Тук публикуваме първото от серия есета, на видния швейцарски антрополог проф.Кристиян ДЖОРДАНО специално предоставени за нашия сайт. Неговата „скептична антропология“, разбуни духовете в страната на Вилхелм Тел за последните 20 г. Веднаж с проникновената рефлексия на човека от Средиземноморието, на който Кр. Джордано посвети системния си антропологичен анализ, за да открои една уникална менталност. Но също тъй и с критичната си рефлексия върху исляма, в неговите множествени идентичности.
Беше време, когато първите проучвания на „убийството за чест“, повдигнаха предубедени дебати на Запад, около считани за „традиционни“ за южните култури склонности към възмездие и саморазправа. Полевите проучвания на Джордано показаха ни повече ни по-малко, че това е само инструмент, с който патерналистки обсебения човек, търси да компенсира неимоверния натиск на собствената си среда, която го тласка към отчаяни опити да възстанови драстични посегателства върху достойнството си.
От Сицилия до Малайзия – изследователският път на Кристиян Джордано е пример за научна посветеност и вярност към истината. Не, тя не е само в абстрактните, прецизни логически схеми.. Още по- малко в екзотичните наративи на пост-модерните антрополози, които ни заляха с небивалици. И тъй превърнаха модерния човек, в „препарирани“ експонати на идентичност, наредени по музейните лавици.
Тези непоносими, както им казва с право Джордано „конформни визии“ за човека и неговата социална природа, се оказват плод и на порочни изследователски методи. При тях изкривената представа за човешкото, изглежда къде по рафинирано, къде по нескопосно прикрита.
В този смисъл политическата коректност изглежда закъсняла „рожба“, на една системно налагана матрица на възприятия, ценности, нагласи. Но най-плачевната равносметка от този деструктивизъм и преднамерена манипулаация, е че „лепилото“ на „обществената органика“, както я наричаше Дюркхайм чезне, губи от своето свойство на надеждна спойка и солидарно общение между групи, общества, етноси, че и цели народи.
Джордано има своите основания да ни върне към класиката – и проникновеният наш читател със сигурност ще ги улови в този и последващи негови „текстове“. Прочее – нека кажа накрая. Кристиян Джордано е стар приятел на България. Няколко пъти не само я е кръстосал, още от времето преди 1990. Но заедно с български социолози , предложи емпирично обоснован културно-антропологичен баланс на нашия преход.
И, нека стане ясно – за разлика от мнозина други „пътеписци“, Джордано видя нашият оптимистичен залог, в качествата на „балканския човек“. Не на „балканеца“, както го етикираха родни и чужди антропо-епигончета. А в сродна по своя бит и душевност идентичност, отвъд прословутото оцеляване.
За нашият сайт е чест, да имаме за автори учени от такъв висок карат, като Кристиян Джордано. Разбира се, че форумът ни го очаква вече лично. И , както казваме по нашите ширини – да е живот и здраве – „Философският клуб“ е отворен за среща с един човек и изследовател, на който света принадлежи отколе. А и той на него.
Че вижте снимката му от Банкок. Със своята медитеранска сламена шапка, той си е пак у дома, нали? Както е във Фрибург, Швейцария, който много прилича на нашето Велико Търново. Само дето е пощаден от пламъците и погромите на историята… Пак тъй с високите скали и реката, която се вие долу досущ като нашата Янтра…
И докато се любувам на тази „нашенска“ гледка в един късен есенен ден от неговия кабинет, Кристиян казва:
- „Я затвори прозореца, нали знаеш че съм средиземноморски човек…“.
И пак си викам, че си приличаме по нещо ний южняците нали? Все ни е страх да не настинем… И му разправям вица нататък. Но се оказва, че Кристиян и него знае до края.
Бележка на редактора
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“les images du bonheur plaisent, mais celles du malheur instruisent”
Jacques-Henry Bernardin de St. Pierre, Paul et Virginie, 1788
In the wake of the postmodernist reflexive turn, anthropology as an empirical discipline of social sciences has certainly developed a stronger penchant for selfcriticism. Yet, the sceptical, agnostic and basically disenchanted attitude towards members of societies that are not those of origin of the person conducting the ethnographic field research has become less pointed if not indeed blunted.
This observation, which may appear contradictory and incongruous at first, requires further clarification. In their book Writing Culture (Clifford and Marcus 1987), which may be regarded as the manifesto of the reflexive turn, James Clifford and George Marcus pointed up some fundamental weaknesses of field research, ethnographic description and ultimately anthropological theorization, be it nomothetic explanation or idiographic interpretation.
Accordingly, all classic forms of anthropological representations based on empirical data were thoroughly analysed, shedding light on their many and major flaws. Thus, the issue of the authoritarian style of ethnographic research and anthropological writing was brought to the fore and a legitimate, stirring, but utterly illusory vindication of the dialogical or polyphonic method, which takes into consideration not only the voice of the researcher but also that of all the others, i. e. the objects of research, thus turning them into actual subjects, was formulated.
The reflexive turn, however, has caused new, though probably rather unwanted consequences on our discipline’s methodological standards and directives, which in my opinion have turned out to be misleading, inadequate and highly disappointing.
In the first place, we need to mention that the reflexive turn has nurtured radical stances of relativism, just as with ethno-science and its resulting linguistic relativism based on the untranslatability of cultural terms. In the reflexive turn’s context, the forms of radical identification with the other or the different that have been postulated are on a par with concepts such as Einfühlung, Ergriffenheit and Empathie, which stemmed from methodological suggestions dating back to Johann Gottfried Herder and Leo Frobenius (Giordano 1997, Herder 2013, Frobenius 1925).
These categories, too, are the outcome of an irrationalist and relativistic anthropology that, consistent with the reflexive turn, stress the importance of empathy and emotional involvement with the other, if not indeed letting oneself be subjugated by the other as Frobenius suggested as regards to shamanic practices (Frobenius 1925).
Stepping into the other’s shoes or, more radically still, letting the other take control of us represent the most appropriate way to get to know different societies and cultures. Yet, Max Weber (1956) had already voiced reasonable doubts on this type of approach, aptly stating that there is no need to be Cesar (or become Cesar, in this context) in order to understand him. Actually, in line with Plato and as stated also by Jacques Derrida, we firmly believe that the xenos is inherently the most suitable person to ask crucial and highly relevant questions in a society that is alien to him.
Therefore, jumping through hoops in order to empathize or become emotionally involved is pointless when being xenos is methodologically more efficient. We must admit though that this is true also of my moderate personal experience with various field researches that we conducted in the Mediterranean area, postsocialist Europe and multicultural Southeast Asia.
A further serious shortcoming ascribable to the reflexive turn lies in having dismissed, in the name of anthropological correctness, any unsavoury themes that may appear ambiguous, sordid, disgusting or indeed repugnant. This stance allows avoiding researches on subjects that, according to anthropologists, might offend the sensibilities of the individuals or groups being studied.
The bizarre upshot is that important themes, such as power relations that Western researchers deem immoral or uncivilized (clientelism, for example) or specific situations of conflict that the observers themselves regard as destructive (ethnic wars or inter-clan or inter-kin wars) or social practices held to be illegal if not indeed criminal by a liberal justice (such as honour killings in a migratory context or mafia-like strategies and corruptive transactions), are deliberately set aside or branded as exaggerations, if not indeed as fabrications concocted by malicious representatives of the social sciences who artfully resort to Orientalist interpretations.
Over the past decades, we have witnessed a veritable abuse of the term Orientalism that was aptly coined by Edward Said (Said 1978) in order to discredit whoever dealt with the above-mentioned themes. In an attempt to avoid Orientalism, therefore, one tries to view the other as if he had our same background of experiences and social knowledge, thus resorts to our same action strategies.
Otherness is condemned as the invention of the other, i.e. as a mystification conceived by those who claim to have observed and studied it, in this case by anthropologists. This stance, by now so mindful of anthropological correctness, is an attempt to avoid terminologies and themes that could, even hypothetically, offend the other’s sensibility.
As a rather standard example, nowadays in scientific discourse no one must ever use the term gypsy, but rather Roma or, more puristic still, Rroma (precisely: with two r’s) because the term gypsy, for the interested parties themselves, has a purported though utterly unproven negative connotation, i. e. is insulting, thus socially demeaning.
Yet, at the same time the above-mentioned repugnant phenomena are deemed marginal, thus not relevant to the entire society. According to this point of view, they are exclusive to the powerful, i. e. the bad guys up there, and not to those who are regarded as the actual subjects of the anthropological research, i. e. the good guys down here just as all those belonging to discriminated, economically marginalized groups or are simply barred from power.
Instead of a dialogical or polyphonic approach, this engenders an anthropologically correct neo-paternalism, which ultimately aims to bring to the fore the solidarity and moral virtues of the good guys down here as opposed to the vileness of the bad guys up there.
The anthropologist currently experiences the peculiar pressure of having to highlight the positive human and social characteristics and specifically what he regards as moral, noble, altruistic and mutually supportive. Everything considered, is this a new form of that anthropological fiction known as the good savage? The sole difference lies in the fact that the primitive man has been replaced by the immigrant, the refugee without documents, the politically persecuted and, more in general, by the poor, the exploited, the marginalized, the outcast.
The new good savages are precisely those who fall under these categories on the fringes of society. We wonder whether anthropology may be turning into a specific social work variant in quest of a hypothetical, but unachievable good society.
Yet, anthropology cannot and must neither be the scientific crutch for bleeding-heart development agencies, NGOs and suchlike associations. Hence, anthropology must be humanistic in the sense of understanding the other’s point of view, but cannot be humanitarian thinking to be of help to the other, since in this case it would merely be a form of imperialism with a plus sign.
In fact, delving into those representations and social practices that cast doubts on the fundamental integrity of the weak as inherently good has become rather unpopular and almost deplorable in anthropology. In this context we need only mention themes that are considered disgraceful, such as representations and everyday strategies linked to mistrust in the public sphere or the frequent conflicts for status, reputation and honour.
If one wishes to be acknowledged and respected by one’s own scientific community, one can hardly avoid searching for unlikely relations, inasmuch as they are missing, of communitarian trust, inclusion mechanisms, negotiation skills, hospitality institutions, grassroots democratic structures, social movements, civil society organizations etc. of the good guys down here.
In any case, to avoid any charge of ethnocentrism and Orientalism, current anthropology delights in researching and inventing fictional, subaltern cosy worlds that are despised and threatened by obscure and nefarious hegemonic powers. A new conformity has thus emerged: one that is ultimately bubbling over with an odd optimism, which in a bighearted, candid, yet overblown way strives to highlight the positive aspects of the everyday social world of the weak.
This social world of the weak good is often presented as a model of communitarian resistance that is able to counter the hegemonic global claims of the powerful bad. In the context of these anthropological stagings, the bad guys up there, due to their practically inherent vile and hateful nature, are unworthy of being studied empirically.
Whether economic, political, cultural, religious or military, the elites are indeed present in contemporary anthropology’s grand narratives, but are rather abstract entities whose role and social actions are taken for granted, thus are not accurately reconstructed. They are notoriously evil and unfair and that is reason enough to cut them out of the scene.
The elites are thus treated as creatures which can solely be expected to be planning malevolent schemes in their dark, secret lairs up there, i. e., not in the virtuous scenarios of the good guys down here. Admittedly, this description is somewhat grotesque, but is also an ideal-typical and very explicit way of showing how anthropology, following the reflexive turn, has produced and popularized a populist view of society that must be regarded as a black-and-white, unrealistic, misleading and ultimately bizarre assessment.
To further pinpoint our case, we wonder what is left now of the mental clarity of classics such as Bronislaw Malinowski, Alfred Reginald Radcliffe Brown, Edward E. Evans-Pritchard, Edmund Leach, Franz Boas, Claude LéviStrauss, Georges Balandier and many more. The current emotional involvement of researchers, regardless of its being genuine, feigned, explicit or implicit, is a veritable disaster for contemporary anthropology.
In any case, the present-day involvement rituals (since that is what they are after all) described in anthropological writings do not alter the fact that the relations between whoever conducts the research and whoever, willingly or not, is the object of research entail a continuous power play in which, ironically enough, the former is not always stronger than the latter.
Finally, we need to add that this anthropologically correct populism is strictly linked to a specific form of methodological individualism that most times results in a sort of naïve voluntarism by which men, aside from any social boundaries, act freely and build their own Lebenswelt to their own liking. This logically implies that social actors have the – clearly illusory – possibility of choosing among a practically infinite array of action strategies beyond the most diverse claims of social control.
As such, social action is characterized by an indiscriminate everything goes. According to this script and resorting to the argument of the need for a dynamic perspective, social collectives and their institutions are regarded as fictions by essentialist anthropologists and sociologists who, by means of their static approach, confine individuals in social straitjackets.
Due to the above-mentioned methodological populism, anthropology has lost its initial allure that stemmed from its ability to develop and achieve a healthy regard éloigné (Lévi-Strauss 1983), thus to rationally reverse the perspective learnt in one’s own Lebenswelt so as to be able to grasp the rationale linked both to the Lebenswelten of other societies and to specific segments of society that the anthropologist does not belong to in his own society.
The disquieting allure of disenchanted anthropology: for a pragmatic and nonconformist social analysis. I presented a collection of essays, published also in specialist magazines and collective volumes, that go in the opposite direction of the methodological formulae put forth by the reflexive turn and by the obsolescent, yet still trendy postmodern approaches.
In terms of methodology, this collection of essays takes its cue from the good practices of the previously mentioned classic anthropologists, whilst avoiding the pitfall of scientism. Therefore, we have resumed the teachings of interpretative social sciences, thus the suggestions of its most distinguished exponents, such as Max Weber (1956), Alfred Schütz (1960, 1971–72) and Clifford Geertz (1983, 1984).
Relying on the good practices of classic anthropologists and using an interpretative paradigm means above all unveiling the rationale of social actions and strategies that to the foreign observer, in this case the anthropologist, may at first appear meaningless if not indeed uncivilized, unfair, cruel, criminal, thus appalling and repugnant.
This involves piecing together a cogent and disenchanted reconstruction of the deceptively invisible social logic underlying the representations and relations shared by the members and collectivities deemed culturally other by anthropologists. Clearly one needs to avoid the trap of any arbitrary pathologization or embellishment of alterity and must definitely avoid trivializing, minimizing, concealing or, worse still, simply ignoring the existence of sociocultural phenomena that the anthropological scientific community regards as ethically embarrassing, unsavoury or repugnant, but which from the actors’ own point of view are deemed legitimate as well as a source of advantages for themselves and their own entourage.
What do we mean by disenchanted anthropology? In the first place, as with most of these publications, it is a call for a sceptical anthropology that distances itself from all moralizing conceptions based on alleged ethical assumptions of any trend, doctrine or ideology.
Anthropological reasoning, therefore, must never be clouded or even tainted by ethical lines of argument. This is so because ethics, as a distinctly normative matter, tends to be unable or unwilling to distinguish between understanding the rationale of a specific behaviour and its justification or condemnation, which are formulated in accordance with artificial standards created within this discipline.
Accordingly, this would involve an ethnocentric approach inconsistent with the methodological foundations of anthropology. Moreover, the line of reasoning of disenchanted anthropology must firmly distance itself from the current trend of emotional involvement, at times rather hypocritical, and from the straitjacket of anthropological correctness.
A disenchanted and sceptical anthropology, as illustrated , is grounded in an epistemological agnosticism, i. e. bracketing off one’s own world and its givens without slipping into value-related convictions and ethical certainties that may be analogous yet different or even contrary to the ones of the members of the reverse worlds of sociocultural difference.
As previously mentioned, this methodological procedure consists in the ability to systematically employ a dialectic inversion based on an indispensable, systematic and healthy culture of doubt as if it were a police investigation.
This course of action, suggested amongst others by anthropologist Wilhelm Emil Mühlmann (1968), highly contested for his past but a keen theorist nonetheless, can be particularly enlightening to thematize, the normality and not the (im)morality of phenomena deemed deviant and disgraceful according to the occidental perspective and methodological populism by now prevalent in anthropology.
We need only mention normal power asymmetries, inevitable social inequalities with their customary processes of economic and political marginalization, along with usual everyday deviancies and illegalities, including criminal and mafia-like ones. The aim is also to highlight the normalcy, thus the social logic of conflicts such as brutal struggles for power and bloodied wars, civil and ethnic ones in particular.
Therefore, the goal is to avoid generalizing the importance of negotiations, while pointing up their social relevance. Thus, paraphrasing Hannah Arendt (1963), it is a question of reconstructing and interpreting the unexceptional normalcy of what unsettles us thanks to disenchanted anthropological reflections free of universalist illusions linked to ethical and religious ideologies of Western origin.
Accordingly, a disenchanted anthropology is an anthropology that will hardly be amazed, especially by whatever may seem repugnant at first. Finally, we also need to point out that a specific concern of disenchanted, thus sceptical anthropology is the relevance of contextual rational choice, i. e. of the socially sound reasons that drive the members of a given human group to act in a given way.
Researching the contextual rational choice, as a sceptical anthropology aims to do, means researching the role of pragmatism rather than that of morality alone in a human action. In my opinion, insisting on morality is typical of societies with a puritan cultural background, in which, credit where credit is due, anthropology flourished.
In line with the teachings of Alfred Schütz, we believe that focusing on the so-called in view of motives (Um-zu-Motive) of a given behaviour is more important than its given that motives (Weil-Motive) (Schütz 1960). The point therefore is to consider, first and foremost, the subsequent social consequences of social action rather than its antecedent moral postulate.
Calling to mind Luigi Pirandello’s comedy Cap and Bells (Pirandello 1992) and Erving Goffman’s concept of stigma (Goffman 1963), we will cite a concrete example derived from my empirical experience as a forensic expert. In the decision to commit an honour killing we can observe that the actual risk of stigma and social degradation overrides the obligation linked to specific codes of social norms, which are often mistakenly regarded as such action’s prerequisite.
Ultimately, saving one’s face and reputation is definitely more important than being in line with the morality of one’s society. In general, a society’s morality may be viewed as an ethical or
nament (Michels 1970), thus not so much as something whose principal purpose is to guide individual or collective actions, but rather as an instrument needed to maintain or attain positions that the individual actors deem socially favourable or desirable.
Though many will find this disagreeable, we believe that the famous saying attributed to Niccolò Machiavelli by which the ends justifies the means is suitable not only in politics but also in everyday life, especially in societies where public opinion and social control are a main determinant. The disquieting allure of disenchanted anthropology lies precisely in its nonconformist and deeply sceptical regard éloigné through which, by means of discomfiting empirical material and unconventional theoretic reasonings, it challenges some of Western society’s certainties about both itself and societies classified as other.
But the ultimate goal of this collection of essays is precisely this unveiling of our faded idols deeply rooted in our common sense and in the current anthropological conformism. In closing, we would like to point up that recurrent themes discussed here ought to be regarded as theoretic or methodological leitmotifs, much like the musical idée fixe introduced by Hector Berlioz in his Symphonie Phantastique.
Author’s profile:
Christian Giordano (born on October 27, 1945, Lugano) is a Swiss anthropologist.. Since 1989, he has been Professor of Ethnology and Social Anthropology and Head of the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. Giordano is co-founder of Anthropological Journal on European Cultures.] He is chief editor of Freiburg Studies in Social Anthropology and part of the editorial board of the journals Ethnologia Balkanica, Focaal, Etudes Rurales, Eastern European Countryside, Sociologija. Mintis ir veiksmas.
Giordano studied anthropology, art history and Roman Languages at the University of Heidelberg, as well as law and economics at the Unversity of Bern. He obtained his PhD in sociology from Heidelberg University in 1973, and Dr. habil. in cultural anthropology and European ethnology from .Frankfurt university in 1987. Dr. honoris causa of Timişoara West University of Timișoara in 1999. Main publications;
- Handwerker- und Bauernverbände in der sizilianischen Gesellschaft. Zünfte, Handwerkerkonfraternitäten u. Arbeiterhilfsvereine zwischen 1750 u. 1890 (Artisans and Farmers in Sicilian society). Tübingen: Mohr, 1975.
- Die Betrogenen der Geschichte. Überlagerungsmentalität und Überlagerungsrationalität in mediterranen Gesellschaften (The Dupes of History). Frankfurt, New York: Campus,1992.
- Ogledi o interkulturnoj komunikaciji (Essays in Intercultural Communication ). Belgrade: Biblioteka XX Vek, 2001.
- Власт, недоверие и наследство: Скептична антропология (Power, Mistrust and Legacy: Sceptical Anthropology). София : Полис, 2006.
- Power, Legitimacy, Historical Legacies: A Disenchanted Political Anthropology. Berlin, Münster, Zurich: Lit-Verlag, 2015.