt, however, the ‘cultural nation’ principle, we find in the UK four historically constituted communities (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), which have their own distinct identity expressed in a variety of ways, by reference to a number of ethnic markers (language, culture, history, and so on). In this second sense, we would refer to the UK as a multinational state. In a well publicised article (originally published in 1978), Walter Connor suggested that ‘a survey of 132 entities generally considered to be states as of 1971’, produced the surprising result that ‘only 12 states (9.1%) could be justifiably described as nation-states’ (1994: 96). Unfortunately, in real political life things are more complicated: they are never so clear-cut because historically, after the French Revolution, there has been an interpenetration between the two conceptions of the nation with the general consequence that:

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1. On the one hand, so-called multinational states have tried to become proper nation-states through a process of nation-building, which essentially consists of an attempt at a cultural and linguistic homogenisation and uniformisation of the different, usually subordinated, cultural nations. A key element in this process of homogenisation is the educational system, which promotes the official language and the dominant culture of the state. Surprisingly enough, states have not always been successful in this endeavour, otherwise we would not have the great variety of minority nationalisms that we have in Europe, and elsewhere, today. 2. On the other hand, nations, that is, cultural nations, have tried to obtain more and more parcels of autonomy and, in the final instance, many have aimed at constituting themselves as sovereign states, where and when feasible. The principle of self-determination, so typical of modernity, is one of the consequence of this state of things. Since the French Revolution, the nation (particularly in the cultural sense of the term) has become the highest value of modernity, and hence a highly desirable thing to have or to boast about. The recent events in Eastern Europe, particularly since 1989, show that this principle is far from being obsolete. Even the European Union does not herald the end of national identities (in the cultural sense), but the very opposite: the flourishing of the submerged identities of the small, suppressed nations of Europe. I tend to use the word nation mostly in its cultural sense, and reserve the expression nation-state to those cases where state and nation coincide.

2.3. The development of nationalism in modernity 2.3.1. 1789–1870 The French Revolution and the Napoleonic invasions heralded and to a great extent triggered-off the advent of modern nationalism in Western Europe, both in the sense of putting an end (at least temporarily) to the aristocratic conception of the nation prevailing in the Ancien Régime and in the sense of modernising the state, as well as generating sentiments of political independence and cultural autonomy among the affected countries (Greenfeld 1992). In Latin America, the Declaration of Independence of 1776, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic invasions were influential factors in generating successful movements for national independence in the first third of the century. The post-Napoleonic period had started, however, in a most inauspicious way. The Congress of Vienna, which in 1815 had brought together the leading European states to decide on the future of the continent, resolutely opposed the emerging Italian and German nationalisms (as well as the Polish one). The independence of Greece in 1830 was seen

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as the first major success of the nationalist principle. There soon followed Belgium’s independence. In any case, very few nineteenth-century political thinkers managed to grasp the enormity of the nationalist avalanche, seeing it more as a passing fad. This also accounts for the paucity and poverty of theoretical statements on the national question. To illustrate the importance of two nineteenth-century authors it is worth offering a section from The Communist Manifesto (1848) of Marx and Engels and one from John Stuart Mill’s Consideration on Representative Government (1861): ‘The communists are reproached with desiring to abolish countries and nationalities. The working men have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got. Since the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself the nation, it is so far, itself national, though not in the bourgeois sense of the word. National differences and antagonisms between peoples are daily more and more vanishing, owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world market, to uniformity in the mode of production and in the conditions of life corresponding thereto. The supremacy of the proletariat will cause them to vanish still faster.’ (Marx and Engels, 1848) ‘Experience proves that it is possible for one nationality to merge and be absorbed in another: and when it was originally an inferior and more backward portion of the human race the absorption is greatly to its advantage. Nobody can suppose that it is not more beneficial to a Breton, or a Basque of Fench Navarre, to be brought into the current of ideas and feelings of a highly civilised and cultivated people – to be a member of the French nationality, admitted on equal terms to all the privileges of French citizenship, sharing the advantages of French protection, and the dignity and prestige of French power – than to sulk on his own rocks, the half-savage relic of past times, revolving in his own little mental orbit, without participation or interest in the general movement of the world. The same remark applies to the Welshman or the Scottish Highlander as members of the British nation.’ (John Stuart Mill 1861)

Of the three most powerful ideologies of the nineteenth century – liberalism, socialism and nationalism – identified with the emergence of modernity and the subversion of the ancient regime, nationalism is the one whose significance was the least appreciated as an idée-force (to use Alfred Fouillée’s expression), a powerful idea, at the time of its appearance. Following ideas expressed a long time ago by Carlton Hayes (1931) and Hans Kohn (1944) among others, it is customary to see the development of nineteenth-century and twentieth-century nationalism essentially in dichotomous and moralising terms. Prior to 1870 there was a nationalism that was democratic, progressive and humanitarian; after 1870 nationalism became imperialist, authoritarian and chauvinist. In considering the development of nationalism we can distinguish three major models: the German-Italian, the French and the Irish. The first thing worth mentioning about the German-Italian model of nationalism is that it appears to combine state-building with nationalism. In a nutshell, the model assumes a unity – an ‘Italian’ and a

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‘German’ nation – which would have existed since the medieval period and which expressed itself in a language, a culture and a common descent. Due to a combination of internal factors (disorganisation, selfishness, and so on) and external ones (such as foreign domination), the nation had been unable to flourish adequately in the past. The only way of doing that was for the nation to control its own affairs in the context of a modern, centralised state. This required a process of unification of the different independent or subjected political units that shared the same nationality. However, in both cases we can observe that in the process of national state-building the lead was taken by the most dynamic (either politically or economically) of the existing states in each civilisational area, that is, Prussia in Germany and Piedmont in Italy. The French model of nationalism starts at the very opposite end of the spectrum with the existence of a state, with fixed, stable boundaries and in which the nation is envisaged as a manifestation of the free will of its citizens; in Pflanze’s words: ‘common sovereignty provided common institutions and a common political tradition from which emerged a sense of nationhood which transcended cultural differences’ (Pflanze 1966: 139). Whether by historical accident or not, the French model incorporates two separate elements: popular sovereignty and a historical state. And while the former acted as a catalyst in corroding autocratic monarchies, the latter had to face the onslaughts of cultural nationalisms, with varying effects and responses depending on a constellation of factors. The French model, while generally relying on Renan’s idea of the nation as a spiritual principle, characterised by a common heritage of memories and a desire and will to live together, involved also the recognition of achieving cultural and linguistic homogeneity. There was a conscious attempt to attain these objectives by state-generated nationalism. Through the compulsory educational system both the medium (language, culture) and the message (civic values) were transmitted. The third model could perhaps be called the Irish model of nationalism. It involves a culturally defined nation, usually associated with a historical territory within a given state (or states). By choosing Ireland to represent the third model, the case with the utmost complexity in terms of the relations between an oppressed nationality and its oppressor has been selected. The independence of Eire and the fact that Northern Ireland remained in the UK, was one of only several possible solutions to the bitter historical dispute between the Irish and the British government: from limited autonomy to full territorial independence for Ireland. Although presenting some parallelism with the German-Italian model, the third model refers usually to small national units that try to break away from an existing multinational state or empire, rather than small states coming together to form a larger, nationally-based state. The

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objectives of the nationalists, in their struggle against the state, vary from cultural demands to autonomy, from federalism to outright independence. In theory all units can progress from cultural demands to demands for independence (Hroch 1985). That there is a contradiction between the expansionist tendencies of the state and the nationality principle is most obvious. The doctrines of political and cultural nationalism encouraged the creation of true nation-states, that is, states which contained a single nation (whichever way the latter was defined); realities were, however, rather different. Many nationalities never succeeded in creating their own state; many states were nation-states only in appearance. The state did not change its character because of the nationalist onslaught, but had to adapt to new times and had at least to create the pretence of being a nation. 2.3.2. 1870–1918 One area in which practically all Western European states coincided was in enhancing their prestige, their grandeur, by the possession of overseas colonies. It is somewhat ironic that at the time when the idea of self-determination was gaining ideological ground, the wildest colonial expansion was taking place overseas. The imperialist phase in European history was often justified in terms of a civilising mission of superior races towards inferior races. Imperialist countries had a ‘national mission’ to fulfil. The idea that the so-called inferior races could have the right to national emancipation was considered ludicrous by Western states. What actually predominated after 1870 was the naked power politics of the biggest states. In this context nationalism means an extreme form of patriotism, with clear jingoistic and chauvinistic characteristics within the overall framework of an imperialist policy. One could say, paraphrasing Lenin, that imperialism became the highest stage of nationalism. For the new breed of state nationalists ‘the possession of an empire was an essential precondition for the free development of one’s own national culture in time to come’ (Mommsen 1974: 126). This is not to disregard the economic reasons for imperialism: the need to export excess capital and excess humans to other territories. In addition, the vested interests of the colonial bureaucracy helped to perpetuate the system. The development of imperialism reinforced the determination of Western European states to contain their internal national minorities or emerging nationalisms against the state by engaging ever more actively in policies of national homogenisation, as well as in outright repressive measures against the cultural and political manifestations of the awakening nationalities. By 1913 the idea that small nations could achieve independence by insurrectional or any other means was considered improbable. The model of the unitary state was pervasive. Measured in terms of national independence, for example, only Norway was a

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successful case of self-determination in Western Europe in the period between 1870 and 1914. However, the First World War changed things. The collapse of empires in Central and Eastern Europe and President Wilson’s commitment to see national self-determination on the agenda, produced a remarkable flurry of small independent states, even if it did not solve the national question, as there was still the recalcitrant problem of the disadvantaged minorities in the new states. 2.3.3. 1918–1945 Fascism was the culmination of state nationalism. All Western European countries developed radical nationalist movements that could be labelled, following Charles Maurras’s felicitous expression, ‘integral nationalisms’. They represented reactions against the new bourgeois democratic and liberal order that was emerging, and in which the working classes and the socialist parties were playing an increasingly important role. They were movements that tended to emerge as a result of a major crisis of confidence in the nation-state (international humiliation following military defeat or unsatisfied imperialist appetites). They appeared as movements of renewal, of revitalisation of the perceived morbid organism. Both Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy fit the case well. Fascism focused on the supremacy of the nation conceived inseparably from the state. Benito Mussolini expressed this thought when he said that fascism considered the state as an absolute. In this conception of the state the individual was seen as totally subordinate. As Anthony D. Smith has rightly noted fascism ‘tends to view the nation in instrumental terms, as a “power-house”, a repository and weapon for the exercise of will and force’ (1976: 56). Some authors, including Carlton Hayes and Anthony D. Smith, have been reluctant to accept that there is a close connection between nationalism and fascism. Although they are right in emphasising the specificity of fascism, by failing to see a continuity between integral nationalism and the fascist conception of the nation-state they are in danger of ignoring a major dimension of fascism. In the inter-war period the fascist model of nationalism spread in one form or another all over Europe. Whether in power or in opposition, fascist movements were present in most countries. Where it was politically triumphant, fascists pursued their extreme policies of nation-building, in an attempt at creating the national homogeneity that was required to keep the masses of the country tuned into the mythical, often mystical, ideas of the nation. Fascism emphasised indeed the myths and symbols of the national community and made sure that the distinction between the public and the private spheres was all but wiped out. Fascism, based on a combination of terror and consensus, insisted on the participation of the masses in cults which would generate a sense of belonging to the nation

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and which allowed the individuals to feel that they were involved in its affairs. As an extreme form of nationalism, fascism has coloured the perception that the twentieth century has had of nationalism. During the Second World War some minority nationalisms, particularly in German-occupied territories, allowed themselves to fall under the spell or control of fascist ideologies, with predictable consequences for the post-war period. 2.3.4. 1945–1989 The collapse of fascism in 1945 seemed to put an end to the era of nationalism in Europe. In its fascist form, nationalism took on a totalitarian appearance that was seen as anathema in a post-war period, which saw Europe essentially divided along ideological lines. The Cold War and the policy of dividing Europe into Western and Eastern blocs, left no room for nationalist adventures. Between 1945 and 1989 borders were sacrosanct, inviolable. On the other hand, a different kind of nationalism was developing outside Europe, reflecting the desire of colonial peoples to become independent, even if that represented at times a violent confrontation with the metropolis. Colonial imperialism began to crumble. It would be Euro-centric to assume that terms like ‘nation’ and ‘nationalism’, ‘national sentiments’, ‘national consciousness’ and other related ones, which in their modern form originated and developed in Western Europe, can function as universal concepts. There is, of course, a limited way in which they do, but the cultural diversity underlying the different civilisational spaces makes nationalitarian convergence unlikely. The burden of proof is on those who proclaim, for example, that Sinhalese, Kurdish and Scottish nationalisms are essentially the same. Religious beliefs, kinship conceptions and ideas of territory are among the factors that play a fundamental part in the way in which the nation is conceived. Buddhism, Islam and Christianity involve different worldviews which radically affect the conceptualisation of the nation. Bruce Kapferer (1988) shows how in the case of Sinhalese nationalism, Buddhism permeates the way in which political realities (including a demonic conception of evil) are perceived. As John Armstrong (1982) has convincingly shown, sedentary populations tend to have a concept of territorial boundary which is totally absent in nomadic peoples. Finally, the form in which the community is envisaged is often a projection into a wider social space of kinship conceptions, with in some cases a strong emphasis on ‘blood’ or common descent. While anybody can become a Scot provided that they live in Scotland and identify with the Scottish nation socially and to a certain extent culturally, there is only one way of becoming a Kurd: by being descended from Kurds, that is, by being born a Kurd.

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Around the 1960s, generally speaking, Third World nationalisms fall into two major categories: those inspired by religious traditions (with Islam playing an important role) and those based on Marxism-Lenininism or on a native type of socialism. In most cases the borders of the newly emerging states were determined by the colonial powers and reflected the old colonial delineation. In the making of the newly independent states no consideration was given to the issue of whether they were ethnically or linguistically homogeneous. This was particularly the case in Africa, as two quotations from Julius Nyerere (1967) illustrate: ‘The people fought because they did not believe in the white’s man right to govern and civilise the blacks. They rose in a great rebellion, not through fear of a terrorist movement or a superstitious oath, but in response to a call of the spirit, ringing in the hearts of all men, and of all times, educated and uneducated, to rebel against foreign domination. It is important to bear this in mind in order to understand the nature of a nationalist movement like mine. Its sanction is not to create the spirit of rebellion but to articulate it and show it a new technique.’ ‘Nations in any real sense of the word do not at present exist in Africa. None of our nations is made up of people bound together by a single language or heritage common to them but not to the people of a neighbouring nation. Each exists because its boundaries were the historical and administrative conventions of the colonial powers.’

Third-World nationalisms, therefore, tend to belong to the type in which the state builds up the nation, or to be more precise, they try to do so. It is not surprising to observe that the number of successes has been rather limited; after all, in Western Europe the processes of converting multiethnic states into nation-states have taken hundreds of years. It has been the role of the Westernised elites in the Third World to try to provide the masses with a consciousness of their unity, cohesion and identity in spite of the existing glaring ethnic, linguistic and religious divisions. Hence nations were invented out of thin air, communities were imagined where only diversity and dispersion existed and narratives were created to sustain the whole wobbly edifice. In addition, this nationalism also legitimated the monopoly of power exerted by the elite. An important contradiction which existed in Third-World nationalisms was that while they presented themselves as anti-European, they still had to rely on alien concepts such as the nation, the state, the constitution, developmentalism, an so on to realise their objectives. In a word, Third World countries had to come to terms with modernity (either of the liberal-democratic kind or of the socialist kind); in reality, they were left with very little space for economic, political and cultural manoeuvring. In his recent work aptly subtitled Africa and the Curse of the Nation-State, Basil Davidson (1992) remarked that ‘the acceptance of the postcolonial nation-state meant acceptance of the legacy of the colonial partition, and of the moral and political practices of colonial rule in its institutional dimensions’ (1992: 162).

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Furthermore, Third-World leaders had often to combine modernity with tradition. This created a rather schizophrenic situation. Because popular support was weak and national integration only very precarious, many Third-World countries developed authoritarian patterns in which the cult of the state, which was identified with the nation, was paramount. What emerged out of the postcolonial order, particularly in Africa, was, in the words of Crawford Young (1994: 288) a kind of ‘integral state’ in which the ruling groups exerted a total domination over the society at large. This state was the mirror image of the colonial one but was often taken to an extreme. What characterises the post-colonial state in the Third World is its multi-ethnic nature; within the borders of most states populations live together with different languages, religions, cultures, and so on. In many cases the only thing that united the population of a colony was the desire to overthrow alien rule. After independence, the first and foremost task of the state was its feverish attempt to engage in more or less aggressive policies of nation-building, usually favouring the dominant ethnic group. However, the results have been rather poor and there have been increasing demands for further autonomy or outright independence from the subordinated regions and ethnies. The fact that the developmental policies of most Third-World countries have failed, it has not been a good omen for legitimising these states. The growth of ethnic politics reflects, at least in part, the disenchantment with the economic bankruptcy of many Third-World states; on the other hand, these states have shown very little inclination to satisfy ethno-national demands. In the long run, violent conflict of a separatist kind has become endemic and in reality very few states can boast of having solved the problem. None the less, a superstitious respect for the internationally agreed borders of colonial times has been a principle to which most states have adhered, no matter how hypocritically. 2.3.5. 1989 to the present One of the effects of perceiving the Soviet Union as an anti-colonialist state was not only that it glossed over the growth of the Russian Empire up to 1917, but more importantly, that the colonial structure of the Soviet Union rarely came under scrutiny. A long quote from Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Rebuilding Russia, published originally in 1990, illustrates a progressive realisation of this state of things: ‘We do not have the strength of sustaining an empire – and it is just as well. Let this burden fall from our shoulders: it is crushing us, it is sapping our energy, and hastening our demise. I note with alarm that the awakening of Russia national self-awareness has to a large extent been unable to free itself of great powerthinking and of imperial delusions, that it has taken over from the communists the fraudulent and contrived notion of Soviet patriotism and that it takes pride in the Soviet superpower (...) What a perversion of consciousness it is to argue

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that, ‘for all that, we are a huge country and we are taken seriously everywhere’ ... Time has come for an uncompromising choice between an empire of which we are ourselves the primary victims and the spiritual and physical salvation of our people.’(Solzhenitsyn 1990: 14–15)

With the collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1989 and the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991–92, these issues have come to the forefront. Suddenly, a state which had repeatedly claimed to have solved the national question exploded apparently as a result of nationalist pressures. To account for this cataclysmic event, two main types of explanation have been put forward (Suny 1993): 1. The first type envisages the Soviet Union as a reservoir of frozen nationalities, defrosted by the warmth of Gorbachov’s perestroika (economic re-structuring) and glasnost (transparency). In this perspective the emphasis is squarely on the pre-Soviet past, that is, on the formation of the Russian Empire in modernity and its inability to assimilate an array of very different peoples. 2. The second type focuses on the nationality policies of the Soviet Union and considers the extent to which these shaped the future nations of the 1989 Revolution. In spite of its bad name, and against the predictions of most politicians and social scientists, nationalism made its reappearance in Western Europe in the 1960s in the form of minority nationalisms against the state, and has persisted unabated until the present (Smith, A. D. 1981; Tyryakian, E. and Rogowski, R. (eds.) 1985). This has been a source of political destabilisation affecting most countries. All ethno-nations try to preserve a sense of national identity and rightly believe that this can only be achieved in the framework of a state that provides them with a substantial degree of political autonomy. Much has been made of the imitation effect of Third-World movements of national liberation on Western European ethno-nationalisms. That there was perhaps a rhetorical influence is undeniable, and in some cases organisational forms may have been borrowed. To what extent the anti-colonialist wave may have affected the timing of minority nationalisms in the West is open to debate. In any case, the major cause of ethno-national revival has to be found in the ever-growing process of the imposition of the model of an alien nation-state on the everyday life of the subjected nationalities. The two major political objectives of the ethno-nationalist movements are: the right of a community (big or small) to be different and the right of a community to control its own affairs within a given territory. As predictable, ethno-nationalist movements tend to occur in areas of high ethno-national potential. If anything, most part of these movements are

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not new. Since 1989 there has been a recrudescence of ethno-nationalism in the West which has been often attributed to the ‘Baltic effect’ (independence of the Baltic countries). In many cases what we simply have is an opportunistic repackaging of long-standing demands. The postwar period in Western Europe has been characterised by an extreme stability of political borders. Most of the states have come to the conclusion, no matter how reluctantly, that it was in their economic and military interest to create a united Europe, even if some political concessions in terms of state sovereignty had to be made. How far they are prepared to go to construct a politically unified Europe is not yet clear. And can a transcendent sense of European identity be created that will supersede, in the Hegelian sense, the state and national divisions? In the aftermath of the ideological thaw in Eastern Europe, the de facto Western European monopoly of the idea of Europe was challenged by peoples from this region and will no doubt be challenged by other nations. This brings to the fore the question: what is Europe? A unique civilisational area or just a geographical denomination? An entity of the past, of the present, of the future, or may be just an utopia? The anarchist dream of a federation of European peoples or a type of Hitlerian nightmare? A federation of European peoples large and small or a centralised, bureaucratic and uniform state? A common economic market or a unified polity? A social-democratic Europe or a free- for- all capitalist Europe? In conclusion, there are four major problems besetting the idea of a European supernation-state: the sovereignty of the states, the nationalism of the peoples, the integration of the non-European ethnic groups and the incorporation of non-western European countries. As a consequence, its future is problematic; it will have to proceed at a rather slow pace and probably dilute many of the unitary aspirations (Garcia 1993). The 1960s and the 1990s represent high points in the process of selfdetermination. The 1960s was the time of political independence for Third-World countries freeing themselves from European-style colonialism; the 1990s have seen the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the disintegration of the Soviet Union and of other Eastern European states (Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia) into a number of successor states. The process of national self-determination is far from completed. There are still a large number of extant ethnic and national claims. In the Third World, the post-colonial political structures are far from stable; ethnic/national separatism plagues many African and Asian countries. In the former Soviet Union, fissiparity is likely to continue, and the collapse of the Russian federation cannot be excluded. Finally, the Western world is not totally impervious to these trends which could affect the Canadian, Belgian and ‘Ukanian’ states among others.

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2.4. Modern theories of nationalism A comprehensive theory of nationalism should provide us with the following answers: 1. An account of the genesis and evolution of the idea of nation in Western Europe, as well as of its diffusion world-wide. 2. A spatio-temporal explanation of the varying structures, ideologies and movements of nationalism in the modern period. 3. An understanding of the collective feelings or sentiments of national identity along with the concomitant elements of consciousness. How do different sociological theories approximate these lofty objectives? Generally speaking, most studies of nationalism are superficial descriptions of concrete cases or comparisons à la Frazer; as to point 3) it is practically terra incognita. We will consider three major groups of theories of nationalism: primordialist and sociobiological theories, modernisation theories and evolutionary theories.

2.4.1. Primordialist and sociobiological theories Among the few universalist theories of nationalism one should mention the primordialist and the sociobiological perspectives. Primordialism assumes that group identity is a given: that in all societies there exist certain primordial, irrational attachments based on blood, race, language, religion, region, and so on. They are, in the words of Clifford Geertz (1973), ineffable and yet coercive ties, which are the result of a long process of crystalisation. Modern states, particularly, but not exclusively, in the Third World, are superimposed on the primordial realities which are the ethnic groups or communities. The sociobiological approach starts with the assumption that nationalism is the result of the extension of kin selection to a wider sphere of individuals who are defined in terms of putative or common descent. Sociobiological explanations are not necessarily articulated in terms of genetic determinism, although it may be heuristically useful to make such an assumption. Most sociobiologists do not suggest that nationalism can be explained solely in terms of genetic mechanisms, that is, without linking them with the results of the human and social sciences. The sociobiological approach insists that nationalism combines both rational and irrational elements, that is a ‘primitive mind’ with modern techniques. The word nationalism expresses different realities: a love of country, the assertion of national identity and national dignity, but also the xenophobic obsession to obtain these things through violence and by sacrificing other nations. Nationalism builds on ethnocentrism towards the in-group and xenophobia towards the out-group.

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For Shaw and Wong, nationalism ‘fosters pride, dignity and related sentiments among members of the in-group, thereby constituting a moral and philosophical basis on which to demand political sovereignty’ (Shaw and Wong 1989: 137). Nationalism has its roots in the past, but it is a contemporary vehicle with which to vent out human propensities to war. It is important in this context to emphasise the psychological dimensions of nationalism; a bond is established between the individual and the nation based on the idea that the latter is a family writ large. The individual identifies with the nation and hence tends to prefer it to other nations. The extensive use of kin terms to refer to the nation reflects this psycho-affective reality that Edgar Morin has called ‘matripatriotic’, with an associated fraternal/sororal component. Sociobiologists often fail to account for the formation, evolution and eventual disappearance of nations; in this respect the historical and social sciences have an essential role to play. However, sociobiologists, by identifying certain human propensities for conflict and warfare, which have served homo sapiens sapiens well by acting as successful inclusive fitness maximisers, point out that these mechanisms, useful at an early stage of development, today risk the global annihilation of the human species. Recognising these propensities can be the first step towards their neutralisation. 2.4.2. Modernisation theories Perhaps the best known and most impressive study of nationalism by a social scientist is that of Ernest Gellner (1983). He has gone a long way towards providing a reasoned account for the emergence and pervasiveness of nationalism in modern times. His idea that the roots of nationalism are found in the structural needs of industrial society, has appealed to a wide range of social scientists and historians, modernisation theorists and Marxists alike. The Gellnerian model asserts that it was the development of industrial capitalism and its unevenness that triggered off the development of nationalism. There was nothing prior to the industrial order (what Gellner refers to as agrarian society) that can be equated to nationalism because political units were not defined in terms of cultural boundaries. Besides industrialisation Gellner also mentions the impact of modernisation (population growth, rapid urbanisation, labour migration, and so on) on the development of nationalism at the global level. Gellner’s insistence that nations are invented (a position shared with all modernists) has also been widely accepted, perhaps because, among other things, it confirms the generalised perception among social scientists that nationalism is best explained in a reductionist fashion, i.e., as a subspecies of economics. Not surprisingly, Gellner has little to say about national sentiments and consciousness. His sociological structuralism is also oblivious to history.

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Gellner states that the explanatory power of his theory is comprehensive, but not exhaustive. Among other things, it does not account for the virulence of fascist nationalisms. None the less, he insists that his theory explains why nationalism has emerged and why it has become so pervasive. However, he tends to ignore state-generated nationalism and minimises the role of the state in general. Nationalism is not only directed against internal low cultures, but also against other established state nationalisms. 2.4.3. Evolutionary theories Between the generalities of universalism and the limitations of modernism, there is room for a third type of theory that could be called evolutionary. It is true that as a mass phenomenon nationalism is a product of modern times, but in Europe the roots of nation as an ‘imagined community’ (Anderson 1983), of national identity and even of incipient patriotic nationalism are firmly anchored in the medieval period (Llobera 1994). There is, however, a conceptual gap between the medieval and the modern ideas of the nation; and that is why national identities had to be ‘re-created’ or ‘re-invented’ in modernity. However, the crucial issue is how to account for the transition from the classical ethnies into modern nations (Smith 1981; 1986; 1991), and why this process originally took place in Western civilisation. Only a theoretical framework which incorporates a variety of factors, not only economic (industrial capitalism), social (classes) or political (modern state), but also ideological (nationalist ideas), is likely to approximate the explanation needed given, the complexities of the phenomenon (Llobera 1994).

3. Ethnicity 3.1. Ethnocentrism and human nature The term ethnocentrism was coined by the American social scientist William Graham Summner in his book Folkways (1906). He proposed the following definition: ‘The technical name for the view of things in which one’s own group is the centre of everything, and all others are scaled and rated by reference to it... Each group nourishes its own pride and vanity, boasts itself superior, exalts its own divinities and looks with contempt on outsiders. Each group think its folkways the only right ones... Opprobrious epithets are derived from these differences.’ (1906: 13)

One of Summner’s assumptions was that groups tended to be in conflict and war with one another, and that individuals developed appropriate sentiments for this kind of situation, such as loyalty towards the ingroup and hatred towards the out-groups.

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What we know from history and ethnography is that ethnocentrism is universal, although it changes in form and in intensity across cultures. This has prompted some sociobiologists to hypothesise that ethnocentrism might be genetically determined. After all, our hominid ancestors lived for millions of years in small groups in the African savannahs and developed ethnocentric traits. The question is whether we are in the presence of a weak or a strong determination. Even if there is a general distrust of out-groups, culture plays always a key role in deciding the extent to which a group may collaborate with another; ecological conditions may also decisive in determining whether a group will behave ethnocentrically or not. One of the key features of humans is the need to live and cooperate with other humans. The individual has often to be subordinated to the group. Humans tend to cooperate first and foremost with relatives, that is, with people who are genetically related to them. Where the kinship connection is distant or non-existent, the likelihood is that hostility will prevail. The size of groups is often large, and in these cases the degree of affectivity operates only within a reduced number of individuals, although empathy exists with the rest of the group through the projection of some basic kinship relationships. From a biological point of view, the key issue about ethnocentrism is how effective it is in enhancing the survival and reproduction of individuals. We have already pointed out that ethnocentrism is a variable which depends on socio-economic conditions. In a given ecological niche, the shortage of resources will tend to induce groups to compete for them, while if resources are abundant cooperation is more likely. But not even this equation is always correct, as is shown by the hospitality which prevails in the harsh conditions of the desert. That human beings are predisposed towards ethnocentrism is shown by the fact that children learn it very quickly, and that is not easy to dispose of it later in life. However, one should not present ethnocentric attitudes in a fatalistic way. Even if ethnocentrism has an evolutionary basis, that does not mean that behaviour is predetermined. Ethnocentrism expresses itself in a variety of manners. A common way is to regard others in stereotypical terms. For example, in the United Kingdom the English, have traditionally seen the Scottish as stingy, the Irish as coarse and the Welsh as thick (Paxman 1998). Generally speaking, ethnocentrism is a protective mechanism that aims at reassuring the group and at giving it a sense of purpose. To that end it tends to boast the morale of the group by extolling the qualities of its culture. As we have mentioned above, many ethnic groups also appreciate hospitality and peaceful relationships with other groups; when ethnocentrism becomes extreme and inflexible, it may impair the group’s chances of survival.

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3.2. Theories of ethnicity We have already mentioned that ethnicity is a relatively new concept in the social sciences; in fact, it did not acquire a theoretical importance until the 1960s. Two books marked a major breakthrough in the studies of ethnicity: Ethnic Groups and Boundaries (1969), edited by Fredrik Barth, and Ethnicity. Theory and Experience (1975), edited by Nathan Glazer and Daniel Moynihan. It is no coincidence that conceptual developments followed on the process of decolonisation and the appearance of new ethnic movements, as well as the return or revamping of the old ones. The sociological assumption that the process of modernisation would lead to, first, a progressive erosion and, eventually, to the final disappearance of ethnic allegiances, was given a rebuttal not only in the predictable scenario of the developing world, but also in the developed, Western world. The classical conception of the melting pot, that is, of the assimilation of ethnic identities into wider national ones, had to be put on hold. There are two major groups of theories of ethnicity which are generally referred to as primordialism and instrumentalism. 3.2.1. Primordialism Primordialists believe that ethnic identity is so deeply rooted in the historical experience of human beings as to be virtually inherent. Sociobiologists, as we have seen, take this perspective a step further and assert the biological character of ethnicity. Instrumentalists, for their part, believe that ethnic identity is flexible and variable; that both the content and boundaries of an ethnic group change according to circumstances. Primordialist approaches contend that ethnic bonds are ‘natural’, fixed by the basic experiences that human beings undergo within their families and other primary groups. Edward Shils was the first to express this idea when he remarked that in family attachments there is a significant ‘relational quality’ that can only be called primordial. And this is because there is an ineffable significance attributed to the ties of blood (Shils 1957: 142). The primordialist position was further elaborated by C. Geertz (1973). Three major ideas follow from his work: 1. Primordial identities are natural or given. 2. Primordial identities are ineffable, that is, cannot be explained or analysed by referring to social interaction, but are coercive. 3. Primordial identities deal essentially with sentiments or affections. The final contribution to primordialism that we will examine is that of Harold Isaacs. In his book Idols of the Tribe (1975) he mentions the existence of a basic group identity which, for each individual, is the result of being born into a group at a certain historical time. There are a number of elements that contribute to the basic identity of each person:

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1. The physical body (which includes skin colour, size, type of hair and facial traits). 2. The person’s name (an individual name, a family name and a group name). 3. The language one learns first to speak and with which one discovers the world.. 4. The religion one is indoctrinated into. 5. The history and origins of the group one is born into. 6. One’s nationality, or ethnic affiliation. 7. The attributes that come out of the geography of one’s birthplace. 8. The culture that one inherits. Primordialism has been subjected to extensive criticism. In particular, the three qualities emphasised by Geertz – apriorism, ineffability and affectivity – seem to preclude the possibility of sociological analysis. Furthermore, primordialism is unable to account for the origins, change and dissolution of ethnic groups, not to speak of the more modern processes of fusion of ethnic groups through intermarriage. Many of the problems associated with primordialism disappear if the term is understood in a more flexible, less biologically determined, way. Without rejecting the idea of primordial attachments, it is possible to insist in their malleable character. These bonds are essential to human life, but the individuals of a group confer meanings to what they do in a symbolic way. For example, the passion and strong sense of loyalty that a person feels towards a socially constructed entity like an ethnic group or nation is often as powerful as that felt for a blood-based group like the family. 3.2.2. Instrumentalism Under the label of instrumentalism one can range a variety of approaches which are based on the idea that ethnicity is the result of economic, social or political processes, and hence that it is by definition a flexible and highly adaptable tool. Ethnic groups have no fixed boundaries; they are rather collective entities that change in size according to changing conditions. As to individuals, not only they are not assigned permanently to an ethnic group, but also they can be members of more than one at the same time. Ethnicity is then seen as dynamic. Some instrumentalists insist that ethnic affiliation is simply a ploy to promote economic interests, and that individuals are ready to change group membership if that suits their sense of security or their economic interests. Marxists have tended to see ethnicity as false consciousness, as a ruse of the dominant groups to hide class interests of a material kind. Furthermore, the persistence of ethnic ties in modern societies does not

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quite tally with the expectations of Marxist theorists, who predict that these ties will eventually fade away and be substituted by working-class solidarity. The best-known and most influential instrumentalist approach is that of Fredrik Barth. Two sources of inspiration can be noted in Barth’s approach. In the first place, the supersession of the idea of corporate group theory in British social anthropology. These groups were: a) biologically self-perpetuating; b) the members of the group shared fundamental cultural values; c) the group made up a field of interaction and communication and d) the members identified themselves and were identified by others as belonging to the group. Secondly, the interactionist theory of the American sociologist Erving Goffman, who ‘interprets behaviour as a manipulative game of play-acting in which we ‘manage’ the impression or image we create in others, and vice versa’ (Berghe 1978: 280). Barth’s methodological steps concerning the definition of ethnicity are as follows: 1. Ethnicity is envisaged not as an expression of a vague culture, but as a form of social organisation. In any case, it refers to culture; it emphasises the cultural differences between groups. 2. The main focus of research is the boundary that defines the group, as well as the process of recruitment of its members, and not the characteristics of the culture of the group. Boundaries have to be understood in the symbolic and social sense of the term. 3. Boundary maintenance is thus essential for the ethnic group and it is not primordial, but rather the outcome of specific ecological, economic, historical or political situations. 4. In terms of identity ethnic groups are characterised by both ascription and self-ascription. Constraint only follows when members agree to form part of the group. 5. The cultural features chosen by the members of a group to differentiate themselves from other groups, that is, to establish a boundary, are to a certain extent arbitrary. 6. Ethnic groups are mobilised, not so much by popular will but to a great extent by ethnic entrepreneurs or leaders. Following on Barth’s approach, it is possible to distinguish four major levels of ethnicity: 1. Micro. This looks into how identity is formed and experienced by individuals in the context of interacting with other individuals. 2. Median. This examines the formation and mobilisation of groups. At this level the key focus should be on leadership and entrepreneurship. Stereotypes are often important at this level. The median level exerts a constraint on the micro level, shaping the way in which individuals express their identity.

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3. Macro. This considers how the state affects ethnic groups through legal frameworks and specific policies, as well as through the use of force and the threat of force. At the ideological level the state has also a vast machinery (schools, media, and so forth) to control and manipulate information and to imprint particular ethnic/national worldviews. 4. Global. This investigates recent developments which are based on the emergence of a global discourse on human rights, the increasing roles of the United Nations as a peace-keeper and peace enforcer and of the NGOs (non-governmental organisations). All these elements have added a new dimension to ethnicity. Over the years the Barthian paradigm has been subjected to a number of criticisms. These are some of the most important ones: 1. Not all situations permit manipulation. 2. In situations of racial difference, choice may be very limited. 3. Barth’s theory of fluidity of ethnic groups applies better to the Third World than to the First World – where ethnic identities are often more fixed because of a longer period of nation-building and state formation. 4. The lack of historical depth in Barth’s analysis obscures the processes of ethnic fusion and fission. 5. By focusing on interpersonal relationships, there is a tendency to minimise the role of the state. 6. The transactionalist approach is often blind to situations of imbalance of economic or political power among ethnic groups. We should also briefly refer to two other approaches. A rather sophisticated sociological approach is put forward, among others, by Susan Olzak and Joanne Nagel in their edited collection Competitive Ethnic Relations (1986). Competition theories try to account for the rise and decline of ethnic movements. They are based on the assumption that ethnic identities tend to appear or reappear to become the foundation of collective action when distinct groups compete with each other for the access to relatively scarce resources (such as jobs, political positions, status, and so on). The objective of each competing group is to have exclusive access to these resources – a process that Max Weber labelled ‘social closure’. Finally, an approach that has gained some notoriety in the past few years is that of the rational choice theorists. Authors like Michael Banton and Michael Hechter insist on the importance of the role played by individual preferences in ethnic affiliation. This school is based on two assumptions: 1) individuals behave with a view to maximising their benefits (in terms of economic gains, security or prestige); 2) present actions restrict future choices. To illustrate the different dimensions of ethnicity we will consider how Spanish migrants have fared in Belgium, and more specifically in

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the city of Antwerp. The study was undertaken by the Belgian anthropologist Eugeen Roosens (1989). The majority of immigrants in Belgium are from Italy, Morocco, Turkey and Spain. They tend to keep their family network and socialise with their countrymen and countrywomen of origin. This is their main frame of social reference. They often travel back home and they keep in close contact with their country of provenance through letters, telephone calls, and so on. First-generation immigrants have the intention of returning permanently or retiring to their home country, although many never do. On the whole, they make little effort (linguistic or otherwise) to adapt to Belgium. Spanish immigrants in Antwerp, even those who have lived in the city for more than thirty years, tend to relate to and associate themselves with members of their original ethno-nation (as Catalans, as Galicians, as Andalusians, and so on). On the whole, they avoid Belgian politics. Belgians and other immigrants perceive them as ‘Spaniards’, a label that they have assumed passively, independently of their community of origin. They use this label to identify themselves with the authorities or with strangers. One could say that this is their public identity. They even insist on the presence of certain features of national character: warmth in their interpersonal relationships, more commitment to family life,and so on. At the level of social networks and free associations they tend to relate in terms of the ethno-national and ethno-regional divisions of origin. Most Spaniards know very little Flemish (the official language in Antwerp, which is a city in Flanders), even after thirty years of residence in the town. They only interact with Belgians in an instrumental way, that is, in the context of work, shopping and dealing with municipal or state matters. Very few request naturalisation and try to integrate. In the area of emotions and social relations, Spaniards are segregated from the mainstream of the population. However, Spaniards are considered by Belgians as a good type of immigrants, who have adapted well and who create no trouble. If there is any confrontation is intra-ethnic (Andalusians versus Galicians). Why do Belgians no longer perceive Spaniards as aliens, if not dangerous at least as cumbersome as they did in the past? The answer, of course, is that the development of the European Community has converted immigrants from other parts of the Union to the status of acceptable communities. For the Belgians the new ethnic boundaries are elsewhere, with the Turks and the Moroccans with their odd customs and their alien religion.

3.3. A taxonomy of ethnies/nations Ethnicity, it is well-known, develops alongside the coalescence of a number of objective factors (such as common language, common history, common culture, and others), as well as subjective ones (such

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as common consciousness, and others). Unfortunately, it is not possible to have a fixed list of elements which can be applied to all cases. The reason is that different ethnies combine the potential list of factors in peculiar ways. None the less, it is possible to establish a taxonomy by looking at the major values that can be associated with each factor. Based on the work of Krejci and Velinski (1981) we can put forward the following scheme: 1. Territory A. Compact. When most members of the ethnie/nation live in the same geographical area. B. Mixed. When two or more ethnies/nations live in the same territory. C. Diaspora. When the ethnie/nation has left or has been forced out of its ancestral home. 2. Political status A. Sovereign state. A proper nation-state. B. Federated status. A number of ethno-nations forming a state on an equal basis. C. Autonomous status. D. No status of self-government recognised. 3. History A. Related. The ethno-nations had an independent political existence in the past. B. Unrelated. The ethno-nations were never self-governing in the past. 4. Culture A. Language is the defining element. B. Religion is the defining element. C. Political conditions are the defining element. D. The special way of life is the defining element. 5. Language A. Own. The ethnie/nation possesses its own spoken and literary language. B. Shared. The ethnie/nation shares its language with another group. C. Own and shared. The ethnie/nation is bilingual. 6. National consciousness A. Ethnic. When the basis is language and associated culture. B. Political. When the group is sovereign. C. Ethnic and political. If the basis of the group is both.

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3.4. Ethnic conflict The major reason why anthropology, and the social sciences in general, have paid so much attention to ethnicity in the last quarter of the twentieth century is because of its resilience in the face of predictions by both liberals and Marxists that it would soon fade away. Ethnicity has not only persisted, and even flourished, but it has also been and still is an important source of mobilisation, conflict and violence. Whether we live already in Pandaemonium, as Daniel Moynihan (1993), has vividly suggested, is a matter for dispute, but all commentators tend to agree that we are being haunted by the spectre of ethnicity. Violent ethnic conflict is particularly common in our age: from the genocide of Jews and Gypsies during the Second World War to recent atrocities in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda-Burundi during the 1990s. It is important to remember, however, that not all ethnic mobilisations lead to ethnic conflict, that not all ethnic conflicts lead to ethnic violence and that not all ethnic violence leads to genocide. There is no iron law that solidly ties up ethnicity and violence. In a work that summarises the findings of a number of researches, Rodolfo Stavenhagen (1996) has put forward a number of causes that may help to explain the appearance of violent ethnic conflict: 1. The existence of exclusionary ideologies that define certain groups as expendable. 2. The fact that a society has recently emerged out of a revolutionary situation or has recently experienced a military defeat. 3. The existence of major and enduring cleavages between ethnic groups. 4. The presence of recalcitrant elites who have traditionally relied on repression to maintain their power base. 5. Elites’ use of power to accrue differential rewards to the ethnic groups that have shown them loyalty over a period of time. As a way of demonstrating the complexity of ethnic conflict reference will be made to two case-studies: Lebanon and Kurdistan. Lebanon Lebanon is a society that, for a period of at least fifteen years (between 1975 and 1990), ceased to function as a state and as a nation. The state of Lebanon was created in 1943. Under the auspices of the colonial power (France), a new polity was created. An agreement to share power between the Sunni Muslims and the Christian Maronites constituted the basis of the new state. The Shiite minority, 17% of the population at the time of independence, was only given a symbolic representation in the political system. There were also other ethnic groups that had settled in

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Lebanon at different historical moments: Druzes, Syrians, Kurds, Armenians, Greeks, Palestinians, and others. Over the years there developed a growing gap between the elites and the mass of the population. The Maronite bourgeoisie enjoyed much of the benefits of the economic development that took place after the Second World War. This provoked social and political unrest alongside the two major religious communities (Christian Maronites and Sunni Muslims). The strife was both an intra-elite and an inter-ethnic conflict. In addition to that, the Shiites joined the fight for economic justice and political disenfranchisement in the 1970s. After 1948 and 1971 many Palestinians flew to Lebanon and lived there in refugee camps and with a pariah status. At some stage they joined the Shiites in their struggle against the establishment. To complicate the equation, external powers such as Syria and Israel (directly) and Iran and the USA (indirectly) intervened in Lebanese politics. Between 1975 (and even earlier) and 1990, Lebanon became a battleground for all the different ethnic groups and their foreign backers: Maronites against Shiites and Palestinians, Sunnis against Shiites, Palestinian factions against each other. Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, conquering Beirut and forcing Palestinians into Syria and elsewhere; however, it retreated in 1985, keeping only a security zone in the South. Syria also invaded Lebanon and has established a de facto protectorate, ending the political domination of the Christian Maronites. In 1991 a fragile agreement, brokered by external powers, introduced parity between the major ethnic groups (Maronites and Sunnis). Now, if we try to summarise the main factors that explain the Lebanese ethnic conflict we can list the following ones: 1. Major ethnic cleavages developed, mostly alongside a religious basis. 2. The inability of the state or of the civil society to find a way out of the ethnic strife. 3. A long history of differential access to social and economic positions by the different ethnic groups, both under Ottoman rule and under French colonialism, 4. Both Muslim communities (Sunnis and Shiites) perceived that their situation of economic underdevelopment was due to the privileged position occupied by the dominant ethnic group (Maronites). 5. On the whole, the maintenance of power by the elites was based on the manipulation of ethnic differences. 6. Inter-ethnic conflict was exacerbated by the intervention of foreign powers (Syria, Israel, and others) and by the arrival of massive numbers of Palestinians. 7. Although actors defined themselves in religious/ethnic terms, there were ongoing issues of political power and economic resources.

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Kurdistan Kurdistan is an excellent illustration of how ethnic conflicts are generated, fostered and manipulated by Great Powers, with no concern for the mass of the people. The Kurdish problem started in the 1920s when the Kurdish people were denied the state they had been promised in the Treaty of Sèvres (1920). In the past, France and Britain, and the USA for a long time, have thwarted the chances of an independent Kurdistan mostly for economic (oil) and geo-strategic reasons. Of course, the states of the area where the Kurds live (Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria) have also been strongly opposed to the existence of an independent Kurdistan. The Kurds, with a population of approximately 25 million people, are landlocked in a mountainous area where they practise agriculture and raise livestock. Traditionally, Kurdish society is segmented into local territorial tribes made up of clans and extended families. Internecine intertribal conflict has prevented the Kurds from forming a unified nationalist movement. Mostly Sunni Muslims, the Kurds had traditionally invested their mullahs with authority. The presence of Sufi brotherhoods among the Kurds has been a source of political leadership (both Mustafa Barzani and Jalal Talabani belonged to Sufi families). Kurdish identity is expressed in a variety of ways: 1. A distinctive Kurdish language (with various dialects) which is very different from other languages spoken in the area (Turkish, Farsi, Arabic). 2. A history of revolts first against the Ottomans and later against the successor states. 3. A clear and distinctive territory. 4. A culture and social organisation that separates them from their neighbours. 5. A more or less developed national awareness. The situation of the Kurds varies from state to state. For example, in Turkey, where they constitute a quarter of the population (12 million), they were not even recognised as a national minority until 1990. In fact, since the establishment of the modern Turkish state in the 1920s, the national identity of the Kurds has been supressed. The Constitution of 1980 forbade the Kurdish language and any expression of Kurdish identity. Eastern Anatolia, their homeland, was governed from Ankara with an iron hand. Human rights violations were constant. In general, the Turkish policy has been twofold: on the one hand, they have encouraged or forced migration to urban centres where assimilation into Turkish identity is likely to follow; on the other, in Eastern Anatolia, they proceeded with a policy of forced Turkification (by changing village names, educating in Turkish, diffusing the Turkish national ideology, and so on). In 1990 the Kurdish were acknowledged as a collectivity, and

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the expression of their language and identity permitted, although Kurdish political activity as such was severely limited. In Iraq, where they occupy 20% of the territory rich in oil, the 3 million Kurds have also had a hard time. Strong Iraqi governments have tended to be repressive, while weaker ones have offered some form of autonomy. Generally speaking, the Kurdish movement of Iraq has managed to challenge the Iraqi government, but has failed to achieve an independent Kurdistan. The fact that the government recognised in 1970 that the country consisted of two ethnies – Arabs and Kurds – did not present a ferocious repression in the late 1980s. Iran, where Kurds make up 15% of the population (7 million), had a short-lived Kurdish state (the Republic of Mahabad that lasted for one year, from 1945 to 1946). Iran has also enforced strong policies of assimilation, compelling the nomadic Kurds, who tended to be poor, to settle; it has imposed Farsi in schools and has generally subjected the Kurds to strict governmental control. In Syria, the Kurdish minority is about 10% of the population (1 million). Traditionally the Kurds have been well-integrated into the social life of the country. However, in the 1960s and 1970s, the Kurds were Arabised, but the process was flexible and tolerant. Generally speaking, the Syrian Kurds have played a political role in the life of the country. There is a large Kurdish diaspora of over 1 million people dispersed through Europe, Canada, USA, Australia, and elsewhere.

3.5. The regulation of ethnic conflict In this final section on ethnicity, we will be considering the different ways in which societies come to terms with ethnic differences and conflict. It is important to remember that to provide a comprehensive taxonomy of all the types of regulation, we will have to look at empirical situations even if some of them are morally repugnant. Following McGarry and O’Leary (1993) we will be looking at two major categories: methods for eliminating differences and methods for managing differences. The complete taxonomy includes eight methods, four in each category: Eliminating Differences

Managing of Differences

Genocide

Hegemonic control

Forced mass-population transfers

Arbitration (third part intervention)

Partition and/or secession (self-determination)

Cantonisation and/or federalisation

Integration and/or assimilation

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3.5.1. Eliminating differences 1. Genocide. It refers to the killing or indirect destruction of a racially or ethnically defined group. It is important that the concept should be restricted to the systematic killing of a people who share ascriptive traits, whether real or constructed. Genocide has been fairly common in history, particularly in the context of imperial expansion. It is also common in the twentieth century. In addition to the context of colonial expansion, genocide has tended to occur in non-democratic states where a given, clearly-defined ethnic community enjoys economic superiority but lacks military or political power (as has happened with some diasporas: Jews, Armenians, and others). Unless it succeeds in eliminating completely the people in question, genocide tends to fail in its objectives; the descendants of the victims are predictably embittered and will be a continuous source of political destabilisation. 2. Forced mass-population transfer. This situation applies when an ethnic group is forcefully transported to a territory different from that of its homeland. Empires often engage in this sort of practice. In recent times the expression ‘ethnic cleansing’ has been coined to refer to the expulsion of populations from their traditional territory. It is difficult to see how this move can eliminate ethnic conflict; at best it displaces it elsewhere. This was the case in the former Soviet Union where a few ethnic groups were forced away from their homeland, only to generate problems elsewhere. The Palestinians are another example. On the other hand, voluntary exchanges of population, as it happened with the Turkish-Greek exchanges of the 1920s, may have the desired results. 3. Partition and/or secession (self-determination). While the two previous policies are righly considered morally unacceptable by the international community, the right to self-determination is enshrined in the United Nations Charter, although its practical application is rather controversial. Ethnic communities, which are locked unhappily in a state not of their choice, should be able to free themselves from such an arrangement and form their own state. There are a few historical examples in which this has occurred peacefully (such as the separation of Norway from Sweden in 1906 and that of Slovakia from Czechoslovakia in 1993). In many other cases the existing states have been extremely reluctant to accept secession, have used force to repress the separatist movements, and this has led in turn to an escalation of violence on both sides. Even if a given state is willing to allow secession, it is not always clear to whom the self-determination principle applies, which is the relevant territory that should secede and who is allowed to vote in a referendum. Furthermore, many multi-ethnic states rightly fear that if one ethno-

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nation becomes independent others will seek the same path. The experience of the dismembering of the Soviet Union after the collapse of communism in 1989 exemplifies many of these problems. 4. Integration and/or assimilation. These are probably the most common procedures that states use to eliminate ethnic differences and conflicts. By integration is meant the creation of a situation in which all the individuals of a society, independently of their ethnic affiliations, have a sense of community and expressed loyalty to the state. In today’s terminology this is often labelled ‘civic integration’, that is, equal citizenship with preservation of ethnic identity at the non-public level. The aim of assimilation is to create a culturally and linguistically homogeneous society either through incentives or through coercion, or a combination of both. Although often presented as the creation of a new identity, assimilation consists in the subordination of different ethnies to the language, values and lifeways of the dominant group. In some immigration societies, for example in the USA, the newcomers (at least until recently) have tended to integrate/assimilate rather well, hence the expression ‘the melting pot’. In most of the new ex-colonial states of the Third World, and in a good number of the old multiethnic/national states, integration/assimilation has proved to be a rather elusive goal. Both socialists and liberals entertained hopes that nation-building would be successful and rejected any solution that meant the creation of a political structure that would preserve a balance of power between the different ethnic groups. 3.5.2. Managing differences 1. Hegemonic control. This concept, coined by Ian Lustick following Gramsci, refers to a situation in which the state suppresses or contains ethnic conflict by coercive domination of the subordinate ethnic groups and by co-option of their elites. Hegemonic control is typical of the classical authoritarian empires and states, but it is also common in the twentieth century. A situation of perfect hegemony occurs only when the idea of ethnic separatism becomes unthinkable. In democratic societies hegemonic control is rare, but not unknown; Israel and apartheid South Africa are cases where an ethnic group had hegemonic control over others, while preserving democracy for the ruling ethnie. Northern Ireland between 1920 and 1972 is another case of hegemonic control by the Protestant majority. Another generalisation worth is that in authoritarian multi-ethnic states, ethnic challenges often follow a transition to democracy (Spain and the Soviet Union are cases in point). Finally, hegemonic control is often defended as the lesser of evils, particularly after situations of protracted warfare (as in Lebanon).

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2. Arbitration (third-party intervention). This is a well-established, but perhaps not so well known, procedure to manage ethnic strife in multi-ethnic states. It involves the mediation of a disinterested foreign country that does not only offer its services to resolve the dispute in question, but it is in a position to make recommendations. Arbiters have to have the trust of all the involved parts and to be in a position to take the relevant political decisions that all the parties will comply with. Great Powers often take it upon themselves to become self-appointed arbiters. 3. Cantonisation and /or federalisation. Cantonisation, of which Switzerland is the obvious paradigm, involves devolution of power usually to small ethnic communities that have hitherto enjoyed sovereignty of a limited kind. It is important to differentiate decentralisation from cantonisation, because is only the latter recognises ethnic differences and may contemplate asymmetrical types of relationships between the different cantons and the central government. The basic principle presiding cantonisation is the creation of selfgoverning homogeneous ethnic communities, no matter how small they be. Federalism is not the same as cantonisation. To start with, the devolved units tend to be much larger in a federal system than in a cantonised system. In a federal system there is a clear separation of powers between the centre and the federal states. Furthermore, the boundaries of each federal state will tend to reflect ethnic boundaries if these exist. When the ethnic groups are not territorially clustered, the benefits of federalism are more dubious (as the case of the former Yugoslavia shows). Many states that present themselves as federal are too centralised for the denomination to make sense (as in the case of the former Soviet Union). 4. Consociation or power-sharing. The concept of consociation was first formulated by Arend Lijphart when reflecting on the political experience of the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada and other countries. What is common to these experiences is, first of all, a vertical segmentation of the population into various communities on the basis of differential ethnic features; second, an institutionalisation of the process of negotiation. To forestall ethnic conflict four major strategies can be devised: first, a grand coalition of all ethnic groups; second, a mutual veto on decision-making; third, ethnic proportionality in the allocation of offices, life opportunities, and so on; and fourth, ethnic autonomy, which tends to lead to federalism. One of the key characteristics of power-sharing is the avoidance of majority rule. Consociational experiments do not always work, particularly in new, pseudo-democratic states. The cases of Lebanon, Malaysia, Fiji and Cyprus are cases in point. Furthermore, where societies are sharply divided along ethnic lines, the results of consociation are rather poor.

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4. Race 4.1. Views on race: the early period The most striking thing about the use of the word ‘race’ is its amazing diversity both in time and space. Expressions such as ‘human race’, ‘English race’, ‘Latin race’, ‘Jewish race’, ‘superior race’, ‘Mongoloid race’, and so on in common use until recent times in popular language, as well as in cultured and scientific ones. What this shows is that, historically, the idea of race has been intertwined with the ideas of class, people, ethnic group, nation, and others. What all these terms – such as race, class, nation, people, and ethnic group – have in common is that they are all reflections of the importance of boundaries in human society. That these boundaries delimit groups which are defined by a variety of criteria (biological, environmental, historical, and so forth) and which are endowed with powerful symbolic associations, is hardly a great discovery. We could say, paraphrasing Lévi-Strauss, that boundaries are good for thinking about human beings, but we should add that they are also good for manipulating them, dominating them and exploiting them. Racial boundaries are extremely malleable mental maps of the human continuum: in fact, even the most manifest morphological features (skin colour, shape of skull, colour of hair, and so on) are only perceived and made use of under given cultural conditions and circumstances. Now the word ‘race’ is relatively recent in the European languages. It probably derives from the Latin ratio, in the sense of species. The word first appeared in southwestern European languages (Italian, Catalan, Portuguese, Spanish) towards the end of the Middle Ages, although it was not used until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in other European countries (France, England). In Germany the term was restricted to the animal realm until the late eighteenth century. In its original sense, race referred to a group of persons (but also of animals or plants) with common descent. It was a word that was closely related to, if not synonymous with, terms such as ‘caste’, ‘parentage’, ‘stock’, ‘lineage’, et cetera. Behind the idea of race there was, from the very beginning, an assumption of biological unity whichever way that might be conceived. This is obvious if one considers, as we shall see below, the expression ‘purity of blood’ as it was used in the Iberian peninsula as early as the late fifteenth century. Was this, as Poliakov has propounded, the first form of legalised racism in Europe? In the twentieth century, ‘racism’ has been an extremely emotive word, particularly since the Nazi regime came into existence. It covers a great variety of situations in which the superiority of one race over another is affirmed. Because of the extremely negative moral associations that the term elicits at present, “racism” is a term of abuse and should be used with caution, especially in the context of historical research. It serves no

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scientific purpose, and only very spurious and partisan political interests, to pass an overall judgement on western civilisation by branding it as racist. This kind of attitude, which we could label philosophising from moral heights, can only be justified from a blind presentism which insists on applying to the past the same criteria that are applied to the present. The suggestion that the notion of race is a modern phenomenon, though correct as a general statement, should not be taken at face value. As we shall see, it is possible to find thinking about race and racial attitudes in earlier periods of history and in a variety of cultures. Even more simplistic is the assumption that there is a lineal causality between the development of capitalism and the emergence of racial thinking. There is no doubt that there exists a strong correlation between the European slave trade and the upsurge of racial ideas and racism in the West. However, in trying to account for the development of racial ideas and racism, slavery itself is at best a partial and certainly an insufficient explanation. Racial distinctions are, then, not exclusive of modern times and are not restricted to the West. Different cultures have recognised that populations have different colours and have tended to associate psychological characteristics with each of them. The ancient Egyptians, for example, were the first people that we know who used skin colour for their racial classifications. They distinguished four races: white for those from the north, black for those from the south, yellow for those from the east and red for themselves. For their part, the ancient Chinese saw themselves as white, despised blacks and found Westerners, when they came into contact with them at a later stage, as strange as blacks. Both Greeks and Romans were also aware of differences between whites and blacks. It is important to remark, however, that these distinctions did not have significant cultural or social consequences, and, in particular, that race and slavery were not connected. Slavery was not justified in terms of biological inferiority, although Aristotle came close to that. In ancient Greece, the only rule regarding slaves was that they should belong to an out-group. The Roman Empire, in all its vastness, did not enforce any racial barrier or discrimination. However, one can find in the literature of the period disparaging references to Africans precisely because of their blackness (which according to Juvenal was associated with a variety of negative feelings). For perhaps nearly a millennium the West was insulated from contact with people of other races. Colour only touched the Middle Ages in a rather peripheral way. However, it preserved an earlier pagan belief that associated the colour black with death, bad luck, sin and filthy excrements. If real contact with foreigners was limited, the mind of medieval man was filled with imaginary beings (amazons, satyrs, hermaphrodites, monsters, and others). These were partly, distortions of the stories of the few travellers, like Marco Polo, who had ventured into the Orient.

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This prodigious fauna was the way in which the medieval mind conceived of the savage. In fact, the Renaissance and the early voyagers did little to change the medieval mentality; for a couple of centuries after the discoveries, travellers’ reports seemed to confirm these conceptions from the Middles Ages. Well into the seventeenth century, the travellers dividing line between Africans and apes was blurred to the extent that sexual intercourse was often assumed to take place between them. Even as late as 1781, Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on Virginia (Question XIV), could present as factual the idea that orang-utans had a sexual preference for black women. Anti-Jewish sentiment, which was common in the Middles Ages, became more acute towards the latter part of the period, even involving biological beliefs. The Jews were not only descended from the devil, but they also exhibited certain distinguishing physical features (aquiline nose); moreover, in the Iberian peninsula they were supposed to be the carriers of a biological stain that not even baptism could change. The presence of the notion of pureza de sangre in late fifteenth-century Spain was the first sign that a religious prejudice was turning into a racial one. The statutes of blood purity were socially important because being labelled ‘new Christian’ meant, at best, automatic barring from a number of professions, as well as residential segregation and other things. At worst, if accused of recanting, the person could be burnt at the stake. The Arabs, on the other hand, were familiar with peoples of different colour complexions. They even had their own theory as to how races formed: a climatic explanation that saw the sun as the ‘cooking’ agent. The saw themselves as intermediate between blacks and whites; or, to use their terminology, they envisaged themselves neither ‘uncooked’ nor ‘overcooked’, but just rightly ‘done’.

4.2. Race in the era of discovery With the coming of the Age of Discovery, starting at the end of the fifteenth-century, the Europeans came into contact with a great variety of peoples of different colours and other somatic characteristics. These peoples spoke strange languages, dressed in peculiar ways and exhibited exotic customs. In America, soon after its discovery, the Spaniards were asking the question: are the Indians humans? If that is the case, why do they not appear in the Bible? If they are not human, what are they – animals, monsters? While the American Indians eventually found in the end defenders of their humanity like the Dominican friar Bartolomé de Las Casas, black Africans were on the whole perceived – and treated – as racially inferior. This generalised anti-black mentality was the result of the continued interaction between certain stereotypes generated by the European contact with the African continent and the progressive identification of

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blackness with slavery. There is little doubt that the exploitation of blacks as slaves was justified with religious, scientific, aesthetic and other arguments. And yet it would be historically inaccurate to suggest that the ideological criteria used to perpetuate black slavery were all post facto. It was because in the slave societies of the Americas blacks were treated as beasts of burden and as cattle that they were perceived as nonhuman, as quasi-animals. And hence the early stereotypes were confirmed and crystallised into unmoveable prejudices. In White over Black, a most remarkable historical monograph on the early attitudes of North Americans towards blacks, Winthrop Jordan (1977) has depicted with dazzling and graphic detail, how the first impressions of the Africans on the English had long-lasting effects. Jordan distinguishes five distinctive marks or attributes given to Africans: 1. Blackness. Africans were perceived as blacks, that is, beings with black skin and black hair. The English were unfamiliar with both dark-skinned and black peoples. The description of the English explorers clearly expressed a sense of shock and horror when referring to the colour and other features of the African peoples. Now, Jordan emphasises that the contrast between white and black as colours was firmly established in English culture, and that was why the former was clearly associated with purity, virginity, beauty and good, while the latter was linked with dirtiness, sin, ugliness and evil. The projection of some of the attributes of the word black into Africans is already visible in the English literature of the late sixteenth and early seventeen centuries. Colour prejudice was a wellknown motif – of which perhaps Shakespeare’s Othello is the most popular example. Travellers, explorers, philosophers and commentators of all times were intrigued at how the black condition had originated. From the perspective of the Bible, if all human beings were supposed to be descended from Adam and Eve, at some stage within the limited and well-established biblical chronology of the world, human beings must have started to diverge in skin pigmentation as well as other body characteristics. The most probable cause advanced at the time was the effect of the sun, although this explanation was not without flaws (why were some Amerindians, who lived in similar climates, not black?). Although blackness was thought as an inborn and lasting condition (particularly after it was realised that blacks in Europe and in North America were not ‘whitening’), experimentally-oriented minds often wondered how long it would take for black people to turn into white (and vice-versa). This idea stayed in the English and the European mind in general for a long time, to the extent that even Buffon, in the eighteenth century, could suggest that the only way of finding out how long it

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would take to change from black to white was to transfer a group of West Africans to Northern Europe, where people had the whitest skin and blue eyes, and have them intermarry for generations until the predicted changes occurred. There was another explanation of the origins of blackness which was put forward in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and which had a long lasting and pernicious effect. It was based on a far-fetched exegesis of the Old Testament (probably borrowed from the Talmud and the Islamic traditions) which established not only that the descendants of Ham would become slaves, but that they would be(come) black. 2. Heathenism. Religion was another area which created a big gulf between English and African peoples. For a Christian the natives of Africa were defined as heathen, that is, unenlightened people who lacked the moral principles common to all the major universalistic religions known at the time (Christianity, Judaism, Islam). On the whole, no African ritual practices were seen as religious, at least in the early period of exploration. The chasm existing at the religious level contributed only to confirm the suspicion that black Africans were a completely different type of people. 3. Savagery. Closely related to the issue of heathenism was the issue of savagery. The Africans were seen as unpolished, uncivilised people, as all the different elements that constituted their culture were diametrically different from those seen as acceptable in the England of the time. 4. Beastliness. Jordan calls it a tragic happenstance that the Negro’s homeland was the habitat of the animal that, in appearance, most resembles man. It is ironic that while blacks were likened to animals, the chimpanzees were likened to human beings. The line between apes and men became blurred, and black people started to be perceived as an intermediate grade. Copulation between apes and blacks was seen as an occasional occurrence, with the existence of monstrous offspring possible, and even attested to. 5. Lasciviousness. The final attribute of African was their lecherousness. This condition followed from their savagery and beastliness. Black Africans were perceived as beings with an uncontrollable sexual urge, if not completely engrossed in satisfying their lust. The fact that they were scantily clothed and were seen as promiscuous and incestuous contributed to this picture. Related to this vision of the African as a libidinous animal was the belief that the black male sexual organ was of an extraordinary size, while the female of the race was represented as being sexually overt and pushy. Furthermore, the images of bestiality, particularly of male apes copulating with black women, endured well into the eighteenth century and no doubt

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promoted the idea that there was a close connection between apes and Africans. How far the coalescence of these five attributes, mentioned by Jordan, dehumanised black Africans to such an extent that in the mind of the settlers of the New World they became the sole candidates for slavery, will always be open to contention. Why Amerindian and white slaves were little used may have to do, as Philip Curtin has remarked, not with the colour of their skin, but with the fact that the rates of black mortality were much lower than that of other races. So there seems to be a sound economic explanation for black slavery in the Americas. In the context of the Mediterranean and of the Islamic world this rule does not apply, because the environment was healthier, so both whites and blacks were enslaved. Another way of probing Jordan’s claims is, of course, by inquiring to what extent Arab and European explorers (other than the English) shared the same stereotypes about Africa. There is a myth that presents the Islamic world as free from racial, anti-black prejudice. This is far from the truth. In fact, in the context of the Arab expansion there developed a perception of black people as inferior. The black poet Suhaym, born a slave, could lament his fate as early as the seventh century (Lewis 1980: 28): ‘Though I am a slave my soul is nobly free Though I am black of colour my character is white.’

During the medieval period the situation of blacks within Islam deteriorated. By the fifteenth century, Ibn Khaldum, the most famous Arab philosopher of history of all times, could write in the Muqaddimah: ‘The Negro nations are, as a rule submissive to slavery, because (Negroes) have little that is (essentially) human and possess attributes that are quite similar to those of the dumb animals’ (Khaldum 1967: 117). There are strong parallelisms between the way in which the English and the Dutch perceived Africans, although the Dutch discovered that black Africans were not completely savage. In fact, when compared with the Indians of the Guyanas, Africans were often materially more advanced, and their level of economic, social and political organisation was more sophisticated. Although less obsessed with colour, the Dutch soon realised that Africans were more appropriate for a plantation type of economy than the Amerindians. It cannot be said that the early Portuguese and Italian chronicles of Africa differed much in content or tone from the English ones. The descriptions that obtain are predictably ethnocentric, emphasising those aspects of African cultures that were more likely to shock European audiences. African societies were depicted as bestial societies: without law, without religion, without sexual regulations. The latter feature was

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often highlighted as particularly offensive. It was said of Africans that ‘are in carnal acts like beasts, the father has knowledge of his daughter, the son of his sister’(George 1958: 65). By now it should be absolutely clear that the process of dehumanisation of black people, which was characteristic of the early modern period, is not sufficient, in itself, to account for the appearance of generalised black slavery in the New World. An important point to remember is, of course, the persistence of slavery in the Middle Ages, particularly around the Mediterranean basin. In this area the existence of black slaves was of long standing. Portuguese explorers began capturing African slaves in the fifteenth century, whom they sold in the Iberian markets. They found them particularly useful for the cultivation of a new crop – sugar – in the Canary Islands. With the discovery of America and the need for a cheap and resilient labour force to work in the mines and the plantations, the fate of the black African, as a slave, was sealed. No doubt the prejudices attached to the Africans that we have previously considered meant that the African was the ideal candidate for slavery in the Americas. The rationale, however, was more economic than anything else, but by creating a cultural abyss between whites and blacks, the slave system was given a powerful justification.

4.3. Racial classifications: enlightenment and prejudice One way of looking at the Enlightenment is by condemning the philosophes for failing to conform to the moral expectations of the day. Leon Poliakov (1974) has challenged the idea that the Enlightenment was a century of universalism, cosmopolitanism and humanism. Whether it is Montesquieu, Voltaire, Hume or Kant, it is always possible, and sometimes even easy, to find in the writings of these authors, passages which smack of racism. In l’Esprit des lois (1748) Montesquieu held that slavery was against natural law, but he regarded blacks as little more than savages. Hume, in his Essays (1777) was even more outspoken in his sense of racial superiority: ‘I am apt to suspect’, he wrote in his essay ‘Of National Character’, ‘the Negroes and in general all other species of men...to be naturally inferior to the whites’ (Hume 1985: 208). The cosmopolitan European philosophe could not but feel pride for the civilisational attainments of the West, especially when compared with the backwardness of the peoples of America, Africa and Asia, as depicted in the travellers’ books. Voltaire’s Essai sur les moeurs et l’esprit des nations (1769) was tempted to account for this cultural retardation by positing, for example, that the black race was a different species from the white one, and that the intelligence of the former was vastly inferior to that of the latter (Voltaire 1963, I: 6). As to Kant, he was apparently anti-Semitic, as well as being

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in favour of preserving racial purity, although the ability of the different races to mate successfully convinced him of the unity of mankind. It could be objected that none of these thinkers represent the scientific opinion of the time. It would make, however, little difference to bring to the fore the leading natural historians because, in the final resort, they share what in a presentist language we might refer to as racial prejudices. Linnaeus and Buffon are cases in point: both portrayed non-European peoples in unappealing ways. However, it is possible to say that while most naturalists espoused monogenist conceptions, that is, they believed that races descended from a single original pair (Adam and Eve), philosophes believed that races originated from a number of different, ancestral pairs. Nobody has expressed better than John Greene (1959: 221) the predicament of the Enlightenment with respect to human races: ‘To the eighteenth-century mind the basic issue concerning human races was whether they were to be regarded as separate species or as a variety of a single species’. A number of consequences followed: 1. Theologically, the problem was how to make compatible the Biblical belief in the unity of men as descendants from Adam if the polygenist hypothesis was accepted. 2. Politically, the issue was how to treat subjected peoples: particularly if slavery could be justified. 3. Scientifically, if the monogenist hypothesis was accepted, how could scientiststs explain human variation? We can summarise the opinion of the most important naturalists in the following way: Buffon (1707–1788). Key work: Histoire naturelle (1749–1804), in 44 volumes. The main volume on the human species, and race, was Vol. 14 (published in 1766). He maintained that the proof of the unity of the species was the fact that there was successful interracial breeding. Racial differences were explained as a result of climatic, institutional and organisational factors. Linnaeus (1707–1778). Key work: Systema naturae (1735). He is the founder of modern taxonomy; he coined the term Homo sapiens. He distinguished two human types: Homo sapiens (Wild Man, American, European, Asiatic, African, Monstrous) and Homo troglodytes (which appeared in the 10th edition of 1758 and was dropped in the 13th edition of 1788). He was accused of gullibility. It is not clear whether his typology of Homo sapiens is a hierarchical typology. Cuvier (1769–1832). Key work: Le Règne animal (1817). He distinguished three racial types: Caucasian, Negroid and Mongolian. He saw geographical isolation as the cause for the existence of different races. He established a clear intellectual and aesthetic gradation of the different races.

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Blumenbach (1752–1840) Key work: De generis humani varietate native liber (1775) He established the foundations of comparative physical anthropology on the basis of empirical research. He distinguished five races: Caucasian, Mongolian, Ethiopian, American and Malayan. The Caucasian was the original race; the others had degenerated to different degrees from the primeval one. He criticised Petrus Camper (1722–1789) for his work on skin colour in which each race had distinguishing facial features. It should be pointed out that until the nineteenth century there was no clear and scientific description of gorillas and orang-utans, though chimpanzees (sometimes under the name orang-utans) were better known since 1699, that is, the year in which Tyson published a book entitled Orang-Outang, sive Homo Sylvestris. Some of Linnaeus’ supposedly human varieties are in fact apes.

4.4. Racial theories of history Nineteenth century society was concerned with racial issues, but the development of a concrete discipline of human racial differences was connected with black slavery in the Americas and was made possible by developments in natural history and the sciences of man. There were a number of important preconditions for the study of races: comparative anatomy (Cuvier), idea of species, difference between species and varieties, concepts of degeneration, reproduction and hybridisation, comparative linguistics and ethnology. A crucial text of the early nineteenth century was James Cowles Prichard’s Researches into the Physical History of Man (1813). In looking at this period, George Stocking (1982) has insisted that one should focus on the scientific issues as perceived by scientists, and try to avoid cheap correlations with racism, nationalism and imperialism. Scientific racialism is a case of bad science, not of pseudo-science; scientists followed the scientific standards of their time, and most were not consciously racist, though biases may be observed. It is important not to forget that there were different connotations of the term race in the nineteenth century. It referred to a variety of groupings: linguistic, cultural, religious, national, ethnic, geographical, biological. In his Essai sur l’inegalité des races humaines (1853–1855) Gobineau put forward a theory of history in which the decline of civilisations was explained in terms of racial miscegenation between a superior race (the Aryans) and the other races; surprisingly, such a conception went along with a cultural relativist and an anti-colonialist stand. Gobineau wrote about race; there is no doubt that he was convinced that in the principle of racial hierarchy he had discovered the key to the rise and fall of civilisations. But his discourse about races referred to a distant past. As to the future, he was very pessimistic and saw no chance of stopping the decline of human civilisation.

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In his Essai, Gobineau (who was not a scientist) tried to apply the scientific method, as he knew it at the time. The hypotheses that he used, although extremist, were not outlandish, but perfectly in tune with the anthropological developments of the period. It is a futile and facile exercise – if undertaken from the vantage point of today’s biology – to dismiss his work as pseudoscience or, even worse, as mythology or superstition. He might have been wrong, but the history of the sciences is full of theories that have been refuted. In the second half of the nineteenth century the concept of race seized the imagination of the scientific community: from Comte to Renan, from Spencer to Darwin. The working hypothesis was that with race, scientists had discovered a solid principle of human classification. The fact that one could group human beings according to the size of their skull, the colour of their skin, the form of their nose, and so on had in itself a limited interest, particularly for social scientists. However, if a correlation could be established between race, on the one hand, and intelligence and character on the other, an extremely important principle would have been discovered which would undoubtedly throw light on problems that had puzzled historians for generations: Why are some people civilized and others not? Are some races unable to attain civilisation? How can the emergence and collapse of civilisations be explained? As an illustration of the period, there follow two long nineteenthcentury quotations on race. They were both published in The Anthropological Review in 1863; the first is by James Hunt and the second by Edward Burnett Tylor: ‘Whatever may be the conclusion to which each our scientific enquiries may lead us, we should always remember, that by whatever means the Negro, for instance, acquired his present physical, mental, and moral character, whether he has risen from an ape or descended from a perfect man, we still know that the Races of Europe have now much in their mental and moral nature which the races of Africa have not got. We have hitherto devoted our attention almost exclusively to physical anthropology, which Blumenbach first founded. We now require to investigate the mental and moral characteristics of mankind generally. The difference between the European and the African is not so great physically as it is mentally and morally... Whether all these physical differences, with the consequent moral and mental distinctions, combined with the asserted fact that nowhere does there exist a permanent Euro-Africa race, are of sufficient value to justify us in classifying the Negro as a distinct species, is a point which, for the present, I hazard no positive opinion.’ ‘I would therefore express a hope that the objects of this Society (The Anthropological Society of London) will never be prostituted to such an object as the support of the slave-trade, with all its abuses; but at the same time we must not shrink from the candid avowal of what we believe to be the real place in nature, or in society, of the African or any other race. It will be duty of the conscientious anatomists carefully to record all deviations from the human standard of organisation and analogy with inferior types, which are frequently manifested in the

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Negro race. These observations should be made solely as to the existence of the facts themselves, and without any reference to the theories that may be founded on them. Future generations will thank us more for the establishment of good reliable facts, than for any haphazard speculations.’ (James Hunt) ‘The native Australian and Andaman Islander may be taken as fairly representing the lowest level of human society of which we have any certain knowledge. To a civilised European, such a life as that of these tribes seems, at first sight, but little removed from that of the lower animals; but a closer examination shows that, though their civilisation is indeed very low in degree, it is the same in kind as that of more advanced races. These savages have articulate language; they know the use of fire; they have tools, though but simple and clumsy ones. There is no authentic account of any people having been discovered who did not possess language, tools, fire, et cetera.’ (Edward Burnett Tylor)

4.5. Racial theories in Nazi Germany It has been suggested that there are three key ideological components which prepared the way to Nazism: the biologistic dogma of racial inequality, the moral nihilism invoking the struggle for existence and ‘survival of the fittest’ as a universal law of nature. Within science, the most important Darwinian influence in Germany came through the writings of Ernst Haeckel, who emphasised a rather crude monistic materialism. His impact was mainly on those who were scientifically ignorant (the semi-literates, the petty bourgeoisie and the working classes). Both socialists and nationalists were influenced. What matters in Haeckel is the package: scientism, belief in progress, anti-clericalism. Crucial among the movements that prepared the path to Nazism were the racial anthropologists and the racial hygienists. The former were mostly followers of the anthroposociologist Otto Ammon and of Ludwig Woltmann; they were rather dilettantish, building national consciousness on the basis of the racial idea. After the First World War, the most successful author was Hans Günther, whose book Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes (1922) sold many copies. As to the racial hygienists, they were a small but influential number of academics; after World War I they became important with their renewed interest in population policy and eugenics. However, the most influential thinker of the period was the publicist H.S. Chamberlain. The two key premises of his book Die Grundlagen des Neunzehnten Jahrhunderts [The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century] (1899) book were: first, here are different races of humanity, with different physical structures and diverse mental capacities; second, there is both interaction and struggle between classes, and this is what explains historical change. Chamberlain envisaged the past in terms of a succession of different cultural periods, each reflecting the hegemony of a racial type. Western civilisation was the product of the Aryan or Germanic race.

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In Foundations there seem to coalesce all the major elements of racial thinking: Aryan supremacy, anti-Semitism, messianic and mystical notions of race, social Darwinism, eugenics, and anthroposociology. It can be said that Chamberlain put together the Teutonic myth, German nationalism and cultural idealism, with the result that race, nation and people (Volk) were seen as one and the same thing. The impact of Chamberlain (who died in 1927) on Nazi doctrines was obvious and direct; the main racial ideologist of Nazism, Alfred Rosenberg, in his book The Myth of the Twentieth Century (1930, in German), was highly indebted to Chamberlain’s ideas. The idea of race was central to the Nazi regime. Hitler’s Mein Kampf (1924) made racial doctrine the core of the Third Reich. Three major points define the National-Socialist position: the superiority of the Aryan race, the rejection of racial mixtures and the image of the Jew as an enemy of western civilisation. The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 enthroned Hitler’s racial principles by excluding Jews from German citizenship, although by 1933 Jews had been excluded from many professions and the arts. On 9th November, 1938, Kristallnacht took place. Bands of Nazi sympathisers, under instructions from the government, directed terror attacks on Jewish stores and synagogues. More than a hundred synagogues were destroyed and over 7,000 stores were looted and demolished. The name Kristallnacht refers to the broken glass that covered the streets of many German cities after the brutal attack. Soon after these events the German authorities began to talk about the final reckoning with the Jews. With the war, and the expansion towards Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, the German Reich dominated areas (like Poland) with millions of Jews. In 1942, the Wannsee Protocol decided the fate of the Jews: they would be eliminated from the face of Europe. To that end, extermination camps were erected all over eastern Europe; places like Auschwitz, Maidanek, Treblinka, Chelmno, Belzec and Sobibor became infamous for their gas chambers. By the end of the war, approximately 6 million Jews had been killed in what has been referred to as the genocide of the Jews or Holocaust; half a million Gypsies were also eliminated as part of a conscious Nazi policy to destroy this people.

4.6. Two case studies of modern racist societies: the United States of America and South Africa In this section we will consider two cases of societies which have functioned, until recently, as racist societies. Both the USA and South Africa have been defined by Pierre van den Berghe (1978) as Herrenvolk democracies, that is, societies that are democratic for the dominant race (the whites), but despotic for the subordinated race or races. This kind of

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society is characterised by an institutionalised form of racial exploitation and discrimination, sustained by an ideology that denies humanity to the oppressed races. Studies show that in these societies racial prejudice is easily internalised as a result of growing up in a racist environment, and later on it is rationalised or justified in terms of the economic and other rewards that it brings. Racist societies are stratified and hierarchical, that is, racial groups are arranged in a more or less rigid system of castes in terms of the power, wealth and status that they enjoy. While in traditional, agrarian societies there was a clear division of labour along racial lines and the ruling race tended to be paternalistic (based on the model of masterservant), in modern, industrial ones there is a complex division of labour and a situation of competition between the subordinate races and the lower class of the ruling race; this type of society tends to be more antagonistic, and racial conflict is of the order of the day. The United States of America From its inception in the late eighteenth century until the aftermath of the Second World War, the United States was a country characterised by institutionalised racism. The Declaration of Independence (1776), which stated that ‘all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness .…’ was not truly democratic, or liberal or egalitarian. In fact, it assumed that the expression ‘men’ meant essentially ‘whites’. As far as the American economy was heavily dependent on slavery and on the slave trade, the society that obtained was bound to be a racist one. Furthermore, the system was maintained by reference to a racist ideology that justified the exclusion of blacks and other coloured groups from the spheres of wealth, power and prestige. Blacks were envisaged as subhuman, animal-like; native Americans were first seen as enemies and later as pariahs. In spite of miscegenation, that is, of interracial sexual relations, which were common in the early period, the American racial system has tended to distinguish two types only: whites and blacks, the latter being defined as any person with some African ancestry who cannot pass as ‘white’. Common black stereotypes emphasised that they were child-like, happy-go-lucky, irresponsible, musically gifted, and so forth. The glaring discrepancies between the all-inclusive Constitution and the actual practices which excluded blacks and others from many economic, social and political positions, was not lived as a major contradiction except by a small minority of the dominant population. The Declaration of Independence, then, did not abolish slavery, although the founders of the Constitution believed that it would slowly fade away. The

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opposite was the case. In the South the plantation system required ever more slaves, to the point that the number increased dramatically from 750,000 in 1787 to 2 million in 1830 and 4 million in 1860. The North became uneasy about the continuation of slavery, although anti-black sentiment also existed there. This is how Alexis de Tocqueville, a French social scientist, portrayed the situation of the American slaves in his classic De la démocratie en Amerique (1835) (Democracy in America 1969): ‘Seeing what happens in the world, might one not say that the European is to men of other races what man is to animals? He makes them serve his convenience, and when he cannot bend them to his will he destroys them. In one blow oppression has deprived the descendants of the Africans of almost all privileges of humanity. The United States Negro has lost even the memory of his homeland; he no longer understands the language his fathers spoke; he has abjured their religion and forgotten their mores. Ceasing to belong to Africa, he has acquired no right to the blessing of Europe.’ (Tocqueville 1969: 317)

The War of Secession was far from having been exclusively fought on an abolitionist ticket. It is true that Abraham Lincoln saw the war as an attempt to renew the promises that the American nation had been conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Slavery was abolished in 1863 and in 1865 blacks were given the same rights as whites. However, the legal measures were insufficient to abolish racism, and in fact the Southern states progressively withdrew political and other kind of rights from the black population. Three major mechanisms were used to keep the racial divide: disenfranchisement, segregation and terrorism: 1. Disenfranchisement. Blacks were excluded from the electoral registry by a variety of means (force, residential requirements, literacy stipulations, customary law, and so on). 2. Segregation. With the development of the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’, which was sanctioned by the Supreme Court, during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century two parallel societies grew in the South: one for whites, one for blacks. There sprawled black urban ghettoes with their separate churches, schools, theatres, shops, professionals, and other facilities. Within the black communities there was a proletariat, an incipient bourgeoisie and even a political elite with limited powers. Everything was segregated: transport, restaurants, toilets, cemeteries, sports, entertainment, and so on. Blacks and whites only interacted in the work-place, and in a type of relationships in which the white was the master or the employer and the black the servant or the employee. 3. Terrorism. For those blacks who opposed the status quo, or breached etiquette, or broke unwritten laws, the punishment was severe. Cruelties ranged from beatings, to cross burning, to hate campaigns,

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to open intimidation and to lynching, some of which were carried out for pure pleasure The Ku Klux Klan was an organisation behind which rallied most white supremacists, and which had a wide support among the white population in general. Many blacks began progressively to migrate towards the North, but they found that discrimination concerning jobs, housing, and other things also existed there. However, by 1910, 89% of the black population still lived in the South; by 1960 it was only 60%. It was not until after World War II that important changes began to occur which affected the emancipation of the American blacks. In 1948 the armed forces became integrated, to be followed in 1954 with the integration of the public school system. The Civil Rights Movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s was a powerful strike against the racist system, and the ensuing changes for blacks were important, although limited. It certainly brought blacks into the political arena, also facilitating the emergence of a thriving bourgeoisie. During the twentieth century American blacks have been active in organising resistence against racism through a number groups and movements. The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) came into existence in 1909 with the aim of eliminating segregation and discrimination against blacks and others. Since then they have conducted many campaigns for equality, against residential ghettoisation, in favour of integrated schools and so forth. They have many hundred of branches and about half a million members. On the whole it has been an extremely effective organisation in the areas of civil liberties and of civil rights. One of the best known and most effective leaders of the Civil Rights movement in the USA was Martin Luther King. Founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, he developed the use of non-violent resistance to achieve his integrationist aims. He was a charismatic leader and the most articulate voice of the black movement. At the other end of the political spectrum the Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam pursued much more radical and separatist strategies. To exemplify these two positions there follow two short quotations, one from Martin Luther King and the other from Malcolm X (one of the leaders of the Nation of Islam): ‘I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”.’ (Martin Luther King, 1963) ‘No, I’m not an American. I’m one of the 22 million black people who are the victims of Americanism... I do not see any American Dream; I see an American nightmare.’ (Malcolm X, 1964)

At present the USA still has a racial boundary that organises the way in which white and black people perceive and behave towards each other.

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Although public discrimination has been outlawed, racial discrimination still persists in perhaps more subtle ways; more importantly, a large bulk of the black population still lives in conditions of poverty, and in some cases extreme poverty. To be sure, there are successful blacks in the cinema, sports, the arts and the professions, and even in business, the military and politics. These people constitute a solid middle and even upper middle class. Although accepted as individuals, blacks as a whole are still perceived as alien and dangerous. A very small minority of blacks have turned their eyes towards Afrocentrism, an ideology which, in some instances, states the civilisational superiority of blacks over whites. South Africa Of the racially-based societies South Africa was, until 1994, the most rigid, stratified and conflict-ridden one. The first Europeans to settle in southern Africa (the Cape of Good Hope) were the Dutch. They were soon followed by French and German colonists. All these groups moved progressively inland, entering first into conflict with Bushmen and Hottentots, and later with Bantu-speaking peoples (among whom the Zulus are the best-known). Many Africans were either killed or enslaved in the process. The European descendants of the early migrants called themselves Boers (that is, farmers), and later Afrikaners. By the end of the eighteenth century British settlers also started to arrive. In the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, the Cape Colony became British. For nearly a century British and Boers fought against each other and against Africans for the control of an area which progressively became bigger as a result of the incorporation of other territories: Natal, Transvaal and the Orange Free State. The Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) finished with a British victory. Shortly after that, in 1910, the British established the Republic of South Africa. The political system that emerged divided the population into four groups or castes: Whites, Indians, Coloured and Blacks. Democracy was the privilege of the European minority (about 20% of the total population of the time). Although white racism and the exploitation of blacks have been a feature of South African life since the arrival of Europeans, it was only in 1948, with the victory of the Afrikaner-backed national party, that apartheid was introduced in the country. Apartheid was a system of white domination that was based on a total separation between whites and non-whites. Following van den Berghe we can say that apartheid operated at a number of levels: 1. Citizens were rigidly classified in the four castes mentioned above. Africans had to produce identification papers to white authorities on demand. 2. Power was practically the monopoly of whites. Parliament, armed forces, the judiciary, and other institutions were all controlled and staffed by whites.

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3. In the rural areas, half a million whites owned 87% of the land while four million blacks owned the rest. 4. Whites reserved for themselves the best-paid jobs. The income of whites was fifteen times that of blacks. 5. Prohibition of sexual relations and of intermarriage between whites and non-whites. Law-breakers could be imprisoned for up to seven years. 6. Creation of separate public spaces for whites and non-whites (parks, transport, hospitals, schools, and other areas). 7. Creation of racially homogeneous residential areas for blacks in towns (for example Soweto in Johannesburg). 8. Placement of Africans in racially segregated homelands (Bantustans). Apartheid started to weaken in the 1970s. By the 1980s, black resistance, led by the African National Congress, and international pressures destabilised the edifice of white domination, culminating with the total transformation of South African society in the 1990s. There followed a new constitution in 1993 making whites and non-whites equal under the law. But overcoming the severe racial cleavages of South African society at the economic, political and other levels is not a matter that can be solved in the short run.

5. The politics of multiculturalism Multiculturalism can be understood in two different ways. First, descriptively, it refers to the condition of linguistic, religious, racial, ethnic, national and other kinds of diversity obtaining in most contemporary states. Second, in a normative way, it refers to the specific policies aimed at maintaining cultural diversity in modern society. In the context of this section we will essentially focus on the descriptive concept, although there will also be some references to the normative dimension. The condition of multiculturalism is not new in history, but its recognition and more specifically its politicisation is a product of modernity. But it has only been in the last quarter of the twentieth century that the word multiculturalism has been used in a much more comprehensive sense, including categories such as women, gays and lesbians, disabled people and other groups that have felt historically excluded from society. These groups, however, cut across racial, linguistic, religious, ethnic and national lines, and hence deserve separate treatment. The concept of multiculturalism is fraught with ambiguities because the reality that it purports to define is extremely complex, even if our attention, as is the case here, will be exclusively focused on the western

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world. To clarify the issues we must proceed step by step from the general to the concrete. For practical purposes, the starting point of any enquiry in the area of multiculturalism must be the sovereign state. It is true that in the past few years a number of world trends have weakened the force and resolve of the modern state, but the news of its demise has been greatly exaggerated. Supra-state institutions like the United Nations have limited power even to enforce their own agreements. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) is often ignored by member states. For example, some Islamic states do not include within the clause of freedom of conscience the right to convert to another religion or to be simply agnostic. Furthermore, the Declaration emphasises individual rights, but not the community rights of ethnic or national minorities. The case of the European Union is perhaps encouraging, but for the time being it is largely non-coercive, leaving the component states a great flexibility in terms of their policies. We have asserted that most states are multicultural, but they are so in different ways and to a different extent. The fundamental issue at stake is how multicultural states accommodate cultural variation, but without a careful scrutiny of the origins and nature of these variations we risk imposing rigid criteria which are only appropriate for a certain type of society. When considering a given society, the first distinctions to be made are between immigrant groups and autochthonous groups. Immigration may be voluntary (as when individuals or families move in search of new opportunities) or compulsory (when people are forced out of their place of origin by persecution, war, and other disasters). Immigration may be internal (within a state: this is relevant if the state is a multinational federation) or external (between states). Finally, immigrants can be temporary (for example guest workers) or permanent (legal and naturalised). The distinction between immigrant groups and authoctonous groups is momentous in more than one way; generally speaking, it delineates the absence or presence of a variety of rights (from political autonomy to self-determination). On the issue of immigration the time span is crucial; the tendency is that, after the second or third generation, voluntary immigrants will become assimilated into the host society or will have only preserved certain more or less folkloric features of their cultural identity. As we have indicated in the section on nationalism, most modern European states should not be referred to as nation-states for the simple reason that, as a result of historical factors such as expansions, unions, federations, and so on, they contain, actually or potentially, more than one (ethno)-nation within their borders. Three key features characterise fully-developed ethno-nations: a different culture (in the widest possible

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sense of the term, including one or more of the following: language, religion, historical memory, habits and customs and so on); the association with a homeland or territory; and ethno-national consciousness. Multinational states is the term appropriate for such constructs. What we have just said does not deny, of course, that in a multinational state, the members of the different ethno-nations may have a feeling of loyalty towards the state, particularly when the state recognises and protects their different ethno-national identities. This is much less the case when the state is controlled by one of the ethno-nations and the others are suppressed or subordinated. In addition to these ethno-nations, there may live within a state old-established ethnic groups, like it is the case with the Jews and Gypsies. It is a well-known historical fact that these minorities have often been discriminated against, persecuted, expelled and eliminated. If we now consider the formation of the USA and Canada, the first thing to realise is that they are ex-colonial societies where the Europeans settled in areas with small native population, who were subsequently either eliminated or marginalised. This stands in sharp contrast to Latin America where more mixed societies emerged. The histories of the USA and Canada are very different, but they are nonetheless both multinational states. The USA, for example, has a number of ethno-national communities, namely American Indians, Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, Hawaiians, and others. These peoples were forcibly incorporated into the USA by the Anglo-Americans, but their cultural distinctiveness and different types of rights are recognised by American law. American blacks are in a rather anomalous position: they were forced into America by the slave trade, but they are not an ethno-nation because they lack the required characteristics. As we have shown before (see 4.6.) they were prevented from integrating into American society. Canada, on the other hand, can be envisaged as a federation of three ethno-nations: the Anglo-Canadians, the Amerindian communities and the French-Canadians. One community (the Anglo-Canadians) forcibly incorporated the other two. The concept of multinational state is not uncontroversial. For obvious reasons, most states have traditionally chosen to present themselves as nation-states. Even in the social scientific literature the concept is often avoided. I have hitherto avoided any reference to the political and other rights of ethno-nations, and have refrained from using such value-laden terms as self-determination and secession. It is an historical fact, however, that the number of independent states has been growing, albeit unevenly. Although it is neither an internationally recognised right nor an internationally endorsed policy, many ethno-nations without a state of their own have signified in different ways, ranging from peaceful movements to terrorism, the desire to create their own state. Nationalism, we have stated above, is here to stay, at least for the

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foreseeable future. The demands of ethno-nations for either different forms of autonomy or for outright secession will not disappear unless satisfied, as we have seen when we have looked at the different procedures to eliminate or regulate ethnic conflict. We can now turn our attention to the issue of immigrant groups. As stated above, we are referring to mostly voluntary individual or family migration into another state (or to another ethno-nation within the same state); it does not matter whether the objective is permanent settlement or not, what counts is whether the immigrants return home or not. Within the context of the western hemisphere, the patterns of immigration vary tremendously. Both the USA and Canada are essentially immigrant countries from their inception until the present. This is not the case of Western Europe where mass immigration, except within states, is relatively recent. What we have immediately after the Second World War is a flow of immigrants from southern to northern Europe. In the late 1950s and early 1960s countries like the United Kingdom, France, Holland and others accepted, in substantive numbers, immigrants from their old respective colonies. Other countries, Germany in particular, accepted immigrants but only as guest workers, though many of them are now permanent residents. Today, most of the European Union countries have permanent immigrants, guest-workers, illegal newcomers, refugees and members of diasporas from all over the world, with a corresponding variety of ethnonational origins, religions, languages, races, et cetera. Robin Cohen (1994: 187–190) has suggested that within the European Union (and also within the USA) three major groups are emerging with differential access to rights and entitlements: 1. Citizens (nationals by birth or naturalised, established immigrants and accepted refugees). They are the privileged group. They have the right of abode, political rights (such as voting rights) and socio-economic rights (such as welfare benefits, pensions, health care, and so on). 2. Denizens (holders of more than one passport, recognised asylum seekers and expatriates). They are aliens, but privileged. They are often rich or in well-paid jobs. They usually have residential rights. 3. Helots (immigrants who are either illegal or undocumented, overstayers, unsuccessful asylum-seekers and seasonal and temporary workers). They are poor and have limited chances of changing their condition. They have limited, if any, access to housing, health, education, social benefits, and so on. If we turn now to the cultural rights of immigrants both in the European Union and in North America, we notice that, from the 1960s onwards, the idea that the destiny of immigrant groups was to assimilate into the mainstream culture of the host country came under

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increasing pressure. The demands of the immigrant groups have been of various types: the right to preserve their cultural heritage, the right to do or not to do certain things on the basis of religious beliefs for example, Muslim girls in schools sometimes ask for the right to wear a headscarf (chador) and the right to be absent from gymnastics, the right to be taught their language, and so forth. In other words, immigrants hope to preserve wider areas of their culture than in the past and, where relevant, they expect financial help from the state. Most states, however, are reluctant to make linguistic concessions to immigrants. A case in point is the campaign by some Hispanics in the USA to have bilingual education and bilingualism in some states. There has been a strong resistance from the US government and the local states involved to displace English as the only official language. Generally speaking, the so-called multiculturalism of some enlightened states has obvious limits. At the end of the day, concessions are made with the more or less avowed view of integrating the immigrant groups into the host society. There is no prospect that these groups will ever enjoy the same rights as ethno-nations. This is undoubtedly an area of conflict, particularly when the cultural demands are made by illiberal immigrant groups. In the final resort, two different principles have to be accommodated: the cultural rights of the immigrants and the sovereignty of the state. In multinational states where the rights of the ethno-nations are recognised in a federal structure, immigrant groups will tend to integrate into the culture of the ethno-nation where they have settled. This is very obvious in the case of Belgium, Switzerland and Canada; but in addition to being acculturated in the ethno-nation where they have settled, they may also show loyalty to the state. For example, in Canada immigrants are expected to learn either English or French, but also to function within the constitutional framework of the state. Racism, as we have shown, is endemic in American society, but it is also present in Western Europe. It adds a new layer of complexity to the concept of multiculturalism. I think it is heuristically useful to limit the concepts of race and racism to phenomena which stem from colour (and, more generally, from physical differences). I am aware that many social scientists use a much more comprehensive definition that includes both segregation and exploitation. In my view, racism occurs when people are socially excluded because of their colour, and then also discriminated against and exploited as a result of their exclusion. We have an appropriate term to designate hatred of foreigners – xenophobia – while religious intolerance is an adequate name to designate the Western attitude towards Islam and other religions. Finally, ethnocentrism covers a wide range of attitudes and practices directed against other groups.

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The issue of racism in the European Union has received widespread media coverage in the late 1980s and in the 1990s. In particular, acts of racial violence by extremists have been widely publicised; these have taken the form of terrorist attacks, street violence, vandalism of property, threats and verbal abuse. It is difficult to assess the statistics on these incidents in the different countries because the labelling practices are rather different. In England and Wales, for example, they are extremely comprehensive (including all forms of perceived verbal harassment across racial lines); the figure of such racially motivated incidents for 1992 was 8,000. In Germany, the statistics include physical violence by extremists; the figure for 1992 was 2,500 attacks. At the institutional level most countries of the European Union have legislation which forbids and penalises racial discrimination. For strong and obvious reasons, racist violence is meant to be diligently persecuted both in the public and in the private sector. How effective these legal mechanisms are, is open to dispute; it is a well-known fact that the authorities are often reluctant to prosecute under the label of ‘racial crime’. An issue of multiculturalism that often comes up for discussion is that of the place of Muslims within the European Union. Islam is the religious faith carried by immigrants who otherwise come from very different, mostly ex-colonial, countries and traditions: the Indian subcontinent, North Africa, Indonesia, Turkey, and so on. At present there are nearly 10 million Muslims in Western Europe. A sign of their religious vitality is the growth of mosques. For example, in 1962 there were only seven mosques in the United Kingdom; by 1994 the number was 600. A similar development has taken place in France, which counted in the late 1990s with more than 1,000 mosques. Alongside mosques, Islamic groups have started to proliferate with the view of acting as pressure groups: to defend and advance the defence of the rights of Muslims and to preserve their faith intact. It is well-known that as a result of painful historical experiences there are mutual fears and prejudices between Muslims and Christians. But while in the European Union secularisation has been increasing over the past few centuries, Islam has not managed yet to separate the religious life from the familial, the social and the political, as shown by the inequality between men and women under Islam. However, the Qur’an can be read in more than one way, and there are provisions in it for Muslims to adapt when they live outside dar al-islam (sphere of Islam). Here again the diversity of Muslim traditions must be emphasised: the Islam of the North Africans is very different from that of the Pakistanis. The divided loyalty that can be seen in reactions to such events as the Rushdie Affair of 1989 (when an international death warrant for apostasy was issued by an Iranian religious leader against a British writer of

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Muslim origin), the Gulf War of 1991 against Iraq, and the terrorist attack in New York and Washington on the 11th of September 2001 was much more visible among British Pakistanis than French Maghrebis. Difficult as it is to foresee the future, it is even more so when dealing with religious matters. Many social scientists, including some Islamic ones, believe that globalisation will lead to a secularisation of Islam, both in the East and in the West. In this scenario, faith will be internalised and become something private. How long this may take, and how long aggressive forms of Islamic fundamentalism may persist, is something that social scientists cannot predict. The condition of multiculturalism that we have been considering, with all its various criss-crossing layers, requires a complex theoretical approach which Charles Taylor calls a theory of ‘deep diversity’. We have pointed out that, in in our view, a major divide exists between multinational states and nation-states. The former find themselves in a position where secession is potentially on the horizon if the state arrangements are perceived to be detrimental to the cause of one or more of the constituent ethno-nations. If, as Will Kymlika (1995) has remarked, there is no shared identity, political unity may be difficult to preserve. The cases of Belgium and Canada are sharp reminders of this reality. However, as the secession of Norway from Sweden in 1906 shows, the separation need not be violent. A different issue is the religious, linguistic and ethnic complexity of the immigrant groups. Most states make some provisions for providing a framework in which no discrimination arises as a result of these differences. One of the most important issues is, of course, the access to socio-economic rights that citizens take for granted. We have insisted that no matter how multiculturalist a state might be, the final objective is to culturally integrate immigrants into the host community. The issue is not, however, one of total assimilation or the creation of an all-round homogeneity. The modern liberal-democratic state that is typical of the European Union countries clearly distinguishes between the private and public spheres, and keeps the requirements of the latter to a minimum. It is only in this way that it is possible to accommodate diversity. The issue as to whether multiculturalism will also be reflected in multiple personal identities is one that has attracted the attention of some social scientists. Whether the multiple identities are harmonious or conflict-ridden is also another important consideration. It is said that the future of the European Union lies in individuals who are able to integrate a variety of identities. Ideally one should be able to be Lesbian, Black, Muslim, Scottish, British and European all in one go. Here a number of problems come to mind. It may happen that as a result of colour and/or religion such a person would not be perceived or accepted as culturally Scottish or that if Scotland becomes independent she will

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no longer have the choice of being British. At present it is perhaps somewhat naive to expect that these multiple identities can function without strain and conflict; after all, there are still many unsolved problems concerning particularly race and religion.

Summary This module deals with some issues that are crucial in modern societies. We are referring to nations and nationalism, ethnicity, race and multiculturalism. These phenomena are found presently at a world-level and are felt with great intensity.

Essay questions 1. Can nations be invented? 2. Do you agree with Renan’s dictum that the nation is a daily plebiscite? 3. How do you account for the recent revival of nationalism in Europe? 4. How essential is language for ethnic/national identity? 5. What’s wrong, if anything, with the primordialist view of ethnicity? 6. Why is ethnocentrism universal? 7. How do you account for the emergence of colour prejudice in the West? 8. How do you explain the fact that most eighteenth and nineteenth Western century thinkers believed in the superiority of the white race? 9. What constitutes European identity?

Test questions 1. Is Spain a nation? 2. What did Marx and Engels think of the future of nations? 3. What is the Irish model of nationalism? 4. Which theory of nationalism conceives of the nation as a family writ large? 5. What is the difference between ethnic nationalism and civic nationalism?

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6. How would you define Scotland in terms of the six factors mentioned in the Krejci-Velimsky taxonomy of ethnies/nations? 7. What is the difference between ethnie and nation according to Anthony D. Smith? 8. What is the meaning of the expression ‘Herrenvolk democracy’? 9. What is the name for those who believe that all races derive from a single pair? 10. Who is the ‘father of racist ideology’? 11. What is the difference between ‘racial’ and ‘racist’? 12. Why do some anthropologists object to the concept of race?

Bibliography Basic Reading Anderson, B. (1983) (1991) Imagined Communities. (2nd Ed.) London: Verso. Banton, M. (1987) Racial Theories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barth, F. (1969) Ethnic Groups and Boundaries. Oslo: Universitets Forlaget. Berghe, P. van den (1978) Race and Racism. New York: Wiley. Cornell, S. And Hartmann, D. (1998) Ethnicity and Race. London: Sage Geertz, C. (1973) The Interpretations of Cultures. New York: Basic Books. Gellner, E. (1983) Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell. Hobsbawm, E. (1990) Nations and Nationalism since 1870. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kymlika, W. (1995) Multicultural Citizenship. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Llobera, J.R. (1994) The God of Modernity: The Development of Nationalism in Western Europe. Oxford: Berg. (2003) The Making of Totalitarian Thought. Oxford: Berg. Martinello, M. (1995) Ethnicité dans les sciences sociales contemporaines. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Poliakov, L. (1974) The Aryan Myth. New York: Signet. Smith, A.D. (1986) The Ethnic Origins of Nations. Oxford: Blackwell. — (1991) National Identity. London: Penguin.

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Further Reading Armstrong, J. (1982) Nations before Nationalism. Chapel Hill: The University Of North Carolina Press. Cohen, R. (1994) Frontiers of Identity. London: Longman. Connor, W. (1994) Ethnonationalism. The Quest for Understanding. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Davidson, B. (1992) The Black Man’s Burden. Africa and the Curse of the Nation-State. London: James Curry. Garcia, S. (1993) (Ed.) European Identity and the Search for Legitimacy. London: Pinter. Greene, J. (1959) The Death Of Adam. Ames: Iowa University Press. Greenfeld, L. (1992) Nationalism. Five Roads to Modernity. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press Hayes, C. (1931) The Historical Evolution of Nationalism. New York: Smith. Hobsbawm, E. and Ranger, T. (eds.) (1983) The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hroch, M. (1985) Social Preconditions of National Revival in Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Isaacs, H. (1975) The Idols of the Tribe. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press Jordan, W. (1977) White over Black. New York: Norton. Kapferer, B. (1988) Legends of People, Myths of State. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press. Kohn, H. (1944) The Idea of Nationalism. New York: Collier. Krejci, J. and Velinski, V. (1981) Ethnic and Political Nations in Europe. London: Croom Helm. Marx, K. and Engels, F. (1848) (1983) ‘The Communist Manifesto’. In The Portable Marx. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Mcgarry, J. and O’Leary, B. (1993) The Poetics of Ethnic Conflict Regulation. London: Routledge. Mill, J.S. (1861) (1983) Consideration on Representative Government. London: Everyman. Moynihan, P. (1993) Pandaemonium. Oxford; Oxford University Press. Nyerere, J. (1967) Freedom and Unity. Oxford: Oxford University Press (also in Shafer, B. 1982. Nations And Nationalism. Malabar: Anvil). Olzak, S. and Nagel, J. (eds.) (1986) Competitive Ethnic Relations. New York: Academic Press. Pflanze, O. (1966) ‘Nationalism in Europe, 1848–1871’, Review of Politics, 28: 129-143.

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Poutignat, P. and Streiff-Fenart, J. (1995) Théories de l’ethnicité. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Renan, E. (1871) (1992) Qu’est-ce qu’une nation? Paris: Pocket (English translation, ‘What is a Nation?’ in Bhabha, H. K. (ed.) 1990. Nation and Narration. London: Routledge, pp.8–22) Roosens, E. (1989) Creating Ethnicity. London: Sage. Seton-Watson, H. (1977) Nations and States. London: Methuen. Shaw, P. and Wong, P. (1090) Genetic Seeds of Warfare. London: Unwin Hyman. Smith, A.D. (1981) The Ethnic Revival in the Modern World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stavenhagen, R. (1990) The Ethnic Question. Tokyo: United Nation University Press. Stocking, G. (1982) Race, Culture, and Evolution. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Summner, W.G. (1906) (1966) Folkways. New York: Dover. Suny, R.G. (1993) The Revenge of the Past. Nationalism, Revolution and the Collapse of the Soviet Union. Standford, Cal: California University Press. Tilly, C. (ed.) (1975) The Formation of National States in Western Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Tyryakian, E.A. and Rogowski, R. (1985) New Nationalisms of the Developed West. London: Allen and Unwin. Wieviorka, M. (ed.) (1997) Une société fragmenté? Le multiculturalisme en débat. Paris: La Découverte. Young, C. (1994) The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective. New Haven: Yale University Press.

References George, K. (1958) ‘The Civilised West and Looks at Primitive Africa: A Study in Ethnocentrism’, Isis, 49: 62–72. Glazer, N. and Moynihan, D.P. (1975) Ethnicity. Theory and Experience. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Gobineau, J.A. (1853–55) (1983) Oeuvres, Vol. 1. Paris; Gallimard. Hitler, A. (1924) (1974) Mein Kampf. London: Hutchinson. Hume, D. (1777) (1985) Essays: Moral, Political and Literary. Indianapolis: Liberty. Khaldun, I. (1377) (1967) The Muqaddimah. An Introduction to History. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Lewis, B. (1990) Race and Slavery in the Middle East. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Nairn, T. (1977) The Breakup of Britain. London: New Left Books. Paxman, J. (1998) The English. A Portrait of a People. London: Michael Joseph. Pritchard, J.C. (1813) (1973) Researches into the Physical History of Man. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Solzhenitsyn, A. (1990) (1991) Rebuilding Russia. London: Harvill. Tocqueville, A. de (1835) (1969) Democracy in America. London: Fontana Press. Voltaire, F.M.A. (1769) (1963) Essai sur les moeurs et l’esprit des nations, 2 vols. Paris: Garnier

Answers to test questions 1. If the definition of the nation is ‘political’ the answer is yes; if the definition of the nation is ‘cultural’ the answer is no. 2. That they would fade away. 3. Nationalism against the state. 4. Sociobiology. 5. Ethnic nationalism conceives membership of the nation in terms of common ancestry; civic nationalism defines citizenship not in terms of blood but by reference to some political, cultural or social criteria. 6. 1.1; 2.3; 3.1; 4.3.; 5.2.; 6.3. 7. A nation is an ethnie with a common, mass public culture, common legal rights for all members and a common economy. 8. Political regimes that are democratic for the master race, but tyrannical for the subordinated race or races. 9. Monogenists. 10. Gobineau. 11. ‘Racial’ is a categorisation of humans into groups on the basis of colour or other physical features; ‘racist’ refers to distinctions based on racial superiority and inferiority, as well as the discriminatory attitudes associated with such beliefs. 12. Because it has no scientific value.

EPILOGUE Anthropology and the contemporary world

Anthropology, as we have tried to show as comprehensively as possible in a text of limited length, is an ambitious discipline. The concluding section highlights three areas of interest which are relevant to many anthropologists and other social scientists today.

1. The anthropology of Europe The ideas discussed in this section follow the ‘Introduction’ of Goddard, Llobera, Shore (1994). Any anthropology of Europe, as distinct from anthropology in Europe, must contend, at the outset, with two sets of questions. First, what exactly is this entity called ‘Europe’, how should we conceptualise it, and what are the distinguishing characteristics that set it apart from other regions of the world? Second, and perhaps even more problematic, to what extent does the concept of ‘Europe’ constitute a meaningful object of anthropological enquiry? If we cannot even agree on a shared definition of the enigmatic and elusive term ‘Europe’, the prospects of being able to study it anthropologically would appear to be somewhat limited. Furthermore, in view of the differences and divergences which exist in Europe at all levels, does it make any sense to speak of Europe as a context which can be delineated as a unit and therefore regarded as a meaningful framework for comparative research? An answer in the affirmative has to show that it is possible to delineate the external boundaries of the continent and to demonstrate that the internal structure does not divide up into subdivisions which are unconnected or unrelated to each other. At present there are three main reasons which suggest that Europe is a unit: increased economic relations between the different European

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states, increased information exchange through the mass media as well as personal contact through tourism, study, work and so on. At the same time it is also the case that these exchanges are intensifying at a global level. So perhaps the most significant factor to apply to Europe specifically is the increasing integration at a political level through agreements and treaties, and increasingly vigorous drive towards legislative and institutional standardisation within Europe, particularly within the European Union. So will increased integration within the European Union act as a catalyst to greater homogeneity within Europe or will it exacerbate differences between European Union members and nonmembers? When we consider the differences within Europe today, the general consensus is that, with the collapse of Soviet communism after 1989, market economies and liberal democracy are the dominant principles of organisation for Europe as a whole, independently of how long it might take for some of the eastern economies to implement these principles. However, this begs the question of whether these changes will eventually result in equalising the standards of living in eastern and western Europe and making for a more homogeneous whole. A persistent factor of differentiation within Europe is the socio-economic level of development as expressed not only in the per capita GNP but also in what is usually referred to as ‘quality of life’ (standard of living, level of education, state of health, access to cultural facilities and so on). At the cultural level there are also important historical differences although there are some indications that these might be, if not fading away, at least being attenuated. For example, with respect to religion it is possible to distinguish three major historical religious groupings: Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox Christianity. Linguistically, we can isolate three major groups: Romance, Germanic and Slavonic languages. Up to a point, a correlation can be established between religion and language group, with the consequence that on the whole there is an overlap between Catholicism and Romance languages, between Protestantism and Germanic languages and Orthodoxy and Slavonic languages. To what extent we can establish other correlations, between for example Protestantism, liberalism and economic development, and Orthodoxy, authoritarianism and economic underdevelopment (with Catholicism somewhere in-between) is open to discussion. Some anthropologists suggest that correlations can be made between anthropological phenomena such as religion, family form (nuclear and extended), and political orientation. Such a proposal raises many questions, but it does encourage a broader understanding of European societies and indeed it demands a historical perspective, without which these phenomena or their pertinent correlations remain unexplained.

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All these questions hinge, at least in some respects, upon the problematic issues of classification and definition, yet these in turn are not so much a problem of semantics as a matter of ideology and politics. This applies to the concept of ‘Europe’ itself. As the historian Hugh Seton-Watson (1985) noted, the word ‘Europe’ has been used and misused, and interpreted or misinterpreted from so many different perspectives that its meanings appear to be both legion and contradictory. Perhaps this is not surprising given that almost any definition of Europe is likely to be seen as both arbitrary and politically charged. ‘Europe’ can be seen to be much as an invention of literature and myth as it is of power. What is particularly interesting to note, both historically and sociologically, is the way in which the ‘idea of Europe’ as a political ideal and mobilising metaphor has become increasingly prominent in the latter part of the twentieth century. Much of the catalyst behind this has undoubtedly been the growth of the European Union and the progressive movement towards economic and legal union among the nation-states of western and southern Europe, and now those of central and eastern Europe. If anything, the growth of the European Union has rendered even more urgent and problematic the question of defining Europe. One effect of this, which has increased pari-passu, that is, simultaneously, with the advance towards the millennium, has been a growing number of speeches and books by European leaders setting out their ‘visions’ of Europe. The Treaty of Rome states that ‘any European country is eligible for membership to the European Community’, yet it fails to specify what ‘European’ means. Given the perceived economic and political advantages of membership, it clearly matters to some governments which side of the ‘European/non-European’ divide their country falls into. To some extent, therefore, ‘Europe’ might be considered an example of what Victor Turner called a ‘master symbol’: an image that succeeds in embracing a whole spectrum of different referents and meanings. But ‘Europe’ is also a discourse of power: a configuration of knowledge shaped by institutions of power that are themselves embedded in the disciplines and practices of government. Moreover, it is a discourse that has increasingly been appropriated by the European Union as shorthand for itself. However vague or ill-defined the concept, to be ‘European’ or ‘in favour of Europe’ is increasingly taken to mean support for the European Union and its federalist goal of ‘ever-closer union’. The boundaries of ‘Europe’ shift according to whether it is defined in terms of institutional structures, historical geography, or observed patterns of social, economic and political interaction. In each case, a somewhat different ‘core’ area emerges. Europe is a distinctive civilisational entity, one united by shared values, culture and psychological

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identity. To that end it is possible to point to Europe’s heritage of classical Greco-Roman civilisation, Christianity, the ideas of the Enlightenment, and the triumph of science, reason, progress, liberty and democracy as the key markers of this shared European legacy. Significantly, these are all features which European Union officials emphasise as being particularly representative of ‘the European idea’ as they see it. If there is something that we can call Europe, understood perhaps as an ideal-type, what characteristics does it exhibit? There are a number of self-regulating and autonomous institutions, associated with specific key values and types of freedom, which can be used to describe modern Europe. The economy is associated with prosperity and free trade; government with order and civic liberties; science with knowledge and academic freedom; religion with sacredness and religious tolerance; arts with beauty and artistic licence, and ethics with virtue and the right to follow one’s own conscience. To say that the beginning of the twenty-first century is a momentous period in the history of Europe is perhaps to utter a commonplace but at present we can only have a hazy picture of what is likely to happen in the future. As social scientists we have had to confront major events: the collapse of eastern European communism and the disintegration of the Soviet bloc, the increasing integration of the European Union economies, the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, as well as economic recession and unemployment and outbursts of right-wing violence in eastern and western European countries. At the same time, we face these phenomena bereft of suitable anthropological categories. Although many ‘classical’ anthropologists have contributed to the issues of nationality and nationalism, anthropology as a whole has been limited by its emphasis on small-scale units. Where progress has been made, largely through profitable exchanges with sociologists and social historians, this has been limited to developments appropriate only to the national state. In the present circumstances, at a time of incessant change, the danger that we are facing is that our short-term analyses may be dated by the time of their publication. Yet medium-term and long-term projections are difficult to muster when no clear trends seem to emerge. Charles Tilly (1992), a leading historical sociologist, suggested some prognostications concerning the future of Europe. He envisaged a number of possible scenarios. In the short-term he predicted two different trends. First, the proliferation of states matching the more bellicose and/or diplomatically successful populations that at that time lacked states of their own. This trend applied particularly to eastern Europe. In the second place, he saw the continuation of the long-term trend towards the consolidation into a decreasing number of more or less

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homogenising states; at the limit we are talking about a vast single European Union with increased state-like powers and a certain sense of cultural identity. However, in the long run Tilly saw, as the most important feature, the detachment of the principle of cultural distinctiveness from that of statehood. The implications of such a statement are that the creation of a strongly connected but multicultural Europe in which most individuals will function bilingually (or trilingually) and will exercise their right to territorial mobility following job opportunities and preferences. It also implies that the desire of ethno-nations to claim national independence in the framework of separate states will greatly diminish because the European Union will offer all the advantages of being a free nation without the costs and inconvenience of being an independent state. The existing states, in whichever form they may exist, will cease to enforce cultural homogeneity and political dominance within their domain. Tilly was well aware that this outlook seemed too optimistic given the lessons of history. That is why he allowed for the possibility of two variants which might be realised within the long-term: a benign development, characterised by pluralism and diversity and with an absence of squabbles and attempts at domination and a malign version, characterised by segmentation, hatred and parochialism, in the context of gross inequalities and violent ethnic conflicts. All these possible developments identified by Tilly have relevance to the anthropological agenda for the future, concerned as they are with the interconnections between culture, identity and institutional frameworks. The ability of anthropologists to meet the challenges of the future depends on our capacity to elaborate appropriate frameworks and concepts. It is important that, while capitalising on anthropology’s ethnographic expertise, bringing awareness of local realities and grass-roots reactions, we expand our repertoire to enable fruitful systematic comparative analysis. Anthropologists have wrestled for generations with the problem of relating the local to the national or the global and the temptation to succumb to the merits of the micro-study has frequently been overwhelming. But it is essential to persevere not only in locating the local within its wider context but in tackling the very institutions and practices which define and constitute the national and the supra-national levels in question. A historical dimension is important here both in terms of coming to grips with the nature and shape of groups and institutions and in defining the overall object of study itself, that is ‘Europe’. If Europe is considered as a unit, there follow a number of questions. For example, what are the political, cultural and economic consequences

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of mass immigration in Europe; what are the effects of global culture, particularly in the mass media, on European national cultures; how is increasing contact through tourism affecting traditional stereotypes about different European national and ethnic groups? We should also consider the impact of the global economy and the strategies of European and non-European transnational corporations and the extent to which these might shape national and European Union policies. Furthermore, what are the effects of the process of European integration on national identity and state sovereignty; are there any institutions or policies which are helping to generate a European consciousness? But given that ‘Europe’ itself is a disputed category and yet one that has a bearing on many aspects of people’s lives, one contribution of anthropology from an ethnographic point of view might be the exploration of what ‘Europe’ means to different groups and individuals, and the many ways in which they conceptualise or talk about Europe. If it is the experience of Europe that interests us, or Europe as a source of identity, then we need to be sensitive to the many different ways that this experience is mediated through other social factors such as religion, class, ethnicity, nationality and gender.

2. The process of cultural globalisation How does the contemporary world function at the cultural level? Is there a trend towards cultural globalisation? Lévi-Strauss wondered long time ago if the whole world would become a single culture and a single civilisation. He rightly observed that there were contradictory tendencies: some in direction of homogenisation, others in the direction of diversification. It has only been since the late 1960s that the world has appeared more and more like one entity, at least in some respects. It was in this period that the idea of globalisation came to make much sense than the traditional pious words about cosmopolitanism. However, globalisation does not mean symmetry, because we live in a hierarchical world with cores and peripheries. Two of the anthropologists who have looked at the issue of cultural globalisation are Ulf Hannertz (1992) and Marc Augé (1994). Anthropologists are interested in finding out whether economic and political domination at the world level translates itself into cultural domination. It would appear that this is the case, and the USA would be a good example of cultural influence as a result of economic and political hegemony. On the other hand, during the Cold War, the Soviet Union, which was economically and politically powerful, did not manage to translate its power into cultural domination, although it had some influence.

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Today the cultural irradiation of France and Britain is far superior to that of Germany and Japan, countries which are much more economically powerful. Of course, part of the explanation has to do with the fact that both Britain and France still have a linguistic and cultural hold on their former colonies. Perhaps it has also to do with the fact that some cultures want to project their values (this applies both to the French and the Americans), and others do not (Japan). It is obvious that American culture and civilisation reach many areas of the world, though never in the mechanical and one-sided way that many analysts think. Cultures are not passively received, but actively interpreted and modified. Well-known spheres of influence are science, technology, and popular culture. In France, it is high culture that tends to be exported. Of course, there are also regional influences like that of Egypt in the Arab world, Mexico in Latin America and India in Sri Lanka. As I said, it is naive to think that culture is a one-way street that leads from a few powerful centres to the rest of the world. In fact, there are specific cultural transfers from the periphery to the whole world (included the centre); this is the case, for example, with Indian food, Latin American novels, Jamaican reggae music, and so on. Wallerstein (1990) suggested that the world-system generated cultural heterogeneity rather than cultural homogeneity. This is against the grain of many modernisers who have always believed that the process of homogenisation was unstoppable. The idea of cultural imperialism, so popular today, also falters because it depends on the same premise. Popular culture, for example, is produced by a few in the centre for consumption around the world. Of course, at the state level there also cultural entrepreneurs who deal with localised popular culture, which may or may not be eventually exported elsewhere. It is clear, though, that the periphery does not play the passive role that many have assumed. The rigid conceptualisation of the world in terms of centre-periphery has also been criticised by Arjun Appadurai (1990), who suggests that the global cultural economy is more complex and disjunctive than Wallerstein makes it. He distinguishes five major cultural flows: 1. Ethnoscapes. These are the landscapes of people who are on the move: tourists, immigrants, exiles, refugees, guest-workers, illegal migrants and so on. This does not make for a world in which stable communities, families and work relations no longer exist, but it adds an increasing dimension of instability. 2. Mediascapes. These refer to the variety of means that exist to produce and spread information (radio, newspapers, television, internet, magazines, and so on), which may be private or public. Many operate at a global level and provide images and words which circulate around the world at an accelerated pace.

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3. Technoscapes. These are the global configuration of technology which moves across countries at great speed. Given technologies are not always centred in a single country, but their different components may manufactured in different places. 4. Financescapes. For many people, global capital has become more complex and mysterious than ever. Money moves around very fast and stock exchanges around the world are connected by electronic and other means. 5. Ideoscapes. Those are the ideas that stemmed from Western civilisation. Many of them originated with the Enlightenment, but have only now spread world-wide. We are referring to ideas like freedom, human rights, democracy, sovereignty, and others. These dimensions point out at an important feature of the contemporary world: deterritorialization. Money, commodities, and persons are moving around the world at a, hitherto unknown, fast pace. One can argue that these new developments are not as important as Appadurai and others make them to be, but nonetheless they represent a change of some magnitude.

3. Looking at the future: a clash of civilisations? With the end of the Cold War some authors predicted, if not an era of universal peace, at least the beginning of an era in which both capitalism and liberal democracy would dominate worldwide. Into this fray there came Samuel Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations (1996) in which he hypothesised that the fundamental source of conflict in the world to come will not be economic or ideological. The major divisions among mankind that will generate conflict will stem from civilisational differences. Surely states will still be powerful collective actors at the world level, but the principal conflicts will occur between nations and groups of different civilisations. The fault lines between civilisations will be the battle lines of the future. History teaches us that modern national states are newcomers in the world arena. In early modern Europe the principal political actors were monarchs trying to increase their territory; only with the French Revolution did national states begin to play a role in global affairs. During the period of the Cold War the main conflict was ideological and it took place between the USA and the USSR (countries which were empires rather than national states). However, the further back we look into history, the more we observe that civilisations are crucial; human history has essentially been a history of civilisations. For Huntington a civilisation is the highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity that people have short

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of that which distinguishes humans from other species. It is defined both by common objective elements, such as language, history, religion, customs, institutions, and by the subjective self-identification of people. This is a classical definition with which Durkheim and Mauss as well as Braudel could have agreed. A civilisation may encompass different villages, regions, states, religious groups, et cetera, and nonetheless be a unit. At the individual level this translates itself in a multiplicity of identities; a villager in southern Germany may define himself as peasant, Bavarian, German, Catholic, European and Westerner. What are the features of civilisations according to Huntington? 1. A civilisation is the widest level of identification short of the human species. 2. The boundaries and compositions of civilisations may change with time 3. Civilisations may incorporate a large number of people and extend over a large territory (China) or involve only a relatively small number of people and extend over a small territory (Japan). 4. Some civilisations contain a large number of states (Islam), while others consist of a single one (Japan). 5. Civilisations may contain sub-civilisations in their midst (two branches of Western civilisation: European and North American). At present there are, according to Huntington, seven or eight major civilisations: Western, Sinic, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American and possibly African civilisation. This is not an absolute list, because some categories are more clear-cut than others: for example, Latin America could be seen as a sub-civilisation of the Western one. Africa is split into a number of civilisations. Religion is a key defining element of civilisations. The major universalist religions (Islam, Christianity, Confucianism and Hinduism) are the foundations of major civilisations. It is interesting to note that, as we have seen, some of these civilisations are part of what Braudel called the longue durée. As to the reasons why there is likely to be a clash of civilisations, Huntington suggest the following: 1. Civilisational differences (which are based on culture, religion, language, morality, and so on) are much more basic and persistent than economic or ideological differences. And they are here to stay. However, difference does not necessarily mean conflict and conflict does not necessarily mean war. And yet historically a good number of violent encounters have occurred between different civilisations. 2. Globalisation and world migrations increase interaction among people of different civilisations; and that makes civilisational clashes more likely.

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3. At a world-level, modernisation weakens the nation state, but secularisation does not follow; on the contrary, there is a reactivation of the religious principle among the young and well-educated, often in a fundamentalist garb. Religion offers a basis for identity that binds civilisations together. 4. Westernisation is receding among non-western civilisations and its place is occupied by a return to ‘traditional roots’ – whatever those might be. The westernising elites are becoming a thing of the past. 5. Cultural identities are much more resilient and exclusivist than economic or ideological ones. 6. Economic regionalism is on the increase and it is particularly successful when rooted in a common civilisation; it also tends to reinforce civilisational consciousness. Huntington distinguishes two major levels in which the clash of civilisations will take place: the microlevel and the macrolevel:

1. Microlevel The clashes take place among adjacent groups who live along the fault lines between civilisations. A good example in Europe is the fault line separating Western Christianity from Orthodox Christianity and Islam. Many violent conflicts are taking place in this boundary since the collapse of communism. A second example is the long-term confrontation between Islam and the West, which has been going on for 1,300 years, with variable results in different moments. Many Islamic countries would like to see the West defeated and humiliated (as shown by Arab public opinion during the Gulf War); Islamic fundamentalism is on the increase in many Middle Eastern countries (Algeria, Egypt, and Turkey). On the other hand, demographic pressures force Muslims to migrate to Western Europe, where cultural clashes with the natives are on the increase. A third example is the clash of black Christians/animists with Arab/black Muslims in Africa. Finally, the clash between Hindu and Muslim civilisations in the Indian subcontinent.

2. Macrolevel States from different civilisations compete for military and economic power, struggle over the control of international institutions and third parties, and competitively promote their particular political and religious values. In the world arena, an important principle has appeared the kin-country syndrome. This principle replaces ideological or strategic considerations by the idea of ‘civilisational commonality’ according

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to which people of the same civilisation tend to rally together, particularly in times of conflict. The effects of this principle are not yet fully visible, but the tendency to develop is there. Another important development is that in the long run Western civilisation is likely to enter into conflict with the rest of the other world civilisations because of differences in power and differences in culture. The problem with many people in the West is that they believe that Western civilisation is a universal civilisation; in fact, the key values of western civilisation (individualism, liberalism, constitutionalism, human rights, equality, liberty, rule of law, democracy, free markets, and the separation of church and state) have little resonance in other civilisations, or they are paid lip-service because of western pressures. Some countries (Russia, Mexico, Turkey) are torn between different civilisations (Western and non-western); clashes are likely to take place. Other civilisations, like the South Asian, may make alliances to challenge the West. Finally, a well-known case is that of Islamism pursuing a line of military confrontation with the West.

Bibliography Appadurai, A. (1990) ‘Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy’ in M. Featherstone (ed.) Global Culture. London: Sage, pp.295–310. Augé, M. (1994) Pour une anthropologie des mondes contemporaines. Paris: Flammarion. Goddard, V., Llobera, J.R. and Shore, C. (eds) (1994) The Anthropology of Europe. Oxford: Berg. Hannerz, U. (1992) Cultural Complexity. New York: Columbia University Press. Huntington, S. (1996) The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon and Schuster. Seton-Watson, H. (1985) ‘What is Europe, Where is Europe?’, Encounter, 377 (July-August): 9–17. Tilly, C. (1992) ‘The Future of European States’, Social Research, 59 (40): 705–18. Wallerstein, I. (1990) ‘Culture as the Ideological Battleground of the Modern World-System’ in Featherstone, M. (ed.) Global Culture. London: Sage, pp. 31–55.

Index acephalous 130 affinal 38 affluent society, original 116 Africa, Africans bridewealth in 49–50 civilisation 253 nationalism in 196 polygyny in 47 racism against 220–3, 226 religion 254 see also West Africa Africa, peoples of Baga 55–6; Bushmen 232; Dinka 129; Hotentots 232; !Kung 115–6, 119–20; Masai 51, 128; Mbuti 115; Nuer 129–30; Pygmies 117–8; Tallensi 54–5; Yako 43; Zulus 232 Africa and the Curse of the Nation-State (Davidson) 196 age sets 50–51 agrarian societies 109, 134–6 agriculture development of 133–6 origins of 130–2 Algeria, Algerians 254 as a colony 170–1 Allen, Nick 52–53 America(n) see United States American anthropology/anthropologists 3–4, 6–7, 11 American civilisations 139 American Declaration of Independence (1776) 63 American individualism 62–71 Americans, native 71 Americas, peoples of Aztecs 139, 166; Californians 115,117; Cree 82, 115; Incas 47, 139, 166; Inuit 115; Maya 139–40; Sioux 83; Yanomami 35 Ammon, Otto 227 ancestor cults 74, 79 Ancient Regime and the French Revolution, The (Tocqueville) 66 Anderson, Perry 189, 202 animatism see animism animism 74

anthropoids 97 anthropology and colonialism 2 defined 1–2 fieldwork 3–4 and history 11–13 humanistic and scientific 2 and sociology 4, 13–14 subdisciplines archaeology 6 cultural and social anthropology vii, 6–7 linguistics 6 physical anthropology 4–5 theories of 19–26 Anthropology of Europe, The (Goddard, Llobera and Shore) 245 apartheid 232–3 apes 97 Appadurai, Arjun 251–2 Arabs see Islam arbitration 216 archaeology 6 Archaeology and Language (Renfrew) 133 archaic religion 75 Armstrong, John 195 Asia, peoples of Armenians 214; Dravidians 144; Hill Pandarans 57; Ifugao 140; Jews 53, 82, 152, 210, 214, 219, 228, 235; Kurds 195, 212–3; Palestinians 211, 214; Paliyans 57; Semang 117; Sinhaleses 195; Tibetans 47; Todas 47; Yanadiss 57 assimilation 215 Australia, Australians 168 Australian aborigines see native Australians australopithecines 98 Australopithecus afarensis 98 Autobiography (Darwin) 90–1 Augé, Marc 251 avuncolocal residence 49 Baechler, Jean 157 Baga people 55–6 bands 110, 114–20 patrilineal 117 patrilocal 118

territory of 118–9 Banton, Michael 207 barbarism 107–8 Barth, Fredrik 204, 206–7 BasqueCountry, Basques 133, 208 beastliness 221 Becker, Carl 63 behavioural superstructure 32 Belgium, Belgians 168, 199, 216, 237 Spanish immigrants 207–8 Bellah, Robert 70, 76 Benedict, Ruth 3, 8 Béteille, André 143 Bible, The 83, 95, 221 Big Man 121 Big Structures, Large Processes and Huge Comparisons (Tilly) 17 bilocal residence 49 biological anthropology see physical anthropology Birth of the Gods, The (Swanson) 74 blackness 220–1 Bloch, Marc 62, 149, 151 Blumenbach, Johan Friedrich 225 Boas, Franz 3, 9, 13 Bouglé, Celestin 3 Brahmanic India see Indian Civilisation Braudel, Fernand 156, 158–9, 253 Break Up of Britain, The (Nairn) 188 Britain, Great, British 152, 174, 189, 203, 212, 251 and anthropology 3–4, 6–7, 12, 15 and capitalism 167–8 and imperialism 171–2 and the Industrial Revolution 163–5 and multiculturalism 236, 238–40 and racism 223, 232–3 Britanny 171 British anthropology/anthropologists 3–4, 6–7 Buddhism 142, 144, 195 Buffon, George Louyis 224 Bukharin, Nikolai 172 Burke, Edmund 63

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Index Californians 115, 117 Calvinism 157 Canada 199, 216, 237 cantonisation 216 Capital (Marx) 96, 151 capitalism colonialism and 170–1 definitions of 156–61 imperialism and 171–4 Industrial Revolution and 162–5 transition to 161–2 Carneiero, Robert 124, 140 caste system 56–8 Catalonias, Catalans 208 Cavalli-Sforza, Luigi 133 Chamberlain, Houston Steward 227 Chamberlain, Joseph 169 Chase-Dunn, Christopher 113 Chevalier, Michel 65, 67–8 chiefdoms 110, 138 and creation and maintenance of 126–7 and land 125 and politics 126, 140 and religion 126 and wealth 126 Childe, Gordon 108, 137 Chinese civilisation 52, 75, 138–9, 141–3 Christianity 15, 53, 73, 148, 173, 195, 254 and feudalism 150–1 citizens 236 civilisation 107–8, 136–9, 141–53, 252–5 Claessen, Henri 137 clans 44, 121, 130 Clash of Civilizations, The (Huntington) 252 cognitive fluidity 133 Cohen, Robin 236 Cohen, Yehudi 121 colonialism 170–1 Communist Manifesto, The (Marx and Engels) 191 comparative method 14–5, 17–8 competition theories 207 Competitive Ethnic Relations (Olzak and Nagel) 207 Comte, Auguste 105, 226 Confucianism 142, 253 Connor, Walker 185, 189 consanguineous 38 Consideration on Representative Government (Mill) 191 consociation 216 Corsica, Corsicans 171 Cree 82, 115 Crow kinship system 41 cults 77

Culture and Imperialism (Said) 21 cultural and social anthropology vii, 6–7 Cultural Anthropology (Vivelo) 120 cultural globalisation 250–2 Cultural Materialism (Harris) 31 culture characteristics of 9 defined 1 parts of 10 theories of 7–8 Curtin, Philip D. 173, 222 Cuvier, Georges 224–5 Czechoslovakia, Czechs and Slovaks 199, 214 Darwin (Desmond and Moore) 89 Darwin: A Life in Science (White and Gribbin) 89 Darwin, Charles 5, 88–97, 174, 226 Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (Dennet) 89 Davidson, Basil 196 Democracy in America (Tocqueville) 15, 66 denizens 236 Dennet, Daniel 89 descent groups non-unilineal 45 unilineal 42–5 Descent of Man, The (Darwin) 95 Desmond, Adrian 89 DeVore, Irving 114 Dhammapada, The 144 Diamond, Jared 132 distribution market exchange 37 reciprocity balanced 36 generalised 36 negative 36 redistribution 37 domain administrative 155 patrimonial 154 prebendal 154 mercantile 154 domestic economy 32 domestication 133 Duby, George 151 Dumont, Louis 56–9, 143 Dunbar, Robin 25 Durkheim, Emile, and Durkheimians 3–4, 13–15, 20, 25, 72, 78, 82, 105, 109, 187

Earle, Timothy 110, 126 Early Modern State, The (Claessen and Skalnik) 137 economic(s), economy domains production 34–5 distribution 35–7 schools formalist 33 substantivist 33 Egypt, Egyptians 251, 254 see also Middle East Elementary Forms of Religious Life, The (Durkheim) 3, 15, 78 Elementary Structures of Kinship, The (Lévi-Strauss) 48 Ember, Melvin 47 Emerson, Ralph Waldo 63 Engels, Frederik 108, 156, 191 England see Britain, Great Eskimo kinship system 41, 60 Esprit des lois, L’ (Montesquieu) 233 Essai sur les moeurs et l’esprit des nations (Voltaire) 223 Essai sur l’inegalité des races humaines (Gobineau) 225–6 Essays (Hume) 223 Essenes 148 ethnic conflict in Kurdistan 212–3 in Lebanon 210–1 regulation assimilation 215 arbitration 216 cantonisation 216 consociation 216 federalisation 216 genocide 214 hegemonic control 215 ontegration 215 partition 214 population transfer 214 power sharing 216 secession 214 self-determination 214 Ethnic Groups and Boundaries (Barth, ed.) 204 ethnicity definition 187 levels of 206–7 and migration 207–8 theories of 204–7 Ethnicity. Theory and Experience (Glazer and Moynihan, eds.) 204 ethnies 185–6, 208–9 ethnocentrism 203

258 Ethnographic Atlas (Murdock) 46 ethnographic present 10 ethnography 7, 10–11, 115 ethnology 7 ethnonationalisms 198 ethnoscapes 251 Europe agricultural civilisations of 133 cultural traits 246–7 and feudalism 148–53 future of 248–50 idea of 247 transition to capitalism 161–2 Europe, peoples of Basques 133, 208; Catalans 208; Estonians 133; Flemings 152, 208; Finnish 133, 208; Franks 151; Galicians 208; Germanics 148–9; Greeks 214, 21; Gypsies 210, 228, 235; Jews, see Asia; Lombards 152; Magyars 152; Normans 151; Romans 148, 218; Scottish 195; Slovaks 214; Vikings 152; Welsh 171, 189 Europe and the Peoples Without History (Wolf) 165 European Union 190, 199, 237–8, 245–50 Evans-Pritchard, E.E. 54, 80, 129 evolution Darwinism 88–97 Hominid 97–100 human biological multiregional 99, 102 Out of Africa 99, 101–2 socio-cultural 106 Evolution of Human Societies (Johnson and Earle) 110 evolutionary psychology see human nature evolutionary theories 105–7, 202 Evolution of Primitive Society, The (Fried) 109 evolutionary typologies 107–114 family-level group 110 federalisation 216 feminist anthropology 22–4 Ferguson, Adam 107 Ferry, Jules 169 feudalism 149–53 Feudal Society (Bloch) 149

Index Feuer, Lewis 169 fieldwork 7, 10, 13–14 Finance Capital (Hilferding) 172 financescapes 252 Folkways (Summner) 202 foragers/foraging see hunting-gathering societies formalism see economics Fortes, Meyer 38, 54–5 Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, The (Chamberlain) 227–8 France, French 167–8, 212, 251 and anthropology 3–4, 12 immigrants 236, 239 model of nationalism 192 Frank, Andre Gunder 112, 156 Frankfurt School 20 Franklin, Benjamin 63 Frazer, James 11, 78, 80, 105 French anthropologists/anthropology 3–4 French Revolution 190 Freud, Sigmund 89 Fried, Morton 109 Friedman, Jonathan 156 Friedman, Milton 71 funds ceremonial 153 rent 154 replacement 153–4 Galicia, Galicians 208 Geertz 9, 201, 204–5 Gellner, Ernst 19–20, 58, 108, 141, 201–2 gender 22–4 generalisations 18 genetics 5 genocide 214 Germany, Germans 168, 190, 251,253 immigrants 236 model of nationalism 191–2 Nazi 194 racism 227–8 Giddens, Anthony 159 Glazer, Nathan 204 Gobineau, Joseph Arthur 225–6 Goffman, Erwin 206 gnostics 148 God, gods 82, 79 Golden Bough, The (Frazer) 11 Goody, Jack 60 Gorbachov, Mikhail 198

Gough, Kathleen 169 Gray, Asa 93 Greece ancient 53, 173 modern 190 Greene, John 224 Gribbin, John 89 Guerreau, Alain 150 Guns, Germs and Steel (Diamond) 132 Günther, Hans 227 Gypsies 210, 228 Haddon, Alfred 10 Haeckel, Ernst 227 Hajnal, John 62 Halbwachs, Maurice 3 Hall, John 141 Hannerz, Ulf 251 Harris, Marvin 8, 31–2, 38, 82 Havilland, William 9 Hawaian kinship system 41 Hawaian people 47, 125–6 Hayek, Friedrich 71–2 Hayes, Carlton 191, 194 headman 121 heathenism 221 Hechter, Michael 207 Hegel, George W.F. 54 hegemonic control 215 helots 236 Herder, Johann 185 Hilferding, Rudolf 172 Hill Pandaran people 57 Hillman, Gordon 131 Hinduism 143, 145, 253 historic religion 76 historical and comparative method 14–18 history convergence with anthropology 11–13 Hitler, Adolf 228 Hobbes, Thomas 114 Hobsbawm, Eric 173 Hobson, John A. 171–3 Holland, Dutch 167–8, 216, 222, 232, 236 Holton, Robert J. 157 hominids 98 Homo erectus 98–9, 115 Homo habilis 98 Homo Hierarchicus (Dumont) 56, 143 Homo neanderthalensis 99–100 Homo sapiens 99, 101 archaic 99 Homo sapiens sapiens 101–2, 133, 201 Hooker, Joseph 93 horticultural societies 109, 120–7

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Index and chiefdoms 122 and tribes 123 types of 122–3 Hubert, Henri 3 human ecology 5 human mind see human nature human nature 104, 131–2, 203 Human Nature After Darwin (Richards) 89 Human Societies (Lenski) 109 humans, modern and archaic 103 and chimpanzees 102 Hume, David 223 Hunt, James 226–7 Hunters, The (Service) 120 hunting-gathering societies 107–8, 110, 112, 114–20 Huntington, Samuel 252–4 Huxley, Thomas H. 95 ideoscapes 252 Imperial China see Chinese civilisation imperialism and culture 173–4 progressive 169 regressive 169–70 theories of 171–3, 193 Imperialism: A Study (Hobson) 172 Imperialism and the Anti-Imperialist Mind (Feuer) 169 Imperialism and the World Capital (Bukharin) 172 Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (Lenin) 172 Inca people 47, 139, 166 Indian civilisation 52, 75, 251, 253 Brahmanic 141–5 Buddhist 145 caste system 56–8, 143 early state 139 Hinduist 145–6 Mauryan empire 145 individual see person individualism 56–73 American 62–71 English 58–62 in India 56–8 in Western civilisation, present, 71–3 Industrial Revolution 158–60, 162–5 industrial societies 109, 155–74 infrastructure 31 instrumentalism 205–7 integration 215

Inuit people 115 Iran 212–3 Iraq 212–3 Ireland, Irish as a colony 169–71 model of nationalism 192 Iroquois kinship system 41 Isaacs, Harold 204 Islam and Islamic civilisation 15, 58, 171, 195, 210–2, 237–9, 251, 253–5 Italy, Italians 190, 22 fascist 194 Jackson, Andrew 65 Japan, Japanese 161–2, 168, 251, 253 jati (lineage) 143 Jefferson, Thomas 63, 76, 219 Jews/Jewish people 53, 82, 152, 210–1, 214, 219, 228, 235 Johnson, Allen 110 Jordan, Winthrop 220–2 Kant, Immanuel 72, 76, 223 Kapferer, Bruce 195 Khaldun, Ibn 58, 222 Khazanov, Anatoly 127 King, Martin Luther 231 kinship age sets 50–1 basic terms 37–9 descent groups 42–5 family 46–7, 60–2 marriage rules 47–8 matrimonial strategies 49–50 rules of residence 49 symbols 39–40 terminology 40–2 Kluckhohn, Clyde 8 Kohn, Hans 191 Krader, Lawrence 108 Krejci, J. 209 Kristallnacht 228 Kroeber, Alfred 3, 8 kula 122–3 !Kung 115–6, 119–20 Kurdistan, Kurds 195, 212–3 Kymlika, Will 239 labour, organisation of 34–5 Landes, David 156, 162 Las Casas, Bartolomé 219 lasciviousness 221 Laslett, Peter 62 Latin America 251, 253 Le Roy Ladourie, Emmanuel 153 Leacock, Eleanor 115–7 Leaves of Grass (Whitman) 65 Lebanon, Lebanese 210–1,

215–6 Lee, Robert 114–6, 119 Lenin, Vladimir 172, 193 Lenski, Gerhard 108–9 Letters from America (Chevalier) 65, 67–8 Lévi-Strauss, Claude 8, 18, 46, 48, 217, 250 Leviathan (Hobbes) 114 levirate 48–9 Lévy-Bruhl, Lucien 78 Lincoln, Abraham 70, 230 lineages 44, 121, 129–30, 143 linguistic anthropology 6 Linnaeus, Carolus 224 List, Ferdinand 65 local groups 110 Locke, John 63 Lopez, Robert 156 Lowie, Robert 3 Lustig, Ian 171, 215 Lyell, Charles 93, 95 MacDougall, William 10 MacFarlane, Alan 58–60, 62, 148, 156 MacGarry, John 213 magic 80 Malcolm X 231 Malinowski, Bronislaw 3, 8–11, 13, 24–5, 80, 122 Malthus, Robert 92 Man Makes Himself (Childe) 136 Man the Hunter (Lee and DeVore, eds.) 114 Man Versus the State (Spencer) 68 mana 79 Mann, Michael 141, 151, 156, 159, 173 Man’s Place in Nature (Huxley) 95 market exchange 37 maronite 210–1 Marquesans people 47 marriage rules 47 complex 48 elementary 48 levirate 48 sororate 48–9 termination 50 Marshall, Lorna 119 Marx, Karl and Marxism 12–13, 19–20, 25, 39, 59, 89, 96, 105, 108–9, 139–40, 150, 156–7, 159–61, 191, 201, 205, 211 Masai people 51, 128 matrilocal residence 49 Maurras, Charles 194

260 Mauss, Marcel 3, 51–3 Mbuti people 115 Mead, Margaret 3, 8 mediaacapes 251 Mein Kampf (Hitler) 228 Melville, Herman 65 mental and emic superstructures 32 mentalist view of culture 9 Mesopotamia see Middle East method of agreement 16–7 method of difference 17 Mexico, Mexicans 251, 255 Middle East agricultural civilisations 133 early states 137–8 race 218 Middleton, John 54 Mill, John Stuart 16–17, 191 Miller, David L. 63 Mills, C. Wright 14 Mintz, Sidney 165, 167 Mithen, Steve 131–2 Moby Dick (Melville) 65 mode of production 31, 159 mode of reproduction 31 mode of subsistence 107–8 modern religion 76 modern world system see world system Modern World System, The (Wallerstein) 165 modernisation theories 201–2 moiety 45 monogamy 46, 61 monotheism 75 Montaillou (Le Roy Ladurie) 153 Montesquieu, Charles, Baron de 59, 223 Moore, James 89 Morgan, Lewis H. 3, 7, 105, 107–8 Morin, Edgar 201 Morris, Brian 54, 57–8 Moynihan, Daniel 204, 210 multiculturalism and autochtonous groups 234 in Canada definition 233 and immigrant groups 234 in the United States 235 multinational states 234–5 Muqaddimah (Khaldun) 222 Murdock, George P. 16, 41, 46–7 Muslims see Islam Mussolini, Benito 194 Myth of the Twentieth Century,

Index The (Rosenberg) 228 Nagel, Joanne 207 Nairn, Tom 188 nation cultural 189 definition 185–6 political 189 taxonomy 208–9 nation-state 189–90, 196, 234 National State of Political Economy (List) 68 nationalism (s) definition 184, 188 development 1789–1870: 190–3 1870–1918: 193–4 1918–1945: 194–5 1945–1989: 195–7 1989–present: 197–9 Third-World 196–7 theories of, modern evolutionary 202 modernisation 201–2 primordialist and sociobiological 200–1 Native Australians 3, 15, 75, 78, 115, 117 Nayar people 46 neanderthals 99–100 neolocal residence 49 nomadic herding see pastoral societies Northern Ireland 189, 215 Norway, Norwegians 193, 214 Notebooks (Darwin) 93 Notes on Virginia (Jefferson) 219 nuclear family 46 Nuer people 129–30 Nyerere, Julius 129–30 Obeyesereke, Gannath 21 Oceania, peoples of, Andaman 227; Australian aborigines 3, 15, 75, 78, 115, 117, 227; Hawaians 47, 125–6; Maoris 79; Marquesans; 47; Polynesians 122, 140; Tongans 79; Trobrianders 4, 10–1, 48, 122–3 O’Leary, Brendan 213 Olzak, Susan 207 Oriental Despotism (Wittfogel) 140 Orientalism 21–2 Orientalism (Said) 21 Origin of Species, The (Darwin) 5, 89, 94–7 Paine, Thomas 76

palaeoanthropology 5 Palerm, Angel 135 Paliyan people 57 Pandaemonium (Moynihan) 210 pantribal associations 123 participant observation see fieldwork partition 214 Past and Present in HunterGatherer Studies (Schrine) 116 pastoral societies 127–30 pastoralist Islam see Islam and Islamic Civilisation patrilocal residence 49 peasant revolts 17 peasant societies domain in 154–5 fund of 153–4 Peasant (Wolf) 153 person 51–3 Phlanze, O. 192 phratry 45 physical anthropology 4–5 Pirenne, Henri 156 Plough, Sword and Book (Gellner) 141 Polanyi, Karl 33, 35 Poliakov, Leon 223 political economy 32 political organisation in agrarian societies 135–141 in horticultural societies 123–6 in hunting-gathering societies 119 in pastoral societies 129–30 Politics and History in Band Societies (Leacock and Lee, eds.)115 polyandry 46–7 polygyny 46–7 Polynesian people 122 polytheism 75 population transfer 214 Portugal, Portuguese 167–8, 222–3 Postmodernism, Reason and Religion (Gellner) 19 postmodernist anthropology 19–20 Postan, Mark 151 power sharing 216 Powers and Liberties (Hall) 141 prayer 79 Prehistory of the Mind, The (Mithen) 131 Prichard, James Cowles 235 primatology 5

261

Index Primitive Culture (Tylor) 3 primitive religion 75 Primitive Social Organisation (Service) 109, 120 primitive societies 11 primogeniture 61 primordialism 200, 204–5 production division of labour 35 organisation of labour 35 resources 34 technology 34 unit of production 35 Prometheus Unbound (Landes) 162 Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, The (Weber) 157 Protestantism United States 64, 69 Europe 157–8 Pygmy people 117–8 Quran 146–7 race, racism definition 187, 217–8 history ancient 218 medieval 218–9 era of discovery 219–23 Enlightenment 223–5 nineteenth century 225–7 Nazi Germany 227–8 United States 229–32 South Africa 232–3 Radcliffe-Brown, A.R. 3–4, 7–8, 11, 24, 60 rational choice theories 207 Rebuilding Russia (Solzhenitsyn) 197 reciprocity 36 redistribution 37, 125 regional polity 110–1 religion classical anthropology and 78 definition of 73 early modern 76 existential problems of 73–4 functions of 81–3 ritual and 80–1 supernatural and 79–80 typologies of, evolutionary, 74–7 Religion: An Anthropological View (Wallace) 77 religions Buddhism 142, 144–5 Brahmanism 141–5 Christianity 15, 53, 73,

148, 150–1 Confucianism 142 Hinduism 143, 145 Islam 15, 58, 146–8 Judaism 148 Protestantism 157–8 Taoism 142 ‘Religious Evolution’ (Bellah) 75 Renan, Ernest 189, 192, 226 Renfrew, Colin 133 resources 34 Richards, Jane Radcliffe 85 Rig Veda 143–4 rites of intensification 81 rites of passage 80–1 Rivers, W.H.R. 10 Robertson, William 107 Rome, ancient 53, 148, 173 Roosens, Eugeen 208 Rosenberg, Alfred 228 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 63, 72, 185 rules of residence 49 Rules of the Sociological Method, The (Durkheim) 14, 109 Russia, Russians 155, 168–70, 198, 215, 255 see also Soviet Union sacrifice 79 Sahlins, Marshall 21, 36, 114, 125 Said, Edward 21–2 Salisbury, Lord 169 Sarró, Ramon 55 Sartori, Giovanni 18 savagery 107–8, 221 Schneider, David 39 Schneider, Jane 112 Schrire, C. 116 scientific anthropology 24–6 Scotland, Scottish 174, 189, 195, 239 secession 214 segregation United States 230–2 South Africa 232–3 self see person self-determination 214 Seligman, Charles 10 Semang people 117 separate residence 49 Service, Elman 109–11, 120 Seton-Watson, Hugh 247 Shain, Barry 64–5 Shakespeare, William 220 sharia 147 Shaw, Paul 201 Shiite 210–1 Simiand, François 3 Sinhalese people 47 Sioux people 83

Skalnik, Peter 137 Skorupski, John 78 slavery 220–3, 230 Slovakia 214 Smith, Adam 107 Smith, Anthony 185, 194 social and cultural anthropology vii, 6–7 Social Stratification in Polynesia (Sahlins) 125 Social Structure (Murdock) 40 socio-cultural anthropology see social and cultural anthropology sociobiologism 200–1 Sociobiology (Wilson) 2 sociology convergence with anthropology 13–14 Solzhenitsyn, Alexander 197 sororate 48 Sources of Social Power, The (Mann) 141, 159 South Africa, South Africans 170, 215 and racism 232–3 Soviet Union 197–9, 248, 250, 252 Spain, Spaniards migrants 207–8 racism 219 Spencer, Herbert 68–9, 105, 110, 226 Stalin, Joseph 108 states 110–1, 138 definition 184–5 origin 139–41 ‘hydraulic’ 140 pristine 138 State Building in British Ireland and French Algeria (Lustig) 171 Stavenhagen, Rodolfo 210 Stocking, George 225 Stringer, Chris 99, 101–2 structural-functionalism 5 structuralism see Lévi-Strauss structure 32 substantivism 33 Sudanese kinship system 42 Summer, William Graham 63, 202 Sunni 210–2 supernatural 79–80 Swanson, Guy 74 Sweden, Swedish 167, 214 Sweetness and Power (Mintz) 165, 167 Switzerland , Swiss 237 Sykes, Brian 133 Syria, Syrians 211–3

262 Tallensi people 54–5 Taoism 142 Taylor, Charles 239 technology 34 technoscapes 252 Tendency of the Species, On the (Darwin and Wallace) 93 terminology, kinship 40–2 Third World nationalism 196–7, 200 societies 13 ‘third-worldist’ anthropology 20–1 Tibetan people 47 Tilly, Charles 17, 248–9 Tocqueville, Alexis de 15, 59, 65–8, 222–30 Tongan people 79 totalist view of culture 8 transfer 214 tribes 110, 122–3, 130, 147 Tristres Tropiques (LéviStrauss) 19 Trobriand islanders 4, 10–11, 48, 122–3 Turkey, Turks 212–3, 254–5 Turner, Victor 54, 247 Tylor, Edward B. 3, 7, 48, 78, 105, 226–7

Index ulama (Muslim scholar-priest) 14, 147 unilineal descent groups ambilineal 44 double 43 matrilineal 43 patrilineal 42–3 United States, Americans 15, 39, 63, 65, 168, 212 anthropology 3–4, 6–7, 11 hegemony 250, 252 racism 220–3, 229–32 universal components 31–2 Use and Abuse of Biology, The (Sahlins) 25 Van den Berghe, Pierre 187, 228, 232 Van Gennep, Arnold 80 varna (ranks) 143 Velinski, V. 209 Vivelo, Frank 120–1 Voltaire (Arouet, FrançoisMarie) 223 Wallace, Alfred Russell 93 Wallace, Anthony 77 Wallerstein, Immanuel 15, 25, 112, 165, 251 Weber, Max 13, 20, 59–60, 156–7, 159–61, 207

West Africa 54–5 Western civilisation 51, 59–61, 253 Western societies 13 White, Michael 89 White over Black (Jordan) 20 Wilson, Edward O. 25 Wilson, President Woodrow 104 witchcraft 56, 80 Wittfogel, Karl 140 Wolf, Eric 153, 165 Wolpoff, Milford 99, 102 Woltmann, Ludwig 227 women agrarian societies 147 hunting-gathering societies 117 horticultural societies 122 patrilineal societies 130 Wong, Yuva 201 world-economy see world-system world-system 15, 112–4, 165, 251 epochs 166–8 structure 166 Yako people 43 Yanadi people 57 Yanomamo people 35 Young, Crawford 197