Balinese Cockfights and the Seduction of Anthropology Author(s

Transcription

Balinese Cockfights and the Seduction of Anthropology
Author(s): WILLIAM ROSEBERRY
Source: Social Research, Vol. 49, No. 4 (WINTER 1982), pp. 1013-1028
Published by: The New School
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40971228
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Balinese Cockfights /
and the
/
Seduction of /
'BY WILLIAM ROSEBERRY
Anthropology^
Jl EWanthropologists
in recentyearshave enjoyedwiderinfluencein thesocialsciencesthanCliffordGeertz.Sociologists,
and social historiansinterestedin popular
politicalscientists,
culturehave turned increasinglyto anthropology,and the
mostoftenembracedis ProfessorGeertz.
anthropologist
A numberof factorscan be adduced to account for this
trend.In the firstplace, Geertz'spositionat the Institutefor
AdvancedStudyhas allowedhimto transcendthedisciplinary
involutionthatcharacterizes
and subdisciplinary
anthropology
he is able to attract
and othersocialsciences.At the Institute,
scholarsfroma varietyof disciplines,
adoptingan antidiscipliin
rare
that
is
current
academicpractice.
focus
and
mood
nary
who writeswith
Second,Geertzis an excellentethnographer
an eloquenceand sophistication
uncommonforthe socialsciences.His culturalessayscan be read withprofitbyintroductorystudentsor graduatestudentsin advancedseminars.And
his descriptions
of lifein Bali or Javaor Moroccocall to mind
one of the aspectsof anthropology
thathas alwaysbeen so
seductive:thelureof distantplacesand othermodesof being.
Thus, in part,thetitleof thisessay.But thetitleis intendedto
suggestanotheraspectof Geertz'sworkas well,forthereis a
- and othersocial scientists
sense in whichanthropologists
have been seduced by Geertz'sculturaltheory.
1014
SOCIAL
RESEARCH
Materialists
and Idealists
To explore this claim, we must firstexamine a thirdaspect
of Geertz's prominence: his participationin anthropological
debates between materialistsand idealists. Although the apparent antinomies between explanation and interpretation,
science and history,and materialismand idealism have served
as constantthemes in anthropologicaldebates over the years,
the discourse has become increasinglyacrimonioussince 1968.
Over a period of approximatelytwentyyears afterWorld War
II, manyAmerican anthropologiststurned away fromBoasian
relativismand toward more scientific,explanatoryapproaches
to culture and society.With this trend, a type of materialism
dominated anthropologicaldiscussions,especially through the
cultural ecology of Julian Steward and the cultural
evolutionism of Leslie White. By the late 1960s, however,
increasing numbers of social scientistswere rejectingexplanatory accounts as positivistand were rediscovering German
historicismand the interpretivesociologies that had influenced the early Boasians. Yet, at approximatelythe same time,
the position of public dominance in anthropological materialism passed to Marvin Harris upon the publication of his
l
Rise ofAnthropological
Theory. With that book and subsequent
volumes, most notably his Cultural Materialism,2Harris has
mapped out a materialistterrain that is resolutelyscientific,
although it exhibitsmuch less caution regarding what we can
know about social and cultural processes than did the cultural
ecology of Julian Steward.
In such a context,Geertz's prominenceis hardlysurprising.
The 1973 publication of a collection of his essays, The Interpretation
of Cultures,3and especially an essay entitled"Thick
1 Marvin Harris, The Rise
Theory(New York: Crowell, 1968).
of Anthropological
2 Marvin Harris,CulturalMaterialism:The
for a ScienceofCulture(New York:
Struggle
Random House, 1979).
3 CliffordGeertz, The Interpretation
of Cultures(New York: Basic Books, 1973).
THE SEDUCTION OF ANTHROPOLOGY
1015
Description:Toward an InterpretiveTheory of Culture,"4
writtenespeciallyforthatvolume,provideda persuasivetext
whoweredissatisfied
withthevision
forthoseanthropologists
of a scienceof cultureofferedby Harris.GivenGeertz'sbackwiththe
and his familiarity
groundin Weberianperspectives
phenomenologicaland hermeneuticliteraturethat Harris
dismissesas "obscurantist,"
Geertzcan, witha shortdiscussion
of winksand blinks,call into seriousquestion Harris's unof socialand culturalfacts.And he is
mediatedunderstanding
thatis "not
able to makea persuasivecase foran anthropology
an experimentalsciencein searchof law but an interpretive
one in searchof meaning."5
betweenHarrisand Geertz,and theirparThe difference
can be
ticularversionsof explanationand interpretation,
witha discussionof theirapproachesto culture.
demonstrated
For Harris,
forcultural
mateThe starting
analysis
pointofall sociocultural
of an etichumanpopulation
rialismis simplythe existence
locatedin etictimeand space.A societyforus is a maximal
socialgroupconsisting
ofbothsexesandall agesandexhibiting
a wide rangeof interactive
behavior.Culture,on the other
learned
of thoughts
and actions
refers
to
the
hand,
repertory
.
.
.6
exhibited
the
members
of
social
by
groups.
Harris goes on to make rigiddistinctions
among infrastrucand superstructure
and tellsus that
ture,structure,
and reproduction
The eticbehavioralmodesof production
determine
the
etic
behavioral
domesticand
probabilistically
whichin turnprobabilistically
determine
the
political
economy,
behavioral
and mentalerniesuperstructures.7
Note thatcultureis reduced to a set of ideas, or a "learned
of thoughtsand actions."Cultureis a product;it is
repertory
4 Clifford
Towardan Interpretive
Geertz,"ThickDescription:
Theoryof Culture,"
in Interpretation
of Cultures,pp. 3-30.
''Ibid., p. 5.
6 Harris, CulturalMaterialism, 47.
p.
7Ibid.,pp. 55-56.
1016
SOCIAL
RESEARCH
not simultaneouslyproduction. There is, then, no concern in
- the socially constructed underHarris's work with meaning
standingsof the world in terms of which people act. But as
long as we are workingwithsuch an ideational view of culture,
whetherfrom a materialistor idealist perspective,we remove
it from human action and praxis and thereforeexclude the
possibilityof bridging the anthropological antinomybetween
the material and ideal. We may explore this assertion by
turningto CliffordGeertz.
The promise of Geertz's project, especially as elaborated in
"Thick Description," is that he seems to be working with a
concept of culture as socially constituted and socially constituting.He explicitlycriticizesideational definitionsof culture, concentratingon symbols that carry and communicate
meanings to the social actors who have created them. Unfortunately,at no point does he say what he means as clearlyand
rigorouslyas does Harris. Instead, he places his definitionsin
a more elegant and elusive prose. For example:
Believing,withMax Weber,thatmanis an animalsuspendedin
webs of significance
he himselfhas spun, I take cultureto be
thosewebs.. . .8
Or:
. . . cultureconsistsof sociallyestablishedstructures
of meaning
in termsof whichpeople do such thingsas signalconspiracies
and join themor perceiveinsultsand answerthem.. . .9
Or:
The cultureof a people is an ensembleof texts,themselves
strainsto read over the
ensembles,whichthe anthropologist
shouldersof thoseto whomtheyproperlybelong.10
8 Geertz, "Thick
Description,"p. 5.
9Ibid.,
p. 13.
10CliffordGeertz,
of
"Deep Play: Notes on a Balinese Cockfight,"in Interpretation
Cultures,p. 452.
1017
The lastquote comes fromthe well-known
essay"Deep Play:
to whichmore attentionis
Notes on a BalineseCockfight,"11
to
devotedin thisessay.It was notedabove thatGeertz"seems
be workingwitha conceptof cultureas sociallyconstituted
We mustnow questionwhetherhe
and sociallyconstituting."
has realizedthispromise.This essaycomparesGeertz'sclaims
forhimselfin "ThickDescription"withone of his own pieces
of description.Because Geertz'sethnographicwork is voluminous, and the aims of this easy are modest, we shall
concentrateon the essay cited above, "Notes on a Balinese
Cockfight."
CulturalProductsas Texts
Geertz'sessay is at once an attemptto show thatcultural
productscan be treatedas textsand an attemptto interpret
one such text. The metaphorof the text is, of course, a
and herfavoriteof the practitioners
of both structuralism
from
Ricoeur
rather
takes
his
lead
Geertz
meneutics,though
than Lévi-Strauss.The referenceto cultureas a text,given
Geertz's
Geertz'sproject,callsforan exercisein interpretation.
mustbe summarizedbeforewe can ask some
interpretation
it.
"Noteson a BalineseCockfight"
of
beginswithan
questions
whenfirstarrivingin the
accountof the Geertzes'difficulties
and their
raid
on a cockfight,
their
to
a
field,
police
response
finalacceptance,given that response,by the villagers.The
essay then moves into a descriptionof the cockfightitself,
of
includinga discussionof the psychologicalidentification
and
men and cocks,the proceduresassociatedwithcockfights
out of theway,Geertzmoves
wagers,and so on. Preliminaries
of the fightitself.He begins with
towardan interpretation
JeremyBentham'snotionof deep play,or gamesin whichthe
in
thatparticipation
consequencesforlosersare so devastating
11Ibid.,pp. 412-453.
1018
SOCIAL
RESEARCH
the games is irrational for all concerned. Noting that the
central wagers in Balinese cockfightsseem to correspond to
such a high stakes game, he then counters:
It is in large part becausethe marginaldisutility
of loss is so
great at the higherlevels of bettingthat to engage in such
bettingis to lay one's publicself,allusivelyand metaphorically,
throughthemediumofone's cock,on theline.And thoughto a
Benthamite
thismightseem merelyto increasethe irrationality
of the enterprisethat much further,to the Balinese what it
ofitall. And as (to follow
mainlyincreasesis themeaningfulness
WeberratherthanBentham)theimpositionof meaningon life
is the major and primaryconditionof human existence,that
accessof significance
morethancompensatesforthe economic
costsinvolved.12
Geertz then looks to two aspects of significance in the
cockfight.Both are related to the hierarchicalorganization of
Balinese society. He first observes that the cockfight is a
"simulation of the social matrix," or, following Goffman, a
"status bloodbath."13 To explore this, Geertz mentions the
four descent groups that organize factionsin the village and
examines the rules involvedin bettingagainst the cocks owned
by membersof other descent groups, other villages,rivals,and
so on. As Geertz moves toward the second aspect of
significance,although he has not yet referredto the cockfight
as a text,he begins to referto it as "an art form."14As an art
form, it "displays" fundamental passions in Balinese society
thatare hidden fromview in ordinarydaily life and comportment. As an atomisticinversionof the way Balinese normally
present themselvesto themselves,the cockfightrelates to the
statushierarchyin another sense- no longer as a status-based
organization of the cockfightbut as a commentary on the
existence of status differences in the first place.15 The
cockfightis "a Balinese reading of Balinese experience, a story
12Ibid.,
p. 434.
13Ibid.,
p. 436.
14Ibid.,
p. 443.
15Ibid.,
pp. 444-447.
1019
aboutthemselves."16
Whattheytellthemtheytellthemselves
selvesis thatbeneaththe externalveneerof collectivecalm
and gracelies anothernature.At boththe socialand individual level,thereis anotherBali and anothersortof Balinese.
And whattheytellthemselves
theytellin a textthat"consists
to bits."17
of a chickenhackinganothermindlessly
of the Balinese cockfightin
Afterthisbasic interpretation
Geertzcloses
termsof statusorganizationand commentary,
witha discussionof cultureas an ensembleof texts.He notes
is difficult
and thatsuch an approach
thattheirinterpretation
is not
handled.
forms
canbe sociologically
theonlywaythatsymbolic
But to regard
Functionalism
lives,and so does psychologism.
itto
andsaying
ofsomething,"
suchforms
as "saying
something
of
an
the
is
at
least
to
analysis
somebody,
open up
possibility
forratherthanto reductive
whichattendsto theirsubstance
mulasprofessing
to accountforthem.18
we mustquesof reductiveformulas,
thiscriticism
Accepting
handled the
tion whetherGeertz'sanalysishas sociologically
to itssubstance.
Balinesecockfight
or paid sufficient
attention
In what follows,no fundamentalreinterpretation
of the
Balinesecockfight
is attempted.Such a reinterpretation
is the
taskof a writermorefamiliarwithBali and Indonesiathanis
the presentone. This essay simplypointsto a few elements
presentin Geertz'sessay but omittedfromthe interpretive
exercisethatshouldforma partof a culturaland sociological
of thecockfight.
AlthoughGeertzmightregard
interpretation
referenceto theseelementsas a formof functionalist
reductionism,no attemptis made hereto accountforor explainthe
existenceof thecockfight.
Rather,bypointingto otheraspects
of Balinesesocietyand historywithwhichthe cockfight
may
be involved,this essay calls into question the metaphorof
cultureas text.
16Ibid., p. 448.
17Ibid.,
p. 449.
18Ibid.,
p. 453.
1020
SOCIAL
RESEARCH
Accepting for a moment that metaphor, we might briefly
turn to three aspects of Balinese society not included in the
interpretation.The firsthas to do withthe role of women. In
a footnoteearly in the article,Geertz notes that,while there is
little apparent public sexual differentiation in Bali, the
cockfightis one of the few activitiesfrom which women are
excluded.19This apparent anomaly may make sense in terms
of Geertz's interpretation.As with status differences,so with
sexual differences. The cockfight, and betting on the
cockfight,are the activitiesof men, serving as commentaries
on the public denial of difference.But sex cannot be simply
subsumed withinstatus. The sexual exclusion becomes more
interesting when we learn in another footnote that the
Balinese countrysidewas integrated by rotating market systemsthatwould encompass several villages and thatcockfights
were held on market days near the marketsand were sometimes organized by pettymerchants."Trade has followed the
cock for centuriesin rural Bali, and the sport has been one of
the main agencies of the island's monetization."20Furthermore, in yetanother footnotein his recentNegara, Geertz tells
us thatthe traditionalmarketswere "staffedalmost entirelyby
women" and that they were held in the morning while
cockfightswere held on the same afternoon.21
Aside from sexual differentiationand the connection with
markets,Geertz also notes throughout the early part of the
essay22that the cockfightwas an importantactivityin precolonial Balinese states(thatis, before the earlytwentiethcentury),
thatit was held in a ring in the centerof the village,thatit was
taxed and was a significant source of public revenue.23
19Ibid.,
pp. 417-418.
20Ibid.,
p. 432.
21Clifford Geertz,
Bali (Princeton:
Negara: The TheatreState in Nineteenth-Century
PrincetonUniversity
Press,1980),p. 199.
22Geertz,"Deep Play,"pp. 414, 418, 424, 425.
23In Negara,Geertzseemsto takea morecautiousstandon cockfights
as a major
"theatrestates"in
sourceof publicrevenue.The book is an analysisof fractionated
but
Bali,in whicha seriesof lordsand princesare able tobuildfollowings
precolonial
in whichthefollowings
themselves
are geographically
dispersed.Thoughhe analyzes
1021
Further,we learn that the cockfightwas outlawed by the
Dutchand laterby Indonesia,thatit is nowheld in semisecret
in hiddencornersof the village,and thatthe Balineseregard
theislandas takingthe shape of "a small,proudcock,poised,
neck extended,back taut,tail raised,in eternalchallengeto
large,feckless,shapelessJava."24Surelythesemattersrequire
At theveryleasttheysuggestthat
attention.
someinterpretive
related(thoughnot reducible)to
is intimately
the cockfight
formationand colonialism.They
of
state
politicalprocesses
has gone througha significant
also suggestthatthe cockfight
in
the
change
past eightyyears,thatif it is a textit is a text
that is being writtenas part of a profoundsocial, political, and culturalprocess.
This, finally,bringsus to the thirdpoint,whichis less an
than one thatis not
aspect omittedfromthe interpretation
sufficiently
explicated.Geertz refersto the cockfightas a
on status
statusbloodbathand tellsus thatas a commentary
the cockfighttellsthe Balinese thatsuch differences"are a
matterof life and death" and a "profoundlyserious business."25Yet, in thisessay at least,we learn verylittleabout
casteand statusas materialsocial processand the connection
In his
thatprocessdoes or does not have withcockfighting.
recentNegara,Geertzturnshis attentionto elaboratecremationceremoniesand sees themas an "aggressiveassertionof
status."Comparablein spiritto the potlatch,the cremationis
"conspicuousconsumption,Balinese style"26and is one of
variousritualsthatelaboratelytellthe Balinesethat"statusis
or
of the tax and rentcollectors,
the dispersedtax areas of lordsand theactivities
he refersto thecockfight
to anothersectionon commerce.
sedahan,
onlyin a footnote
Therehe notes:"The marketplaces
werecommonly
setup in thespacein frontofone
else- land,water,people,and so
or anotherlord'shouse.. . . And,as witheverything
on- theidiomhad itthatthelord'owned'themarket.In anycase,he leviedtaxeson
of themarketday,wereoften
it,as he did on thecockfights,
which,in theafternoon
held in the cockringnear the marketplace"
(Negara,p. 199).
24Geertz,"Deep Play,"p. 418.
25
Ibid., p. 447.
26Geertz,
Negara, p. 117.
1022
SOCIAL RESEARCH
all."27In thiscase, we are dealing in part withpoliticalcompetitionamong high caste lords and princes. But lords are also
communicatingto their commoners that the hierarchyis divinelyordained. Status in Bali has to do with inheritedcaste
but also withpositions achieved in life through various forms
of political maneuver- most clearly among lords but also
among low-casteSudras. Withso much maneuver,and withso
many cultural "texts"relatingto status,some attentionshould
be paid to the differentmessages of these texts and to their
constructionin the contextof status formationas an historical
process.
These three problems lead to a basic point. The cockfight
has gone through a process of creation that cannot be separated from Balinese history.Here we confrontthe major inadequacy of the text as a metaphor for culture. A text is
To see cultureas an ensembleof texts
written;it is not writing.28
or an art form is to remove culture from the process of its
creation.29If culture is a text, it is not everybody'stext. Beyond the obvious fact that it means differentthings to differentpeople or differentsorts of people, we must ask who is
(or are) doing the writing.Or, to break with the metaphor,
who is doing the acting,the creatingof the cultural formswe
interpret. This is a key question, for example, in the
transformationof the cockfightafterthe arrivalof the Dutch.
In a recent essay, Geertz has pointed to the separation of the
textfromits creation as one of the strengthsof the metaphor.
Referringto Ricoeur's notion of "inscription,"or the separation in the text of the said fromthe saying,Geertz concludes:
The greatvirtueof the extensionof the notionof textbeyond
thingswrittenon paper or carvedinto stone is thatit trains
attention
on preciselythisphenomenon:on howthe inscription
27Ibid.. n. 102.
28I thankRichardBlot forthisooint.
29It shouldbe understoodthatthedifference
is notthatbetweentextand performance.Such a distinction
takesus backto the structuralist
oppositionbetweenlanRather,the very
guage and speech,to whichGeertzwouldhardlybe sympathetic.
notionof cultureas textmustbe radicallyquestioned.
1023
of actionis brought
about,whatitsvehiclesare and howthey
of meaningfromtheflowof
work,and on whatthefixation
- history
fromthinking,
fromwhathappened,thought
events
- implies
forsociological
culture
frombehavior
interpretation.30
The readershouldnotassumethatthisessayis callingforthe
reductionof culture to action. Geertz correctlypoints to
meaningsthatpersistbeyondevents,symbolsthatoutlastand
of theircreators.But neithershould
transcendthe intentions
culturebe separatedfromaction;otherwisewe are caughtin
antinomies.Unfortunately,
the
yetanotherof anthropology's
textas metaphoreffectspreciselythisseparation.
and Process
Differentiation
The emphasison culturalcreationbringsout twoaspectsof
culturethatare missingfromGeertz'swork.The firstis the
even withinan
presenceof socialand culturaldifferentiation,
uniform
text.
Reference
to
differentiation
is, in
apparently
part,referenceto the connectionsbetweencultureand relationsof powerand domination,
as impliedin thecommentson
state and status,above. Some mightthinkthat to referto
cultureand power is to reduce cultureto power, to treat
valuesas "glosseson propertyrelations"31
or to "runon about
the exploitationof the masses."32But thereare reductions,
and then thereare reductions.And the denial of such connectionsis but one of manyclassicalreductionsin American
The secondaspectthatis missingis a conceptof
anthropology.
cultureas materialsocialprocess.Withouta senseof cultureas
- as writingas well as what is
materialprocess or creation
- we once again have a conceptionof cultureas prodwritten
30CliffordGeertz,"Blurred Genres: The
Refigurationof Social Thought," American
Scholar 49:2 (1980): 165-179.
31Geertz,
"Deep Play," p. 449.
VLGeertz, "Thick
Description," p. 22.
1024
SOCIAL
RESEARCH
uct but not as production.33The referenceto culture as material social process is not intended to take us back to the anthropologicalmaterialismof Marvin Harris. Indeed, the criticismthis essay has directedat CliffordGeertz is similarto the
criticismit directed at Marvin Harris: both treat culture as
product but not as production. There the similarityends, of
course. But both have removed culture from the process of
cultural creation and have thereforemade possible the constant reproductionof an antinomybetween the material and
the ideal.
The resolutionof the antinomy,and the concept of culture
thatemerges fromthatresolution,mustbe materialist.But the
materialisminvoked in this essay is far removed from the
reductivescientismthat has come to dominate materialismin
American anthropology.Rather, what is needed is something
close to the "cultural materialism"of Raymond Williams,34
who notes thatthe problem withmechanical materialismis not
thatit is too materialistbut thatit is not materialistenough. It
treatsculture and other aspects of the "superstructure"simply
as ideas. It therefore makes room for, indeed requires,
idealist critiquesthat share the ideational definitionbut deny
the materialconnectionor, as in the case of Geertz,that reject
the ideational definitionin favor of one that sees a socially
constructedtext that is, nonetheless,removed from the social
process by which the text is created. In contrast, Williams
suggests that cultural creation is itself a form of material
production,that the abstractdistinctionbetween materialbase
and ideal superstructuredissolves in the face of a material
33MarshallSahlins,whoalso recognizestheantinomies
of anthropological
thought
and has builthis careerat bothpolesof theone betweenmaterialism
and idealism,
makestheoppositecriticism
of Geertz,seeingGeertz'sculturaltheoryas too closely
as partof an argumentforthe
tied to the social. But Sahlinsmakesthiscriticism
andPractical
Reason
of thesocial.See MarshallSahlins,Culture
constitution
symbolic
of ChicagoPress,1976),pp. 106-117.
(Chicago:University
14RaymondWilliams,Marxism
and Literature
Press,
(Oxford: Oxford University
in Materialism
and Culture(London: New LeftBooks,
1977).See as wellhisProblems
1980) and TheSociology
ofCulture(New York: SchockenBooks, 1982).
1025
social processthroughwhichboth"material"and "ideal" are
createdand recreated.
constantly
Yet Williamsdoes not leave his anlaysisat thiselementary
assertion.He also pays attentionto the sociallyconstructed
meaningsthatinformaction.He does thisin partbymeansof
a revaluationof theidea of tradition,
definingitas a reflection
and
from
a
selection
upon
people's history.The selection
processis tied to relationsof dominationand subordination,
so thatWilliamscan talkof a dominantculture,or hegemony,
as a selectivetradition.Althoughthis dominantculture is
relatedto and supportsan orderof inequality,Williamsdoes
notviewit simplyas a ruling-class
ideologyimposedupon the
of a
dominated.Rather,as a selectionfromand interpretation
it touchesaspectsof thelivedrealityor expepeople'shistory,
rienceof thedominantand dominatedalike.It is,in shortand
in part,"meaningful."
But Williamsalso notesthatno orderof
domination is total. There are always relationshipsand
meaningsthatare excluded.Therefore,alternative
meanings,
versionsof a people'shistoryare
alternative
values,alternative
availableas a potentialchallengeto the dominant.Whether
such alternativeversionsare constructeddepends upon the
nature of the culturaland historicalmaterialavailable,the
processof class formationand division,and the possibilities
and obstaclespresentedin the politicalprocess. Williams's
conceptof culture,then,is tiedto a processof class formation
but is not reduced to thatprocess.Dominantand emergent
culturesare formedin a class-basedsocialworld,but theyare
not necessarily
congruentwithclass divisions.
The themesof cultureas materialsocial process and of
culturalcreationas (in part)politicalactionare furtherdeveloped in a recentarticlebyPeterTaylorand HermannRebel.35
the authorsconIn a masterful
analysisof culturein history,
centrateon four"texts" four of the Grimms'folktalesthat
35Peter
Taylor and Hermann Rebel, "Hessian Peasant Women, Their Families,and
the Draft: A Socio-Historical Interpretationof Four Tales from the Grimm Collection,"Journalof FamüyHistory6 (1981): 347-378.
1026
SOCIAL
RESEARCH
deal withcommon themes of inheritance,disinheritance,family dissolution,and migration.Afterbrieflycriticizingpsychological interpretations, they place the tales in the latecontext in which
eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century
they were collected. They then take two innovative methodological steps that are of great importance for the concept of
culture. First, they ask who is telling the tales and in what
context. They also note that, while the tales are traditional,
theyare not timeless,that is, the formand contentof the tales
may change in theirtelling.The question of who is tellingthe
tales and in what context thereforebecomes important.Taking a form of culture as a text,it is the firststep toward an
analysis of text as writing,as material social process. Second,
theyassume that the peasant women who are tellingthe tales
forma "peasant intelligentsia"thatis tryingto intervenein the
social process. That is, the tales are commentarieson what is
happening to them and their families that call for particular
formsof action to alter the situation.This is a crucial methodological step in the constructionof a concept of culture not
simply as a product but also as production, not simply as
sociallyconstitutedbut also as sociallyconstituting.Given this
framework,the authors then embark on a detailed symbolic
analysis of the tales and, finally,suggest that the tales were
attemptsby peasant women to respond to the disruption of
families and the draftingof the disinheritedsons. The suggested response: inheritinggirls should renounce theirinheritance, move from the region, marryelsewhere, and offer a
refuge for their fleeingbrothers.Taylor and Rebel show that
such a response is in accord withdemographic evidence from
Hesse, although it cannot yet be demlate-eighteenth-century
onstratedwhetherthe process theysuggest actuallyoccurred.
Nonetheless, the authors have produced a cultural analysis
that goes significantlyfurtherthan does Geertz in his "Notes
on a Balinese Cockfight."To ask of any cultural text,be it a
cockfightor a folktale,who is talking,who is being talked to,
what is being talked about, and what form of action is being
1027
called for, is to move culturalanalysisto a new level that
renderstheold antinomiesof materialism
and idealismirrelevant.36
It mightbe argued thatthisis preciselywhatGeertzdoes.
As one of our mostable ethnographers,
he is one of the few
who can provide detailed ecological, ecoanthropologists
nomic,and politicalinformationat the same time that he
engagesin sophisticated
symbolicanalysis.His recentexaminationof the theaterstate in nineteenth-century
Bali is an
of politicaland social
example of this: we find treatments
structureat hamlet,irrigationsystem,and templelevels,of
castedivisions,
of trade,and of theritualsof hierarchy.37
That
Geertzsees all of theseas necessaryfora culturalargument,
and thathe sees his inclusionof theseelementsas rendering
an "idealist"charge absurd,is clear fromhis conclusionto
Negara.But althoughall the elementsare presentedand connectedin a fashion,theyare neverfully
joined. Cultureas text
is removedfromthe materialprocess of its creation;it is
thereforeremovedfromthe historicalprocessthatshapes it
and thatit in turnshapes.Whenwe are toldthatin Bali ". . .
culturecame fromthe top down . . . whilepowerwelled up
fromthe bottom,"38
the image makesperfectsense giventhe
analysisof state structurethat precedes it. But the image
impliesseparation,a removalof culturefromthe wellings-up
of action,interaction,
power,and praxis.
36In a reference
to thepresent,Geertztellsus thatstatuscannotbe changedin the
and thatan individualcannotclimbthe caste ladder in any case ("Deep
cockfight
Play,"p. 443). Geertz also relatesfolktalesfrom the classicalperiod in which
serveseitheras a metaphorforpoliticalstruggle
or as a meansbywhich
cockfighting
profoundpoliticaland socialchangesmightoccur(see, e.g., "Deep Play,"pp. 418,
witha commonerwho has no meansto
441, 442). In one, a kingacceptsa cockfight
tobecomehisslaveshould
payshouldhe lose.The kinghopesto forcethecommoner
he lose,butthecommoner's
cockkillstheking,thecommonerbecomesking,and so
on ("Deep Play,"p. 442). Such talessupportGeertz'sassertionthatstatusdifferences
area "matter
of lifeand death."Theymayalso providematerialfora textualanalysis
of the sortTaylorand Rebelundertake.
37Geertz,Negara.
38Ibid., 85.
p.
1028
SOCIAL
RESEARCH
We return,then,to the comparisonof Geertz's promise with
his practice.Although this essay already contains more quotations than it can easily bear, it closes with yet another. The
quotation returns us to the promising approach to culture
expressed in "Thick Description," and it is a statement of
connection rather than separation. The passage establishes a
standard for cultural interpretationthat is in accord with the
premises of this essay. That it also serves as a standard in
terms of which Geertz's cultural analysis can be criticized
should be apparent.
a readingof
is constructing
If anthropological
interpretation
what happens,then to divorceit fromwhat happens- from
what,in thistimeor thatplace, specificpeople say,whatthey
do, whatis done to them,fromthe wholevastbusinessof the
and renderitvacant.
world- is to divorceitfromitsapplications
- a poem,a person,a history,
A good interpretation
of anything
- takesus intothe heartof that
a society
a ritual,an institution,
Whenit does not do that,but
of whichit is an interpretation.
leads us insteadsomewhereelse- intoan admirationof itsown
or of the beautiesof Euclielegance,of itsauthor'scleverness,
dean order- it mayhaveitsintrinsic
charms;butitis something
else than whatthe taskat hand . . . calls for.39
cannot be separated fromwhat people say,
Interpretation
whattheydo, whatis done to them,becauseculturecannotbe
are seduced by the
so separated.As long as anthropologists
charmsofa textualanalysisthattakessuchseparation
intrinsic
as a pointof honor,theywillcontinueto do somethingother
thanwhatthe taskat hand calls for.
39Geertz,"ThickDescription,"
p. 18.

Balinese Cockfights and the Seduction of Anthropology Author(s

Transcription

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