Fields | Terrains | Vol. 2 by McGill ASA

Te r r a i n s

F i e l d s McGill Undergraduate Journal of Anthropology -

Hiver 2012 Vo l . 2

F i e l d s

Winter 2012 Vo l . 2

Revue des étudiants au baccalauréat en anthropologie de McGill -

Winter 2012 Vo l . 2

Hi v e r 2012 Vo l . 2

Field s

McGill Undergraduate Journal of Anthropology -

Te r r a i n s

Revue des étudiants au baccalauréat en anthropologie de McGill -

F i e l d s

Te r r a i n s

Editor-in-chief - Rédactrice-en-chef Jasmine Lefresne Associate editor - Rédactrice adjointe Ming Lin Design - Conception Ming Lin, Sheehan Moore

Editorial board - Équipe éditoriale Marek Ahnee, Ayse Bursali, Allison Marie Cooper, Jordan Graham, Ivy (Shing-Ay) Huang, Maud Hurley, Carly Langlois, Bronwyn Larsen, Aude Leroux-Chartré, Sheehan Moore, Robyn Powell, Émilie Sarrazin, Erin Schilling, Veronica Winslow, Allison Yolles Special thanks - Remerciements Arts Undergraduate Society, McGill Department of Anthropology, Anthropology Students’ Association

Cover art - Image de couverture Bronwyn Larsen Translator - Traductrice Sabrina Moro

Editor’s note

Note de la rédactrice

Fields is an annual journal of anthropology devoted to showcasing the work of undergraduate students at McGill University. This publication hopes to engage, provoke, and inspire; we want to actively foster discussion around anthropology – what it is, what it could/should be, what role it plays in academia and beyond – by providing interesting and thought-stimulating works from the future generation of anthropologists. This year we are pleased to publish papers and visual essays of exceptional quality which we believe do just this. The nine academic papers touch on a variety of topics in both anthropology and archaeology, ranging from the negotiation of contemporary kinship relations in North America to the historicity of the Exodus. The two photo essays offer a different approach to anthropology and ethnography through stunning images that in many ways speak for themselves. This year we have also decided to include reviews of two local events – the annual American Anthropology Association conference and the Colours of India exhibition at Pointe-à-Callière – in order to explore opportunities to engage in anthropology outside of the university. On behalf of myself and the rest of the editorial team, we hope you enjoy the 2012 edition of Fields.

Terrains est une revue annuelle qui met de l’avant le travail des étudiants au baccalauréat en anthropologie de l’Université McGill. Cette publication espère engager, provoquer et inspirer; nous voulons susciter une discussion autour de l’anthropologie – ce qu’elle est, ce qu’elle pourrait/ devrait être, le rôle qu’elle devrait jouer dans le monde universitaire et au-delà – en vous offrant des travaux intéressants intriguant de la future génération d’anthropologues. Cette année, nous sommes heureux de publier des dissertations et des essais visuels d’une qualité exceptionnelle qui rendent justice à notre revue. Les neuf essais académiques touchent une variété de sujets tant en anthropologie qu’en archéologie, de la négociation contemporaine des liens de parenté en Amérique du Nord à l’historicité de l’Exode. Les deux essais photographiques offrent une approche différente quant à l’anthropologie et à l’ethnographie à travers des images stupéfiantes qui parlent d’elles-mêmes, de maintes façons. Cette année, nous avons aussi décidé d’inclure les comptes rendus de deux évènements locaux – la conférence annuelle de l’American Anthropology Association et l’exposition Couleurs de l’Inde du musée Pointe-à-Callière – afin d’explorer diverses opportunités de mettre à l’épreuve nos connaissances en anthropologie à l’extérieur de l’université. En mon nom et celui de toute l’équipe éditoriale, nous espérons que vous apprécierez cette édition 2012 de Terrains.

Jasmine Lefresne Editor-in-chief

Jasmine Lefresne Rédactrice-en-chef

Co n t e n t s

Ta b l e

d es

mati è re s

1. What ‘works’ Understanding contemporary complexities of kinship and personhood Megan Galeucia

67. This is who we are A visual ethnography of Canadian tree planters Alice Walker

9. The Archaeology of the Exodus Émilie Sarrazin

71. Organic farming Issues of modernity and women’s empowerment in East Africa Marion Provencher

25. Ice-hearted killers The rejection of “tradition” in perceptions of the Newfoundland seal hunt Heather Mcintosh 35. Confucian / Confusion Ming Lin 41. Korean Buddhist art and architecture Chinese influences and unique aspects Andrea Hoegler 47. Neurophenomenology Holistic understandings of the person in cognitive anthropology Amy Binning 59. Le rôle du religieux dans la création d’un syncrétisme identitaire en contexte de migration Travail de recherche sur une église presbytérienne ghanéenne à Montréal Héloïse Roy

77. Conscious controls of population in hunter-gatherer societies Infanticide, reproductive practices, and their roles in hunter-gatherer communities Jordan Graham 91. Northern Australian indigenous land management Spirituality in a contemporary time Christine King Reviews - Comptes rendus 97. Pointe-à-Callière’s Colours of India Ming Lin 97. New student perspective at the 2011 meeting of the AAA Alice Walker

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

What ‘works’

Understanding contemporary complexities of kinship and personhood Megan Galeucia

maintains what she considers a very close relationship with her mother; yet she has never seen or spoken to her father, an anonymous sperm donor to whom she is biologically related. Biotechnologies, including reproductive technologies, are gradually becoming accepted and integrated into our social fabric. Alice’s experience provides an illuminating example of how such technologies call into question and disturb previously indisputable “natural” relations, such as the genealogical connection between father and infant. As a result, this presents a challenge to accepted EuroAmerican theories and people’s assumptions about kinship (Carsten 2004:29-30). When Alice was nine, her mother’s friend, Marianne, who had recently broken up with her longtime boyfriend, moved in with Alice and her mother. Even though she originally planned to stay for a month or two, Marianne still lives with the family today. In fact, Alice considers Marianne a part of her family. Alice said that Marianne has “helped raise her… and almost became like a second parent” [00:05:02.19]. Anthropologist Marilyn Strathern (2005:25) appropriates the term “recombinant” in describing how, in families like Alice’s, kinship is “cut” and “spliced” to be reconfigured into new forms. Biotechnologies that lead to these recombinant configurations of kin create new possibilities that play out in everyday life (Cartsen 2004:9,16). Being a single person and having the opportunity to participate in a study at the local university at no cost made becoming pregnant possible for Alice’s mother. Alice says that having a child was not necessarily a long-term aspiration of

During a casual discussion on the feminist movement of our mothers’ generation one summer night, I learned something interesting about my friend Alice.1 Nine months prior to Alice’s birth, her mother was artificially inseminated via donor sperm; she was forty years of age and single at the time. I decided to interview Alice, whom at the time of this conversation I had recently become acquainted with, because I was curious about how her experience of not living with a father had affected her as she has grown and matured. I was also interested in the role that reproductive technology played in shaping her kin relations and sense of personhood. Overall, I hoped to gain a better sense of Alice’s kinship relations: does she conceive of them more socially or in terms of their genetic or biological basis? As well as how she thinks about her sense of self: does she understand her identity more in terms of genetic substance or social relations and experience? From talking with Alice, I came to learn that her personal thoughts and lived experiences illustrate the themes of kinship, personhood, and entanglements of biology and culture in complex and unexpected ways. Emergent Possibilities in Kinship Writing on kinship in America in the 1960s, Anthropologist David Schneider observed, “If science discovers new facts about biogenetic relationships, then that is what kinship is and was all along” (Strathern 1995:346). Other anthropologists often quote this phrase to illustrate that Euro-American folk theories frame kinship as the social organization of biology (Strathern 1995; Franklin 2001). My interview with Alice reveals that she

Fields

Winter 2012 -

new possibilities of affiliation (2001:40). Alice’s relationships with Marianne and her family reveal that creating new, recombinant forms of kinship entails what Janet Carsten calls “a subtle and sophisticated articulation of the many factors that may create kinship” (2004:183). Marianne’s family members not only treat Alice like kin, despite the fact that they have no biological ties, but they also use particular terminology – “cousin” – implying a significant level of intimacy in their relationships. The relationship between terminology and contemporary kin relations is discussed in the subsequent section. Biotechnologies have also led to what many scholars refer to as the geneticization of kinship (Carsten 2004:179; Strathern 2005:72). Western paradigms of thought generally uphold the idea that relatives are made through the transmission of biological substances: blood and more recently, genes (Strathern 2005:26). Interestingly, Alice’s kin relations do not hold true to this theory. Other than the fact that her father was of Central or Eastern European descent, Alice has very limited information about her father’s genealogical background. Thus, in lieu of neither knowing her father’s biogenetic makeup, nor her mother’s, since her mother was adopted and does not know her genealogical ancestry, Alice privileges many social relations over biological ones when it comes to constituting kinship. Her references to the intimate, strong bonds between her mother and Marianne illustrate her acceptance of and confidence in her kin relations. Evidently, the emergent possibilities that contemporary kinship offers reveal a reconfiguration of Euro-American folk notions about kinship’s biological basis. New kinds of relationships are made possible and are actualized through practices of caring and openness to new imaginings.

her mother’s: “Marianne…was surprised when my mom told her, ‘Oh, I’m pregnant’” [00:15:38.03]. Furthermore, an open room in their three-story house presented the possibility for Marianne to move in, effectively creating a space for new kin relations to emerge. In our interview, Alice comments that while she does not consider anyone in her life to fit the role of a father figure, she has two parental figures – her biological mother and Marianne. Marianne’s relationships with Alice and her mother are not defined in terms of sex or blood. Although Marianne is “like a second parent” to Alice, she is neither Alice’s biological parent nor her mother’s partner. Nor has Marianne ever been financially responsible for Alice [00:31:00.06]. Their relationship is based on what John Borneman (2001:37) describes as “an elementary principle of human affiliation:” caring for others and being cared for. The family – consisting of Alice, her mother, and Marianne – has rearranged traditional social structure through practicing alternative forms of affiliation. Furthermore, Alice’s relationship with Marianne, which has become increasingly intimate over the years, has also lead to other interesting relationships that Alice describes: I have actually become pretty close with [Marianne’s] family as well, more recently. She has a nephew and a niece in their late 30s or early 40s and I have been close with her nephew’s family and they have two kids and I consider his wife like a good friend. So that’s been nice. And, they introduce me to people like ‘this is our cousin,’ which has been really nice as well. And yeah, she’s like a second parent. [00:55:23.24]

It is evident that Alice and Marianne’s family members involve creativity and imagination in constituting these kin ties. While Borneman argues that radically reorganized arrangements of kinship based on care subvert conventional categories of kinship, I contend that Alice and her family are not subverting, but instead expanding and reconfiguring kinship through building intimate relations to incorporate

Questions of Language Carsten asserts that while new kinship

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

with just her mother for a significant portion of her life: “I think I have had the opportunity to become really close with her in a way that not everyone can with their parents, because I didn’t have to share her…I think that’s kind of neat and other people seem to find it interesting too” [00:47:23.13]. When I ask her to talk more about why she finds it interesting, she responds: “I don’t know [pause] it’s just really different from a lot of other people’s experiences, but it’s worked for me” [00:47:59.10]. Towards the beginning of the interview, Alice mentions stories about feeling the need to pretend that her father lives with her. She describes telling childhood friends that the framed black-and-white portrait of her grandfather that hangs in the hallway of her house is a photograph of her dad. She also brings up how, during the time she attended an all-girls middle school, she was defensive about the fact that her mom lives with another woman but is not gay. Now, at age 21, Alice believes that her familial situation has “worked” for her. Reconfigurations of kinship, which have become a part of her daily life, are not as radical as they may seem from an outsider’s perspective. In fact, as Alice has grown and matured, she has become comfortable and familiar with these relations and no longer questions their ambiguity. Alice’s kinship vocabulary incorporates the familiar biological terms “cousin” and “parent,” as well as new phrases such as “mom’s housemate.” However, she does not seem to have permanently adopted any of these terms; instead, she uses each one in particular contexts because there are no allencompassing terms to describe her relations. The legal recognition of relationships of affinity (as opposed to descent) in the rulings of various recent court cases illustrates how new creations of kin relations are becoming increasingly common (Borneman 2001; Strathern 2005:52). However, it does not appear that these promising verdicts for

configurations brought about by biotechnological advances are conceptualized as radically changing the ways in which we think about kinship, current questions of kinship – which countless individuals face everyday – are often phrased in terms of issues with which we are already familiar (2004:168). For example, as a child, Alice found similarities between her family situation and those of her friends with single parents: “I think it was a bit confusing for people. But like a lot of people I know had single moms” [00:05:02.19]. She adds, “And so many of my friends’ parents were going through divorces when we were growing up, which was a much harder experience for them than my experience was for me” [00:54:28.25]. Additionally, when Marianne’s niece and nephew refer to Alice as their “cousin” when introducing her to new people, they articulate a unique situation in familiar terminology, which creates comfort and acceptance. Strathern, however, references discussions on the common use of genetic discourses to describe kin relations. In doing so, she calls attention to the fact that while words and phrases like “cousin” may bring people back to familiar and uncomplicated concepts, adequate terminology to discuss contemporary kin formations does not currently exist (2005:30). I was curious as to whether Alice struggles to find the right words to describe her relationships. She replied: “I did when I was younger, but I don’t really care if people think my mom is gay. That doesn’t matter at all if they do. She’s not, but I just say that Marianne is my mom’s housemate” [00:56:23.09]. It is difficult to describe these new types of relations that do not exactly fit into traditional definitions of kin terms, such as “parent.” Even when describing her guardians as two older females, Alice unintentionally insinuates that they are partners or lovers. Alice views her relationships as unique, but does not seem to consider them radically out of the ordinary, or strange. This is illustrated in her remarks about growing up and living

Fields

Winter 2012 -

individuals with non-normative familial relations have resulted in transformations in the institutional and linguistic hegemonic structures of kinship. Borneman brings nuance to the contemporary state of kinship by emphasizing that despite the existence of “normative frameworks, institutionalized in marriage and kinship…the excluded nonetheless find means to articulate their needs” (2001:42).

Managing this genetic connection with her father reveals that a disconnection simultaneously exists between them because as a sperm donor, her father’s identity is anonymous. Alice neither knows his name, nor a viable method for contacting him. However, she does not seem very bothered by the inability to activate this connection: Sometimes I have sort of fantasized about looking in a yearbook and know that that was my dad. Yeah, its not like...I don’t feel the need to, like, explore. [00:35:28.04]

Managing Relations The rise of reproductive technologies has augmented individuals’ abilities to make choices about their relations, resulting in significant implications for kinship. Strathern notes that Western notions of kinship underline connections between bodies transmitted in particular ways, notably through the biological substances of genes and blood (1995:357). While genetic connections between individuals inherently exist, knowledge of these connections bestows individuals with the responsibility to make choices – to activate the relationships or not. She refers to this practice as managing connections and disconnections (Strathern 2005:26). As discussed above, Alice’s relationship with Marianne effectively turns a non-relative into kin. On the other hand, her relation to her biological father has not precipitated a relationship. Her present kinship formation illustrates Alice’s conscious choices in kinmaking. In describing pursuing a relationship with her biological father, Alice tells me:

I think I would probably like to establish a relationship with him and I’d just be so curious, like, more about myself than, like, how who he was has influenced me. [00:36:21.07]

In this interesting segment of the interview, she mentions that she does not feel compelled to find her father, but then says that she would like to initiate a relationship with him. Furthermore, she appears more concerned with knowing how he has influenced her than securing a social bond. In another comment about finding her father, Alice revises her original statement, appearing more uncertain about their relationship: “And actually when you asked if you’ve become more curious in the last few years, I think I was like more curious about half siblings than actually who my father was” [00:32:51.26]. She adds later, “And it would be nice to be friends with them and get to know them a bit” [00:36:21.07]. Clearly, managing relations for Alice also involves negotiating how she feels about them. The previous quotation also points to another category of relation that she can choose to manage: siblings. Perhaps it is because Alice is an only child, yet has two parental figures, that she seems more eager to pursue relationships with potential siblings than her biological father. Notably, she emphasizes the social aspects of this relationship – being “friends” – over the biological connection, while she understates the social component of

Growing up, it was always like, ‘there’s no way I am going to find out who he was,’ and like, ‘I’m not going to have someone like that in my life and that’s fine’…I got my mom to dig up his file a couple a years ago. And there’s some websites where sperm donors and sperm donor babies can, like, put in who their doctor was and, like, their file number and sometimes they’ll find each other, but it’s not through any official medium. I looked at some of those, but you have to pay money and it just seemed like a bit of a racket. [00:22:43.09]

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

potentially expository details intentionally undiscovered. Furthermore, the ways in which knowledge is conceived have implications for cultural conceptions of personhood and identity (Franklin 2001:307). Strathern argues that, in the Euro-American context, what is considered “knowledge” is directly related to notions of individuality, property, and possession. This opposes many nonWestern cultures, where knowledge of the self is created in individuals’ relations with others (2005:70-5). Thus, while in both cultural models kinship is intrinsic to personhood, the Western individual identity is largely grounded in biogenetic knowledge (Carsten 2004:107; Strathern 2005:69). In a similar quest to that presented by Carsten’s ethnographic example of adopted individuals seeking out their birth kin (2004:104-6), Alice undertook a search for her biological father using the Internet. Carsten finds that the adoptees justify their often traumatic searches by emphasizing the importance of settling a feeling of “incompleteness” and “discovering ‘who one is’ or ‘where one came from’” (2004:104). The knowledge they pursue about themselves through learning information about their biological relations is evidently of great importance to these particular individuals. In commenting on whether she would like to initiate a relationship with her father, Alice states, “I’d just be so curious, like, more about myself than, like, how who he was has influenced me” [00:22:43.09]. Clearly, she similarly considers knowledge about her father to be of interest, because it plays a role in her own identity. However, unlike Carsten’s informants, Alice does not express any feeling of incompleteness due to the lack of this information. Throughout the interview, she appears far more interested in forming social relations (with potential half-siblings and Marianne) than discovering biological knowledge from connecting with her father.

establishing a relationship with her father (as she is primarily “curious about [her]self ”). Kinship is not only about genealogical connections. Reproductive technologies and new advancements in the field of genetics have played a significant role in impacting how connections are conceptualized in the West. Genetic knowledge connects individuals to close family members, as well as “countless more distant…others” (Strathern 2005:26). Alice has actively pursued some relationships, that with Marianne for example, while others have remained disconnections as a result of the varying scales of difficulty entailed in initiating them. She has chosen not to pursue more unconventional or complicated connections such as those with the donor, his family, and her mother’s biological parents and grandparents. Individuals’ abilities to make decisions concerning relating reveals that people are not just their genes because kinship relations are not solely dependent on inbuilt genetic connections. As the following section illustrates, choices made in negotiating connections and disconnections not only hold consequences for kinship; they also influence conceptions of the self. Knowing the Self In the West, identity is largely informed by biological knowledge, which discloses information about an individual’s genetic makeup, parentage, or ancestry (Franklin 2001:306). Therefore, whom an individual chooses to connect with and dissociate from affects the individual’s sense of self. As Strathern argues, knowledge about individuals is inherently embedded in biological relations (2005:69). When individuals activate connections, they simultaneously uncover information about themselves. Even when individuals manage disconnections, they act on a form of self-knowledge by denying information about their relations or leaving

Fields

Winter 2012 -

relations to others. In Alice’s case, the absence of knowledge, in a sense, constitutes her identity. When I asked Alice if she sees a lot of her mom in herself, she responded:

Carsten notes that the search for biological kin is less important for Melanesians (and other non-Westerners) because social interactions are privileged in determining personhood and how relations are conducted (2004:94, 104). While Alice has never been able to meet her father and therefore gain more knowledge about herself, when talking about the information she does possess, particularly his background as a medical student, she admits: “I think that I was always kind of proud of that. Who knows, maybe he dropped out after first year, but whatever. Yeah, I’ve always liked that little tidbit of information” [00:46:22.20]. While in no way does it define her as a person, this fact influences her sense of identity. However, these and other segments of the interview reveal that while Alice recognizes the potential to gain self-knowledge by uncovering biological facts, she does not locate her identity in her biological traits to a great extent. In fact, she views her social relationships as largely constitutive of her sense of self. To return to the previous quotation, when discussing her knowledge about her biological father Alice says, “Who knows, maybe he dropped out after first year, but whatever.” Earlier in the interview Alice mentions that parts of the information she has about him, like his height and weight, do not seem accurate [00:02:56.17]. While Alice retains this information, her casual attitude implies that this knowledge does not significantly impact her sense of self. In describing her relationship with her mother, who is adopted and whose only knowledge about her genealogical background is the fact that she is probably of Central or Eastern European descent, Alice remarks, “I kind of like the idea that we’re this anonymous genetic island” [00:47:23.13]. The understanding of her mother and herself as an island – without ties to any genetic or genealogical line, at least knowingly – informs her sense of identity and relates to other statements she makes about herself and her

Yes and no. I skipped a grade too. And like, she, I’m like, she’s very visual and I think I’m better at listening than she is. And I study music in school and she’s the least musical person I’ve met in my life...[laughs]...she’s tone deaf...And I think she’s stubborn in a way that I’m not. And she’s really smart…Yeah I see a bit...but I probably see as much of Marianne in myself, or well, I hope I do. [00:19:37.27]

Alice seeing Marianne – a non-biological kin – in herself illustrates a common theme that appears throughout the interview: the tendency not to emphasize the biological over the social. Also, Alice describes seeing her mother in herself in terms of several nongenetic traits, such as playing music and not being stubborn, which are, at least in some part, learned or acquired through social interaction. Alice’s sense of self demonstrates Douglas Hollan’s (2010) argument that, in particular contexts, individuals do not always uphold cultural models of the self when forming and negotiating relationships in their subjective, everyday lives. Alice, viewing herself as an “island” and locating her identity, in part, in the genes of her mother and father, upholds the dominant Western model of the egocentric self that is autonomous and bounded. However, Alice’s “experiential self ” – the self experienced by a person in a given culture – is often more sociocentric. This is revealed in her statements illustrating her selfhood as largely constituted through her interactions with other persons (Hollan 2010). While Hollan asserts that “experiential selves” differ from cultural models “within specific contexts in both Western and non-Western societies,” I argue that Alice constitutes herself sociocentrically by giving preference to her social relations over biological

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

about myself than, like, how who he was has influenced me” [00:36:21.07]. How is Alice’s learning about herself different from learning how he has influenced her? This moderately confusing statement is what Gordon refers to as “simultaneously straightforward and full of enormously subtle meaning” (1997:5). I sense that Alice believes that who her father is affects who she is as a person, yet knowing how and in what ways is a complicated matter for her. She seems ambivalent about the extent to which she believes his background influences her life. On one hand, she thinks that his absence has made her less athletic and probably affected her personal interests [00:25:00.22]. She also likes the “tidbit of information” that he was a medical student [00:46:22.20]. On the other hand, she believes that there is no way of finding her father. Due to a lack of information and the issue of confidentiality, she states that there is “nothing [she] can do about it” [00:22:43.09]. Despite this impediment, Alice has attempted to search for him. The omissions and contradictions found in the scant information she does have about him are a haunting force, because in some sense, the simultaneous presence and absence of information about him conjure her to act in opposition to her feelings on the matter. These statements from the interview reveal the difficultly involved in articulating her complicated views on the subject and her potential feelings of uncertainty. Moreover, for Alice, negotiating both a sociocentric and egocentric self in a society that underlines the importance of knowing the self as an autonomous, individual subject is incredibly complicated. Gordon explains that, “Complex personhood means that the stories people tell about themselves, about their troubles, about their social worlds, and about their society’s problems are entangled and weave between what is immediately available as a story and what their imaginations are reaching toward” (1997:4). Alice’s use

facts within most contexts (2010:303, emphasis added). Her divergence from the Western cultural model of the self may largely be a result of the lack of information about her parentage, and therefore her unique, individual, biogenetic self. Conclusion: Haunting and the Self I approached the process of transcribing this interview ready to analyze and reflect on two points of interest. First, whether Alice understands her kinship relations more socially, or in terms of their genetic or biological basis. Second, whether she defines her sense of self more in terms of genetic substance or kin relations. While I have come to the conclusion that Alice emphasizes her social relations and their effects on her own sense of identity, I am not ready to discount the biological all together. With further analysis, I have come to understand that biological knowledge – or rather the absence of it – plays a significant role in Alice’s sense of self. Using Avery Gordon’s (1997) theoretical understandings of “haunting” and “complex personhood” as analytical tools, I will illustrate how intricate entanglements of culture, biology and knowledge affect Alice’s subjective experiences, kin relations, and constitution of personhood. Gordon defines haunting as, “a constituent element of modern social life...neither premodern superstition nor individual psychosis; it is a generalizable social phenomenon of great import” (1997:7). Employing this sense of the term, the absence of Alice’s father is haunting. For clarification, by my use of father in this context, I place a greater emphasis on the Strathernian sense of the biological information a parental relation holds than on the parental role of the father in his relationship to his child (because Alice feels as though she does not lack a father figure in her life). In describing her hopes of establishing a relationship with her biological father, Alice tells me, “I’d just be so curious, like, more

Fields

Winter 2012 -

D. Faubion, ed. Pp. 29-46. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Carsten, Janet 2004 After Kinship: New Departures in Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2004 Introduction: After Kinship? In After Kinship. Pp. 1-30. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2004 The Person. In After Kinship. Pp. 83-108. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Franklin, Sarah 2001 Biologization Revisited: Kinship Theory in the Context of the New Biologies. In Relative Values: Reconfiguring Kinship Studies. Sarah Franklin and Susan McKinnon, eds. Pp. 313-337. Durham: Duke University Press. Gordon, Avery F. 1997 Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Hollan, Douglas 2010 Cross-Cultural Differences in the Self. In Psychological Anthropology: A Reader on Self in Culture. Robert A. Levine, ed. United Kingdom: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Strathern, Marilyn 2005 Kinship, Law and the Unexpected: Relatives are Always a Surprise. New York: Cambridge University Press. 1995 Displacing Knowledge: Technology and the Consequences for Kinship. In Conceiving the New World Order: The Global Politics of Reproduction. Faye D. Ginsburg and Rayna R. Reiter, eds. Berkeley: University of California Press.

of the phrase “anonymous genetic island” [00:47:23.13] beautifully articulates her own complex personhood that involves the haunting force of biological knowledge. This knowledge, in Gordon’s words, “makes its mark by being there and not there at the same time” (1997:6). The phrase reveals Alice’s genetic ties to her mom, drawing attention to the importance of their biological relation, while simultaneously referring to herself as genetically disconnected, and therefore open to the possibility of social relations. Alice describes her experience growing up to me as: “just really different from a lot of other people’s experiences, but its worked for me.” As demonstrated, her kin relations are both genetically and socially founded. Additionally, her sense of self is constituted through her social relations, experiences, and biological knowledge of close and distant kin. Alice effectively negotiates conflicting personal thoughts on who she is as a self, as well as the many complicated relations between elements of kinship and personhood, in ways that “work” for her. Note: 1. Name has been changed to protect interviewee’s identity. References: Borneman, John 2001 Caring and Being Cared For: Displacing Marriage, Kinship, Gender, and Sexuality. In The Ethics of Kinship: Ethnographic Inquiries. James

Hi v e r 2012 -

Te r r a i n s

The Archaeology of the Exodus

Émilie Sarrazin

contextual background to the Exodus narrative, with its historicity implied. The second deems archaeology as a powerful method for proving the historicity of the biblical events. Finally, the third approach uses archaeology as a sort of counter-proof to support a non-literal reading of the Bible. At the end of this paper, the study of these different phases will be incorporated into a broader discussion of the use of texts in historical archaeology.

The history of biblical archaeology should function as a warning to the danger of letting our presuppositions overcome the nature of the data. In a sense, it is an example of ideological archaeology. The practitioners of biblical archaeology had a well-developed ideological framework in which to pursue their research, and they proved to be remarkably flexible in absorbing questionable data and modifying these to fit their system.

Archaeology as Background

Thomas Davis (2004:156)

The first approach taken by scholars when discussing the Exodus with regards to the archaeological record has been to use archaeology as a contextual tool. Archaeology has been seen as able to provide a supplemental background for the important events mentioned in the Old Testament. This school has attempted to ground the Exodus in Egyptian and Near Eastern chronology, and to provide the socio-political context of this major event. Historically, this approach started as a romantic inquiry, as scholars and travelers wanted to find where the Israelites lived in Egypt, which cities and monuments they built, under which terrible Pharaoh they suffered, and which routes they took out of Egypt. François Lenormant (1874) exemplified this romantic approach. Fascinated by the Egyptian antiquities exhibited at the Paris Exposition of 1867, he wondered how Egyptology could help enrich modern knowledge about the biblical past. Lenormant tried to insert the different components of the Exodus narrative— descent, sojourn, oppression, exodus, wandering and conquest—into appropriate moments of Egypt’s dynastic history.1 He then placed the Exodus at the end of the nineteenth dynasty between Merenptah and

The question of the historicity of the Exodus narrative has been an important source of debate in Western academia since the nineteenth century (Redmount 1998:80, 84). This debate developed with “Higher Criticism,” a school of thought which approached the Old and New Testament not as a monolithic and absolute text, but as the result of a complex and centuries-long process of composition, compilation and transmission (Redmount 1998:82). This debate, however, also developed with the professionalization of archaeology. This essay will explore how the archaeological record and language have been used by scholars from varied disciplines to define the status of the biblical Exodus. More precisely, the present paper aims to examine the development of the “archaeology of the Exodus” through the changing ways the discipline of archaeology has been used to discuss such an important religious textual account. At least three main approaches have been adopted by scholars. Though these perspectives developed chronologically, they have never become mutually exclusive and still compete alongside each other in the present time. The first approach consists of considering archaeology as a useful tool for providing

Fields

Winter 2012 -

Edwards, was conducting excavations in the Delta so as to uncover lost documents which would shed light on the Hebrew sojourn in Egypt (Gange 2006:1087). Her calls for funding greatly stressed how Egyptology was not a mere archaeological pastime but a serious Christian duty (Gange 2006:1087-1088). The first excavations conducted under Edouard Naville by the EEF aimed to find the route of the Exodus, and to fit biblical events into the chronology of ancient Egypt (Gange 2006:1088). In 1883, Flinders Petrie, under the EEF, excavated at Tanis, the possible biblical Zoan, to search for textual traces of Joseph’s regency and establish its place in Egyptian history (Gange 2006:1089). The attitude of Egyptologists of this period toward religion was described as traditional and hidebound, as they were “aggressively refusing to entertain any question as to the Bible’s historical reliability and using it, word for word, as a guide for excavations” (Gange 2006:1103). At the end of the nineteenth century, archaeological approaches toward ancient Egypt were mostly defined by the religious beliefs of the excavators and their aim to strengthen pre-existing beliefs (Gange 2006:1102). According to Gange, British Egyptology did not develop as the “handmaiden of history”, but as the “handmaiden of theology” (Gange 2006:1103). French Egyptologists in the nineteenth century were also looking into the Egyptian records for biblical reasons. Gaston Maspero (1873:36) was asked by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres to look for the internal and external circumstances that could have led to the Exodus of the Hebrews out of Egypt. In this approach the veracity of the Bible was neither questioned nor intended to be tested by archaeology: rather it was looking for the socio-political context. Based on Josephus’ rendering of Manetho’s account of the Exodus, Maspero (1873:36, 54) looked for the Exodus during the 19th Dynasty

Ramesses III, at a time of internal struggles and foreign invasions (Lenormant 1874:220). He asserted that the Hebrews built the city of Pithom and Raamses under Sethos I and his son Ramesses II (Lenormant 1874:213). For Lenormant, physical remains from this time period allowed modern individuals to experience the hardship of the Hebrews’ past in a more tangible manner. Lenormant’s sentimental approach to the material remains was epitomized by his choice to quote his father, who visited the monuments built at Thebes under Seti I and Ramesses II in 1829: It is not only that we feel humiliated by the immensity of the work; but if the conception is prodigious in a single head, the execution is understandable only by the enslavement of so many men that the mind steps back and is horrified by the sight of such monstrous violation of liberty. . . It is indeed only with a true feeling of horror that we could think about the thousands of captives who must have died under the stick of taskmasters, or suffered from the excessive fatigues and privations, while elevating as convicts those gigantic constructions which pleased the insatiable self-pride of the Egyptian king. In the monuments built during Ramesses’ reign, there is not a stone, in a sense, which did not cost a human life.2 (Lenormant 1874:217-218)

The perceived potential of archaeology to ground the Exodus narrative in history was also a driving force in the development of British Egyptology in the nineteenth century. Gange (2006:1083-1084) argues that the main driving forces in the professionalization of Egyptology during the nineteenth century were not colonial, Eurocentric or scientific aims, but spiritual objectives. Egyptologists, at least from Britain, were “first and foremost Christians attempting to tie archaeological records into Old Testament history” (Gange 2006:1084). The Egypt Exploration Fund (EEF), founded in 1882, set the “illustration of the Old Testament narrative” as its primary goal (Davis 2004:29). The explicit goal of the founder of the society, the novelist Amelia

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

Semite like Joseph in his rise to power, and more inclined to invite his Hebrew family to settle and prosper on their territory than an Egyptian pharaoh would have been (Frank 1971:69). Moreover, the following oppression of the Hebrews under a “king who did not know Joseph” fits well with the Egyptian government’s state of mind following the expulsion of the Hyksos (Sarna 1986:70). Recovered inscriptions—like the one carved on the rock-cut temple of Queen Hatshepsut at Istabl Antar, which recalled the ruination of Egypt under the Hyksos one century after their expulsion—are used by scholars to stress how the Hyksos invasion remained a traumatic event for Egyptians (Sarna 1986:70). The first chapter of the Exodus explains the changing attitude of the Egyptian government toward the Hebrews by the growth of the Israelites in the border regions of the Delta and Pharaoh’s fear of seeing them joining Egypt’s enemies. This setting becomes more comprehensible in an Egypt bitterly resenting its past experience as an occupied country (Sarna 1986:70; Hoerth 1998:158). Also, if Hebrews like Joseph had a privileged relationship with the Hyksos, it is logical that those associated with the invaders suffered under the new native dynasty (Frank 1971:70). Dating the Exodus is necessary if one wants to provide the narrative with a suitable sociocultural background. Certain scholars stick to biblical chronology and adopt the “low” Exodus theory (Hoerth 1998:79). According to I Kings 6:1, the Temple of Solomon was built during the king’s fourth year of reign, which is said to correspond to the 480th year after the Exodus. As the king came to the throne around 960 BC, the Exodus should have happened around 1450 BC (Frank 1971:87; Hoerth 1998:79). Thutmose III would have been the Pharaoh of the Oppression, and his successor Amenhotep II would have been the Pharaoh of the Exodus (Hoerth 1998:163). As the successor of Amenhotep II was a not

and examined documents from this time period. Based on the newly uncovered Harris Papyrus, which mentions a time of civil war, dynastic quarrel, foreign invasion, and general disorder before the advent of Ramesses III, Maspero (1873:54) concluded that the time period between the reign of Ramesses II and Ramesses III would have been favourable for, and would have facilitated, the Exodus of the Hebrews.3 Moreover, if the Exodus occurred under Merneptah—the successor of Ramesses II—the fourty years of wandering in the desert before the conquest of Canaan could be nicely explained by the unsuitable conditions engendered by the aggressive Asiatic policy of Ramesses III (Maspero 1873:57). Maspero thus looked into Egypt’s archaeological record to provide the Exodus with a historical context, allowing a better understanding of the circumstances which led to this event. This approach, which aims at blending biblical and Egyptian chronology, was not restricted to the end of the nineteenth century. It has remained a major way of dealing with the archaeological record during the twentieth and even the twenty-first century. To anchor the Exodus narrative in history, the inquiry has to start with the Bible, which in this paradigm is considered a primary source document (Redmount 1998:86). Indeed, in such an approach the historicity of the Exodus narrative is never questioned, and is the starting point of the whole inquiry. One of the uses of the archaeological record has been to discover the appropriate time periods in Egyptian history into which biblical events could be inserted. For example, the Hyksos period was deemed as a perfect moment in history for Joseph’s story to have occurred (Frank 1971:69; Hoerth 1998:147; Sarna 1986:70). This argument is based on the fact that the Hyksos were Semite rulers—who seized power around 1650 and ruled over Lower Egypt for approximately a hundred years—and would thus have been more motivated to aid another

Fields

Winter 2012 -

abrupt end in the course of the second half of the thirteenth century to be replaced by semi-nomad groups (Sarna 1986:69). Those archaeological data are not used as proof, but as illustrations. Sarna summarises:

a firstborn but a younger prince, his older brother was surely killed by the tenth plague (Hoerth 1998:179). The conquest of Palestine by the Hebrews would have occurred under the successors of Thurmose IV, Amenhotep III and Akhenaten (Hoerth 1998:179). This context was perfect for Israel to claim Palestine because Akhenaten, who reformed the internal religious system in Egypt, was mostly “distracted” from participating in external politics by these activities (Hoerth 1998:179-180). Archaeologically, the mention of an attack of ‘Abiru over Jerusalem in the Amarna tablets—a set of diplomatic letters between Egypt and its Asiatic vassals written between 1390 and 1330 BC and recovered at the capital founded by Akhenaten—is looked at as a mention of the conquest of the Hebrews (Hoerth 1998:180). However, it is also mentioned in Exodus 1:11 and Psalm 78:12, 43 that the Hebrews built the city of Pithom and Raamses under the Pharaoh of the Oppression. This last city was identified with Pi-Ramesses, the capital built under Ramesses II (ca. 1290-1224 BC), who shifted the center of the Egyptian government to the Delta (Frank 1971:87; Sarna 1986:7172). To solve this incompatibility with the biblical chronology, scholars have argued that 480 years should be read as meaning 12 generations, as 40 years were often used in Hebrew texts to define a generation. Since a generation is more accurately defined as 25 years, 300 years would separate the Exodus from the building of the temple of Solomon, which would bring the event of the Exodus to the middle of 1200 BC (Frank 1971:87). This is the “late” Exodus theory, which is by far the most popular. Archaeological surveys in Transjordan are said to agree with a conquest of Canaan during the thirteenth century BC. Evidence of “violent” destruction are said to have been recovered in at least a dozen Late Bronze Age cities in Canaan. The culture of those Canaanite city-states came to an

No extrabiblical evidence has so far turned up to identify the invaders and new settlers with Joshua’s armies. But the picture reconstructed by archaeological research generally fits biblical accounts of the wars of conquest. (Sarna 1986:69)

In the Bible, the bondage of the Israelites was linked with state-labour projects and the making of bricks. The association of Sethos I and Ramesses II with the Oppression and Exodus is said to make sense because they were considered as great builders, particularly Ramesses II (Frank 1971:75; Sarna 1986:73). For the great projects of Ramesses II alone, an unlimited supply of manpower and building material such as bricks would have been necessary (Sarna 1986:73). The unprecedented need for brick-making is supported by archaeological data about building techniques in Ancient Egypt, which have revealed that, though temples were built of stones, private dwellings, palaces and administrative buildings were mostly constructed of mudbrick (Kitchen 1977:77; Montet 1969:81; Sarna 1986:76). The Hebrews would fit naturally among the labour gangs taken from the Delta to construct Pi-Ramesses (Frank 1971:70; Kitchen 1977:77). Iconographical information about the working conditions in imperial Egypt has been directly used by scholars to describe the life of the Israelites under Ramesses II (Sarna 1986:76). For example, a brick-making scene from the Theban tomb-chapel of the vizier Rekhmire (1460 BC) “‘has frequently and justly been used to illustrate brickmaking in Egypt such as the Hebrews would have known it” (Kitchen 1977:77). The brick-makers in this scene are associated with prisoners brought by Pharaoh for the construction of the temple of Amun at Karnak (Montet 1969:80).

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

that the Exodus is lacking in direct extrabiblical confirmation. Yet he argues that the historicity of the narrative should not be doubted, because a people “would hardly invent an account of their slavery”, and because such an event was of little importance to non-Hebrew people who would have had no interest in recording the event (Frank 1971:86).

To illustrate the hardship experienced by brickmakers, an inscription and wall painting dated to Thutmosis III (ca.1490-1436 BC) is also mentioned. It depicts “Asiatics”4 making bricks and a taskmaster, who is associated with the inscription: “the rod is in my hand, do not be idle” (Sarna 1986:76). That the Hebrews were required to meet a daily quota of bricks is inferred from a reference in the Anastasi papyrus and in a leather scroll from the time of Ramesses II (Kitchen 1977:77). This last papyrus reveals that the forty stablemasters mentioned rarely meet their daily quota of 2,000 bricks, which is described as an intolerable burden (Kitchen 1977:77-78; Sarna 1986:76). Finally, the papyrus Leiden 348 is also used to show that tribes of possibly Palestinian origin—the ‘Apiru—were used to drag stones for the great pylon of a building for Ramesses II (Kitchen 1977:78). In the preceding examples, the Egyptian record has been used to elaborate upon the biblical description of the Israelites’ bondage to add “texture” to this moment in history. In the same way, the chronological debate aims at providing the proper socio-cultural background to the narrative. In this approach, archaeological data are used for the purpose of “reconstructing the historical background” of the Exodus (Sarna 1986:69). Archaeology is seen as significant for understanding the Bible, as it functions as a general supplement and as it exposes the environment where the men of the Bible lived (Thompson 1962:5). Sometimes, the nineteenth century romantic vision is still perceptible in later authors who emotionally describe the degrading and brutal conditions experienced by the Hebrews (Frank 1971:70; Sarna 1986:74). The role of archaeology as a contextual tool is also highlighted by the fact that scholars either do not address the question of the historicity of the Exodus, or answer the doubt directly by using the Bible or by mentioning the biases in the archaeological record. Frank, for example, briefly mentions

Archaeology as Proof As a reaction to growing questioning of the historical validity of the Bible, some scholars have perceived of the potential of using archaeology as a proof. Until the beginning of the twentieth century, the general outline of biblical history based on archaeology appeared accurate and became a tool against Higher Criticism (Davis 2004:47). Higher Criticism developed in several streams, but the main characteristic of this school of thought is to approach the Old Testament as a text written and compiled over centuries by many editors who had various goals and backgrounds (Redmount 1998:82-84). Accordingly, those who have used the results of archaeology in an attempt to demonstrate the historical accuracy of the Bible were usually more conservative and literal readers of the Bible (Davies 2004:46). This approach is interesting, considering the fact that no extra-biblical evidence unequivocally confirms the occurrence of the Exodus. Therefore, the historicity of the narrative is argued through the historicity of its details and background: There is no reason to doubt the essential fact of the Exodus although we are unable to establish the names of the tribes that took part in it or the number of participants. . . we do have various contemporary documents which confirm the historical background of the period of enslavement and escape. (Aharoni 1979:196)

The overall veracity of the Bible has to be assumed first to use it as a primary source and

Fields

Winter 2012 -

“going down” from Canaan to Egypt (Genesis 50:5-9, 12:10, 42:2) are said to be Egyptian in nature (Yahuda 1934:72-73). Calling thunder “the voices of God” and the sun “the eye of the earth” are also literal renderings in Hebrew of Egyptian idioms (Yahuda 1934:90, 95). Moreover, the titles of the officials and the organization of the administration as reflected in the Bible are said to have a peculiar Egyptian character (Yahuda 1934:72). In Joseph’s story preceding the Exodus, titles like “chief of the butlers,” “chief of the bakers,” and “overseer over his house” were remarkable for their accuracy (Thompson 1962:44). Some “typically Egyptian” socio-cultural details in the biblical narrative are used in the same way to attest to the historicity of the Exodus narrative. For example, the “taskmaster” of the Exodus is said to correspond perfectly with the rud.w (overseers) of the Egyptian records, who supervised the workmen and “oppressed and flogged them to their heart’s desire” (Yahuda 1934:75). This rapprochement is said to be strengthened by scenes depicted on the walls of tombs, which show that work relations described in the biblical narrative are accurate. Taskmasters with sticks in hand are depicted, and supervisors are seen ill-treated by the drivers, exactly like the Hebrew overseers and scribes were ill-treated by the Egyptian taskmasters in Exodus 5:14 (Yahuda 1934:76). It is argued that:

establish a foundation upon which peripheral proofs of its historicity may be discovered. This approach then uses the authority of archaeology as a seemingly scientific and thus objective discipline to stress the authenticity of the Exodus narrative (Hoffmeier 1997:53). The “Egyptian color” of the story of the Sojourn and the Exodus is used as a proof of the narrative’s authenticity: The whole episode is so permeated with the Egyptian local spirit and the whole colouring is so thoroughly Egyptian that it could not happen and not even invented, as some critics suggest, in any other country but Egypt. (Yahuda 1934:66)

The first argument is based on philology and consists of a comparison between names and idioms found in Egyptian papyri and in the Bible. Moses, for example, is said to be a purely Egyptian name. Some argue it is constructed as mu (child, son) + sheh (water, Nile) and means “the child of the Nile” (Yahuda 1934:66). Others propose that it is related to the word msi (mose), which is a common element in Egyptian name like Ptahmose to mean “Ptah is born” (Hoffmeier 1997:140). Responding to a scholar who argued that an appropriate name does not necessarily correlate with a historical person, Hoffmeier writes: Of course, his observation is correct. However, given the authenticity of the name and because it does fit a New Kingdom setting, one wonders how Van Seters can be so certain that the story is legend, especially a much later one, given the authenticity of this important detail? (Hoffmeier 1997:140)

All these pictures reproduce so truly and so exactly all the statements given by the narrator of the Bondage, that one could be tempted to think that they have been specially made to illustrate the Bondage story. (Yahuda 1934:77)

Names mentioned in Joseph’s story—like Potiphar, Asenath and Zaphenath-paneah— are said also to be typically Egyptian, and of the New Kingdom period (Caiger 1938:14; Hoffmeier 1997:84-87). Also, Egyptian expressions found in the Bible are used as evidence. For example, the expression “going up” from Egypt to Canaan (Exodus 1:8-10) and

Moreover, the rage of Pharaoh when Moses asked him to let the Israelites go in the desert for few days to sacrifice to their god fits with a report recorded on a chalk tablet from the British Museum. A labour overseer had used this tablet to note the numbers and reasons for the absence of his workmen, and

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

of the rod of Moses and Aaron in the making of miracles is said to reflect the “holy rod” of many Egyptian gods (Yahuda 1934:106-107). Moses’ rod was probably a banal shepherd’s crook, which is moreover a symbol of pharaonic power in Egypt (Hoffmeier 1997:154). Also, it is said that the investiture of Joseph was in total accord with Egyptian customs when compared to the depictions of such scenes on the walls of Egyptians’ private tombs7 (Caiger 1938:14; Hoffmeier 1997:91-92; Thompson 1962:45). The importance of dream interpretation and magicians in Egypt (Caiger 1938:14; Hoffmeier 1997:88-89; Thompson 1962:45,47), the proper mummification of Joseph (Thompson 1962:48), and the similarity in form between the adventure of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife with the Egyptian Tale of the Two Brothers are said to further demonstrate that this story “has preserved an authentic picture of the Egypt of those days” (Caiger 1938: 13-14). In brief, “the absence of direct evidence for Joseph, of course, does not disprove his existence because negative existence prove nothing, while the indirect evidence supports the historicity of the story and its protagonists” (Hoffmeier 1997:97). Historical parallels and precedents are also part of the argument. Some are used to prove the validity of the Descent of Abraham in Egypt as a way to indirectly strengthen the historicity of the following sojourn and Exodus narratives. The antiquity of the relations between Palestine and Egypt has been demonstrated by various excavations showing that groups of Semites were drifting in the Delta zone as early as 2000 BC (Thompson 1962:51). Early inscriptions also referred to early incursions of amu (Asiatics) in the Delta and in contact with Asiatic tribes bordering Egypt since the Old Kingdom (Caiger 1938:11; Hoffmeier 1997:54). In the realm of iconographical evidence, the painting in Khnumhotep’s tomb is discussed as it shows thirty-seven bearded “Asiatics” in national costume waiting to

a common pretext was piety and the need to sacrifice to the gods (Yahuda 1934:77-78). For some, the mention of ‘Apiru—related to Ibrim (Hebrew)—in documents from the time of Ramesses II and Merneptah that recorded their employment in various building projects points to the reliability of the Exodus tradition (Aharoni 1979:196). The scene from the tomb of the vizier Rekhmire mentioned in the first section—presenting prisoners making bricks for the completion of a state project—is considered as a convincing argument of historicity, not a mere illustration (Hoffmeier 1997:112-114). Moreover, the difficulties of making brick without straw, one of the “burdens” imposed on the Israelites, is paralleled by an Egyptian inscription of unmentioned provenience stating, “I am not provided with anything; there are no men for making bricks and there is no straw in the district” (Yahuda 1934:75). Also, it is argued that the plagues were typically Egyptian, in the sense that they correspond to phenomena which could happen in the Nilotic environment, were deemed as catastrophes in Egypt, and were mentioned in some papyri.5 Thus, they represent nothing improbable and are part of the local Egyptian colour in the story (Thompson 1962:64). Authors argue that the plagues are scientifically explainable, and that their order matches the passage of Egyptian seasons (Hoffmeier 1997:149; Yahuda 1934:81). Moreover, some could be analysed as direct consequences of an excessively high inundation6 (Hoffmeier 1997:146-148). The death of the firstborn could not be explained scientifically, but would be particularly scandalous in Egypt, where family rank and funerary rituals were maintained by the oldest sons (Yahuda 1934:82-85). Therefore, the author of the Exodus narrative had a perfect sense of the Egyptian condition and setting (Hoffmeier 1997:149; Yahuda 1934:80). Also, the magical and symbolic significance

Fields

Winter 2012 -

1938:13). Moreover, a letter from a southern governor during the time of the King Djoser (2700 BC) mentions the building of granaries and the control of food to counteract a famine that lasted seven years, exactly like in the Joseph story. It is thus affirmed that “the instructions outlined in the Bible in Genesis 41: 33-36 and 47-49 are therefore quite in keeping with what we now know of Egyptian practice” (Thompson 1962:46). As illustrated by this brief discussion, archaeology in this second approach is used to generate proof of the historicity of the Exodus account. The authenticity of the Exodus narrative is however not proven by direct, but by indirect types of evidence. The Hebrew Bible is said to be coloured by words, idioms, customs and situations which could only have originated in the Nile Valley, which suggests that the Old Testament preserves a genuine recollection of the events it describes (Caiger 1989:14). Moreover, philological rapprochements between the Hebrew Bible and Egyptian documents and references to Semitic infiltration and settlement in Egypt are seen as proofs that the writers of the narrative lived in Egypt and recorded historical events. In brief, the assessment of the authenticity of the Exodus account is based on its historical plausibility.

buy grains from an Egyptian official. Caiger summarises: This can hardly be an actual representation of Abraham himself, but it does at least show that such visits to the granaries of Pharaoh were not without historic precedent. (Caiger 1938:11)

An inscription from the time of Seti II, which mentions Bedu from Edom allowed to pass the frontiers, is used in the same manner to confirm the movement of Asiatics in Egypt in times of famine (Thompson 1962:46). Also, authors point out that Joseph was not the only Semitic sold in Egypt; the Brooklyn Papyrus 35.1446 is cited as evidence, as it gives a list of seventy-nine servants belonging to an Egyptian estate from the Middle Kingdom, forty of whom bore Asiatic names (Hoffmeier 1997:61; Thompson 1962:43-44). The story of Joseph is also supported by inscriptions reporting Canaanites achieving a high position in Egyptian society. For example, Meri-Ra became the armour-bearer to Pharaoh, BenMat-Ana a Court Interpreter, Dudu a high dignitary according to the Amarna letters, Arisu a prince, and Yankhamu became the Grand Vizier to Amenhotep III (Caiger 1938:12). The parallel between this last person and Joseph—who possibly also became vizier—is clearly stated by Caiger. In the Amarna Letters, Palestinian vassals are complaining to Pharaoh about Yankhamu’s methods, on which Caiger comments: “in precisely such terms might Jacob have complained to the Pharaoh of that day of Joseph’s high-handed treatment of Benjamin (Gen. xliii.)!” (Caiger 1938:1213). Moreover, inscriptions confirming the recurrence of famines in Egypt and the storage of grain to counteract them—like the mention in Joseph’s story in Genesis 41: 33-36 and 47-49—are also used as a form of evidence. For example, the official who wrote the Bebi inscription around 1800 BC boasts how he carefully collected wheat and how he was able to distribute it during years of famine (Caiger

Archaeology as Counter-Proof The last approach highlighted in this paper is the use of archaeology as a support for the promotion of an alternative reading of the Exodus narrative. This alternative has developed since the 1960s as part of Higher Criticism, which recognized the composite nature of the Old Testament and rejected the historical reliability of a significant number of its parts (Moore 2011:77; Redmount 1998:82). The Exodus narrative is seen as a human creation, constructed through time and with the aim of promoting religious and nationalistic values (Moore 2011:87). Some scholars still maintain the historiographic foundation of the text, while

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

1988-89:58). Moreover, 40 years of wandering in the desert with so huge a group would have been unsustainable (Peet 1922:107). The number of Hebrews leaving Egypt should thus be regarded not as a historical fact but as an image stressing the significance of the event (Redmount 1998:95-96). Scholars also criticise the use of the Egyptian local colour invested in the accounts of the sojourn and the Exodus as proof of their historicity. Romer and Peet argue that the link between the biblical and Egyptian background was based more on scholars’ ignorance than knowledge of past societies: those arguments seemed valid because Egyptology was still at its infancy (Peet 1922:91; Romer 1988-89:51). All the Egyptian cultural specificities claimed by some scholars—the accuracy of the titles, the magicians, the investiture regalia, the mummification, the plague—are defined by Peet as “the sort of vague general knowledge which any ancient tourist spending a few days in Egypt at almost any date about 1600 BC might have acquired by his dragoman” (Peet 1922:92-93). Redford also highlights that apart from the mention of Nilotic plants and mud brick as a building material, the tales of Joseph and the Exodus could have taken place anywhere. Moreover, many Mesopotamian images were borrowed—like some events in the life of Moses which paralleled with those experienced by other Mesopotamian heroes— and nothing clearly suggests a close familiarity with Egypt (Redford 1992:411). More importantly, even if some cultural concordances existed and originated during the second millennium BC, this does not mean that the events or characters described by the narrative were historical (Moore 2011:93; Romer 198889:51). This same caution is raised for the use of historical parallels to argue for the historicity of the Exodus narrative. Those parallels are not direct evidence, only analogue instances of Asiatics moving in and out Egypt; this method “can neither confirm nor deny the historicity of

others regarded the Hebrew Bible as a pure work of literature, although historically and socially significant (Redmount 1998:83-84). With regard to archaeology, this approach recognizes that nothing substantial in the archaeological record could support the Exodus as narrated by the Bible, and that a lot of associations made by scholars were subjective and equivocal. This approach also stresses how the Exodus narrative is historically unspecific and even nonsensical in terms of chronology and numbers. Thus, this perspective proposes a more critical reading of the text, but also recognizes the subjectivity in the interpretation of the material record. To support their more “liberal” interpretation of the Exodus story, scholars have reassessed the evidence present in the biblical text and the archaeological data previously claimed to support the literal historicity of the Exodus account. The scale of the Exodus according to the Bible combined with the absence of its mention in the Egyptian sources is the first point of contention. Indeed, a movement of 600,000 men plus women and children—so approximately two million people—as suggested by Exodus 12:37 would have necessarily left some traces in Egyptian history (Peet 1922:105-106). The movement and loss of 2.5 millions of people—out of the 3 to 4.5 million of inhabitants of Egypt at the time—and the wiping out of an entire army would have been a traumatic socioeconomic event which would have been recorded in Egypt’s annals or in its archaeological record in some way (Redford 1992:408; Romer 198889:57; Peet 1922:106). Moreover, not only the archaeological record of Egypt, but also those of Sinai and Palestine do not accord with what is expected from the Exodus account in the Bible (Redmount 1998:104). While the climate of the Sinai has preserved a record of temporary Bedouin encampments and 5000-year-old villages, there is no concrete trace of the desert wandering of such a multitude, or even of Joshua’s conquest (Romer

Fields

Winter 2012 -

(Redmount 1998:94-95). The improbability of the biblical chronology is also underscored by the fact that the Exodus would fall in 1456 BC, an improper setting for any Hebraic conquest of Canaan as the region had been conquered a few years before by Thutmose III. Also, the following biblical “Period of the Judges” would have to be situated between 1456 and 1080 BC, at a time when all Western Asia belonged to Egypt. One would thus have expected Israel to be mentioned in Egyptian sources, and the Egyptian empire to be mentioned in the Bible (Redford 1992:258259). Furthermore, the Merneptah Stela, the only Egyptian mention of Israel, used the determinative for foreign people and not for foreign land or city-state to refer to Israel around 1208 BC; this is the way Egypt usually refers to nomadic people and not to a nation or kingdom (Redmount 1998:97). It is also significant that this only recorded encounter between Israel and Egypt on the Egyptian side is nowhere mentioned in the Bible (Redmount 1998:97). Moreover, the association between the Conquest of the Hebrews with the attack of the ‘Abiru over Jerusalem mentioned in the Amarna Letters has been rejected by many scholars on the basis of the scope of the attack and the identification of the ‘Abiru in other Near Eastern documents, which defined them as a dispersed group without any fixed ethnic affiliation or territory8 (Peet 1922:115; Redmount 1998:97-98). The “low” Exodus theory thus has shaky foundations. For the “high” Exodus theory, the link between the building of a city named Raamses and the identification of Ramesses II as the Pharaoh of the Oppression is tenuous, because of the possibility of a late apposition of the name (Peet 1922:108). Romer (1988-89:57) also stresses the inherent contradiction between the dating according to the building of Solomon’s temple and the dating according to the mention of the city of Raamses, which would point to later editing. Redford (1992:259-260) compares the

the Exodus saga, nor can it definitively place the Exodus in time” (Redmount 1998:103). Moreover, the Egyptian background presented in the Exodus narrative is temporally unspecific, and in some cases suggestive of later editing. Nothing in the Joseph or Exodus account allows scholars to pinpoint any specific period in Egyptian history (Romer 1988-89:48, 51). Redmount mentions the depersonalization of Pharaoh as evidence for the ahistorical nature of the story, and the vagueness and ubiquity of the terms ‘Pithom’ and ‘Raamses’ to name cities from the New Kingdom to the GrecoRoman period (Redmount 1998:87-88). The only temporal marker provided by the Bible is the utilisation of horses and chariots, unknown before the 18th Dynasty (Peet 1922:103; Redmount 1998:90). Furthermore, the titles mentioned in Joseph’s story were also wellknown in other Near Eastern administrations, and were ubiquitous during the sixth- and fifth-century Persian period of Egypt and even in Judean administration during the seventh century BC (Redford 1992:425). Similarly, the Egyptian names mentioned in the story were all popular during Egypt’s Saite period—seventh and sixth century BC—and thus represent later additions to the story (Peet 1922: 102103; Redford 1992:424). Romer summarises: “the biblical description of the Exodus, then, flies in the face of practical experience; indeed, the closer you examine it the further it seems removed from all of ancient history” (Romer 1988-89:58). Chronologically, the authors argue that the Bible is not a valid source of information for the Exodus. The only number given in the Old Testament—480 years before the fourth year of Solomon’s reign— is the multiplication of two symbolic numbers for the Hebrews—12 and 40—and had the clear rhetorical function of symbolically dating the temple (Moore 2011:81). Moreover, the dating technique was used to ground the Exodus narrative in a symbolic and not in a historical realm

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

Succoth.9 The biblical “Land of Goshen” has also been identified by scholars, even if such a region is unknown in Egyptian documents and cannot be surely located (Redmount 1998:89). The location of the “sacred mountain of God” is still debated (Redmount 1998:91). Furthermore, the naming of sites in the Hebrew Bible is problematic. There is no way of knowing whether the place-names are originals, if they have been changed by later compilers for better understanding, or were added to give a sense of verisimilitude to a geographically unspecific narrative (Peet 1922:91). Redford notes that geographical names given for the Exodus all dated from the Saite period and later (1992:409-410).10 The only thing that archaeology could therefore recover is the route which later compilers thought the Hebrews took out of Egypt (Peet 1922:126). Moreover, later traditions have created expectations: the Christian monastic movement in southern Sinai during the third century AD has associated their location with various biblical sites related to the Exodus to add symbolic and spiritual importance. Those associations have engendered Christian pilgrimages in the region, which helped perpetuate the tradition of a southern route and of the Mount Sinai (Peet 1922:126-127; Redmount 1998:93). Peet notes that, when discussing the geography of the Exodus, it is “a field where it is extremely difficult ether to prove or to disprove anything at all, so that the sage and the fool may work in it almost on level terms” (Peet 1922:125). In brief, scholars in this third approach have come to this general conclusion: “the biblical account makes an exceptionally poor primary historical source for the Exodus events. Possible historical data are mostly inconsistent, ambiguous, or vague” (Redmount 1998:95). The Bible was not so much a record of history as it was a record of a religion and a nation. Therefore, the biblical Exodus account cannot be accepted at face value or as an independent historical variable against which other evidence

“tricks” of considering 40 years as a generation to accommodate both biblical chronology and the mention of Raamses to make the Exodus fall around 1225 BC as “prestidigitation and numerology”. The author asserts that such attitudes result from a naïve reading of the source, which is accepted at face value and not questioned at the level of its diverse origins, intentions, and reliability (Redford 1992:260). Moreover, Redford (1992:265) argues that surveys in Canaan and Palestine present a picture of gradual settlement of pastoralist cultures and that no sudden destruction and repopulation episodes are preserved, except around 1200 BC with the recorded invasion of a coalition of groups of various and debated origins known as the Sea Peoples. With inconclusive evidence and the absence of mention of Israelites in Egypt, the proponents of either the 1400 BC or the 1220 BC date for the Exodus do not have reliable evidence to prove their case; both groups may well be wrong (Peet 1922:120). As Peet mentions (1922:121-122), “a dozen other solutions are equally possible a priori,” and people are arguing more by feeling than by reason. According to Peet (1922:77), only an uncritical reader could see a confirmation of the historicity of a story in the confident use of place-names. Geographically, the precise itineraries provided by the Bible for the Exodus looked promising. However, not only have different sources within the Old Testament proposed divergent itineraries, but few sites mentioned in the Hebrew Bible have actually been found despite intensive surveys and explorations by archaeologists (Redmount 1998:90, 94). Five different routes for the Exodus were proposed in the 1920s, and yet hardly one geographical location could be identified with certainty on the ground (Peet 1922:127). Peet (1922:83) also criticizes the hasty identification of newly uncovered cities in the Delta during the nineteenth century with biblical site like Raamses, Pithom, and

Fields

Winter 2012 -

the textual record (Andrén 1998:117). The author even stresses how such an approach is particularly clear in the field of biblical archaeology, because of the reliance on only one text that is central in European history (Andrén 1998:117). A striking aspect of the archaeology of the Exodus is that it could hardly be defined as “text-aided archaeology”; it is mostly the “archaeology of a text”. Some deficiencies in the field are noted when the textual record is given too much weight by archaeologists. The overvaluation of documents has led to their use out of context, even if they are separated from the archaeological context by a large time span (Feinman 1997:371). Also, the textual record has tended to be treated uncritically and selectively. Textual references are chosen and discarded to fit archaeologists’ interpretations (Feinman 1997:372). Moreover, the content of texts is often accepted at face value; the formation process of the textual record is often not taken into account (Feinman 1997:372). The historical and cultural construction of the written record is, however, greatly stressed by Moreland, who underscores that texts are not neutral evidence of the past (Moreland 2006: 142). The author recalls that texts are cultural products that had efficacy in the past; they do not just reflect it. They had an active role in the construction of past communities, and they helped in the definition and maintenance of cultural practices and relationships (Moreland 2006:143). The archaeology of the Exodus could be seen as an exacerbated manifestation of the problematic reliance on texts in historical archaeology. Indeed, like in other areas of specialization in biblical archaeology, the Bible provided a rationale, a framework, and an interpretive key for archaeological research (Davis 2004:156). Moreover, because of the pivotal place of the Old Testament in the formation of Western society, many political and religious sensibilities are attached to this text, which is not easy to question or interpret

is judged (Redmount 1998:96). Many details contained in the Bible are anachronistic or inappropriate because they reflected the reality of the time when the story was written down and the intentions of the editors. Moreover, there is no extra-biblical account of the Exodus or of any event or character mentioned in the narrative in Egypt or the Near East (Redmount 1998:97). Moore defines the basis of the argumentation for the authenticity of the events and persons mentioned in the Exodus as a “plausibilist’” approach: scholars seek aspects of the Exodus narrative which suggest or simply do not contradict the historical plausibility of the stories (Moore 2011:89). In the realm of the material record, the invocation of archaeological finds to stress the historicity of the Exodus is also characterized by compromises and selectivity (Redmount 1998:104). Without necessarily denying the possibility of Exodus events, the authors in this last approach questioned the historicity of the event as described in the Bible based on a critical examination of the biblical text as well as the archaeological record. Discussion: Text and Historical Archaeology The tense relationships between the material and textual record and the debates engendered by their combination have been considered as one of the defining characteristics of the field of historical archaeology (Andrén 1998). The archaeology of the Exodus has all the characteristics of what Anders Andrén defines as the “Philological Tradition” in historical archaeology. In this tradition, the primary use of historical archaeology is to assist and facilitate textual analysis. The role of archaeology is to find texts, to provide background information to facilitate textual analysis, to find places and monuments mentioned in texts, or to provide spatiotemporal markers useful for making a comparative history of language (Andrén 1998:113-116). Material culture thus has a tendency to play a subordinate role to

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

relationship between the Exodus narrative, the birth of Christianity and political liberation symbols shows “just how accepted the idea of the Exodus is in Western civilization” (Freund 2009:51). Freud summarises the inherent tension in questioning such an important text through archaeology:

differently. The Exodus is a particularly sensitive topic within the Hebrew Bible. The questioning of the historical status of the actors and events mentioned by this narrative are “some of the most controversial topics that we encounter when trying to use archaeology and biblical criticism scholarship” (Freund 2009:48). Indeed, the Exodus theme has had an important role in creating and negotiating the identity and nationalistic sentiment of both ancient and modern Jews. This section of the Hebrew Bible is defined as the “cornerstone of Israelite faith” and as the “national epic of ancient Israel” (Redmount 1998:79). It is said that Israel took form as a nation through the Exodus, and that the major aspects of Israelite rituals and cultural practices were defined as part of this event. This narrative moreover defines the relationship between Israelites and God, and its repeated invocation throughout the Old Testament functions as a perpetual confession of faith (Redmount 1998:79; Romer 1988-89:55). Most of the 39 books of the Hebrew Bible mentioned the Exodus in some ways, and an important portion of Jewish liturgy, rituals and holidays use the Exodus from Egypt as a justification of their practice (Freund 2009:51; Frank 1971:85-86). In brief, the Exodus is critical to Israel’s understanding of itself (Redmount 1998:79). The Exodus narrative unites members of the Jewish as well as the Christian and Muslim communities. The New Testament and the Quran have gospels and chapters devoted to the topic, and have used the narrative as a foundation for the theological truths they teach (Freund 2009:51). Theologically, the Exodus embodies significant themes like the suffering and redemption of man, and the action of God through history (Redmount 1998:80). Politically, the Exodus has become an archetypal image for representing liberation experiences and the ultimate triumph of freedom in Western thought (Redmount 1998:80; Romer 1988-89:55; Redford 1992:408). The tight

I realize that just because it has been venerated by three thousand year of tradition, and all three of these major religions, it does not mean that it actually happened. But it does mean that it requires an enormous amount of evidence to overturn three thousand years of preserved literary and religious tradition (Freud 2009: 51-52).

Conclusion Scholars mentioned in this paper discussed the same central narrative of the Exodus through the lens of archaeology. However, they had different ways of incorporating archaeology in their discussions of the Bible. In the first approach, archaeology is used to provide a contextual setting for the Exodus and to ground the narrative in Egyptian and Near Eastern history. The second approach uses archaeology more aggressively to generate data to prove the historicity of the Exodus narrative. The third phase, for its part, uses archaeology to promote a non-literal reading of the Exodus. In these three approaches the authors have tried to answer similar questions—when, where, how—by using grosso modo the same material evidence. However, they arrived at different conclusions because of the way they interpreted their main textual source. Scholars using the two first approaches worked with the assumption that the biblical narrative was accurate in its description of the past, while scholars using the third one start with the assumption that it was constructed and biased. This is a striking example of how the reading and interpretation of ancient texts can affect archaeological reconstructions of the past. Exploring the archaeology of the Exodus thus allows for the discussion of how archaeological

Fields

Winter 2012 -

high officials according to at least 40 different tombs (Caiger 1938:14; Hoffmeier 1997:91-92; Thompson 1962:45). 8. If the king of Jerusalem mentioned the attack of the ‘Abiru, other regions of Syria and Palestine were at the same time attacked by a group called Sagaz. Khabiru and Sagaz are used interchangeably on an inscription found at the ancient capital of the Hittites. If the Khabiru and the Sagaz are the same people, they could not represent Joshua’s conquest, which was much more limited in terms of scope and objectives (Peet 1922:117-118). Unless Joshua joined other groups to attack Syro-Palestine, the Khabiru could not be equated with the Hebrews (Peet 1922:119). Other Near Eastern documents mentioned ‘Apiru/‘Abiru throughout the Fertile Crescent during the second millennium BC, and they were not associated with any territorial or ethnic affiliation (Redmount 1998:97-98). 9. The identification of Raamses with Tell er-Retalch in the Wadi Tumilat was based on a temple with one relief showing Ramesses II in front of “Tum, Lord of Theku” and status of the king and the god (Peet 1922:83) Peet is unconvinced, as the location of PiRamesses in the “Land of Goshen”, a vague denomination attached to the Wadi Tumilat, is an assumption (Peet 1922:83). The association of Pithom with Tell el-Maskhutek by Naville was based on an inscription mentioning Pi-Tum, or the “house of Tum”. Gardiner argued that it is the previously mentioned Tell er-Retabeh which should be identified with Pithom because of the clear worship of the god Tum (Peet 1922:87) 10. For example, Tanis became the royal residence between 1070-725 BC, the route from Bubastis to the Bitter Lakes mentioned in the Exodus correspond to the canal of Necho II built during the 7th century BC, and places mentioned in the narrative corresponds to Asiatic residences during the 6th and 5th century BC (Redford 1992:409-410)

interpretations are influenced by scholars’ agendas, expectations, beliefs, and historical context. Notes: 1. For example, the Hyksos period is deemed the perfect moment for the descent of Abraham and Joseph into Egypt (Lenormant 1874:204-205). The Amarna Period—characterized by a monotheistic trend—is said to reflect Israelite influence, with the persecution of the Israelites starting at the death of the Pharaoh Akhenaten, the head of this religious revolution (Lenormant 1874:212-213). 2. Translation from French by author. 3. Maspero adds: “We easily understand that in the middle of the general chaos a foreign people, persecuted by the Egyptians and tired of being persecuted, could have left its confinement and took the route of the desert without being energetically beaten by its previous masters, too threatened in their own existence for worrying about the escape of a slave band” (Maspero 1873:55-56) 4. During Pharaonic Egypt, “Asiatic” was a term loosely applied to any foreigners whose origins could be traced back to Eastern regions such as Canaan, Transjordan, and Palestine. 5. Some plagues are common catastrophes. Hail, thunder and lightning ruined crops and caused terror (Hoffmeier 1997:147). Locust plagues were fairly common in the Near East, and the darkness could correspond to the hot wind called hamasin or khamsins, which create sandstorms so thick with dust that it could mask the sun (Hoffmeier 1997:148; Yahuda 1934:84). 6. The red color and putrid smell of the water plus the death of the fish could be caused by the abundant presence of flagellates in the water, brought from Lake Tana in Ethiopia where the Nile originates. The frogs coming on higher ground and the abundance of mosquitoes are also associated with high inundation (Hoffmeier 1997:146). The plague affecting humans and crops would be linked with the mosquitoes (Hoffmerier 1997:147). 7. The gift of a signet ring and a gold chain, a vesture of fine linen, and the riding in the royal chariots were proper privileges marking the promotion of Egyptian

References: Aharoni, Yohanan 1979 Israelite Conquest and Settlement: The Exodus and the Desert Wanderings. In The Land of the Bible:

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

A Historical Geography. Pp. 195-200. Philadelphia: the Westminster Press. Andrén, Anders 1998 Between Artifacts and Texts: Historical Archaeology in Global Perspective. New York and London: Plenum Press. Caiger, Stephen L. 1938 The Discoveries in Egypt. In The Old Testament and Modern Discovery. Pp. 10-30. New York: The Macmillan Company. Davis, Thomas W 2004 Shifting Sands: the Rise and Fall of Biblical Archaeology. Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press. Feinman, Gary M. 1997 Thoughts on New Approaches to Combining the Archaeological and Historical Records. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 4(3-4):367-377. Frank, Harry Thomas 1971 Bible, Archaeology, and Faith. Nashville; Abingdon Press. Freund, Richard A. 2009 The Search for Sinai: Archaeological Reflections on Moses, the Exodus, and the Revelation at Mount Sinai. In Digging through the Bible : Understanding Biblical People, Places, and Controversies through Archaeology. Pp. 48-105. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Gange, David 2006 Religion and Science in Late NineteenthCentury British Egyptology. The Historical Journal 49(4):1083–1103. Hoerth, Alfred J. 1998 Archaeology and the Old Testament. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books. Hoffmeier, James K. 1997 Israel in Egypt: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition. New York : Oxford University Press. Kitchen, Kenneth Anderson 1977 The Bible in its World : the Bible & Archaeology Today. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press. Lenormant, François 1874 Les premières civilisations: archéologie préhistorique, Égypte. Paris: Maisonneuve et Cie.

Maspero, Gaston 1873 Lettre à M. G. d’Eichthal sur les circonstances de l’histoire d’Égypte qui ont pu favoriser l’exode du peuple hébreu, communication lue à la séance du 10 janvier 1873. Comptes-rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 17(1):3657. Montet, Pierre 1959 L’Égypte et la Bible. Neuchâtel Delachaux & Niestlé. Moore, Megan Bishop and Brad E. Kelle 2011 Israel’s Emergence. In Biblical History and Israel’s Past: the Changing Study of the Bible and History. Grand Rapids, Mich. ; Cambridge, U.K. : William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. Moreland, John 2006 Archaeology and Text: Subservience or Enlightenment. Annual Review of Anthropology 35:135-151. Peet, Thomas Eric 1922 Egypt and the Old Testament. Liverpool : University Press of Liverpool Ltd. Redmount, Carol A 1998 Bitter Lives: Israel in and out of Egypt. In The Oxford History of the Biblical World. Michael d.Coogan, ed. Pp. 79-121. New York,: Oxford University Press. Romer, John 1988-89 Genesis: Foreigners in Ancient Egypt, Ancient Egypt in the Bible and the Exodus. In Testament the Bible and History. Pp. 43-63. New York : Holt. Sarna, Nahum M 1986 Exploring Exodus: the Oppression. The Biblical Archaeologist 49(2):68-80. Thompson, John A 1962 In the Land of the Pharaohs/From Egypt to Canaan. In The Bible and Archaeology. Pp. 37-50. Grand Rapids, Michigan; Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 1962 From Egypt to Canaan. In The Bible and Archaeology. Pp. 55-74. Grand Rapids, Michigan; Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. Yahuda, A. S. 1934 The Accuracy of the Bible : the Stories of Joseph, the Exodus, and Genesis Confirmed and Illustrated by Egyptian Monuments and Language. London : W. Heinemann, Ltd.

Hi v e r 2012 -

Te r r a i n s

Ice-hearted killers

The rejection of “tradition” in perceptions of the Newfoundland seal hunt Heather Mcintosh

George Wenzel and Guy Wright. These men have spent significant time with Inuit hunters and Newfoundland sealers respectively, and have attempted to capture the importance of the seal hunt to each of these cultures in their writing. Following this I will analyze problems of “modernization” in creating a definition of tradition, in relation to both Newfoundland and Inuit communities. I will then attempt an explanation of the dichotomous treatment of Newfoundland and Inuit culture through an extension of the “super-whale” phenomena, as introduced by Kalland (1993). This phenomena is characterized by totemic dualisms that allow for groups to be placed into discreet and antagonistic categories. I will analyze the rhetoric and images used by anti-sealing organizations to solidify these dualisms in perceptions of the hunt, especially with reference to the creation of a subhuman “ice-hearted killer” as representative of the Newfoundland sealer.

The greatest immorality in the seal hunting controversy has been the reckless, indiscriminate, deliberate campaign of racial discrimination and hatred which has been deliberately fostered against the people of Newfoundland and of Canada by groups of individuals whose primary aim is to raise funds, particularly in the United States and Europe. Tom Hughes Executive vice president of the Ontario Humane Society, 1978 (Lamson 1979:20) Campaigns leading to a European ban on the import of seal-derived products have confronted the claims of Inuit and Newfoundland sealing communities in very different ways. Whereas attention is paid by anti-sealing campaigns to delegitimize Inuit claims to the hunt’s significance in Inuit tradition and culture, no such attention is paid to similar claims made by Newfoundland sealers. Newfoundlanders’ claims to the traditional importance of the hunt are largely dismissed as being illegitimate in themselves, without need to rationalize this dismissal (Wenzel 1991). I will argue that the challenges facing both Inuit and Newfoundland seal hunters in legitimizing their right to continue the hunt are far more related than suggested by proponents of the anti-sealing movement. By comparing Inuit and Newfoundland experience with the anti-sealing campaign, I hope to determine why and how the perception of the seal hunt has been easily reduced to a simply commercial enterprise in the case of Newfoundland communities, whereas images of “tradition” and “subsistence” persist in perceptions of the Inuit seal hunt. I will do so first by comparing the literature of

Cultural significance of the seal hunt George Wenzel, a geographer at McGill University, and Guy Wright, from Memorial University in Newfoundland, responded to the seal hunt controversy with their own accounts of the hunt from the perspectives of Inuit and Newfoundland communities. Each provide a model for how the hunt is embedded in these cultures, with specific reference to the creation of cultural identity and the preservation of relative economic autonomy. Comparison of these two analyses reveals that the seal hunt provides similar cultural function across both communities. Wenzel (1991) defines “subsistence” as “a culturally embedded system of shared

Fields

Winter 2012 -

other not only for a successful harvest, but for their survival (Wright 1984). Both Wenzel (1990) and Wright (1984) mark the importance of the “solidarity” that results from the kinship relations created during the hunt: “Beyond practical value, kinship contributes to Inuit survival through the sense of solidarity it produces,” (Wenzel 1991:62) and “a fraternity and solidarity develop among sealers” (Wright 1984:94). In the case of Newfoundland sealers, this solidarity may be integral to the perpetuation of a Newfoundland culture distinct from the rest of Canada. This notion is introduced by Cynthia Lamson (1979) in her analysis of the counter-protest executed by Newfoundlanders in response to the anti-sealing campaigns of the 1960s and 70s: “The frequent use of the first person plural form, ‘we’, serves to reinforce group allegiance as well as to point out the separate worlds of Newfoundlanders and outsiders…” (Lamson 1979:23). The importance of the seal hunt to a sense of Newfoundland identity is expressed through the unifying use of the pronoun, ‘we’, the use of which may be an extension of the comradeship originally created and exemplified by the hunt itself. Wright (1984) attributes the continued importance of the hunt in Newfoundland culture to its fulfillment of two criteria by which men have historically proven themselves in Newfoundland society: the ability to persevere in harsh conditions (“hardiness”) and the capacity to “provide for one’s family” (Wright 1984:93). The latter often necessitates the first, and denotes a culture in which the accumulation of goods is not precedential, except in the perpetuation of one’s family within the Newfoundland environment. This is strikingly exemplified in a testimony given to Wright by Bill, a sealer:

relations – the adaptation of society to the environment,” (Wenzel, 1991: 61). This is in reference to the Inuit mode of subsistence, which is characterized as “not part of Inuit culture; it is Inuit culture since it encapsulates a self-image and identity shared by all Inuit,” (Wenzel 1991:70). Subsistence, as derived from practices such as the harvesting of ringed seals, is representative of the social institutions that govern the lives of the Inuit. These are ultimately based in theories of cooperation among all members of the community and lend to a notion of equality among members, as well as between humans and the other-thanhuman world (Wenzel 1991). Although evoking an image of Newfoundland fishing and sealing communities as being equally embedded in subsistence as Inuit communities may be an exaggeration, the Newfoundland seal hunt can be viewed as the basis of institutions similar to those provided by hunting in a subsistence culture; cooperation and equality are created during and are integral to a successful seal hunting expedition (Wright 1984). Wenzel (1991) suggests that “for Inuit, the basis of secure, successful subsistence is the social relatedness of one person to another, rather than individual prowess or special equipment,” (Wenzel 1991:60). This is analogous to Wright’s (1984) analysis of relations between Newfoundland sealers where “to share in the pervading fraternal spirit, a sealer must not esteem himself more than others,” (Wright 1984:94). In both cases, a sense of kinship is created (in the case of the Inuit, this kinship is literal, as hunting is often undertaken by family groups), which allows for the successful completion of the hunt (Wenzel 1991; Wright 1984). The actions of one will affect all others in the hunt, and individual selfishness is not tolerated in such a setting (Wenzel 1991; Wright 1984). This is especially important in the dangerous environment in which sealing takes place where all men depend on each

…I wouldn’t trade what I do. Not for a million bucks. I don’t make much money, just enough

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

to keep me above the poverty line, but I loves [sic] it. Even when I have to get up at four in the morning to go fishing, and when I’ve got to go to bed at nine every night. And working the nets in the winter. And going sealing. That’s me. This is where I belong and I know it very well. I’m happy. I don’t want any more. (Wright 1984:98)

of the Inuit seal hunt subsequent to the European ban on import and associated reductions in market size, is testament to the cultural importance of the activity. This can be applied to the Newfoundland hunt, which remains in existence, and is protected by such organizations as the Canadian Sealers Association.

The money derived from sealing by a typical Newfoundland sealer is generally used in preparation for the summer fishing season. It is thus a means by which these Newfoundlanders can sustain their livelihoods, which are characterized by an affinity with the ocean (Wright 1984). This is analogous to the involvement of the Inuit in the sealskin trade. The profits provided by this industry are used to supplement the costs of outfitting hunting groups, and the purchasing of necessary equipment (Wenzel 1991; Peter 2010). In this sense, the seal industry provides the same means of cultural preservation among Newfoundlanders and the Inuit—both depend on seals for their own perpetuation in a commercial global economy. Although the seal hunt may be necessary for the economic stability of Inuit and Newfoundland communities, this is not the only reason for its continuation. The hunt is integral to the creation of cooperation and a sense of kinship throughout these communities and in the case of Newfoundlanders, a sense of identity in the ties it holds with the ocean and in the manhood acquired by participants (Wright 1984). The importance of this identity is exemplified in cases in which economic conditions necessitate employment outside of the maritime community of Newfoundland. The Newfoundland identity, which is centered on interaction with the marine environment in which such communities are built, remains strongly present: “There’s no way I would stay on the mainland. Look at this place. Isn’t it beautiful? And to be able to fish and stay right here ‘till the end of my days, that’s all I want,” (Wright 1984: 90). Wenzel (1991) argues that the continuation

Modernity as antagonistic to tradition The key problem confronted by the Inuit in their claims to continuing the seal hunt is based in the preconceptions of tradition held by Europeans and Western philosophy (Wenzel 1991; Peter 2010). Richard Handler and Jocelyn Linnekin (1984) characterize the Western conception of tradition, as “commonsense.” This perception defines tradition as a collection of “core ideas” that remain constant through time. As such, the incorporation of “new” things (ideas, technologies, identities, etc.) is viewed as a departure from tradition, and “a false dichotomy between tradition and modernity as fixed and mutually exclusive states” (Handler, Linnekin 1984:273) is created. Regulations outlined in the most recent legislation passed by the European Union on seal-product import employ the prevailing “commonsense” perception of tradition. The Inuit are deemed exempt from the seal-product import ban, under the condition that “Inuit seal-products result from hunts conducted ‘traditionally’ which contribute to the ‘subsistence’ to the Inuit” (Peter 2010:4). This prescription is at once condescending and hypocritical, as it mandates “traditional” hunting as a necessity for European import of Inuit seal products, while European perceptions of what constitutes a traditional subsistence economy do not allow for any commercial sale of products (Wenzel 1991). The Europeans define for themselves what Inuit culture ought to be, and allow for their continued definition of it, by using the largely ambiguous categories

Fields

Winter 2012 -

death – for yet another slaughter,” (Wright 1984: 102). Although the anti-sealing movement aims to abolish both the Inuit and Newfoundland hunts, it is difficult to imagine similar language being used in conjunction with Inuit hunters. The legitimacy of Inuit tradition may be contested, but there remain vestiges of a romantic perception of the Inuit as “traditional” in the “commonsense” way within Western thought. This persisting link to tradition protects the Inuit from being degraded to the immoral and impure position given to Newfoundland sealers. In the early years of the anti-sealing protest, the Inuit joined the anti-sealing movement in its condemnation of the North Atlantic sealing industry (Wenzel 1991). This is indicative of the illegitimacy associated with the modernity and commercialism characterizing perceptions of Newfoundland sealers. The Inuit’s acceptance of the antisealing campaign in Newfoundland and the rest of the North Atlantic indicates an Inuit perception of the Newfoundland sealers as fundamentally different from themselves. This perception may result from the creation of a commercial image of the Newfoundland sealer, as mentioned above. This is of exceptional importance, because the economic role of the seal hunt in Newfoundland, as outlined earlier, is similar to that in Inuit communities, “it provides men with an immediate and substantial cash flow that can be used for major expenditures, such as outfitting for the summer fishery, or buying materials for building or repairing homes,” (Wright 1984:5). Although the fisheries into which the Newfoundland sealers invest their seal-hunt earnings belong to a commercial economy, and the hunts funded by Inuit seal-hunt income are based in local food acquisition (Wenzel 1991), the concepts are fundamentally very similar in that neither is based in principles of accumulation.

of “traditional” and “subsistence,” both of which are given no explicit description. This has been equated with an extension of colonial thought by the National Inuit Leader, Mary Simon: “This stipulation is very colonial – it implicitly paints a picture of Inuit out on the land, without any contemporary aid, such as store bought clothes, snow machines, or rifles” (Peter 2010:7). This type of legislation undermines the legitimacy of the Inuit hunt. What is deemed “traditional”, such as dogsleds and harpoons, is contrasted with the “modern” technology employed by Inuit today, such as snowmobiles and rifles (Wenzel 1991; Peter 2010), and any departure from the “traditional” is characterized by a descent into “modernity”. As the Inuit adopt more modern technology, they are perceived as becoming increasingly like the sealers from Newfoundland and the rest of Canada (Wenzel 1991) . Wenzel suggests that two Inuit stereotypes exist: the first is traditional in the sense that he or she uses tools from the past, and is seen as ecologically sound and distinct from Western culture; the second, who is dependant on present technology and a commercial market, is indistinct from Western culture (Wenzel 1991). The “traditional” Inuit is seen as purer than the “modern” Inuit, the latter having effectively been “tainted by modernity” (Wenzel 1991:6). If the Newfoundlander is placed within this “traditional” versus “modern” scheme as a foil for the “traditional” Inuit, he becomes a representation not only of the death of tradition, but also of impurity and jadedness in his modernity. The sense of the impure allows for a perception of Newfoundland sealers as commercially oriented, profit-driven capitalists, to be created. This ultimately allows for the dehumanization of sealers, which is perpetuated by anti-sealing rhetoric: “Now comes the news that the ice-hearted killers are again rallying around the bloodied club – the symbol of their evil trade in misery and

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

world have given the seal a soul. (Lamson 1979:11)

The involvement of the Inuit in a commercial market has been the subject of critique from proponents of the anti-sealing movement, who “state that Inuit claims on seal for subsistence veil a commercial economy based on profit,” (Wenzel 1991:5). The polarity created between “subsistence” and “commercial” is congruent with the dichotomy between “tradition” and “modern”. By this logic Inuit cannot be subsistent if the perpetuation of their society relies on economic interactions with Western societies, and can therefore not be traditional, because commercialism is identified with modernity. This is applicable to the Newfoundland case in that, even though the economies of local communities partaking in the seal hunt are not characterized by large profit margins (a large proportion of the population relies on government welfare) (Wright 1984), the commercial nature of the industry allows for the hunt’s continued association with the impure and immoral. The emersion of the Newfoundland sealing industry in the “modern” negates its consideration as a “traditional” practice, despite the economic, historic, and cultural significance of the hunt to Newfoundland communities (Wright 1984).

Cashin alludes to a totemic analogy in which the seal acts as a model from which human identity can be compared and created. Arne Kalland (1993) discusses the creation of the seal as a totem in his analysis of the antiwhaling movement. Kalland (1993) attributes the success of marine mammals as totems to the difficulty humans confront in attempting to place them within discreet categories. Marine mammals are not fish, yet they live in the water, and they are not land mammals, yet they share similarities in appearance with them (Kalland 1993). This ambiguity is characteristic of many totemic animals, in that special preference and taboo are often placed upon things that transcend and challenge the boundaries of categories upon which human perceptions of the world are based (Kalland 1993). Kalland (1993) suggests that analogy is used by the anti-whaling campaign in creating a connection between the protectors of the whales and the whales themselves, in which both share the good and pure characteristics that have been associated with whales (Kalland 1993). This is juxtaposed with a second analogy, drawn between money and the whaler (or sealer)—money is in essence the totem of the whaler/sealer, and represents capitalism and profit: “Money serves this function ideally because money can be used metaphorically for commercialism and the values we have lost, but which whales [and therefore the protectors of whales] are claimed still to possess,” (Kalland 1993:129). This is reminiscent of the dualism employed in comparing the “traditional” Inuit hunter and the “modern” Newfoundland sealer, which creates an image of the Newfoundland sealer as profit-driven and immoral. Kalland (1993) outlines the dualisms central to the anti-whaling campaign, which can be easily applied to an analysis of the anti-sealing movement:

Totemic dualism in the creation of a subhuman sealer The juxtaposition employed in the comparison between the “traditional” and the “modern” and in the creation of a dehumanized Newfoundland sealer may be the result of totemic analogy. A Newfoundland politician, Richard Cashin, recognized this type of analogy, although in a very dramatic way: The issue of the seal hunt is theological and we are experiencing a new paganism. We are substituting sentiment for faith and we worship an adorable little seal or some other fetish or symbol. In fact, Greenpeace, Brian Davies, and many supposedly intelligent and prominent people in the Western

Fields

Winter 2012 -

“Protectionists” versus “Whalers [Sealers]” “Whales [Seals]” versus “Money” “Nature” versus “Man-Made Objects” “Subsistence” versus “Commercialism” “Tradition” versus “Modern” “Good” versus “Bad”

all morals and emotion—if they are willing to kill whales (or seals) then they are bound to have little trouble in killing the protectionist, who is totemically analogous to the whale or seal in question. This mindset is evident in a letter written by Paul Watson, the founder of the Sea Sheppard Conservation Society, to “the Sealers of Newfoundland” (Wright, 1984: 116) subsequent to his incarceration in a Quebec prison in 1984: “Many of you will be glad to hear of my internment just prior to Christmas; I am sure it will be a source of enjoyment to know that my little daughter will not have her daddy with her on that special day,” (Wright, 1984: 116). Watson draws on the imagery of a child separated from his or her parent, which is central to the propaganda of the anti-sealing movement. Images of baby seals being clubbed and dragged from their mothers is a recurring theme in the anti-sealing campaign. Here, Watson extends an analogy between the seal “family” and the human family, suggesting that the Newfoundland sealers would find similar pleasure in separating him and his daughter at Christmas as they supposedly would in separating mother and baby seals. Themes of the familial also appear in a picture book written by the first celebrity to become affiliated with the anti-sealing campaign, Brigitte Bardot. Noonoah, le Petit Phoque Blanc was published in French with an intended audience of young children. The story follows a baby seal, Noonoah, and his Inuit friend, Irkou, through a confrontation with white sealers. A humorous account of the story by a Newfoundlander provides a basis for totemic analysis of the book:

(Kalland 1993:130)

The final dualism, “Good versus Bad,” is overarching in its representation of the anti-sealing campaign’s goal of solidifying a perception of “protectionists” as righteous, in contrast with “bad” and somewhat subhuman sealers. The sealers, from the view of the protectionists, are representative of the entire right column of characters. This makes the sealers especially susceptible to negative stereotyping, whereas the Inuit must first be proven to be “non-traditional” and “nonnatural,” before they can be labeled as “bad.” The extent to which the seal has become a totem for proponents of the anti-sealing movement is represented in the association of seal-meat consumption with cannibalism. When visiting an Inuit community in Nunavut, the then Canadian Governor General, Michaelle Jean, accepted and ate a piece of seal meat: “To the Inuit, her acceptance was a demonstration of respect for Inuit and for the seal. To the anti-sealing lobby and the European Union, the act was both bizarre and disgusting,” (Peter 2010:7). This represents the elevation of the seal to a level on par with the human. This is also exemplified in the testimony of a Newfoundland woman: “I resent him [Brian Davies] because he made the seals seem too human and I can no longer eat seal meat although I love it,” (Lamson 1979:38). The humanity imbued in the seal parallels the humanity revoked from the sealers. Kalland (1993) observes this in conjunction with whalers, describing a Greenpeace activist who, while undercover amongst whalers, was “afraid that whalers might stab him with knives if his identify were [sic] revealed,” (Kalland 1993:130). The whalers have been stripped of

Lying on an ice floe with the new born reclining on a puffy white pillow, Mama Phoque is wearing a blue house dress with frilly lace around the hem and a neck that is scooped so low that it comes close to revealing assets of which Bardot herself might have been envious. [Pickersgill 2007]

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

despite the lack of any ecological basis for the protection of these animals, is made possible by the large amounts of money that people are willing to donate to protect their totemic brethren: “environmentalists as well as animal rights activists have learned that whales and seals open people’s purses, and skillfully play up this tendency,” (Kalland 1993:127). This can be attributed to the totemic framework in which the campaign is set, which equates being a good person with protecting marine mammals, and to the spatial and temporal concentration of the hunt, which allows for cost-effective protest (Kalland 1993; Allen 1979). The Newfoundland seal hunt only occurs for a few weeks every year and is performed by one group of people, the sealers. Since the seals are not threatened by factors other than the hunt (pollution, development, etc.), the campaign to end the seal hunt remains simple and unintimidating to possible investors, and is based solely on the notion of an evil sealer (Kalland 1993). In keeping the campaign as simple as possible it becomes necessary to develop a juxtaposition between protesters and sealers in which the sealers represent the single opponent that must be overcome in order to eradicate the hunt. In the past this has been accomplished by performing demonstrations on the ice during the hunt. This succeeds in gaining publicity, as well as developing an image of sealers as an amalgamated force: “What these rituals do is invent news that tells the world that the activists are concerned about the environment, that the issue is urgent and cannot wait, and that they fight against great odds,” (Kalland 1993:129). This trend is continued today with video footage and images posted on the Internet by environmental and animal rights groups, such as Greenpeace, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). While searching the Internet for video

The connection between the seal and human family is emphasized by the use of clothing and inclusion of human breasts in the mother seal character. The image of a human-like seal family invokes an emotional response upon the separation of mother and child during the hunt. The very next day, Irkou the little Inuit boy rushes in to announce that bad men have broken through the ice in their steel boats and are setting about massacring the baby seals in order to sell their beautiful white fur for a very high price. The mother seals scream and cry. (Pickersgill, 2007)

Multiple dualisms are employed in this portion of the story. The innocent Inuit child is set against the “bad men”, who are killing the seals for commercial profit. This evokes a sense of “subsistence/tradition” versus “commercialism/ modern”, as well as “good” versus “bad”. “Nature” versus “man-made” is also present in the breaking of the sea ice by the steel ships of the sealers. The image of the mourning mother seals is a continuation of the human experience analogy, as set up in the opening scenes of the story. A group of demonic looking men with glaring eyes and fiendish smiles are clubbing and skinning the baby seals. One little seal looks up smiling innocently as a sealer’s club swings downward. There is blood everywhere. (Pickersgill 2007)

The dualism of “good” and “bad” is evidenced in the solidification of the sealers as being subhuman and without conscience. This image is reminiscent of a chant made by Brian Davies while attending a seal hunt in the 1970s: “You butchers, you bloody butchers…You must feel very brave killing those little animals. What men, what brave men,” (Lamson 1979:1). Imagery of the anti-sealing campaign It has been suggested that the perpetuation of the anti-sealing and anti-whaling campaigns,

Fields

Winter 2012 -

seal pup as the veritable “poster-child” of the campaign, despite the lack of a whitecoat seal hunt since the 1980s (Canadian Sealers Association 2011). There is such an affinity felt with this cute baby seal, that the discontinued association of it with the campaign could potentially have detrimental effects on the ability to raise funds.

footage posted by IFAW, I was confronted with frequent warnings of “GRAPHIC CONTENT” (IFAW 2008). This content is deemed so graphic that YouTube required the viewer to be logged on to a YouTube account held by an individual over eighteen years of age in order to watch the video. Warnings such as these are not uncommon in publications made by anti-sealing organizations, as has been recognized by George Wenzel (1990) in reference to pamphlets distributed by these organizations: “The front cover of the brochure thoughtfully warns that its content may be disturbing,” (Wenzel 1991:35). By warning the reader or watcher that the images to follow are “disturbing” or graphic”, the organization creates a preconceived notion in the reader or watcher of what to expect and how to interpret the information that is being presented—the author is setting the reader up for shock and repulsion. The context in which images are presented is integral to the manner in which the material is perceived. A striking example of this is the use of pictures by Guy Wright (1984) in his book outlining the importance of the seal hunt to Newfoundland sealers. In this book, images characteristic of anti-sealing publications are used, but are placed in a much more unemotional context. This is exemplified in two photographs that feature a sealer, complete with hakapik (the implement used to club seals), and a mother and baby seal. The caption reads:

Don’t you go taking pictures of no whitecoats… There’s more of them than we’ll ever need. These pictures will ruin the seal hunt and the seal hunt is something I’ve got a right to. My father was a sealer, and his father, and his father before him. - Jacob, a Newfoundland sealer (Wright 1984:1)

This is especially evident on the PETA antisealing page, which is entitled “Canada’s Shame”, and is dominated by images of the whitecoat. In an introductory video into “Canada’s Shame”, PETA cleverly alternates footage of sealers clubbing seals that have already molted, with images of whitecoats on the ice. This implies that the hunt does indeed include these baby seals when it actually does not. Conclusions The anti-sealing campaign has succeeded in denouncing life as experienced by Newfoundland sealers and people of small Newfoundland communities in general. This has been easily accomplished in the case of Newfoundland sealers, in contrast to Inuit seal hunters, due to the initial association of Newfoundland sealers with modernity. From modernity, analogies can easily be drawn to commercialism and profitdriven theories of accumulation. Through the use of totemic dualisms, in which money acts as a totem for Newfoundland sealers (Kalland 1993), sealers have been demoted to the level of subhuman, without morals or compassion. This image has been perpetuated by the biased and rather reprehensible presentation of the hunt to the public, by anti-sealing organizations.

Photographs similar to these have been used by the anti-sealing groups to arouse the emotions of people who are accustomed to getting their meat in cello-wrapped packages. In a moment the hood seal pup will be dead. The mother will swim away. [Wright 1984]

The mother and baby seal are an important image in the anti-sealing movement. As discussed above, they appeal to a sense of humanness and family within prospective supporters of the movement. This is especially evident in the continued use of the white

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

46(2):124-133. Lamson, Cynthia 1979 Bloody Decks and a Bumper Crop: The Rhetoric of Sealing Counter-Protest. St. John’s: Institute of Social and Economic Research Memorial University of Newfoundland. PETA N.d. Canada’s Shame. canadasshame.com. Peter, Aaju 2010 The European Parliament Shuts Down Seal-Product Imports – Again. Above & Beyond: Canada’s Arctic Journal May/June 2010:1-8 Pickersgill, Peter Neither Here Nor There: Noonoah, le petit phoque blanc. The Southern Gazette, June 19, 2007. Wenzel, George 1991 Animal Rights, Human Rights: Ecology, and Ideology in the Canadian Arctic. North America: University of Toronto Press. Wright, Guy 1984 Sons and Seals: A Voyage to the Ice. St. John’s: Institute of Social and Economic Research Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Through the misrepresentation of information, and the fostering of an embedded totemic framework of analogy, Newfoundland sealers are wrongfully stripped of their humanity and the legitimacy of their livelihood, and are cast as “ice-hearted killers” in order for the anti-sealing movement to continue succeeding in its protest. References: Allen, Jeremiah 1979 Anti Sealing as an Industry. Journal of Political Science 87(2):423-28. Canadian Sealers Association N.d. Facts. www.sealharvest.ca. Handler, Richard, and Jocelyn Linnekin 1984 Tradition, Genuine or Spurious. The Journal of American Folklore 97(385):273-290. IFAW IFAW Seal Hunt 2008 - The Hunt Starts GRAPHIC FOOTAGE. YouTube. Kalland, Arne 1993 Management by totemization: whale symbolism and the anti-whaling campaign. Artic

Fields -

Confucian / Confusion

Winter 2012 -

Ming Lin

“Confucian / Confusion” is a series of banners reproducing traditional Chinese proverbs in the calligraphic style used by street artists in Chinatown, New York. Displayed outdoors, in proximity to the neighborhood’s most lucrative tourist hub, Canal Street, these banners invite an open dialogue that both questions what constitutes Chinese identity today and interrogates the boundaries of high and low-brow art. In name painting, artists employ a small flat brush dipped in multiple hues to render the names of clients in English letters, but in a distinctly Chinese or Asian style. In recent years the service has grown to include images of pop-stars like Justin Bieber and Brittany Spears. In this small industry, calligraphy, an ancient and sacred Chinese art form, finds contemporary expression as a cheap tourist souvenir. The banners, using this technique to articulate centuries old proverbs, speak to the perverse ways in which culture is conveyed and translated across generational and physical boundaries. The work is also a polemic against arts institutions that exclude vernacular expressions of creativity forcing them into the domain of underpaid and undervalued work. The name of the project alludes to the disjunct between the old and new. Confucianism, a prevailing ancient philosophy in China which emphasizes the importance of tradition and respect for one’s elders, is reiterated in new and inventive ways. The epigram: “Every grain of rice you don’t eat is a pock mark on your future spouse’s face” is absurd but relevant in today’s socio-economic environment where it is prudent to yield caution to the precarious nature of our resources. As members of the diaspora, Chinese- Americans often perceive of their heritage as tourists; seeking the authentic while maintaining an illusion of the foreign and exotic. The medium of this project and its situation within the urban environment expresses this reality.

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

Fields

Winter 2012 -

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

Te r r a i n s

Korean Buddhist art and architecture

Chinese influences and unique aspects Andrea Hoegler

and national ideology, introducing the concept that the King was equal to and representative of the Buddha himself (Hong-June 1999:57). With the spread of Buddhist ideology across all realms of Korean culture, Buddhist architecture flourished, resulting in the widespread erection of religious monuments, statues, temples, and monasteries across Silla (Nelson 1993:245). Such developments became more elaborate as time went on, and during the eighth century, the most culturally significant and representative Buddhist artifacts in Korea were built, including the temples of Sokkuram and Bulguksa, which have withstood the test of time. Korea was undoubtedly influenced by Chinese Buddhist ideology and iconography, considering it adopted the religion directly from China. However, through time, Korea developed several unique aspects of Buddhist architecture that accompanied the ideological development of its own distinct form of Buddhism. This paper will examine the external Chinese influences that have ultimately played a part in shaping Korean Buddhist art and architecture, along with a discussion of the unique developments in Korean Buddhist architecture and iconography that changed as Buddhism spread across the Korean Peninsula into Silla. This will be demonstrated through an analysis and description of the Sokkuram and Bulgoksa Temples. Buddhism was institutionalized in China during the Six Dynasties period, and the subsequent enthusiasm and popularity that arose with it led to the construction of Buddhist temples and monasteries and the production of cult images to reflect the new religious beliefs (Kuwayama 1984:171). Pagodas evolved in China from the Indian stupa, a

According to the Samguk Yusa, Buddhism arrived from China to Korea during the fourth century, spreading across the Korean peninsula and incorporating itself into the ideologies of the Three Kingdoms of Paekche, Koguryo, and Silla. The introduction of this religion would ultimately make a long-lasting, profound impact on the nation, influencing its political, social, and cultural spheres. As stated by Myeong-Jong: “the introduction of Buddhist scriptures containing profound thoughts and perceptions of the universe ushered in changes on the Korean peninsula on a never before seen scale” (Myeong-Jong 2009:4). The Buddhist religion that Korea received had developed in India, and by this time had spread throughout the continent of Asia and into China, where it had been significantly modified. Buddhist ideology was easily incorporated into Korea’s traditional folk and shamanistic belief system, making its influence and establishment as the dominant religion of the region particularly successful. Buddhism was initially brought into Korea during the Three Kingdoms period, when Paekche, Koguryo, and Silla simultaneously ruled parts of the Korean peninsula. The period ended in C.E. 668 when Silla, the last of the Kingdoms to embrace Buddhism (Nelson 1993:247), conquered the peninsula and unified Korea. As Silla developed into a powerful state, Buddhism became the formally accepted religion of the Unified Korea by the sixth century. Whereas Shamanism was viewed as an inadequate ideology for maintaining a state, Buddhism represented a “more sophisticated belief system that could provide people with a common philosophy” (HongJune 1999:20). Under the unification of Silla, Buddhism was incorporated into the political

Fields

Winter 2012 -

Much of the influence of Chinese Buddhism in Korea was a direct result of the continuous travels of Korean monks to China. These monks periodically left Korea for the purpose of studying and learning about Buddhism in China, and subsequently brought back with them aspects of Chinese Buddhist practice, including art and architectural styles (Fisher 1984:179). A fundamental difference between East Asian and Central Asian Buddhism was the increased significance and worship of the Amitabha Buddha and the Maitreya Buddha in China, whose importance rose above that of Sakyamuni, the supreme Buddha that had reached enlightenment. The cult of Maitreya and of Amitbha would consequently spread to Korea, with the dominance of Amitbha characterizing much of Korean Buddhist beliefs. Maitreya, the future Buddha, was also widely worshipped in both China and Korea. A distinct Korean Buddhist image was that of Maitreya in a seated position, his right leg crossed over his left, and the fingers of his right hand against his cheek (Fisher 1984:177). The Chinese depiction of Maitreya differs: the Buddha was typically shown seated in a throne, his hand slightly raised over his breast, not quite to his cheek. Sakyamuni was also worshipped in Korea as a secondary Buddha figure, and Korean Buddhism developed a distinct portrayal of Sakyamuni as well. The Three Kingdoms version of Sakyamuni was typically shown with a raised right hand as a gesture of reassurance, and with the left hand shown in the gesture of charity. Although these characteristics do show signs of Chinese Buddhist influence, the greater emphasis on facial features observed among Sakyamuni’s sculptures is a distinct Korean element (Fisher 1984:179). Korean Buddhist images which developed from Chinese iconography reflected a high degree of naturalism, and often employed traits that reflected gentleness, simplicity, and natural qualities (Fisher

development that would spread to Korea and Japan and become the most distinctive form of Buddhist monument in East Asia. According to Fisher, the pagoda “was often the focal point of the monastery, befitting its customary role as container of sacred relics” (Fisher 1993:28). Both the monastery and the pagoda were considered to be the two primary Buddhist structures. The monastery served as a place for the display of Buddhist images and sculptures as well as the residency of monks, and the pagodas themselves served as religious monuments and objects of worship (Fisher 1993:27). As an outcome of the local abundance in hard granite, Korea developed characteristic stone pagodas. By contrast, China predominantly built brick pagodas, and Japan would later develop wooden pagodas for similar reasons (Fisher 1993:98). Buddhism was successfully integrated into Korean society thanks to the effortless incorporation of this religion into existing indigenous ideologies, forming Korea’s own distinct form of Buddhism (Fisher 1984:176). It also became deeply rooted in the political ideology of the time: “For the elite, Buddhism was not only a religious belief, a practical guide to life, and a means of salvation after life, but also a way of asserting political power and subsuming the society under that power” (Lee 2008). Local Korean legends and stories written in the Samguk Yusa gave rise to beliefs pertaining to Korean monuments associated with the life events of the historical Buddha Sakyamuni, most notably the reference to a stone pedestal on Mount Toham that the supreme Buddha is said to have meditated on (Fisher 1984:176). However, we inevitably find traces of Chinese influence within several aspects of Korean Buddhism, as the religion itself was modified and directly brought to Korea from China. Such influences are especially visible archaeologically in tomb styles found throughout Korea, and eventually in Buddhist symbols (Nelson 1993:265).

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

Buddhist iconography, an aspect that would also be adopted by Japan. The most distinctive features of Korean Buddha sculptures included clear aesthetic preferences and a high degree of abstraction. Korean Buddha sculptures often entailed youthful frailty, human attributes, and an emphasis on detailed facial features, with less attention paid to the rest of the figure’s body. Also distinctive was the disproportionate size of the hands and an overly large head, usually set directly upon the Buddha’s own shoulders. Korean Buddhist art attempted to capture the simplicity, human qualities, and traditional spirit of the individual Buddha through a combination of extensive details placed on particular aspects and disproportionate features that are applied to other areas of the sculpture. These elements made such sculptures recognizably Korean (Fisher 1984:181-182). Korean Buddhist art also developed a preference for depicting smaller figurines of bodhisattvas and Buddhas in the standing position, known as Miruks (Nelson 1993:236). These figures were roughly sculpted from menhirs, or single standing megaliths, and were converted into Buddhist monuments by placing a flat stone on top of the figure’s head to create a hat. This flat hat feature is unique to Korean Buddhist iconography, and is seen depicted on standing outdoor Buddhas throughout Korea (Nelson 1993:150). Two temples which exemplified the true essence and structural dynamics of Korean Buddhist architecture, and which are considered to be masterpieces of Buddhist art, are those of Sokkuram and Bulguksa located on Mount Toham in Ancient Silla. Both of these shrines are still standing and were made World Cultural Heritage Sites by UNESCO in 1995. The two structures were constructed under the commands of the Prime Minister of Silla, Kim Dae-seong, during the eighth century. Sokkuram is a man-made grotto that faces

1984:179). The primary goal in the creation of Korean Buddhist iconography was to place a higher value on spirituality than on physical presence, another aesthetic and philosophical aspect that was adopted from China (Fisher 1993:126). As Korean Buddhism continued to develop, Korean monks travelled further into India, where they were exposed to representations of the Buddha in the bhumisparsamudra position, the earth touching gesture (Fisher 1993:240). The bhumisparsamudra position corresponds to the very moment Sakyamuni reached enlightenment in Bodhgaya. Upon the return home of Korean monks from India during the Tang and Silla periods, the appearance of Buddha monuments and sculptures reflecting the earth-touching gesture significantly increased. In addition, though this gesture is typically associated with Sakyamuni, Korea adapted the image to suit its own beliefs, and developed its own statues of other Buddhas, primarily Amitabha, in this position (Fisher 1984:180). Most of the basic aspects of the sculptures and monuments of this time period – such as Buddhist poses, postures, and materials – were adopted from Chinese models, and were ultimately established in Korean Buddhist architecture by the end of the Unified Silla period in C.E. 935 (Fisher 1984:180). However, Korea developed several unique aspects in the portrayal of Buddhist images and sculptures, notably the depiction of the meditating Maitreya and Sokkoram Buddha. The infant Sakyamuni, commonly referred to as the “Baby Buddha,” was another aspect of Korean Buddhist iconography that was not found in Chinese Buddhism. While most other cultures followed and worshipped the life of the Buddha after enlightenment, Korean Buddhism also honoured his early life – from his birth to his “first giant steps that conquered the world” (Fisher 1984:180). Thus, the Baby Buddha was often portrayed in Korean

Fields

Winter 2012 -

time believed that heaven was round and that the earth was square, and thus the antechamber represented the earth and the rotunda represented heaven (Myeong-Jong 2009:17). Philosophical notions such as this were another significant aspect of Korean ideology that had been incorporated into the structural planning and characteristics of Sokkuram. Within the temple itself, Sokkuram houses 40 Buddhist figures, including the main Buddha statue as the centrepiece of the rotunda, which is accompanied by two bodhisattvas, two guardian devas, four divine Kings, and ten disciples (UNESCO 2010). All of these sculptures depict Korean artistic elements integrating both human and divine qualities, particularly in the case of the main Buddha, who was meant to depict the ideal of humanity (Hong-June 1999:34). “The statue of the main Buddha and the wall-carvings of Buddha’s attendants manifest the ideal combination of the divine and the human – one that was rarely matched in Buddhist statuary of contemporary China or Japan” (Lee 2008). It is widely debated as to whether the main Buddha was meant to represent Sakyamuni or Amitabha. Notwithstanding, the 3.45 metres Buddha is seated on a lotus-shaped pedestal in the bumisparsha mudra position, the earth touching gesture (UNESCO 2010). One of the distinct features of the Sokkuram Buddha is the large circular halo that is mounted on the wall directly behind the sculpture, creating the illusion of the halo encircling the Buddha’s head. This is unusual for Buddha sculptures, as the halo is usually directly connected with the head of the Buddha, as part of the statue itself (Yamamoto 1990:312). As stated by Myeong-Jong: “using their religious fervour, artistic spirit, architectural techniques, and geometric principles, the people of Silla built nothing less than a masterpiece of Buddhist art, the Seokguram Grotto... a site that has not been replicated anywhere else in the world” (Myeong-Jong 2009:14).

the East Sea (Sea of Japan) from where it is located on the south-eastern slope of Mount Toham. Its construction began in the year 751 and was completed in 774 (UNESCO 2010). Cave temples originally developed in India and spread to China in order to serve religious purposes as Buddhist structures. Cave temples were originally constructed by carving out caverns from sandstone. Korea was forced to develop its own method due to its abundance of hard granite and lack of sandstone that made replicating such carving methods difficult (Hong-June 1999:191). Whereas the people of Ancient India and China often constructed these temples within natural grottos, in the case of Sokkuram, Koreans built a man-made grotto out of granite, and then remarkably built a temple inside. The construction method used to create the Sokkuram Temple best demonstrates the exceptional architectural techniques and expertise of the Korean craftsmen at this time, who used incredibly precise structural techniques while also paying attention to scientific details. Rather than being carved out of the mountain rock, Sokkuram was made by carving thousands of individual stones which were then assembled together –without the use of mortar –to form a circular dome, the dynamic feature of the Sokkuram grotto (Hong-June 1999:32, 185). The circular dome was a characteristic of early stone grottos, but the use of “forearm” support stones to make the dome-shaped ceiling of the Sokkuram temple was completely new and innovative, and indicates that the Silla builders possessed sufficient mathematical and mechanical skills by this time (MyeongJong 2009:16). The structure was then covered with earth to create a natural looking mound, which further emphasises the importance placed on natural features in Korean Buddhist art and thought. The structural features of the temple consist of a rectangular antechamber and a main rotunda of which the dome-shaped ceiling hangs over. The people of Silla at this

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

pillars were made and put into the mountain’s slope to form such a base– a building method that had never been previously attempted. The Silla builders then employed a traditional Korean technique known as Geuraengi where they “cut artificial stones into shapes that resembled the protruded shape of the natural mountain stones” (Myeong-Jong 2009:28). This is another example of the typically Korean emphasis placed on natural qualities, as the intention of this technique was to preserve the beauty of the natural stones. The Bulguksa Temple is considered a national treasure and a symbol of Korea’s beauty, for the incredible design of the temple itself, the symbolic associations that accompany the design, and the tremendous technical expertise that was used to build it. Together, these aspects of the temple demonstrate a harmonious balance between the natural and the man-made, a prominent theme in Korean Buddhist art and architecture (Hong-June 1999:47). As stated by Myeong-Jong: “the Bulguksa Temple encompasses not only Buddhist spirit, but also elements of architecture, geometry, aesthetics and mathematics... representing a masterpiece of creative talent and an architectural style that symbolizes cultural, social, scientific and technological advancements” (Myeong-Jong 2009:28). The individual structures – including the stairways, bridges and main halls—possess unique and remarkable characteristics, which combine to create the overall exceptional beauty of the Bulguksa Temple Complex. Korean Buddhism developed into its own distinct form as a combination of Chinese Buddhism and existing indigenous beliefs. During the initial period of the spread of Buddhism into Korea, the culture was greatly influenced by China and adopted numerous aspects of the modified Chinese version of the Buddhist religion. However, by the eighth century, Korean Buddhist sculpture developed its own unique style, and temples and monuments were built with a certain

The Bulguksa Temple is another example of the spectacular Buddhist structures built by Silla people under the command of Prime Minister Kim Dae-seong c.751 (MyeongJong 2009:14). What separates the Bulguksa Temple from other common temples is the shape and plan of the site. The temple is divided into three primary areas, the Daeungjeon (“Hall of the Shakyamuni”), the Geungnakjeon (“Hall of Paradise”), and the Birojeon (“Hall of Vairocana”). Koreans also employed philosophical precepts for the construction of Bulguksa, whereby the entire temple complex was considered to be an “ideal Buddhist world”, representing the coexistence of present hopes, the paradise of the future, and the worldly truths (Myeong-Jong 2009:24). There are also two remarkable stone stairways on each side of the temple, Cheongungyo (“Blue Cloud Bridge”) and Baekungyo (“White Cloud Bridge”). Walking up these stairways was intended to symbolize a journey toward the land of the Buddha, leading one into Daeungjeon (Myeong-Jong 2009:26). There are also two stone pagodas situated in front of Daeungjeon whose structures and meanings are distinct from one another. One is referred to as the Seokgatap pagoda (Sakyamuni’s pagoda) and maintains a simple, elegant, symmetrical style. The other, Dabotap (Many Treasure pagoda) boasts a more elaborate, original, and octagonal style with magnificent lotus-shaped windows. The Seokgatap pagoda was meant to symbolize the beauty of the spiritual world, and the Dabotap pagoda was meant to symbolize the splendour of the material world, and together these two pagodas expressed the balance and harmony between these two realms (Myeong-Jong 2009:26-27). The architectural engineering of the Bulguksa Temple is comparable to that of the Sokkuram Temple in terms of the expertise the craftsmen employed in its construction. Though built on a mountain side, the temple was constructed as though it was on a flat plain, and unique stone

Fields

Winter 2012 -

degree of sophistication and ingenuity that made these historical structures and artifacts recognizably Korean. Later Korean Buddha sculptures were particularly distinct from Chinese ones in the attention and detail given to the facial features of the sculptures, and the emphasis placed on humanly, youthful, and fragile qualities. Korean Buddhist beliefs also differed in the patterns of worship of the different Buddhas, as Amitabha and Maitreya were often worshipped over Sakyamuni, the supreme Buddha. Koreans also honoured the infant version of Sakyamuni before he reached enlightenment, another unique aspect of Korean Buddhist beliefs. Koreans developed characteristic stone pagodas that would differentiate them from the Chinese brick pagodas and the later wooden pagodas of Japan. With regards to temples and monasteries, Korean Buddhist architecture was influenced considerably by Chinese dimensions and layouts. However, the temples of Sokkuram and Bulguksa are among several Korean works that exemplified the true beauty, glorious design, and ingenious architectural abilities of Korean Buddhist architecture at its height. The arrival of Buddhism into the Korean peninsula from China marked the initial development of profound changes within Korean culture and society. The introduction of Buddhism deeply influenced all realms and aspects of Korean life including politics, thought, food, literature, faith, art, and architecture. As stated by Myeong-Jong (2009:5, 11), seventy

percent of all Korean cultural heritage sites and artifacts are of Buddhist origin, and it would be nearly impossible to envisage present-day Korea having developed without the religious and cultural influence of Buddhism. References Fisher, Robert 1993 Buddhist Art and Architecture. London: Thames and Huron Ltd. 1984 The Buddha Image in Korea. In The Light of Asia: Buddha Sakyamuni in Asia Art. Pratadapadity Pal, et al. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum Hong-june, Yu 1999 Smiles of the Baby Buddha: Appreciating the cultural heritage of Kyongju. Seoul, Korea: Changbi Publishers Inc. Lee, Soyoung 2008 Religious Influence on Korean Art, Countries and History: Tradition, Asia Society. Myeong-jong, Yoo 2009 Temples of Korea: Korean Buddhism, 17 Temples of Korea, Buddhism Terms. Seoul, Korea: Discovery Media. Nelson, Sarah 1993 Cambridge World Archaeology: The Archaeology of Korea. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. UNESCO World Heritage Centre N.d. Seokguram and Bulguksa Temple., World Heritage Convention. whc.unesco.org. Yamamoto, Chikyo 1990 Introduction to Buddhist Art. New Delhi,

Hi v e r 2012 -

Te r r a i n s

Neurophenomenology

Holistic understandings of the person in cognitive anthropology Amy Binning

essential in studying the effects of embodiment on cognition. Neurophenomenological thought is mirrored in traditional Buddhist doctrines of no self, emptiness, and nonduality. These parallels between Buddhist philosophy and cognitive science will be examined. This paper will also argue that the shift towards the consideration of first-person accounts of experience in scientific discourse represents a movement towards a more holistic understanding of the person. This movement towards holism is not unique to cognitive science, and presents itself in other disciplines. The holistic shift has been pointed out by authors like David Riches, and is reflected in the post-modernist movements of anthropology. The current paper will explore the movement towards holistic theories of the person as they appear in anthropology, neurophenomenology, and Buddhism, in order to argue that this trend is gaining popularity in both academic and social understanding.

As Francisco Varela points out in his book The Embodied Mind, for almost all of human history, our view of ourselves has been dominated by spontaneous understanding – a folk model born out of experience of how we interact with the world. With the rise of science, and the advent of cognitive science in particular, we have been provided with a mirror in which to evaluate our own cognitive functioning (1993: 6). In recent decades, the folk model of cognition has yielded its dominance to scientific models, and specifically the computational model. So dominant has scientific discourse become that “we give it the authority to explain even when it denies what is most immediate and direct – our everyday, immediate experience” (Varela 1993: 12). Phenomenological approaches, focused on the first-person understanding of experience, have traditionally been dismissed by scientific discourse that strives for “objectivity.” Recent movements however, primarily in the form of neurophenomenology, have attempted to bring together the fields of neurology and phenomenology, to establish a mutual relationship between first- and third-person accounts of experience. This movement has been grounded in a shift in the understanding of embodiment, lead by figures such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The current paper will explore the rise of new conceptions of embodiment and experience, and the challenges they pose to previous conceptions of cognitive processing. Academics such as Varela have argued that Western cognitive science can benefit from interaction with East Asian approaches; not only is Buddhist philosophy an interesting parallel of modern cognitive science, but its practices, Varela argues, are

1. Cognitivism: A Starting Point Prior to the 1950s, the inner workings of the human mind and the nuances of the brain were the province of philosophers and psychologists. The rise of cognitive science, however, would usurp these disciplines as the leading authorities on mental processes. The principles of cybernetics formed a basis for the discipline of cognitive science, which emerged around the 1950s. Varela credits the discipline of cybernetics as being an early form of cognitive science: “in the eyes of the leaders of this movement, the study of mental phenomena had been far too long in the hands of psychologists and philosophers. In contrast,

Fields

Winter 2012 -

keeping the methods and ideas within the known framework of empirical science” (1996: 340). This understanding of experience and consciousness does not give scientific credence to first person accounts. But what is evident in this definition is that cognitive science is being forced at the very least to concede the reality and importance of first-person experience, although there is no place for it as yet in cognitive theory. This concept of cognition and consciousness, and of the mind and body as non-unified, is not unique to cognitive science, and has had a long tradition in philosophy. Taylor Carman identifies the two extremes of intellectualism and empiricism. Empiricism contains the above-described conception of the human mind as a machine. Because the machine is the sum of its parts, those parts are analyzable in their subsystems (Carman 2008: 82). We will see this idea later problematized by Buddhist theory. A modern example of this type of theory given by Carman is reflex arc theory. In this view, psychological phenomena are behavioural representations linking incoming stimuli and outgoing behavioural responses (2008: 82). This understanding represents the complete abstraction from experience, the first-person account. Intellectualism is a tradition growing out of Cartesian dualism, in the form of the disembodied thinking subject. In this view again, perception is used as a tool for grasping the surrounding world, promoting a fundamental distinction between the perceiver and the perceived. In a similar vein, Descartes saw the body as a vehicle for consciousness (Morris 2008: 111). As Carman points out: “Rationalism, intellectualism and cognitivism are all different versions of a common underlying idea, namely that thought constitutes our essential relation to the world” (2008: 12). Together these movements constitute the basis for modern cognitive science. Although there has been a movement away from strictly

these cyberneticians felt a calling to express the process underlying mental phenomena in explicit mechanisms and mathematical formalisms” (1993: 38). The principles of cybernetics were foundational in the building of digital computers, with their conception of the mind as a deductive device (1993: 38). Cognitivism, in turn, was built upon the premise that intelligence could be so precisely likened to computation that cognition functioned on the basis of computation of symbolic representations. According to this understanding, the world is represented in a series of symbols that are both physical and semantic. Computations are based on the physical symbols, but constrained by the semantic values, and these computations lead to behavior, which will be more or less successful based on the accuracy of the representation of the symbol (Varela 1993: 40). An important caveat of this position, which Varela (1993: 42) points out, is that we are not and cannot become aware of these cognitive processes. In the cognitivist and computational models of the mind then, the self is fundamentally fragmented – cognition and consciousness do not belong together. Although current cognitive science has moved away from its computational beginnings, the perception of the mind as fragmented has persisted. The consciousness sphere has been consistently undermined, deprived of any causal relevance (Varela 1996: 338). In recent decades the most popular understanding in cognitive science has been a functionalist one. In this view, cognitive behavior and first-person experience are forcibly combined. The aggregate of all the items of cognitive capacity amounts to an account of experience, without really defining what this “account” implies in terms of relationship (Varela 1996: 340). Varela explains the pervasiveness of functionalist theory thus: “This popularity rests on the acceptance of the reality of experience and mental life while

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

agents who are “in-the-world” (Gallagher 2008: 212) in the sense that their interaction and learning within the environment is a vital part of cognitive processes. In this movement towards connectionist models of the mind, we can observe the beginnings of a trend towards a holistic view of cognition and of the person, one where consciousness and cognition are being brought back together. The advent of the connectionist movement in cognitive science facilitated the emergence of a new concept of embodiment. This concept emerged primarily through the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and his writings on phenomenology. It was Merleau-Ponty’s interest in the leading figures of phenomenology, such as Heidegger, Sartre, and particularly Husserl that led to his conception of embodiment. The pursuit of phenomenology “simply put, it is an attempt to describe the basic structures of human experience and understanding from a concrete first-person point of view, in contrast to the reflective, third-person perspective that characterizes both scientific knowledge and received opinion” (Carman 2008: 14). Phenomenological conceptions of experience explore the dualistic division between the subject and the object of perception. It is interested in the “intentionality” or directedness of experience, that is to say, what aspect of mental states are “about” (in the sense of “what are you thinking about?”). Husserl’s solution is as follows: “Perception is not of something, if the ‘of ’ in that formula indicates a causal relation to something in the external world; it is rather as if of something; it identifies or describes a merely putative object, whether such an object exists or not” (Carman 2008: 16). Husserl is problematizing then the distinction between the subjects and objects of consciousness. Merleau-Ponty also drew considerable inspiration from Gestalt theory of perception, which argues that perception should be conceived of neither as a rational judgment, nor as the unconscious registration

cognitivistic conceptions of the mind as a computer, what is important in the context of this paper is that the conception of the mind and body as non-unified has remained. The body is often still conceived of as a vessel for consciousness, and this consciousness itself is divorced from cognitive function, which remains, by definition, unconscious. 2. Merleau-Ponty: A New View of Embodiment Within the previously outlined framework of early cognitive science, it is difficult to find a place where phenomenological firstperson accounts might conceivably be added. But it was challenges to the reductionist cognitivist model that paved the way for the emergence of a new view of embodiment. This change in cognitive science refers to the emergence of connectionist models of the mind. Proponents of this new development rejected the model of the mind whereby thought is the internal manipulation of symbols, in favor of a model that describes the mind as a series of interconnected networks. In this model, information is stored in these networks, and learned through interaction with the environment. This new conception of the functioning of the mind allows for the acknowledgement of the importance of firstperson experience: “the change in cognitive science corresponds to a new emphasis on neuroscience and connectionism, in approaches that challenge what has been the prevailing computational orthodoxy by introducing an approach based on non-linear dynamic systems. This turn in the fortunes of cognitive science involved a shift away from reductionistic approaches to notions of emergence and self organization, and at the same time motivated a new interest in consciousness” (Gallagher 2008: 211). In this view then, cognition is conceived of less as unconscious processes necessarily divorced from consciousness, but as belonging to embodied

Fields

Winter 2012 -

Merleau-Ponty emphasizes the “expressive unity” which he believes to be characteristic of the human body, and is extended to the phenomenological world (Toadvine 2008: 20). This view conceives of the body itself as the means of observation, not the abstracted mind using the body as some tool through which to perceive the world. Because of this, the body has a distinct experience of itself, and one that is not to be dismissed as “subjective” or flawed, but one that must be examined in its own right: “The fact that we can never peer around our own corner is not an accidental epistemic limitation, but an essential structure of perception itself, one that stands in need of description and interpretation” (Carman 2008: 96). In Merleau-Ponty’s view then, there is no distinction in actual experience between mind and body; this distinction is only the dualistic remnants of Cartesian cognitivist theory. Merleau-Ponty’s new conception of embodiment rejects the idea of the body as a vessel for consciousness. Embodiment for Merleau-Ponty defines agents as “being-inthe-world”, and their first-person experiences in themselves constitute perception. This view is not attempting to discredit empirical explanation, but it is intended to be a descriptive rather than explicative tool to be combined with the empirical sciences. For Merleau-Ponty and his supporters, science can be used like a map in relation to a landscape, once the importance of direct phenomenological experience with the world is recognized (Toadvine 2008: 22). This identification of the importance of the first-person approach does not mean phenomenology aims to set first- and thirdperson approaches against one another, but to integrate them: “one of the originalities of the phenomenological attitude is that it does not seek to oppose the subjective to the objective, but to move beyond the split into their fundamental correlation” (Varela 1996: 347). Merleau-Ponty’s conception of embodiment is thus an attempt to navigate a middle way

of meaningless sense-data (Carman 2008: 45). Working to extend the traditions of phenomenology and these two thinkers, Merleau-Ponty developed a conception of embodiment that challenged traditional notions of sensation and perception. His first important assertion is that the body is exempt from traditional dualistic divisions between subject and object, and thus between first-person and third-person perspectives (Morris 2008: 113). For Merleau-Ponty, these traditional ideas of sensation overlook the process of perception in favour of the object being perceived (Carman 2008: 47). MerleauPonty challenges sensation on the grounds that it purports to fulfill two conflicting functions: first, to describe actual perceptual experience, and second to describe how experience is a result of causal impingements on sensory surfaces. Merleau-Ponty argues that when sensation is used to describe experience, it does not explain it fully, and when it is used explicatively, it no longer gives an honest account of lived experience (Carman 2008: 53). One of the central points about perception in this view is that we do not perceive independent, disconnected phenomena, but all things within their context. Merleau-Ponty also rejects the dualistic division between the mind and body. This Cartesian division has been a part of the scientific schema for cognition largely as a result of cognitivist models, but for Merleau Ponty this conception “takes for granted a distinction between mind and body that has no echo in our most basic experience of ourselves and others” (Carman 2008: 149). What Merleau-Ponty is objecting to is the dismissal of the phenomenological field as “subjective”; he is arguing that the firs-person view is in fact constitutive of perception (Carman 2008: 96). This is a part of the drastic shift away from Cartesian dualism, towards an integrated and holistic view of the person which extends to perception and cognition.

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

empirical studies of the mental cannot be complete without some consideration for the experiential domain within which cognition is embedded. The cognitivist division between consciousness or experience and the mind has incited the question of how these two spheres are linked. This is what has become known as the hard problem of consciousness. Approaches to the hard problem assume the primacy of the mental over the experiential, and attempt to elucidate factors that account for the arising of consciousness from the mind or brain. Computational and connectionist models of the mind create a basis for this type of approach, because they deprive consciousness of any causal relevance (Varela 1996: 338). This is the first stumbling block for Varela. The attempt to explain the appearance of consciousness from the essential source of the mind or brain presents consciousness as reducible to a result of mental or cognitive processes. One approach to reconcile this has been made by Chalmers who considers experience to be “not an explanatory posit, but an explanandum in its own right, and so it is not a candidate for [reductive] elimination’” (Chalmers quoted by Varela 1996: 338). This irreducibility of experience is a characteristic that follows directly from phenomenological influences. In this approach, the hard problem is no longer an effort to understand consciousness as arising out of the mind, but becomes a search for a third variable which will link the two irreducible domains of experience and cognition (Varela 1996: 338). Varela agrees with Chalmers that experience cannot be conceived of as a domain reducible to a product of cognition. He disagrees however, with Chalmers’s conclusion that the only way to proceed is to find some missing variable to bridge the gap between experience and cognition. Rather than searching for extra elements to resolve this issue within the framework of the hard problem, Varela suggests

between explicative empirical cognitive science and descriptive phenomenology. 3. Neurophenomenology: Redefining the hard problem Merleau-Ponty’s suggested reworking of our understanding of embodiment, and his belief that phenomenological accounts should be combined with empirical approaches laid the groundwork for the new field of neurophenomenology to emerge. Phenomenology points out that the mental has no conceivable way of examining itself, which seems a logical conclusion, but implies a methodological standstill (Varela 1996: 342). To reconcile this, Francisco Varela, the founder of neurophenomenology, takes MerleauPonty’s foundational concepts, and applies them to the hard problem of consciousness, with the goal of constructing a pragmatic approach to studying consciousness. In order to do so, Varela argues that the questions themselves used to approach consciousness must be reformulated. This section will outline Varela’s restructuring of the hard problem of consciousness, and his subsequent suggestions for integrating phenomenology into cognitive science in the form of neurophenomenology. In the spirit of cognitivism, much of cognitive science thus far has functioned in a “representationalist” way. This is to say that inner mental processes are representations of an outer, complete world (Varela 1996: 354). This is the sense in which cognitivism sees the world as represented in symbols in the mind. This view proposes a fundamental distinction between the “inner” and “outer” lives of individuals. This is a dualistic division that traditions such as the above outlined phenomenology have been attempting to reconcile. These thinkers argue that the mind and the world ought to be treated as inextricably linked. In this sense, agents are seen as “embodied” (Varela 1996: 354), or “being-in-the-world.” In terms of methodology, this implies that

Fields

Winter 2012 -

the view of phenomena from first person experience, and from cognitive science. The structure of human experience therefore, can be used to understand cognitive structures, not only the other way round (1996: 354-5).

that the hard problem of consciousness itself must be restructured. He criticizes Chalmers for remaining too reductionist in that he is searching for extra elements that will ultimately again cast experience as caused by mind. In place of Chalmers’ approach, Varela proposes neurophenomenology as a bridge between cognition and experience. In this view, both cognition and experience are conceived of as phenomenal domains: “On the whole, my claim is that neurophenomenology is a natural solution that can allow us to move beyond the hard problem in the study of consciousness […] instead of finding ‘extra ingredients’ to account for how consciousness emerges from matter and brain, my proposal reframes the questions to that of finding meaningful bridges between two irreducible phenomenal domains” (Varela 1996: 348 emphasis added). Varela’s neurophenomenology then rests partly on the understanding that cognition itself should be considered as a phenomenological claim. As he argues in “Neurophenomenology: A Methodological Remedy for the Hard Problem”: “We need to turn to a systematic exploration of the only link between mind and consciousness that seems both obvious and natural: the structure of human experience itself” (1996: 337). In this approach, the body is at the root of our experience with the world, and therefore constitutes the conceptual and cognitive fields within which we operate. Thus far, science has been used to explain mental accounts, but Varela wishes to turn this approach on its head by asking also what mental accounts can provide to science (1996: 351). This is not an attempt to assert the primacy of first-person accounts, as in phenomenology, but an attempt to integrate them within the scientific perspective. The goal of Varela’s neurophenomenology is to approach the hard problem in a pragmatic way that does not alienate our first-person experiences. Neurophenomenology operates on a system of mutual constraints between

4. Neurophenomenology and Buddhism The anecdote of the scientist scaling the mountain of understanding, only to reach the highest peak and find that the theologian has been there for centuries is a well-known one. While this is perhaps an exaggeration, much of modern cognitive theory is mirrored in Buddhist philosophy, which predates it by centuries. Not only is Buddhism an interesting reflection of cognitive models, but it is also a useful tool for the neurophenomenological exploration of consciousness. Varela (1993: 21) sees Buddhism as a kind of proto-cognitive science. Francisco Varela’s neurophenomenology rests on three critiques of cognitivism: (1) We inhabit a world with particular properties, such as colour; (2) we pick up these properties by internally representing them; (3) there is a separate, subjective “we” who does these things. These critiques amount to an attack on the symbolic representation of cognition, which is popular in cognitivist theory (1993: 8-9). Each of these critiques has a corresponding concept in Mahayana Buddhist philosophy: namely, non-duality, emptiness, and no-self. In the subsequent sections, each of these three notions will be explored. The final section in this chapter will examine meditation as a unique tool for studying consciousness in neurophenomenological approaches. 4.1 Emptiness Buddhist philosophy conceives of everything in the world as being composed of elements labeled the five skandhas, which roughly translates to mean “aggregate” or “heap”. These five elements are colour/form, feelings, perception, mental formation, and consciousness (Yuasa 2009: 54). To illustrate

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

things are composed of skandhas, including the self, and are therefore ultimately empty. But Buddhism acknowledges the converse fault of reifying emptiness so that is becomes some kind of eternalist concept. Buddhist concepts of emptiness do not deny a conventional existence of the self, what they reject is an “essential” or “absolute” existence. The difficulty then is in developing a concept of the self that is neither nihilistic nor eternalist (Garfield 1995). This has been the subject of much debate in Buddhist philosophy. This idea of no-self is related to cognitive science and neurophenomenology in more than one way. First Buddhism’s characterization of itself as the “Middle Way” is a clear influence in Varela’s neurophenomenology. Both attempt to walk the line in between nihilism and eternalism. On the side of nihilism is the complete extinction of the self, represented in cognitivism as the dismissal of first-person accounts. On the side of eternalism is the reification of emptiness, represented by phenomenology and its entirely descriptive rather than explanatory model of experience. The second similarity is Buddhism’s rejection of the existence of the “self” as a separate entity from any other conventional phenomena. This is a direct parallel to Varela’s criticism of cognitivism that there is a subjective “we” that performs cognitive functions. Just as for Varela, the self cannot be considered as distinct from its environment, in Mahayana thought, there is a rejection of the concept of the bounded “self.”

the idea of skandhas, the analogy of the chariot is often used. The chariot can be broken down into its component parts, i.e. base, wheels etc. These component parts can be broken down further, i.e. the wheels can be broken down into spokes, hub etc. But nowhere within these component parts is there anything that can be said to contain the “essence” of the whole. In “The Embodied Mind” Varela analyses each of the skandhas in turn to point out that in none of them do we find anything constitutive of a “self ”. We do, however, find experience, which is paramount for Varela (1993: 79). The philosophy of the skandhas resembles the properties which cognitivist theory believes the world to be composed of. These properties are the basis for Varela’s first critique of cognitivism; like Buddhist philosophy, Varela believes these properties to be fundamentally empty. The philosophy of skandhas also represents a critique to cognitivist theory in that it states that phenomena are not simply the sum of their component parts, and thus cannot be encapsulated by the study of their subsystems. To analyze the component parts of an object cannot give you a full understanding of the whole. This is precisely the criticism leveled at cognitivism by phenomenology and neurophenomenological approaches. 4.2 No Self Neurophenomenology characterizes itself as the balance between empiricism with phenomenology. Similarly, the Buddhist religion is often referred to as “The Middle Way.” The middle path of Buddhism originally refers to the story of the enlightenment of Sakyamuni Buddha. Buddhist practice was conceived of when the Buddha found the correct balance between sensuous selfindulgence, and the severe ascetic practice of Hinduism. But this rhetoric of the middle way came to be applied to many concepts in Buddhism, particularly, the concept of the “self.” As discussed in the above section, all

4.3 Non-duality Non-duality is related to the conception of no-self because it is the means by which Mahayana conceived of the self in a way that is neither nihilistic nor essentialist. In an extremely simplified way, non-duality can be expressed as the removal of the division between the conventional and the ultimate. To divide between the two is to suggest that there is something that can be called

Fields

Winter 2012 -

experience. In this section the importance of meditation as a scientific tool according to Varela will be outlined, and several mindfulness-based studies will be examined. Many authors have commented the recent rise in popularity of Buddhism, and particularly meditation, in the Western world. Varela sees the growing practice of meditation in the west as a unique opportunity to study mindfulness, and benefit from the interaction between Buddhism and science. The parallels between Buddhist thought and recent advances in cognitive science have been outlined above, so it should come as no surprise that Varela suggests their interaction would be beneficial. Varela argues that the West can benefit from East Asian thought where, he states, religion and science have not been as strictly separated (1993: 21). Mindfulness, as the goal of traditional meditation practice, refers to a state of selfawareness that is both mental and physical, and indeed, does not differentiate between the two. In this sense, mindfulness is an important tool for grasping experience from a first person perspective: “we believe that if cognitive science is to include human experience, it must have some method for exploring and knowing what human experience is. It is for this reason that we are focusing on the Buddhist tradition of mindfulness meditation” (Varela 1993: 23-24). Thus far, most of the studies of mindfulness focus on the connections between mindfulness practice and certain regions in the brain. These studies have been lending credence to the validity of first-person accounts of experience and introspection. Richard Davidson and Antoine Lutz have carried out studies of longterm meditators at the Waisman laboratory in Wisconsin. In this study entitled “Buddha’s Brain: Neuroplasticity and Meditation”, they show that long term meditation can induce changes in the structure of the brain: “The findings from studies in this unusual sample as well as related search efforts, suggest that, over

“eternal” or “ultimate.” For Buddhism, to speak in dualistic terms implies the inherent existence of bounded objects as distinct from one another. To draw a dualistic distinction between mind and body is akin to suggesting that the body exists conventionally, and the mind exists in an ultimate sense (Nagao 1989). The neurophenomenological approach to the person then is in line with Buddhist philosophy in that it rejects a fundamental division between experience and cognition. The “self ” for thinkers like Merleau-Ponty and Varela is also not strictly divided from its environment, but subsumed within it as an agent who is characterized as “being-in-the-world”. These fundamental concepts in phenomenology and neurophenomenology then, have much earlier counterparts in Buddhist philosophy. Varela argues that scientific discourse has actually aided the development of the concept of no-self in Western understanding by showing that we do not need to consider a “self ” in order to delve into the study of the mind. But it is the nature of human beings to cling to this “ego self ” and science has provided no recourse for the fact that this concept is no longer needed (Varela 1993: 80). Varela believes that if science should continue on this tangent of affirming noself without considering experience, it will fall into nihilism, as Buddhist theory and neurophenomenology are attempting to avoid: “If science continues to manipulate things without embracing a progressive appreciation of how we live among those things, then the discovery of mind without self will have no life outside the laboratory, despite the fact that the mind in that laboratory is the very same mind without self ” (1993: 127). 4.4 Meditation Studies of meditation have been some of the first to attempt to integrate the phenomenological perspective in order to ascertain the effects of mindfulness upon

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

to foster compassion in individuals. What is more, the intensity of the reaction to stimuli was related to the participants’ self-reported level of intensity of meditation, which would lend credence to the validity of first-person accounts (Lutz 2008). Meditation and Buddhism emerge then, not only as interesting parallels to the developments of cognitive science, but as important tools with which to study the effects of consciousness and mindfulness on cognitive structures. The growing interest in meditation in the West, along with the increase in popularity of Varela’s neurophenomenology are occurrences connected by the same shift in society towards a perspective of the person as holistic and integrated.

the course of meditating for tens of thousands of hours, the long-term practitioners had actually altered the structure and function of their brains” (Davidson 2008). These findings could be used as support for Varela’s assertion of experience and consciousness as irreducible phenomenological domains. Experience and consciousness have a direct effect on cognitive structures, as demonstrated by Davidson. Davidson and Lutz’s study is primarily concerned with the intentionality of consciousness in the form of direct focus. He found that there was a great disparity in the levels of focus attained by long-term as opposed to novice meditators. The expert meditators were also able to reach these higher levels with much less effort (Davidson 2008). These results have some interesting ramifications for potential attempts at social betterment: “In contexts where brain-computer interfaces are being developed that are based upon electrical recordings of brain function, training in meditation may facilitate more rapid leaning” (Davidson 2008). It is interesting that many neurophenomenological studies have this characteristic of attempting to foster positive traits. Potential explanations for this trend will be discussed in the following chapter. Antoine Lutz and the rest of his team also carried out neurophenomenological studies of meditation in a different study, in this case with a focus on the neural circuitry of emotion. Participants were asked to practice a type of loving-kindness-compassion meditation state, and during meditation negative and positive sounds (such as sounds of people in distress) were played, and the responses in the areas of the brain connected with compassion were measured. The results were also compared with the self-reported intensity of meditation from participants. The results showed that long-term meditators were more primed to react to noises of distress when in a lovingkindness-compassion state of meditation. This implies that meditation might be used

5. The Holistic Movement in Anthropology This growing trend towards the reincorporation of the individual into academic consideration has not been unique to cognitive science. Indeed, anthropology has been undergoing a similar shift towards the understanding of the importance of the body. The change has been towards a more holistic view of the person, and the person within their environment. The effects on ethnography have been similar to those in scientific discourse, including calls for the first-person accounts of informants to no longer be subjugated by the voice of the ethnographer. There is equal danger however, in allowing informants to be the only voice. Anthropology and science are likewise searching for an appropriate balance between first- and third-person accounts. In his book Embodiment and Experience, Thomas Csordas argues that since the 1970s and 80s there has been a growing trend towards the importance of the body in anthropology and interdisciplinary cultural studies (1994: 1). Csordas outlines a starting point for anthropological theory that is a striking parallel with cognitivism: “Much of our theorizing is heir to the Cartesian legacy in that

Fields

Winter 2012 -

serious ramifications for what “truth” means in ethnography: “truth is seen, not as an intrinsic or static property of a belief, as naïve symbolic analysis often assumes; rather, it is what happens to a belief when it is invoked, activated, put to work, and realized in the lifeworld” (Jackson 1996: 11). This rise of the phenomenological perspective is a clear parallel to the similar turn in cognitive science. These concerns with the integration of the body and the individual into anthropological theory have been exemplified in the postmodernist movement. The post-modernist movement also at times represents an error to the other extreme of focusing too exclusively on descriptive accounts, rather than explicative ones. There have been some attempts in ethnography to integrate the empirical with the phenomenological. Joseph Berland’s “No Five Fingers Are Alike” represents in interesting approach to the combination of empirical measures of cognitive processes and ethnographic fieldwork. For Berland, cognitive processes must be approached as a part of holistic persons whose cognitive processing is inextricably linked with their interactions with environment and society (1982: 183). Individuals appear for Berland then as embodied agents whose important trait is that of “being-in-the-world.” Berland’s ethnography though does not represent a complete syncretism with phenomenology because, although it privileges the body, he does not write explicitly about first-person accounts of experience. In this brief outline of the recent challenges to anthropological discourse we can see that anthropology as a field faces the same challenge as cognitive science and Buddhism – to find the “middle way” between two extremes. The extremes here are structuralism, representing the empirical, strictly thirdperson view, and post-modernism, which can err on the side of being strictly first-person and phenomenological. What is clear is that

it privileges the mind/subject/culture set in the form of representation, whether cast in terms of rules and principles by social anthropology, signs and symbols by semiotic/symbolic anthropology, text and discourse by structural/ poststructural anthropology, or knowledge and models by cognitive anthropology” (1994: 9). In this view cultural facts are represented in the mind as symbols, and their transmission is described using an analogy of linguistics. Dan Sperber in his Rethinking Symbolism has already challenged this approach of likening symbolism with language. Sperber argues that the analogy of language is not nearly sufficient to express what a symbol is, let alone how it is transmitted (1975). Terrence Turner has also criticized thinkers like Foucault for their consideration of the body as symbols rather than as “pragmatic individual and social activities of production and appropriation” (Turner 1994: 44). For Csordas, this consideration of semiotics instead of phenomenology has meant that the dominant discourses in anthropology have been about discourses instead of “being-in-the-world” or lived experience (Csordas 1994: 11). This is clearly relatable to the cognitivist theory of the mind whereby the currency of cognition is symbols, which suggests a fundamental division between cognition and consciousness. The movement in phenomenological anthropology is a parallel to the phenomenological movement in cognitive science: an attempt to reintegrate the everyday experiences of individuals into academic discourse. Like phenomenological movements in cognitive science, these movements rest on the principle of the primacy of experience and being-in-the-world. Their proponents criticize previous anthropology which they believed focuses too narrowly on questions of discourse, structural relations, political economy etc., to the detriment of considering everyday experiences of people’s lives (Desjarlais 2011: 92-3). Jackson argues that this movement has

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

in recent decades there has been a push in anthropology to recognize human as holistic and integrated within their environment rejecting dualistic divisions of mind and body, and body and environment.

exemplified by Varela’s neurophenomenology, are founded not on the dualistic division of mind and body, but on an integrated and holistic picture of agents in their environment. Though these developments are recent in academia, their founding principles have been present in Buddhist philosophy for centuries. This movement accounts for the recent popularity of Buddhism in the western world, and why many of the studies on mindfulness and meditation produce results that can be reintegrated into society for its betterment. Varela suggested that the increase of meditation practice in the West provided an interesting opportunity to study mindfulness, but there is, perhaps, a deeper connection. The same factors that allowed for the emergence of neurophenomenology also account for the growing popularity of Eastern religions. The holistic movement in society combined with the prominence of the discourse of science has created an environment where people are preoccupied with cognitive functioning, but wish to reintegrate their own first-person experience in a holistic way – this presents the perfect opportunity for both the rise of neurophenomenology and Buddhist mindfulness practice.

6. Conclusion The concept of the integrated view of person and environment is as old as Heidegger’s “being-in-the-world” which has been quoted many times in this paper. The notion of the enactive agent however, in recent decades has begun to have a tangible effect on the discourses of science and social studies. David Riches argues that this movement towards the holistic person is not only taking place within the academic sphere, but can also be found in the lives of individuals. He believes that there is a movement in the Western world towards equality of outcome, rather than equality of opportunity, and that a holistic view of the person would serve to regulate tensions in this type of society: “I suggest that much broader trends in the contemporary West reflect and further the… displacing of egalitarianism of opportunity with egalitarianism of outcome. Calls for a holistic appreciation of the human person may be understood as a manifestation of this change” (Riches 2000: 680). The advent of cognitive science was an attempt to bring the mind out of the domain of psychology and philosophy. So successful has scientific discourse been that its explanations have undermined our own lived experience. The growing shift towards holism represents perhaps the inevitable movement of the pendulum back in the opposite direction (in the way that trends or discourses often shift in the science). They represent, we might suggest, an attempt of individuals to reassert their autonomy and the validity of their own experience. This paper has endeavored to illustrate a cross-disciplinary movement in the understanding of the person. Emerging fields,

References: Berland, Joseph C. 1982 No Five Fingers Are Alike: Cognitive Amplifiers in Social Context. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP. Carman, Taylor 2008 Merleau-Ponty. New York: Routledge. Csordas, Thomas J. 1994 Introduction: the body as representation and being-in-the-world. In Embodiment and Experience. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Desjarlais, Robert, and Jason Throop 2011 Phenomenological Approaches in Anthropology. The Annual Review of Anthropology 40: 87-102. Davidson, Richard J. and Antoine Lutz 2008 Buddha’s Brain: Neuroplasticity and Meditation.

Fields

Winter 2012 -

Signal Processing Magazine 25: 1, 174-176. Gallagher, Shaun 2008 Cognitive Science. In Merleau-Ponty: Key Concepts. Stocksfield, UK: Acumen Publishing Limited. Garfield, Jay 1995 Examination of the Self and Entities. In The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nagarjuna’s Mulamadhyamakakarika. New York: Oxford University Press. Jackson, Michael 1996 Introduction: Phenomenology, Radical Empiricism, and Anthropological Critique. In Things as They Are: New Directions in Phenomenological Anthropology. Indiana: Indiana University Press. Lutz, Antoine, Julie Brefczynski-Lewis, Tom Johnstone, and Richard J. Davidson 2008 Regulation of the Neural Circuitry of Emotion by Compassion Meditation: Effects of Meditative Expertise. PLoS One 26: 3. Morris, David 2008 Body. In Merleau-Ponty: Key Concepts. Stocksfield: Acumen Publishing Limited. Nagao, Gadjin 1989 The Two Truths. In The Foundational standpoint of Madhyamika Philosophy, trans. John P. Keenan. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Riches, David 2000 The Holistic Person; Or, the Ideology of Egalitarianism. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 6: 669-685. Sperber, Dan 1975 Rethinking Symbolism. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. Toadvine, Ted 2008 Phenomenology and “hyper-reflection.” In Merleau-Ponty: Key Concepts. Stocksfield, UK: Acumen Publishing Limited. Turner, Terrence 1994 Bodies and anti-bodies: flesh and fetish in contemporary social theory. In Embodiment and Experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Varela, Francisco J. 1996 Neurophenomenology: A Methodological Remedy for the Hard Problem. In Explaining Consciousness. Massachusetts: MIT Press. Varela, Francisco J., et al. 1993 The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience. Massachusetts: MIT Press. Yuasa, Yasuo 2009 Merleau-Ponty’s Theory of the Body and the Doctrine of the Five Skandhas. In Merleau-Ponty and Buddhism. Maryland: Lexington Books.

Hi v e r 2012 -

Te r r a i n s

Le rôle du religieux dans la création d’un syncrétisme identitaire en contexte de migration

Travail de recherche sur une église presbytérienne ghanéenne à Montréal Héloïse Roy

a modifié cet univers culturel. Ensuite, toujours dans une optique de reconnaissance, il faudra adresser la provenance et l’application de la religion de cette communauté ghanéenne, le pentecôtisme. Le fait que cette branche du Christianisme soit en expansion au Ghana n’est d’ailleurs pas étranger à la vigueur des petites églises dans sa diaspora. La conjoncture de ces deux éléments offre un portrait grosso modo, mais néanmoins intéressant sur la réalité ethno-religieuse de la communauté ghanéenne à sa source. Ainsi, le constat des adaptations de cette réalité ghanéenne à une nouvelle réalité canadienne permet de recenser les difficultés et les négociations liées à la migration ainsi que la détermination de nouveaux marqueurs identitaires. Cette évolution de la religion parallèlement à celle de ses pratiquants confirme la fluidité, souvent inconsciente, des individus, de leurs institutions et de leur identité.

Durant mes voyages en Afrique de l’Ouest et de l’Est, j’ai pu constater à quel point les églises chrétiennes de ces régions avaient intégré la musique, les chants et la danse à leurs cérémonies religieuses. Cette possibilité de voir le phénomène religieux comme un endroit d’expression, plutôt que comme un lieu de reproduction rigide de tradition, m’avait plu et motivé à en apprendre plus. Après quelques recherches, j’ai réalisé qu’il y avait plusieurs communautés africaines (surtout d’Afrique de l’Ouest) à Montréal. Mon choix s’est arrêté sur une église presbytérienne ghanéenne anglophone où le pasteur a gracieusement accepté que je les visite au cours des prochains mois et que je pose quelques questions dans le but d’en apprendre plus sur leur application d’une religion nationale (ghanéenne) dans un contexte transnational (migration au Canada). Suite à cette bonne nouvelle, je me suis questionnée sur les éléments qu’il faudrait intégrer dans mon travail afin de réussir à obtenir un portrait représentatif de la réalité des Ghanéens presbytériens de Montréal et de comprendre le rôle du religieux dans la formation de l’identité communautaire. Cerner adéquatement une communauté ethnoreligieuse dans un contexte d’immigration n’est pas une mince affaire. Il est en premier lieu essentiel de s’attarder sur le pays d’origine, le Ghana. Quelle est son histoire, sa situation socio-économique? Quelles sont les données démographiques de sa population? Quel est son historique migratoire? Toutes ces questions nous permettrons de comprendre la source culturelle du groupe expatrié et, par la suite, de constater comment l’expérience migratoire

*** Tout d’abord, situons le Ghana. Positionné sous la corne à l’ouest du continent africain et encerclé du Togo à l’est, de la Côte d’Ivoire à l’ouest et du Burkina Faso au nord, le Ghana est un petit pays dont la superficie est quatorze fois inférieure à celle du Québec (CIA 2011). Il y a au Ghana plus d’une centaine de groupes ethniques, chacun possédant son propre dialecte. Bien que la langue officielle soit l’anglais, le twi, le ga, le fante, le ewe, le bono, le moshi, le dagomba et le français (ses pays limitrophes étant pour la majorité d’anciens protectorats français) y sont aussi

Fields

Winter 2012 -

économie, de l’époque précoloniale jusqu’aux années 1960, en a fait un pays attirant pour les populations des pays voisins. Il est toutefois difficile de recenser la migration entre pays africains, certains groupes ethniques se retrouvant de part et d’autre de la frontière nationale (Anarfi et al. 2003). En 1965, le Ghana fait face à sa première crise économique majeure. Afin de diminuer la compétition économique entre les citoyens, le gouvernement entreprend de mettre à la porte les Ghanéens ne possédant pas de passeport. Parallèlement, plusieurs citoyens ghanéens tentent de fuir, par leurs propres moyens, la situation économique et politique précaire du pays. Selon Mensah (2010), ces pauvres conditions ainsi que les politiques européennes restrictives d’alors ont mené aux premières immigrations ghanéennes significatives au Canada. Il n’y a alors pas plus de 100 nouveaux arrivants ghanéens par année au pays. Les coûts d’une telle migration internationale étant prohibitifs, la population immigrante est alors constituée majoritairement d’étudiants et de personnes ayant un statut socio-économique enviable. Il est estimé que vers la fin de cette première vague, de 1975 à 1981, plus de 14 000 professeurs qualifiés dont plus de 3 000 universitaires quittent le Ghana (Anarfi et al. 2003). C’est toutefois au début des années 1980 que la population ghanéenne explose au Canada et dans le monde. Durant cette deuxième vague migratoire, les nouveaux arrivants entrent majoritairement par l’obtention du statut de réfugié; en 1992, un nombre record de 2464 migrants ghanéens arrivent au Canada. Par la suite, les politiques d’immigration du Canada deviennent plus restrictives et la loi C-86, augmentant les procédures et les frais relatifs à l’immigration, est adoptée afin de limiter le nombre de réfugiés et d’encourager la venue d’immigrants mieux préparés pour s’adapter efficacement à la réalité canadienne. (Firang 2011) Le Canada n’est pourtant pas la seule

majoritairement parlés (Mensah 2008). La population du Ghana s’élève actuellement à plus de 22 millions de personnes qui sont réparties dans les dix régions administratives du pays. Le Ghana précolonial fut constitué de plusieurs royaumes. Ses territoires riches en or lui assurèrent une prospérité et une notoriété de l’Afrique du Nord jusqu’au Moyen-Orient. En 1471, les Portugais prirent possession du territoire du Ghana et prospérèrent grâce au commerce de son or et à la traite d’esclaves avant de se faire repousser par les Hollandais. Le peuple ashanti était alors dominant dans la région et les peuples soumis devaient payer un tribut en esclaves. Éventuellement, quelques peuples exploités s’allièrent aux Britanniques qui firent tomber les Ashantis et prirent possession du territoire en le renommant Togo britannique. Il sera rebaptisé Côte de l’Or en 1920, en hommage à ses exploitations minières et à son lucratif commerce du cacao (Owusu-Ansah 1992) Par la suite, suivant un mouvement de décolonisation mondiale, le Ghana sera le premier pays d’Afrique subsaharienne à obtenir son indépendance en 1957. Le climat politique sera assez instable jusqu’en 1981 où le nouveau président, le lieutenant Jerry Rawlings, interdit tous les partis politiques avant de les réintroduire en 1992. Il sera finalement évincé du gouvernement en 2000. Depuis, la démocratie suit son cours (CIA 2011). La présence du phénomène migratoire remonte à loin au Ghana. John Anarfi et al. (2003) attribuent les premiers mouvements significatifs aux caravanes transsahariennes qui ont, par la suite, permis un échange d’étudiants et d’idées avec l’Afrique de l’Est et l’Asie. Cet équilibre migratoire est rompu par l’arrivée des Européens qui instaurent un mouvement intercontinental avec la traite des esclaves et la colonisation des régions africaines. Dans l’ère moderne, le Ghana reste encore un espace de mouvements. La vitalité de son

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

du Ghana se disait appartenir à une religion (Yirenki 2000). Devant de tels chiffres, il est évident que la religiosité occupe un rôle important dans le quotidien des ghanéens. Le pentecôtisme et le presbytérianisme sont des courants similaires au sein du christianisme protestant. Lors de mes recherches, j’ai pu constater que les deux appellations étaient utilisées de façon interchangeable par les chercheurs sociaux pour qualifier la religion de la communauté ghanéenne montréalaise à l’étude. Afin de clarifier la situation, j’ai posé la question à l’une de mes informatrices, la femme du révérend, qui m’a répondu que le presbytérianisme et le pentecôtisme représentaient, pour eux, la même religion. L’Église pentecôtiste ghanéenne trace sa source à un Écossais, James McKeown, qui arrive au Ghana en 1937. En 1953, suite à un conflit avec la Grande-Bretagne, il décide de se séparer de la doctrine protestante et de fonder une nouvelle Église. Ce n’est qu’en 1962 que le nom « pentecôtiste » lui sera attribué (Fancello, 2003 : 858). Aujourd’hui, le pentecôtisme est plus vivant que jamais. Le siège central de cette branche chrétienne est situé à Accra, la capitale du Ghana. D’ailleurs, cette religion « nationale » fait état d’un appareil de gestion particulier. En effet, selon Fancello (2003), les pasteurs doivent être formés au Ghana. Ils seront par la suite envoyés en mission à l’étranger pour officier parmi la diaspora ghanéenne durant un nombre indéfini d’années avant de se faire appeler vers une autre destination. De cette façon, l’Église s’assure que le contenu religieux et culturel reste fidèle à son origine ghanéenne. La chercheuse mentionne aussi le débat sur la langue d’office, que j’ai pu observer lors de ma visite à la communauté montréalaise. L’office était donnée de façon trilingue, le pasteur alliant le twi, le ga et l’anglais dans un seul et même discours. De plus, la communauté envisageait d’inclure des messes francophones dans son programme, pour

destination des Ghanéens, le Ghana étant, selon Van Hear (1998), un des dix principaux pays producteur de diaspora des temps modernes. (Anarfi et al. 2003) Une fois arrivés au Canada, la majorité des immigrants ghanéens s’établissent en Ontario dans la région métropolitaine de Toronto. Lors du recensement canadien de 2006, 23 230 Ghanéens habitaient le Canada dont plus de 65% dans les environs de Toronto, et près de 10% au Québec, dans la région montréalaise. (Firang 2011) Comme la majeure partie du continent africain, le Ghana a subi et continue de souffrir des durs contrecoups de la colonisation. L’arrivée rapide d’une démocratie dans un pays qui possède tant de richesse a ouvert la porte à la corruption et à une certaine fragilité gouvernementale, cette dernière n’ayant pu fournir les bases nécessaires à une économie stable et un enrichissement de sa population. On voit aussi que malgré ce que le Ghana offre relativement au niveau occidental, de pauvres opportunités socio-économiques, les politiques tantôt ouvertes, tantôt restrictives du Canada, influence aussi le désir des migrants ghanéens de venir s’installer dans le Dominion. Cette théorie du push (facteurs éloignants) et du pull (facteurs attrayants) est intéressante, car elle permet de constater l’agence des immigrants et leur capacité décisionnelle par rapport à leur processus migratoire. Cependant, outre la fragilité politique et le peu d’opportunités économiques qu’offre le Ghana, peut-on affirmer qu’ils sont les seuls facteurs motivant les départs du pays? *** Le Ghana est un pays d’une grande vitalité religieuse. Les Églises chrétiennes pentecôtistes et chrétiennes charismatiques (24,1% de la population) y fleurissent aux côtés des minorités musulmanes (15,9%) et des croyances traditionnelles (8,5%) (CIA 2011). En 2000, plus de 99,7% de la population

Fields

Winter 2012 -

les pouvoirs de guérison et la glossolalie entre autres (Mensah 2010). *** Dans le cas des Églises chrétiennes ghanéenne, la religion entretient des liens étroits avec l’idéologie migratoire. Outre le fait de former et d’envoyer des pasteurs à ses communautés expatriées, la religion est parfois à l’origine du désir de migration de beaucoup de Ghanéens. Lors d’une présentation à la American Anthropology Association qui se tenait à Montréal en novembre, Girish Daswani de l’Université de Toronto, a articulé le projet missionnaire des Églises ghanéennes. Les Ghanéens qui quittent le pays sont vus comme des héros qui iront transmettre la foi aux pays occidentaux qui l’ont perdue. D’ailleurs, un Ghanéen interviewé pour son projet de recherche s’exprime ainsi : « I am royalty of Heaven, this is only a rented body, a temple of God [...] We are actually angelic beings in exile from the kingdom of God ». Selon les découvertes de Daswani, une des prophéties à la base de la foi pentecôtiste stipule que: « God would raise a nation out of Africa that would be a spearhead and light to the world, heralding the second coming of Jesus Christ our God. » Toutefois, outre cette valorisation religieuse, Manuel m’a confié que beaucoup de Ghanéens souhaitent émigrer afin de gagner le plus d’argent possible, car bien qu’ils vivent modestement au Québec, toute richesse accumulée pourrait faire la fortune des expatriés lors d’un éventuel retour. Il a mentionné de plus, que si certains Ghanéens décident de rester, c’est en grande partie à cause de la valeur des diplômes canadiens et des opportunités de carrières du pays d’accueil, opportunités inexistantes au Ghana. Par ailleurs, Van Dirk (1997) (Mensah 2008) dénote la présence au Ghana de plusieurs camps de prières chrétiens où les fidèles restent plusieurs semaines, voire plusieurs mois, afin d’attirer l’intervention divine sur une variété

rejoindre les enfants des immigrants qui sont de plus en plus socialisés en français. Malgré cette apparente ouverture d’esprit à Montréal, Fancello mentionne que le siège social s’oppose vivement à la tenue de messes dans une langue autre que ghanéenne. En effet, il est parfois difficile de traduire un concept culturel dans une langue qui ne possède pas d’équivalent. Lors de ma visite à la communauté, le terme djudju a été maintes fois mentionné durant la messe. Le fils du révérend, Manuel,1 peinait à me le traduire : « it’s a sort of witchcraft, maybe. But we’ll talk later and I’ll explain you better ». Il y a donc une dichotomie entre les politiques d’implantation locales (au Ghana) et celles déployées par les églises de la diaspora, ces premières désirant conserver leur intégrité alors que ces dernières se caractérisent par une ouverture aux négociations entre tradition et nouveauté (Fancello 2003). D’ailleurs, les églises pentecôtistes ghanéennes représentent un certain syncrétisme entre la foi chrétienne européenne et les rituels traditionnels africains. Des instruments de musique traditionnels et modernes (dans la communauté visitée, une guitare électrique et une trompette faisaient partie du chœur), des chants en anglais et en twi, de la danse et parfois même des transes et des pratiques de guérison ou de délivrance chez le fidèle, composent les cérémonies religieuses dont la durée minimale de trois heures laisse place à amplement de temps pour ressentir un fort esprit de communauté. Lorsque j’ai touché mot au révérend de la longueur relative des offices, il m’a expliqué que trois heures dans toute la semaine pour se reconnecter avec Dieu était bien peu et que ce temps en communauté était nécessaire, spécialement pour les immigrants nouvellement arrivés qui avaient grand besoin de se sentir épaulés, soutenus. D’ailleurs, les pentecôtistes et les chrétiens charismatiques tendent à se différencier des autres chrétiens qu’ils considèrent, selon Mensah, comme morts spirituellement à cause de leur refus de reconnaître les bénédictions divines telles que les prophéties,

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

des membres de cette communauté vit ailleurs dans l’île, allant généralement où les loyers sont les plus abordables. Malgré les nombreuses similitudes avec les sources académiques, ma présence physique dans l’église m’a permis de constater certains éléments culturels aussi bien que religieux n’ayant pas été relevés dans la littérature consultée. Afin de se situer, donnons quelques précisions sur le lieu de culte et l’organisation de la messe. Tout d’abord, le bâtiment de l’église presbytérienne ghanéenne est partagé en deux et sert aussi à accueillir une autre communauté religieuse chrétienne, celleci majoritairement composée de Québécois anglophones de race blanche. Lors de ma visite, je me suis premièrement présentée à cette autre communauté. C’est devant mes questions sur le peu de Ghanéens présents dans la salle que j’ai été redirigée vers l’avant du bâtiment. La salle où se déroule la messe de la communauté ghanéenne est très spacieuse et ronde. Le plancher y est décoré en mosaïque, à l’exception d’un cercle devant l’autel où les couleurs de la mosaïque s’inversent. C’est dans cet espace libéré des bancs d’églises que s’effectuent les danses et les louanges. Les bancs sont alignés circulairement autour de l’autel, de façon à ce que personne ne soit trop éloigné de l’action. La cérémonie s’est effectuée en plusieurs parties. Pour commencer, l’office. Un groupe de musiciens joue une musique religieuse rythmée que des haut-parleurs remarquablement puissants transmettent dans l’église. Éventuellement, le révérend prend la parole pour demander à Jésus de descendre dans la chapelle parmi les croyants. Ensuite, les fidèles qui le désirent se lèvent et vont danser au centre du lieu de culte, devant l’autel. Ce n’est qu’ensuite que le pasteur commence son sermon, entrecoupé de périodes de danses ou de prières, debout ou assises. Vers la fin de la cérémonie, des dons sont amassés parmi les

de sujets, dont le plus prisé est l’obtention d’un visa vers l’étranger. Selon une étude publiée par Joseph Mensah en 2008, la majorité des Ghanéens au Canada avaient eu recours soit à ces camps, soit à la tenue de messes spéciales ou de cercles de prières afin de se garantir le succès de leurs projets migratoires. Il a aussi été démontré dans cette étude quantitative que le recours à une intervention spirituelle pour l’obtention d’un visa était directement relié à la propension des Ghanéens à offrir du financement à une église au Ghana et à s’investir dans le réseau religieux ghanéen une fois leur arrivée à l’étranger. L’appartenance religieuse est vraisemblablement inter-reliée avec le processus migratoire des Ghanéens. Elle supporte et justifie avec une mission symbolique, les désirs de prospérité économique et de transparence politique des migrants ghanéens. Elle leur procure un univers de signification tout en les rassemblant pour combler les besoins affectifs et psychologiques. Le fait que le choix de la langue d’office soit un débat au sein de cette branche idéologique démontre que l’institution religieuse elle-même subit un processus d’intégration à la société d’accueil parallèlement à ses fidèles. *** Considérons maintenant la communauté ghanéenne de Montréal. Bien que la majorité de ces membres aie immigré du Ghana, la majorité des enfants de moins de cinq ans sont nés au Québec et parlent français. Outre l’office du dimanche, des rencontres de prières, d’étude de la Bible et de célébrations spéciales (pour la naissance, le mariage ou de morts de proches au Ghana, par exemple) sont tenues tout au long de la semaine, généralement durant la soirée. Le révérend et sa famille ont fait le chemin du Ghana vers Montréal il y a deux ans. Manuel, mon principal informant, avait alors dix-neuf ans. Bien que l’église soit située dans la région montréalaise de Ville Mont-Royal, la majorité

Fields

Winter 2012 -

y eu un message dans le Powerpoint projeté sur le mur à mon intention spécifiant « a special welcome to our guests who’s their first time worshiping here ». Subséquemment, un officiant m’a demandé de me présenter à l’avant pour expliquer en quelques mots la raison de ma visite. Finalement, à la fin de l’office, un nombre impressionnant d’adultes et d’enfants sont venus me serrer la main pour me remercier d’être venue et me réinviter la semaine suivante. Les messages transmis par le révérend à ses fidèles lors de la messe à laquelle j’ai assistée sont très instructifs quant au rôle du religieux dans le processus d’intégration des immigrants ghanéens. Le titre du sermon, fort éloquent en soit, se lisait comme suit : « Knocked down but not knocked out ». À maintes reprises, le pasteur a abordé des sujets touchant aux différences culturelles entre le Ghana et le Canada, mentionnant notamment la difficulté d’arriver dans un nouveau pays où « des gens tentent de nous faire entrer dans un moule pour lequel nous ne sommes pas faits »2, la rigueur du climat et le coût de la vie comme quelques-uns des principaux défis à affronter. Plusieurs sections du sermon faisaient aussi référence à la vie au Ghana. Bien que ces parties fussent généralement expliquées en twi ou en ga, Manuel m’a laissé savoir que le pasteur informait entre autres les croyants de la fourberie des hommes-sorciers qui ne faisaient pas de la magie au même titre que le Seigneur. De plus, il a raconté plusieurs histoires fictives de malheurs arrivés à des Ghanéens au Ghana rappelant ainsi le lien national et culturel unifiant les membres de l’église. Bien que le sermon soit religieux et couvre la Bible, j’ai pu constater qu’une part importante du contenu était aussi conversationnelle et offrait, d’une part, la possibilité aux immigrants de tisser des liens avec la communauté religieuse en rappelant leur lien, leur origine commune, ainsi que, d’autre part, un espace pour laisser sortir leurs frustrations sur les

fidèles et quelques prières en twi sont récitées à l’unisson. Avec la fin de la messe, plusieurs groupes de conversations se forment et permettent un moment de socialisation entre les membres de la communauté. J’ai été surprise de constater, alors que tous se dirigeaient vers la sortie, que des sacs hermétiques de nourriture contenant de généreuses portions de gâteau et de saucisses en pâte étaient offerts à tous. Durant ma visite, j’ai pu constater qu’il y avait une règle informelle concernant l’espace où il est approprié de s’asseoir dans l’Église. Par exemple, à mon arrivée, un homme se charge de me placer dans le coin gauche de la pièce, en me disant que les visiteurs s’assoient habituellement à cet endroit. Puis, après que je sois allée saluer le révérend avant la messe, un autre homme se prénommant Saul vient m’inviter à aller m’asseoir dans une autre rangée de bancs, aux côtés du fils du révérend, Manuel. Je constate alors que ma nouvelle place est parmi les jeunes adultes n’ayant pas encore d’enfants. Les bancs les plus rapprochés de l’autel étaient remplis par des femmes et les bancs plus éloignés, où j’avais été placée, par des hommes. Ailleurs dans l’église, je constate que la femme du révérend est assise aux côtés de couples plus âgés, tous sont vêtus de boubous, vêtements traditionnels de l’Afrique de l’Ouest. Faisant face à cette section sont assis les jeunes couples ayant de jeunes enfants avec les chanteurs et musiciens qui auront un rôle à jouer durant l’office religieux. De plus, je remarque que très peu d’enfants assistent à l’office Je découvre alors qu’il y a une petite pièce à l’avant de la salle (située juste derrière l’autel) remplie de jouets où les enfants passent les trois heures que dure la messe à jouer tout en entendant les paroles du révérend. Aussi, il m’apparaît que ma présence en tant que visiteuse avait eu un impact sur la messe. Au préalable, j’étais la seule personne de couleur blanche parmi les 200 personnes présentes à la messe. Ensuite, au courant de la cérémonie, il

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

difficultés du processus d’intégration tout en permettant un retour, le temps de quelques histoires, au Ghana. D’ailleurs, le révérend abonde dans ce sens en mentionnant le rôle crucial de l’Église pour les immigrés ghanéens qui ont à faire face à une difficile adaptation au niveau linguistique et culturel en arrivant au Québec : « We give them hope and motivation to carry on and stay in Montréal. Because it is hard, here ». Ayant lui-même vécu avec sa famille le processus migratoire très récemment, les discours du révérend sont porteurs de sens et rassembleurs pour les membres de la communauté qui peuvent s’associer autour d’une historique commune. En effet, Manuel m’informe qu’au Ghana, les églises regroupent souvent les membres d’un même groupe ethnique ou, au moins, d’un même groupe linguistique. Cette situation n’existe pas dans la diaspora dans la mesure où il n’y a pas assez de membres de chaque ethnie pour constituer une communauté religieuse autonome et forte. Ainsi, les différences linguistiques et ethniques qui existent au Ghana sont apaisées dans la diaspora au profit des points communs comme le nationalisme, la religion et le parcours migratoire. Enfin, ce bref tour d’horizon permet de constater que pour les pentecôtistes ghanéens, la religion se résume à beaucoup plus qu’une simple visite hebdomadaire à l’église. L’inclusion d’éléments variés dans les rites et les cérémonies font en sorte que le quotidien se retrouve dans la cérémonie et vice-versa.

de repère culturel et national pour les immigrés ghanéens. Cela nous a permis de comprendre comment cette religiosité, dans le cadre dépaysant d’une migration internationale, a évolué et s’est transformée. Il a été intéressant de constater que ces changements nécessaires, et inévitables si l’on considère que même les officiants religieux subissent le processus migratoire, n’étaient pas accueillis de la même façon au sein de l’Église pentecôtiste; le segment local (situé au Ghana) voyant d’un œil réprobateur les décisions de modifier certains aspects nationaux et traditionnels de la pratique, comme la langue d’office, par exemple. Malgré ces dissidences au niveau macro, une visite locale a permis de constater que l’expérience migratoire et les négociations identitaires étaient très présentes dans le sermon du révérend. Finalement, on constate que la religion des Ghanéens donne un sens à l’expérience migratoire tout au long du processus, l’aidant même, une fois arrivé à destination, à renégocier son identité et redéfinir ses marqueurs ethniques et identitaires. Ce travail démontre donc, en adoptant un angle de recherche religieux, l’importance en études sociales de ne pas se restreindre aux facteurs économiques et politiques motivant la migration, mais bien de considérer le migrant comme un humain à part entière qui sera influencé par les facteurs structurels autant qu’identitaires et idéologiques. Notes: 1. Par soucis d’anonymat, les noms de mes informants ont été omis ou changés. 2. Traduction libre.

*** En définitive, la collecte d’éléments propres à l’histoire la politique et l’économie du Ghana, nous a permis de comprendre dans quel environnement prenait source la religion et le projet migratoire de la diaspora ghanéenne au Canada. Nous avons aussi constaté le rôle de la religion dans la formation et l’entretien du projet migratoire chez les Ghanéens ainsi que l’importance de la religion comme point

Références bibliographiques: Anarfi, J., Kwankye, S., Ababio, O-M. and R, Tiemoko 2003 Migration from and to Ghana: A Background Paper’, Working Paper C4, Brighton: Development Research Centre on Migration, Globalisation and Poverty,

Fields

Winter 2012 -

Bump, M. 2006 Country Profiles Ghana: Searching for Opportunities at Home and Abroad, Migration Policy Institute. Central Intelligence Agency N.d. The World Factbook. Page dernièrement modifiée le 10 novembre 2011. Fancello S. 2003 Les politiques identitaires d’une Église africaine transnationale : The Church of Pentecost (Ghana), Cahiers d’études africaines, XLIII (4), 172, pp. 857-881. Firang, David Yaw 2011 Transnational Activities and Their Impact on Achieving a Successful Housing Career in Canada: The Case of Ghanaian Immigrants in Toronto”, Doctor in Philosophy, Faculty of Social Work,

University of Toronto Manuh, T. 1998 Ghanaians, Ghanaian Canadians, and Asantes: Citizenship and Identity among Migrants in Toronto, Africa Today 45, 3/4, pp. 481-494. Mensah, J. 2008 Religious transnationalism among Ghanaian immigrants in Toronto: a binary logistic regression analysis. The Canadian Geographer, 52 (3), Pp. 309-330. Owusu-Ansah, D. 1992 Historical Dictionary of Ghana, third edition. Historical Dictionaries of Africa. N 97. p 67; p 131 Yirenkyi, K. 2000 The role of Christian churches in national politics: Reflections from laity and clergy in Ghana. Sociology of Religion 61:325,338.

Fields -

This is who we are

Winter 2012 -

A visual ethnography of Canadian tree planters Alice Walker

Faces are the standard focus in social interaction and have become the main indicator of a personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s identity. This photo essay of Canadian tree planters strives to challenge these notions and isolate the hands, the most important part of the body for a planter, as a source of identity, knowledge, work ethic, and experience.

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

Fields

Winter 2012 -

Hi v e r 2012 -

Te r r a i n s

Organic farming

Issues of modernity and womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s empowerment in East Africa Marion Provencher

is overall beneficial in terms of increased sustainability, food security and the creation of infrastructure on a small-scale level. Finally, I will illustrate how organic farming can become a means to empower women. In the 1970s, the arrival on the market of high-yield seeds, pesticides, fertilizers and other chemicals meant to control and increase the production of the land, revolutionized agriculture as it was known. This period was called the Green Revolution. The arrival on the market of chemical devices helped many developing areas, the most successful being India and South East Asia, to increase their total crop productivity (Barta 2007; Frison 2008:190-193). Thanks to the Green Revolution, the goal of eradicating poverty seemed more possible than ever. Africa however was disregarded for many reasons: among others, the nature of small-scale subsistence farming, the lack of adequate infrastructure, and corruption. During and after the Green Revolution, Western experts and development bodies thought that Africans did not understand the potential of their soils. Africa was soon stigmatized because of its old-fashioned methods (Nieuwoudt 2009; Davidson 1992:216). Development agencies attempted multiple times to reverse this condition by introducing high-yield seeds and pesticides, sometimes with disastrous consequences (Davidson 1992:217). Diminishing rainfall, exhaustion of the soil, an increasing population and rises in food prices were and still are claimed as reasons for the decreasing access to food in Africa (Howden 2008). After the Green Revolution, it became conventional for African and foreign governments to consider modern, scientific

Within the last decade the West has experienced an increase in the demand for organic products. Organic commodities, like flour, sugar or cocoa, as well as organic fruits and vegetables, have slowly made their way into our grocery stores. Civil societies and NGOs now promote organic food by bringing forward studies on health and preservation of the soil to justify their purchase. Over the past decades, governments and civil societies have reunited and decided on the requirements necessary for producers to be certified as organic. In concrete terms, this means that producers of organic products must comply to foreign regulations in the use of fertilizers, chemicals, pesticides and seeds used to grow food. With the growing demand for organic products there is increasing pressure for farmers to conform to organic standards. More than any other place in the world, Africa feels the effects of that pressure. Africa in particular has implemented a shift towards organic agriculture at the micro level. Many United Nations agenciesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; reports have shown that organic farming can help increase yields of small-scale farms, and this argument has been used recently to propel Africa into organic farming (UNEP-UNCTAD 2008; 2010). I will start this paper by exploring how the Green Revolution, instigated by the arrival on the market of high-yield seeds and chemical pesticides, largely by-passed Africa. I will then show how studies of implementation of organic farming in Africa, because of their small-scale focus and their rethinking of key concepts, have helped define a new agricultural system that is structured on a community level. In particular, I shall demonstrate, by looking specifically at East Africa, that organic farming

Fields

Winter 2012 -

in Africa, we must look at how it redefines economic as well as social opportunities. Two thirds of Africans depend on smallscale subsistence farming. Specifically in East Africa more than 70% of the labor on farms is done by women and children because it provides little income for men (Paarlberg 2008; UNEP-UNCTAD 2010:28). Most small-scale farmers do not have machinery, and only 4% of crops are irrigated. Insecticides, pesticides and other technological devices are barely affordable. Small-scale farming, more than export-led crops, is the lot of most Africans (Paarlberg 2008). We can see how agro-ecological farming is anchored in most of Africaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reality because it targets precisely as a goal the increase in yields of small-scale farming. As I have suggested, there is a notable paradox in trying to implement agro-ecological farming in places where experts have failed to implement the use of chemicals. The human and social side to this implementation, its focus on small-scale farming in local communites and its long-term consequences are likely to be some of the reasons why yields increased where organic techniques were implemented. As I am about to demonstrate using the result of case studies in East Africa, increased sustainability and food security along with the structuring and tightening of communities are among the general tangible benefits of agro-ecological farming programs. First, letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s take a look at small-scale farming and communities. Small-scale farming refers here to family-level (or household-level) subsistence agriculture. Family members can occupy highly diversified positions within an economy (Ellis 2000:8). The type of livelihood they engage with is often shaped by market forces, their entitlements to resources, and social norms and values (Ellis 2000:18-20). Communities, usually described as a social unit corresponding to a certain place in time, are neither bounded nor isolated entities

and mechanized agriculture as the answer to limited access to food (Howden 2008; UNEPUNCTAD 2008:vii). However, during the 1980s, European contempt toward African agriculturalists diminished as local techniques of cultivation proved to be suited to their own technology and worked in the long-term in their best interests (Davidson 1992:218). Today, Africa has one of the smallest pesticide inputs in the world, using one tenth of the industrial worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s average of chemical fertilizers per hectare (Paarlberg 2008). The Green Revolution failed to be implemented in Africa, leading to the view of its agriculture as de facto organic (Parrot et al. 2006:97). Yet the 2008 UNEP-UNCTAD report Organic Agriculture and Food Security in Africa (viii) demonstrated that areas where organic farming programs were implemented experienced increases of per hectare food crops. A paradox thus arises: Africa does not use chemical devices in its agriculture, yet the implementation of organic techniques increases yields per hectare of food. Because it cannot only be explained by the gradual removal of chemical products in agricultural techniques, I would argue that the increase of yields reported by the UNEP-UNCTAD reports is the result of a redefinition of organic and its application on small-scale farms in Africa. Organic as it is understood by most civil societies and NGOs working in Africa does not correspond to the official certification requirements. A difference is made between certified organic production and agroecological farming (Parrot et al. 2006:97). Agro-ecological farming does not utilize chemical products; rather it exploits traditional and indigenous knowledge, with the support of available local technology, as a method of cultivation (Pretty 2008:363, 447-465). According to this definition, official organic farming is only one type of agro-ecological farming (Parrot et al. 2006:97). To understand the significance of agro-ecological farming

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

UNCTAD report (26), crop yields in East Africa increased by 128% after the adoption of agro-ecological agriculture. Access to food also increased in 11 of the 13 case studies examined by the report (UNEP-UNCTAD 2010:26). In the IFOAM Zimbabwe case study previously mentioned, income per family was increased as a result of long-run agro-ecological farming (IFOAM:3). Those results can be generalized to the African continent to a certain extent: according to the 2008 UNEP-UNCTAD report (viii), in some case studies the yields more than doubled. Additionally, 87% of cases examined throughout Africa reported increased household incomes (UNEPUNCTAD 2008:34). NGOs, with the help of locals, focused on implementing agro-ecological techniques using a multilateral approach which included education programs and civil societies, the development of local infrastructures, and the growth of local markets where surpluses of small-farm crops could be sold (IFOAM 2009:2, 6 and passim). These methods helped to create a set of resources available to given populations in order to accustom them to agroecological farming techniques. The structuring of communities is directly related to the people’s increase in revenue per household (IFOAM:2). For example, surpluses of farms can be sold in local markets, adding to the domestic income. It has also been shown, as in the Kenyan case study in the 2010 UNEPUNCTAD report (26), that local employment rates can increase as a direct result of the growing demand for on-farm labor. Based on these arguments, advocates of agro-ecological farming want to undo the process by which this form of agriculture has come to be regarded by the West as inefficient: “We need to debunk the myths that organic agriculture is for the poor, its yields are poor and that it will starve the nation” (IFOAM:3). It should be noted that the cornerstone of agro-ecological farming implementation in

(Ellis 2000). It must be understood, then, that any project implemented in a given place needs a multi-lateral approach that is able to acknowledge the different activities in which people engage, and the connections the community has with its extended political, social, and physical environment. During the Green Revolution period, desertification and soil impoverishment caused by commercial devastations became widespread because of multiple attempts to develop large export-oriented agricultural systems (Davidson 1992:216). Now, through educational programs, institutions and infrastructures introduced by NGOs, smallscale farmers can get the knowledge and support necessary to undergo a successful transition to agro-ecological farming. In an International Foundation for Organic Agriculture Movements’ (IFOAM:3) case study about Zimbabwe, agro-ecological techniques were progressively implemented and successfully completed. As a result groundwater levels were raised and soil fertility increased, making the soil more resistant to erosion (UNEP-UNCTAD 2008:viii). Decreasing vulnerability to erosion made the land less susceptible to drought and flooding, since richer soil permits long-term sustainability (Howden 2008). Moreover, sustainable farming practices are intimately linked to long-term access to food. As shown in a case study in Mozambique, soil stability has helped secure more food and made farmers less vulnerable to climate changes, thus decreasing their reliance on food aid (Surviving the ‘lean season’ in Mozambique 2011). We can likewise talk about the general long-term benefits for health, biodiversity, soil and the environment (UNEP-UNCTAD 2088:viii). Food security is ensured in a similar manner: it has been proven that an increase in the long-term sustainability of the environment can lead to long-term increase in food security (AOFF’s Approach & Goals 2003-2004). According to the 2010 UNEP-

Fields

Winter 2012 -

or increase the food consumption per capita (UNEP-UNCTAD 2010:26). A point can be made against organic agriculture because of its labor intensive characteristics. Women are the primary source of workers and are the first to be affected when more labor is required. However, the research conducted in Kenya and Uganda showed that all women found the advantages of organic farming worth the extra workload (UNEP-UNCTAD 2010:29). Moreover, one of the many ways the security of women can be ensured with agro-ecological techniques is by reducing the use of chemical fertilizers. Fertilizers and other pesticides are associated with significant health problems and chronic illnesses (UNEP-UNCTAD 2010:2728). In the 2010 UNEP-UNCTAD report (29), it has been shown that in Tanzania, even though the land belongs primarily to men, it is the women who work on it the most. If they work more in the fields, they are more likely to encounter and manipulate chemical products that are harmful to their health. Furthermore taboos concerning women and their clothing can also affect their health. An IFOAM case study about working women in the Zambezi Valley of Zimbabwe has shown that, because of existing taboos regarding their clothing, women were refused the right to wear the protective equipment worn by their male counterparts (2). They were therefore more vulnerable to chronic illness, asthma, and other recurring diseases (IFOAM:2). Because NGOs and institutions advocating for agro-ecological farming spcifically target women, they are more likely to benefit from the infrastructure at their disposal. It is the job of women to harvest, but also to process and cook food for domestic consumption, and to sell the surpluses at the market. In many instances it is also women’s duty to take care of allocating the family’s resources (Paarlberg 2008; IFOAM 2009:2). The creation of local market places, community meetings and educational programs are often directed

Africa, as explored above, is its focus on the development of local markets. By its own nature, it is not meant to create export crops. Export crops are subjected to totally different forces regarding official certifications and methods of cultivation. The redefinition of both what organic agriculture refers to (in this case small-scale ecological agriculture), and what its purpose is, impact directly on the lives of small-scale farmers. Agroecological implementation programs implicate the development of many different types of infrastructures through which the population can increase its access to education, to local markets, and infrastructure, and increase the land sustainability and long-term food security (UNEP-UNCTAD 2008:viii). Due to their position within the community, the adoption of agro-ecological techniques has a great effect on the lives of African women. Women’s social positioning within the economy, characterized partly by the family-level division of labor and by cultural and social norms, has put them in a very precarious situation (Ellis 2000; UNEP-UNCTAD 2010). The nature of small-scale farming, the long-term benefits of agro-ecological farming on health and the manner in which programs target and focus on the participation of women are the three main aspects of women’s empowerment in their communities. Of agricultural laborers in East Africa, 70% are women, which make them an overwhelming majority of those affected directly by agricultural methods (UNEPUNCTAD 2010:28). In certain parts of Africa, up to 31% of rural households are headed by women (Rodale Institute 2007). Their holdings are small, but an increase in crop yields directly affects women since they are the principal workers of the land and a good share of the landowners as well (Rodale Institute 2007). Thus agro-ecological farming, when successfully implemented, increases crop yields, allowing women to sell the surpluses

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

by and toward women as well (IFOAM 2009:2-3, 18-22, 24). Most programs include structural revision meant to include women in the process of organic farming as a way to secure their roles as decision-makers (IFOAM 2009:23; AOFF’S Approach & Goals 20032004; Nieuwoudt 2009). Of course agro-ecological farming cannot be the answer to all problems facing Africa in terms of agriculture and food security. There are the problems of food dumping in certain forms of aid from the West, corruption of local and national elites by large fertilizer companies, cheap imports coming from foreign countries which destabilize regional trade, trade restriction against Africa for sanitary reasons, etc. (Parrot et al. 2006:103). Another problem is that a shift from shortterm, production-oriented, strategies to long-term sustainable approaches can have disastrous immediate consequences (Rodale Institute 2007). Besides, the universalization of those techniques with the hopes of recreating the success of East Africa is problematic; Africa has a very rich biodiversity, therefore programs must be adapted to these differences, which include the type of soil being used, the immediate environment and the structuring of community, or in cultural norms and social capital. (Rodale Institute 2007; UNEPUNCTAD 2008:vii). The implementation of agro-ecological programs as explored in these case studies has concrete results, like the increase in the crop yields, and also leads to the strengthening of communities by a broader definition. The establishment of local networks of trade and infrastructure, sustainability and food security, can have direct effects on women’s standards of living. The NGOs implementing agroecological farming seem clearly aware of the reality of the small-scale farmers. Yet one concern remains: statistics of the success of organic agriculture in Africa, coupled with the fact that the continent has been spared by the

Green Revolution, has established Africa as the perfect play-ground for organic advocates (Paarlberg 2008). Even though agro-ecological techniques seem to have overwhelming benefits in the long-term, one cannot but wonder if hidden behind the reports and justifications of foreign countries is the desire to impose their ideals of the use of organic, traditional methods, on the poorest agriculturalists of the African continent. References: African Organic Farming Foundation N.d. AOFF’S Approach & Goals. www. africanorganics.org. Davidson, Basil 1992 The Black Man’s Burden, Africa and the Curse of the Nation State. Nairobi: EAEP. Ellis, Frank 2000 A Framework for Livelihood Analysis. Rural Livelihoods in Developing Countries. New York: Oxford University Press. Farnworth, Cathy, and Jessica Hutchings 2009 Organic Agriculture and Women Empowerment. www.ifoam.org. Frison, Emile 2008 Biodiversity: Indispensable resources. D+C 5, pp.190-193. www.inwent.org. Howden, Daniel 2008 Organic farming ‘could feed Africa.’ The Independent, October 22, 2008. Oxfam Canada N.d. Surviving the “Lean Season” in Mozambique. 2011. www.oxfam.ca. Parrot, Nicholas; Ssekyewa, Charles; Makunike, Chido; and Samuel Muwanga Ntambi 2006 Organic Farming in Africa. Archived at http:// www.orgprints.org/5161. Patrick Barta 2007 Feeding Billions, A Grain at a Time. The Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2007. Sifelani Tsiko N.d. Case Studies on Women in Organic Agriculture in Africa. International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements.

Fields

Winter 2012 -

Pretty, Jules. 2008 “Agricultural sustainability: concepts, principles and evidence”. February 12, 2008. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Vol. 363, no.1491, pp.447-465. Robert Paarlberg 2008 Food Fantasies: Africa’s organic farms.”New York Times, February 29, 2008. Rodale Institute. N.d. Yes, Africa can feed itself – through a sustainable agriculture revolution. Last modified August 9, 2007. newfarm.rodaleinstitute.org.

UNEP-UNTAD 2008 Organic Agriculture and Food Security in Africa. New York and Geneva. www.unctad.org. UNEP-UNCTAD 2010 Organic Agriculture: Opportunities for Promoting Trade, Protecting the Environment and Reducing Poverty (Case Studies from East Africa). New York and Geneva. www.unep.ch. Stephanie Nieuwoudt 2009 Organic Farming Could be Answer to Food Insecurity. Inter Press Service News Agency (IPS), July 17, 2009.

Hi v e r 2012 -

Te r r a i n s

Conscious controls of population in hunter-gatherer societies

Infanticide, reproductive practices, and their roles in hunter-gatherer communities Jordan Graham

of the Netsilingmiut of the Canadian Arctic, !Kung of the Kalahari Desert in Namibia, Botswana, and Angola, and Burarra Aborigines of the North Central Arnhem Land coast of Australia were specifically chosen to provide a spectrum of varying histories, environments, and reproductive practices to illustrate as clearly as possible the various methods through which conscious population controls manifest in different contexts. Further, the implications population controls have for archaeology and how infanticide might be discerned from the material record will be discussed. Finally, the future potential and idealized goals of this branch of study will be put forth, with an emphasis on the necessity for integration between different approaches to conscious population control. Ultimately, this paper hopes to provide a holistic report on a subject that has long been divided between many different fields. In this integrative process, relevant theories and observations from the fields of biology, environmental studies, geography, gender studies, history, and, of course, anthropology and archaeology will be brought together to create a cohesive examination of conscious controls of populations in hunter-gatherer societies.

In the study of hunter-gatherer societies, few topics have been as hotly debated and controversial as reproductive practices and, more specifically, as infanticide. Beyond simply impacting birth rate and population dynamics, conscious population controls are also important aspects of culture and may indicate environmental stresses upon individual huntergatherer groups. Ultimately, in order to grasp the role of conscious population controls, one must take into account the complex nature of human reproductive practices, biological limitations regarding fecundity, environmental stresses, gender roles, and societal pressures. If these viewpoints and theories are effectively merged, a multi-faceted and all-encompassing approach to conscious population controls may be achieved. However, if even a single aspect is neglected, the resulting conclusions drawn about the reproductive practices of any given hunter-gatherer community will be at best incomplete, and at worst drastically skewed. In this study of conscious controls of population within hunter-gatherer societies, the influences that theories of population and environmental determinism have had on the field will be outlined to provide a context from which to understand modern collaborative (or semi-collaborative) theories. Then infanticide, along with the changing perceptions and theories surrounding the practice, will be analyzed. Next, three case studies that encompass a variety of infanticidal practices and other aspects of population control will be examined in detail, and with respect to how these activities correspond with the theories described below. The case studies

Infanticide: an overview Infanticide has been a common practice among hunter-gatherer communities worldwide, both immediately before contact with early ethnographers and thereafter.1 In biological terms, the practice has been defined as â&#x20AC;&#x153;any behaviour that makes a direct and significant contribution to the immediate

Fields

Winter 2012 -

deliberate means of population control, rather than simply as a brutal, and, by implication, senseless act. Nevertheless, the belief persisted that these acts would be detrimental to the group on the whole. Edward Moffat Weyer,5 a contemporary of Rasmussen, also believed that infanticide was an important aspect in solving the “population problem.” He also included the practice of senilicide6 as a factor in this “solution.” Weyer believed that these two acts were direct reactions to the availability, or lack thereof, of food resources and to the desire of the community to limit itself to population numbers7 that could be supported by its environment (Balikci 615: 1967). There were several variations on this postulate that were proposed, and many aspects of this kind of environmental determinism are still easily visible in modern theories of population control.8 It became apparent with further study that inhospitable environments could not be the sole cause for the perpetuation of the practice of infanticide, and that senilicide should not be included in that same functional category (e.g. Dickemann 1984: 434, Draper and Harpending 1982: 261, Hrdy 1984: xviii, Irwin 1989: 234-235, Jochim 1976: 65, Kelly 1995: 232, Yesnir 1994: 165). Attempting to create a predictive mathematical model for variations in huntergatherer populations, H. M. Wobst in the early 1970s used Monte Carlo statistical methods to analyze population change and to determine the equilibrium state of hunter-gatherer societies (Wobst 1974: 147). Wobst stipulated that a member of any given hunter-gatherer tribe would marry the closest mate to minimize movement, that all people of reproductive age are married and fecund, and that there would be a ban on incest (Wobst 1974: 161).9 Within this model, the practice of infanticide ultimately results in community extinction, so a flaw became apparent. Criticisms of Wobst’s method quickly emerged in anthropological and

death of an embryo or newly hatched or born member of a perpetrator’s own species,” though many less neutral definitions have been produced, especially regarding human infanticide (Hrdy 1984: xiv).2 Theoretically, this can encompass foeticide, infanticide, and pedicide (Hrdy 1984: xiv), though all accounts in this report will pertain specifically to infanticide occurring immediately after birth as records of foeticide and pedicide among hunter-gatherer populations are sporadic and subject to substantial bias.3 All early accounts of infanticide from ethnographers (or perhaps more accurately, adventurers) who stumbled across ‘primitive man’ and wrote accounts of their experiences, follow a similar form. Responses of shock, disgust, and alarm at the brutish nature of the ‘savages’ who could commit such heinous acts as killing their own newborn children are bluntly emphasized throughout these texts. Possible justifications for infanticide were not even briefly considered, as these acts were thought to have no logical basis. Infanticidal practices were deemed to be one among many incomprehensible symptoms of the brutality of these uncivilized groups. Even later ethnographers who approached the study of hunter-gatherers with a more open mind than their earlier counterparts, remained confounded by the practice of infanticide. For example, Knud Rasmussen, arguably one of the most progressive ethnographers in the 1920s and 1930s, believed that infanticide, even though it was still practiced in his day, must have been a non-adaptive population policy that would ultimately lead to the utter extinction of the Eskimo (Balikci 1967: 616).4 This era marks an interesting transition period in theories of the practice of infanticide. At this time, although the practice remained jarring to those studying it and its utility remained subject to question, infanticide was regarded with a certain level of neutrality. Further, infanticide was recognized as a

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

are examined (Irwin 1989: 234, Scrimshaw 1984: 445). Cases of infanticide, rather than being amalgamated together as they had been previously, are split into functional categories to facilitate easy understanding (Hrdy 1984: xvi). These categories include exploitation (use of the infant as a resource), competition for resources (death of the infant resulting in increased resources for the killer or his or her lineage), sexual selection (elimination of dependent offspring to increase mating opportunities), social pathology (wherein the infanticide actually decreases the fitness of the infanticidal individual), and parental manipulation of progeny (increase in parents’ reproductive success through the elimination of particular offspring) (Hrdy 1984: xvi). This last category is the most common motivation for infanticide among hunter-gatherer populations10 (Hrdy 1984: xviii), as fitness, especially the reproductive fitness of the mothers, is improved under these circumstances (Irwin 1989: 235).11 Two primary subcategories of infanticide exist in this scheme: preferential female infanticide, in which a large proportion of female infants are killed at birth, causing a greater male:female ratio among the population, and birth spacing infanticide, which theoretically is not gender-preferential and leads to a longer interbirth interval (Kelly 1995: 233-241). Each hunter-gatherer case studied in the next section follows a different pattern of infanticide practice, allowing the aforementioned theories and general conceptions of infanticide to be examined independently and in conjunction with other conscious population control measures and applicable taboos. A common trait may be drawn between these case studies, however, as each of these communities uses infanticide as a conscious control of population in response to the unique challenges posed by its environment. The intended outcome of this population control is the maximization of parents’ reproductive success.

archaeological circles as computer simulation and stochastic methods were recognized to be inaccurate in measuring human populations. There were simply too many variables to standardize, and practices that had been in use for generations seemed to lead to devastation, according to this logic (Acker 1975: 469-470). Ironically, studies in biology recognized long before that substantial problems arise when stochastic models are applied to complex human populations, as not all applicable variables can be quantified (Bartlett 1960: 2). If more integrative research had taken place at an earlier phase in the development of these mathematical models, these might have been undertaken with more caution. However, these mathematical methods did play an important role in the development of population theories. They provided definitive proof that in a purely quantifiable huntergatherer system, infanticide would not be a feasible practice unless there had been an oversight regarding its utility. It may be proposed that it was this realization that propelled a drastic change in how infanticide and other measures that could be classified as ‘conscious population controls’ were perceived. Without this misconception being underscored with these stochastic models, it is possible that the belief in ‘maladaptive infanticide’ would have persisted. In many modern studies of infanticide, a more sociocultural and biological approach is taken as the tailoring of social relationships is required by the environment (Irwin 1989: 234). According to this new paradigm, the assumption is that an individual seeks to maximize the number of his or her descendents. It follows that factors limiting this maximization becomes subject to examination (Blurton Jones 1989: 265). Using a sociocultural biological approach, both the ultimate causes (selective advantages leading to a trait’s prevalence), and proximate causes (environmental factors, events, structures, and reflexes producing the adaptive response)

Fields

Winter 2012 -

Table 1 Location/tribe

# Girls

# Boys

Girls/ 100 Boys

# Women

# Men

Women/ 100 Men

Cape Smyth (Smith, 1902)

116

Netsilingmiut (Boas, 1907)

138

123

119

103

Harvaqtormiut (Birket-Smith, 1929)

123

Emphasis added to highlight the Netsilingmiut. Sources: Balikci 1967: 623; Irwin 1989: 236.

Case studies of infanticide and conscious population controls

The Netsilingmiut practice female preferential infanticide to respond to this subsistence problem. Contrary to earlier beliefs, such as Rasmussen’s, the elimination of a large proportion of female newborns actually increases the evolutionary fitness of the mother and of the entire community by correcting the adult sex ratios (Irwin 1989: 235-236). While men – especially adolescent men – die on the hunt, female mortality remains low. Female preferential infanticide corrects, and in many cases overcorrects, the adult sex ratio (see table 1). This quantitative data indicates that the practice of preferential female infanticide has played an important role in the Netsilingmiut community. If too many women are born, the dearth of available men to support them later in their lives, and especially when they are nursing, could lead not only to their death but also to their children’s (Irwin 1989: 246)13. From a mother’s angle, men can be regarded as “less costly,” not only because they often die before the parental investment is over but also because, when they do survive, they directly contribute to her health by being a designated provider (Irwin 1989: 243). In sum, female infanticide among the Netsilingmiut was not mere cruelty or murder, but rather a means of substantial adaptation intended to increase the survival of the group by proportionately distributing the resources available (Balicki 1967: 624). Even when

For the purposes of this report, three case studies will be compared: the Netsilingmiut, who have traditionally been associated with female preferential infanticide, the !Kung, who have incorrectly been associated with birth spacing infanticide, and the Burarra Aborigines, who despite inflammatory claims to the contrary do not appear to practice infanticide. Beyond simply contrasting infanticide practices, other measures of conscious population controls employed (such as lactational infecundability), and pertinent taboos will be discussed, all within the context of the varying environments in which these communities have learned to thrive. Netsilingmiut The Netsilingmiut of the arctic coast live in a harsh environment that requires complex and adaptable technology and the tailoring of social relationships, particularly those related to marriage and procreation. Due to “extreme ecological pressure[s],” many men perish during hunts and, if left unchecked, this could potentially lead to a skewed sex ratio (Balikci 1967: 622). As the Netsilingmiuts’ subsistence relies heavily on men’s acquisition of primary food sources, and because nursing women cannot assist men in their pursuits for fear of harming their offspring,12 this ratio imbalance needs, somehow, to be rectified.

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

preferential infanticide was a necessary component of conscious population control. Without it, and its associated taboos and practices, the adult sex ratio would be skewed, resulting in a community unable to sustain itself in its arctic environment.

infanticide was committed “active measures” were never used. Rather, techniques such as suffocation, placing the infant outside the igloo to freeze, or, in the summer, in a stone grave until he or she died were employed to ensure minimal suffering on behalf of all parties (Balikci 1970: 148). There were also several societal pressures among the Netsilingmiut that played important roles in determining appropriate situations of infanticide. These included the practices of engagement and adoption (Balikci 1970: 150). A female infant was often promised for marriage before she was born or shortly after birth, ensuring at once her own safety and that of her parents. This custom could provide a vested interest in keeping the child (Balikci 1967: 619; Balikci 1970: 150). In addition, adoption was a relatively common practice among the Netsilingmiut. A couple experiencing difficulty conceiving could adopt another couple’s child, taking responsibility for that child’s welfare (Balikci 1967: 620; Balikci 1970: 150). Further, two important taboos could deter Netsilingmiut from committing infanticide. First, a firstborn child would almost never be subject to infanticide regardless of gender as his or her death could be a bad omen to future children, leading either to difficulties in conception or misfortune among the children themselves (Balikci 1967: 619). Second, the naming of the child held spiritual significance as the infant would always be named after a deceased member of the community. If that child were to be subsequently killed, the namesake spirit would be angered (Balikci 1970:148-149). Grandparents typically played an important role in naming a child. In many cases, decisions regarding infanticide rested in their hands: if a child remained nameless, then only in the circumstances of engagement or adoption would that child typically be permitted to live (Irwin 1989: 249). For the Netsilingmiut, therefore, female

!Kung The second case study moves us to a different part of the world. The !Kung of the Kalahari Desert in Namibia, Botswana, and Angola had long been believed to practice birth spacing infanticide due to their high interbirth intervals – averaging four years – and low overall birth rates. Marshall vehemently supported this theory. He could not believe that this low birth rate was possible in a community with no forthright and visible means of contraception (Bentley 1985: 95). The emergence of reliable ethnographic accounts revealed that, in fact, infanticide was very rarely practiced.14 Indeed, many !Kung women believed that “God was selfish” for keeping their potential children in heaven (Bentley 1985: 94-95). After further analysis of fecundity among the !Kung, the “culprit” was revealed not to be infanticide at all, but rather a combination of environmental pressure and energy output that made it difficult for !Kung women to be capable of procreation year round. !Kung society places great onus on extensive foraging, especially of the mongongo nut, which is overwhelmingly carried out by women. This poses a notable challenge (Bettinger 1991: 100). Due to the distance to the mongongo groves from their camps, !Kung women walk an average of 6.56km per day (2400km per annum) on gathering trips, and carry back an average of thirty pounds of mongongo nuts (Bentley 1985: 83). This extreme energy expenditure during most of the year results in women not being able to develop the amount of body fat necessary to sustain menstruation or pregnancy – a complication dubbed the “critical fatness hypothesis” (Bentley 1985:

Fields

Winter 2012 -

bodies and the demonstrated effects of the ‘backload model” would make raising these additional children difficult.

96). When women do successfully conceive in this environment, it is typically in the months of June, July, or August, when there is the greatest cache of mongongo nuts and less energy expenditure is required to forage. In this particular circumstance the women achieve a body mass index that permits them to become pregnant (Bentley 1985: 84). When a woman gets pregnant and successfully gives birth, her energy expenditure is redoubled. In addition to foraging for mongongo nuts, she must now care for that child. This increased energy expenditure led Blurton Jones and Sibly to propose a “Backload Model” which accounted for the increased workload of the mother, and to note an extremely important correlation (Blurton Jones 1989: 266). The average interbirth interval among the !Kung, four years, was also the age at which children would be able to walk of their own volition to and from the mongongo groves, rather than being carried by their mothers (Blurton Jones 1989: 266). Any interbirth interval shorter than this for a !Kung woman would be unfit and potentially life-threatening, except in cases where an older offspring is able to help the mother with childcare and foraging (Blurton Jones 1989: 267-271). The child cannot help forage before the age of fourteen due to the complexity of the landscape in the area, and the dense mongongo groves in which it is difficult to get lost.15 In the event of the eldest child reaching a “helping age,” it follows that the mother starts to give birth more frequently, taking advantage of this situation (biologically speaking) to maximize her reproductive success. In the case of the !Kung, therefore, the matter of fecundity is not one that is defined by infanticide or other conscious controls of population, but is almost exclusively dictated by the energetic strain placed on women as they attempt to forage in a difficult environment. Even if the !Kung women had children more frequently, the strain they would place on their

Burarra Aborigines The Burarra Aborigines of the North Central Arnhem Land coast of Australia have yet another approach to conscious population controls than either aforementioned group. Their case is similar to the !Kung: a low birth rate among the Burarra was, until recently, misinterpreted by scholars. Written reports made by Daisy Bates of Aborigine women killing and consuming their own children painted a brutal image of the Burarra community (Hamilton 1981: 123). Other accounts described the supposed necessity for Aborigine mothers to kill any children born while they are still nursing another infant, as they could only nurse one child at a time (Yengoyan 1981: 89).16 It was later discovered that these records were entirely false, and that cannibalism was not practiced by the Burarra. Furthermore, infanticide itself was an extremely rare practice, carried out only in cases of deformity, twins, and previously, children of mixed descent (Hamilton 1981: 123). In these cases infanticide is not used as a means to control population, but depends rather on whether or not the child is deemed “desirable”. There is no gender bias in these cases. In the area in which the Burarra Aborigines live, the environment is very favourable to habitation. Women supply the majority of the daily caloric intake through foraging and hunting of small game (Gargett and Hayden 1991; Hamilton 1981: 123). Women’s importance within the community is equal to men’s. The ‘necessity’ of infanticide is diminished by the abundance of resources. However, these facts still do not explain why, over the course of a twenty year reproductive span (from approximately the age of fifteen until the age of thirty-five), Burarra women only give birth to relatively few children – on

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

to employ active population control measures such as infanticide – the natural state of lactational infecundability (or “spirit baby” avoidance?) is enough to ensure a healthy community.

average, five (Hamilton 1981: 126). The answer to this conundrum, as with the !Kung, lies in biological reasoning, though for very different reasons. While the !Kung women are not able to develop “critical fatness,” this is a non-issue for the well-foraged, and therefore well-fed, Australian Aborigines. The Burarra depend on lactational infecundability, or the inability for a woman to get pregnant while still lactating and actively feeding her offspring with breast milk (Kelly 1995: 233). In this context, lactation is seen as a continuation of pregnancy: the connection of the mouth of the infant to the nipple of the mother is comparable to the connection of the umbilical cord that links them at the time of birth (Hamilton 1981: 31). A Burarra woman will never feed another woman’s child because this would encroach on the special physical bond developed through breastfeeding (Hamilton 1981: 31). This breastfeeding, which occurs almost constantly for up to thirty months after birth, at once provides a constant source of nutrition to the infant and delayes subsequent pregnancies (Hamilton 1981: 124). In the Burarra Aborigine worldview, several beliefs and taboos relate to reproductive practice. The most important concept is that pregnancy is the wish of the child or “spirit baby” who catches the mother he or she chooses (Hamilton 1981: 21).17 These spirit babies are said to live in certain locations or even certain foods, such as fish and honey, and can be “caught” by the mother or father while hunting in the form of a “spirit animal” (Hamilton 1981: 20-24). It follows that when a woman wishes to control whether or not she conceives, she must either avoid or attempt to encounter “spirit babies”. A biological, rather than Burarra-ontological, analysis emphasizes whether or not the woman in question is still in a state of lactational infecundability. Indisputably, the Burarras’ environment can support successful pregnancies and births. Burarra communities therefore do not need

Summary of current perspectives on infanticide and conscious population controls in worldwide hunter-gatherer populations Many different factors contribute to the necessity (or lack thereof ) of conscious population controls among hunter-gatherer populations. Population controls, where they are deliberately performed, are intended to increase the lifetime reproductive success of the adult population. Among these case studies, the most important elements factoring into the use, or lack, of population control measures are the environment, biological factors, and sex ratios in communities where men predominately provide the support necessary to ensure the survival of women and children. Of course, many other important aspects must also be considered, including societal pressures, the power of individuals to influence others, reproductive taboos and spiritual beliefs. All of these motivating factors must be combined to create a holistic understanding of conscious population controls from which collaborative theories may continue to be constructed. Implications for archaeology Though infanticide and other measures of population control play important roles in hunter-gatherer communities (or did at the time when early ethnographic records were taken), applying these principles directly to the material record poses its own set of challenges. In several areas in Europe, for example, paleodemographers have uncovered far more prehistoric adult male skeletons than female, leading them to conclude that preferential female infanticide was practiced by these communities (Johansson 1984: 470). Naturally, drawing such conclusions has its

Fields

Winter 2012 -

communities also historically unlikely. Naturally, it would be irresponsible of archaeologists to presume that taboos (such as those present among the Australian Aborigines regarding ‘spirit babies,’ or those of the Netsilingmiut that would prohibit infanticide after the child has been named) have been omnipresent in these societies as there can be no definitive environmental or material corroborating evidence for these practices. These may have been implemented at any time, possibly even ‘post-contact,’ and perpetuated for any number of reasons.

own faults. In a prehistoric era, it is possible that many women died at a young age from complications in childbirth. Or, perhaps, women were buried in different locations that have yet to be found. The only definitive way to confirm the practice of preferential female infanticide so long ago would be if a collection of infant skeletons were found, with more females in the deposit. This in itself is extremely unlikely, simply due to the nature of infanticide, and the presumption that it appears to take place mostly within nuclear families and in isolated cases. Furthermore, birth spacing infanticide would be virtually impossible to detect even if large skeletal assemblages were found, as many things could have caused the premature death of infants irrespective of gender. Interestingly, the most effective proposal of past practice of infanticide and conscious population controls is a combination of environmental factors and a direct historical approach. Though projecting current ethnographic findings into the past with the intention to present it as historical fact has been condemned in recent years, in this case it may be a reasonable assumption. As long as it may be proven that the environment remained very similar from the time of occupation of previous settlements to the present18, there is no reason why similar conscious population controls would not have been implemented. After all, as the motivations behind infanticide and other practices are becoming better understood, it is becoming apparent that these practices are put in place to maximize reproductive fitness and viability of the community in response to constraints placed upon the community by the environment. Similarly, it is likely that environmental constraints, such as those among the !Kung, that lead to delayed menarche and difficulty reaching the level of ‘critical fatness’ to be able to maintain a pregnancy, would have been present for a very long time, making infanticide within those

Future potentials for the study of conscious controls of population in hunter-gatherer groups In examining theories of infanticide put forth by different academic traditions, it becomes readily apparent that theories are being unnecessarily developed in parallel. A striking example of this would be Wobst’s proposal to use stochastic models to demonstrate boundary conditions of hunter-gatherer populations, despite the fact that within the field of biological statistics it was already widely known that such measures could not be accurately applied to human populations with any degree of accuracy. If there had been collaboration earlier between these fields, it is likely that a stronger, integrative theory could have been developed. It is proposed here that the greatest potential for studying conscious controls of population among hunter-gatherer communities lies not in any undeveloped train of thought, but rather in the elimination of the vernacular rift that has been established by the different fields already in the process of studying these controls from various perspectives. The superficiality of this terminological difference is meager, when compared to the great methodological divide this indicates, and the varying conclusions that will be drawn as a result. Without reconciliation, these intellectual pursuits will

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

Notes: 1. The ethnographic accounts of infanticide that are studied in this report primarily date to the early 1900s. Many of these actions have become uncommon in modern day practice, likely because of the contact with early ethnographers who believed infanticide was a heinous act against God. Modern day statistics are difficult to come by, however, due to infanticideâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s now-negative connotations, which would likely lead members of a community to not be entirely honest with ethnographers if the practice did still persist. Regardless, it is important to look at this practice historically, as it has inevitably shaped many facets of the community in which it has occurred. 2. Despite attempts to become less judgmental and condescending in modern day, many anthropologically-based definitions of infanticide maintain a tone that suggests an act of extreme and unnecessary brutality. To reduce any possibility of bias, a neutral biological definition was supplied in this report. 3. Foeticide, in this context, would be defined as the deliberate sabotage of a fetus still in utero, either through excessive force applied to the abdomen or the ingestion of harmful or poisonous substances. Pedicide, on the other side of the spectrum, would encompass the deliberate killing of a child past the age of infancy until the age of independence, usually seen as approximately fourteen years old (Hrdy 1984: xiv). 4. Rasmussen worked with the Netsilingmiut, among other groups on the arctic coast. However, at the time he referred to those hunter-gatherers simply as Eskimos, as did most of his contemporaries. 5. It should be noted that Weyer, like Rasmussen, conducted his ethnographical research with indigenous groups on the arctic coast of North America. Though both developed their theories and opinions of infanticide on similar groups, and their views do not draw on groups from multiple geographic areas, these viewpoints still remain representative of general approaches to infanticide globally for the era. 6. Senilicide, in this context, referring to what is

continue to fracture, and result in the inability for theorists educated in one school to work within the realm of the other. Yet if the simple step of re-establishing a dialogue between those from different schools is implemented, either through collaborative conferences or cross-publication, this fracturing process could be frozen, and all would ultimately benefit form learning more about how conscious controls of population in hunter-gatherer societies serve to increase reproductive success of adults in given environments from a multi-disciplinary approach. Synthesis and conclusion In summation, there are many important aspects of hunter-gatherer communities, both past and present, which may be grasped by truly comprehending the methods of conscious population controls that are employed, if any, and the motivating factor of increasing lifetime reproductive success, behind those controls. In order for this comprehension to truly occur, all aspects of infanticide and other conscious controls must be examined, encompassing the entire spectrum of causation from the biological basis in an environmental context, to the societal normative pressures and spiritual beliefs that permit these practices to occur. Though it is difficult to draw inferences regarding these activities with only material remains, additional evidence such as environmental conditions and, despite its flaws, the direct historical approach, may be utilized to an extent to produce viable hypotheses about past hunter-gatherer societies. It is through extensive collaborative research in the future that we may hope to further both our general knowledge of these hunter-gatherer societies, and further the extent of our relationships with these communities and other scholarly fields, thereby establishing a level of trust with which future joint ventures may be undertaken.

Fields

Winter 2012 -

essentially an “assisted suicide” of an older person who can no longer be an active contributor to the community. Among the Netsilingmiut this would usually be requested by the elder themselves, and was as non-violent as the circumstances would allow. 7. There were many influences upon the concept of ‘optimum population’ that have shaped how infanticide and other conscious population controls are studied. Notably, the proposed ideal group sizes of twenty five and five hundred first proposed at the Man the Hunter Conference remained important in the literature for many years, as did the ideas of maximum carrying capacity in an environment, and population growth curves appearing to approach the asymptotic carrying capacity (Kelly 1995:209-229). The ideas of small nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes also persisted for quite a long time in the literature, as, in many respects, it was not believed that huntergatherers would even to support themselves if their population became over-extended (e.g. Barnard 1999, Lees 1968, Rowley-Conwy 2001, Wobst 1978). 8. Optimal foraging theories also fed directly into these environmentally deterministic beliefs foraging patterns and practices would define how well communities would be able to support themselves and their potential offspring. Given, the environment, measures need to be taken to understood how it could be exploited as effectively as possible, while not destroying the resources (e.g. Bettinger 1991, Keene 1983, Bird and Bird 2008). Furthermore, when children could be taught to forage in a given environment, this would lessen the “cost” of reproducing (as the children would soon be in the position where they could help support themselves), so this would also influence (lessen) the possibility of conscious population controls in that instance (e.g. Blurton, Hawkes, and Draper 1994) 9. Though these proxies could not be completely accurate by default, Wobst maintained that under a perfect system, members of hunter-gatherer groups would strictly adhere to these guidelines. However, many communities have regulations on marriage

where the ideal would be to marry a cousin, such as in the case of the Burarra Aborigines of Australia (Hamilton 1981: 6). Furthermore, even through methods such as the analysis of site patterning, it has been hypothesized by some such as Jochim that even if marriage restrictions hypothetically existed in prehistoric hunter-gatherer communities, they would not have been enforced due to low population densities and the unlikelihood of finding a suitable mate that was not in some degree related (Jochim 1981: 162, Jochim 1998: 199). 10. Despite documented accounts of these other functional categories within hunter-gatherer populations, they are rare, and only happen under extreme circumstances. For example, the use of human infants for food exploitation only occurs in the case of devastating starvation (Dickemann 1984: 428). Other accounts of the use of infants as a food source, such as the claims made by Daisy Bates that female Australian Aborigines have purposely killed and consumed their own children in the past are now recognized to have distinct racist, political, and fearmongering overtones, and are not actually based in fact (Hamilton 1981: 123). 11 . Daly and Wilson further proposed that the decision of whether or not infanticide is committed should occur as if in response to three hypothetical situations: “1) What is the relationship of the putative offspring to its parents?, 2) What is the need of the offspring?, and 3) What alternative uses might a parent make of the resources it can invest in the offspring?” (Daly and Wilson 1984: 488). 12. In one ethnographic account by a Netsilingmiut woman it was stated that: “bitches simply don’t pull as hard as the male dogs do” when questioned about the practice of female preferential infanticide (Balikci 1967: 621). 13. This is also a reason why it is believed that polygamy is not oft practiced in these environments. Despite the lack of any cultural taboo urging against polygamy, it would simply be too costly for any men, with the notable exception of elite hunters, to support multiple wives in this unforgiving environment (Irwin 1989: 245). 14. According to Howell, the number of cases of

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

infanticide he was made aware of while doing ethnographical research on the !Kung was only six out of five hundred births (Bentley 1985: 95). 15. In a study comparing the !Kung and the Hadza (another hunter-gatherer population in Africa inhabiting a slightly more hospitable environment with more shade, and a landscape that is much easier to navigate), the ability of children to aide their mothers in foraging tasks made a substantial impact on the ability of their mothers to successfully and frequently procreate. Among the Hadza, where the children start foraging while still very young, and can forage approximately one half of their daily required caloric intake every day, there are smaller interbirth intervals, higher fertility, and other general differences in child rearing practices (Blurton, Hawkes, and Draper 1994: 190-195). For example, Hadza marriages seem to end much more frequently, as, even without the support of the men, the women and children would easily be able to sustain themselves (Blurton, Hawkes, and Draper 1994: 212). It is also proposed that this is why the Hadza men seem to put so much more effort into hunting large game, whereas !Kung men will hunt and forage more optimally- the Hadza men have a need to impress the ladies (Blurton, Hawkes, and Draper 1994: 213). 16. Almost constant breastfeeding characterizes the diet of the Burarra infant for a minimum of sixteen months, but can extend as long as thirty months for particularly nomadic hunter-gatherers, as this remains a stable source of nourishment. During this time, the infants are fed almost constantly as it is believed that a Burarra child should never cry (Hamilton 1981: 124). 17. An interesting extension of this belief pertains to natural miscarriages. The event of a miscarriage is explained by the assertion that a dog or kangaroo spirit baby entered the would-be-mother by mistake, and so miscarriages are not believed to be devastating events, as they are considered in many other societies worldwide (Hamilton 1981: 25). 18. Ensuring that this assumption is correct would require the input of geographers who specialize in

climate systems and the effect any change in world temperature would have on local ecosystems. If these geographic models were utilized, however, it is likely that past geographic systems could be proposed with a great degree of certainty, and, therefore, the possibly of infanticide practice that would be necessitated by an inhospitable environment could also be determined with some certainty. References: Acker, C.L., and P. K. Townsend 1975 Demographic Models and Female Infanticide. In Man 10. Pp. 469-470. Balikci, A. 1967 Female Infanticide on the Arctic Coast. In Man 2. Pp. 615-625. 1970 The Netsilik Eskimo. The Natural History Press, New York. Barnard, A. 1990 mages of hunter-gatherers in European social thought. In The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunter-Gatherers, edited by R. B. Lee and R. Daly. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Pp. 375383. Bartlett, M. S. 1960 Statistical theory in biology; Monte Carlo Methods. In Stochastic Population Models in Ecology and Epidemiology. Spottiswoode, Ballantyne & Co. Ltd., London. Pp. 1-4; 33-35. Bentley, G. 1985 Hunter-Gatherer Energetics and Fertility: A Reassessment of the !Kung San. In Human Ecology 13. Pp. 79-109. Bettinger, R.L. 1991 Hunter-gatherers as optimal foragers. In HunterGatherers: Archaeological and Evolutionary Theory. Plenum Press, New York. Pp. 83-111. Bird, R.B. and D.W. Bird 2008 Why women hunt: risk and contemporary foraging in a Western Desert Aboriginal Community. Current Anthropology 49(4). Pp. 655-693. Blurton Jones, N. 1989 The Costs of Children and the Adaptive Scheduling of Births: Towards a Sociobiological

Fields

Winter 2012 -

Perspective on Demography. In The Sociobiology of Sexual and Reproductive Strategies, edited by A. Rasa, C. Vogel, and E. Voland. Chapman and Hall, London. Pp. 265-282. Blurton Jones, N., K. Hawkes, and P. Draper 1994 Differences Between Hadza and !Kung Children’s Work: Original Affluence or Practical Reason? In Key Issues in Hunter-Gatherer Research, edited by Ernest S. Burch Jr. and Linda J. Ellanna. Berg Publishers, Oxford. Pp. 189-215. Daly, M., and M. Wilson 1984 A sociobiological analysis of human infanticide. In Infanticide: Comparative and Evolutionary Perspectives, edited by G. Hausfater and S. B. Hrdy. Aldine Publishing Company, New York. Pp. 487-502. Dickemann, M. 1984 Concepts and classification in the study of human infanticide: Sectional introduction and some cautionary notes. In Infanticide: Comparative and Evolutionary Perspectives, edited by G. Hausfater and S. B. Hrdy. Aldine Publishing Company, New York. Pp. 427-437. Draper, P., and H. Harpending 1982 Father Absence and Reproductive Strategy: An Evolutionary Perspective. Journal of Anthropological Research 38: 255-273. Freuchen, P. 1958 I Sailed with Rasmussen. Julian Messner, Inc., New York. Gargett, R. and B. Hayden 1991 Site structure, kinship, and sharing in Aboriginal Australia: implications for archaeology. In The Interpretation of Archaeological Spatial Patterning, edited by E. Kroll and T. Price. Plenum Press, New York. Pp. 11-32. Hamilton, A. 1981 Nature and Nurture: Aboriginal Child-Rearing in North Central Arnhem Land. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra. Hrdy, S. B., and G. Hausfater 1984 Comparative and Evolutionary Perspectives on Infanticide: Introduction and Overview. In Infanticide: Comparative and Evolutionary Perspectives, edited by G. Hausfater and S. B. Hrdy. Aldine Publishing Company, New York. Pp. xiii-xxxv.

Irwin, C. 1989 The sociocultural biology of Netsilingmiut female infanticide. In The Sociobiology of Sexual and Reproductive Strategies, edited by A. Rasa, C. Vogel, and E. Voland. Chapman and Hall, London. Pp. 234-264. Jochim, M. A. 1976 Subsystem III: Demographic Arrangements. In Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence and Settlement: A Predictive Model. Academic Press, Inc., New York. Pp. 65-79. 1981 Settlement Strategies. In Strategies for Survival: Cultural Behavior in an Ecological Context. Academic Press, Inc., New York. Pp. 148-164. 1998 The Late Paleolithic Landscape. In A HunterGatherer Landscape: Southwest Germany in the Late Paleolithic and Mesolithic. Plenum Press, New York. Pp. 193-200. Johansson, S. R. 1984 Deferred infanticide: Excess female mortality during childhood. In Infanticide: Comparative and Evolutionary Perspectives, edited by G. Hausfater and S. B. Hrdy. Aldine Publishing Company, New York. Pp. 463-485. Keene, A.S. 1983 Biology, behavior, and borrowing: a critical examination of optimal foraging theory in archaeology. In Archaeological Hammers and Theories, edited by J.A. Moore and A.S. Keene. Academic Press, New York. Pp. 137-155. Kelly, R. L. 1995 Group Size and Reproduction. In The Foraging Spectrum, edited by Duke Johns. Smithsonian Institution, United States. Pp. 205-259. Lees, R. B. 1968 What hunters do for a living, or how to make out on scarce resources. In Man the Hunter, edited by R. B. Lees and I. Devore. Aline Publishing Company, New York. Pp. 30-48. Rowley-Conwy, P. 2000 Time, change, and the archaeology of huntergatherers: how original is the ‘original affluent society.’ In Hunter-Gatherers: An Interdisciplinary Perspective, edited by C. Panter-Brick, R.H. Layton and P. RowleyConwy. Pp. 39-72.

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

Scrimshaw, S. C. M. 1984 Infanticide inhuman populations: Societal and individual concerns. In Infanticide: Comparative and Evolutionary Perspectives, edited by G. Hausfater and S. B. Hrdy. Aldine Publishing Company, New York. Pp. 439-462. Wobst, H. M. 1974 Boundary Conditions for Paleolithic Social Systems: A Simulation Approach. In American Antiquity 39. Pp. 147-178. 1978 The archaeo-ethnology of hunter-gatherers, or, the tyranny of the ethnographic record in archaeology.

American Antiquity 43(2). Pp. 303-309. Yengoyan, A. 1981 Infanticide and Birth Order: An Empirical Analysis of Preferential Female Infanticide among Australian Aboriginal Populations. In Anthropology UCLA 7. Pp. 255-273. Yesner, D. R. 1994 Seasonality and Resource â&#x20AC;&#x153;Stressâ&#x20AC;? Among Hunter-Gatherers: Archaeological Signatures. In Key Issues in Hunter-Gatherer Research, edited by Ernest S. Burch Jr. and Linda J. Ellanna. Berg Publishers, Oxford. Pp. 151-167.

India: Aditya Prakashan.

Hi v e r 2012 -

Te r r a i n s

Northern Australian indigenous land management

Spirituality in a contemporary time Christine King

and increased ecological protection of the Australian north. The northern Arhman Land Region, where these indigenous conservation methods are practiced, encompasses 97,000 square kilometers of territory north of Darwin, including the 20,000 square kilometers of Kakadu national park. While the region hosts a variety of ecosystems, the environment can seem particularly harsh, arid, and uninhabitable to those unaccustomed to its climate (Woinarski 2007:11). However, despite its ominous appearance, this land has been occupied for thousands of years. Today, 2000 indigenous residents remain in this region, living either as citizens of coastal townships or as members of approximately 65 hunting-gathering clans (Altmam 2003:68). Yet, despite their diverse backgrounds, these people all share a common set of beliefs and practices. They share a common concept of time and space, viewing the world as spiritually alive and in continual cycles of rebirth. North Australian aboriginal groups believe that the world originated through the actions of ancestral spirits who lived in Dreamtime. Dreamtime is understood as the primeval period in which all actions and words had the power to mold the physical world (Kinsley 1995:23). In their beliefs, it was a time when ancestral spirits traveled across a formless land, creating the mountains, the seas, and every living creature on earth through music. Journeying over the landscape, they sang the world into existence, shaping all of existence with their words (Gallhofer et al. 2000:38286). Dreamtime did not, however, end with creation. Aborigines understand time not as linear, but as cyclic. They believe that the

For thousands of years, tribal units of huntergatherers populated Australia, living in harmony and in reciprocal relationships with the environment. Australian aborigines have always considered their country alive and sacred, vested with powers that define both humans and the world. They view themselves as incarnations of the land, both dependent on it and responsible for its maintenance and re-creation. However, since European settlement, Australian indigenes have faced marginalization due to various land dislocation and assimilation policies, resulting in a loss of home, tradition, and identity. Efforts are now underway to rectify the damages caused by this displacement. Since the 1970s, the ‘outsation’ program has sought to recognize ancestral indigenous homelands allowing people to once again re-inhabit the land they view as sacred (Altman 2003:66). This movement has spurred a contentious debate concerning the environmental viability of such a policy – conservationists voice opposing views, understanding indigenous populations as either ‘ecologically noble savages’ or as a threat to pristine wilderness. Furthermore, critics question the relevance and survival of indigenous knowledge in the period following Europeanization. They argue that ‘traditional’ knowledge and land management is ineffective in contemporary times (Ross and Pickering 2002:190; Bowman and Vigilante:101). Yet, within the Arhman Land Region, traditional belief systems have shown remarkable resiliency despite repression. These indigenous populations have not only maintained their systems of belief, they have also been able to apply them to modern situations, allowing for sustainable resource management,

Fields

Winter 2012 -

interdependent relationship with humans and their homeland. Like humans, they are seen as embodied spirits, and thus are considered kin. Familial bonds are formed between each individual and a particular animal. These animal connections comprise the totemic identity of an individual, binding man and beast through a shared common spirit (Bird Rose 1997:135-37). This totemisim obligates each person to protect and care for a particular animal or plant – the aborigine may not kill their totem being and must guarantee that the community treats the species with love and respect. This concept of kinship with the natural world contributes to environmental ethics through the rejection of a utilitarian view towards animals and plants. The shared identities and responsibilities of people to their totems, their sacred lands, and to one another build webs of interconnections that create solidarity between all beings, demanding deep reverence for the world (Kinsley 1995:30-31). Yet, despite the indigenes’ evident animistic understanding and familial connection with the natural world, some have questioned the effectiveness of this belief system in creating an actual conservation ethic. Critics claim that while animism might appear to be ecologically protective, indigenous beliefs do not translate into sustainable practices. (Snodgrass 2008:8; Sackett 1979:225-26). This suggestion stems from the aboriginal understanding of land maintenance through ritual and song; a practice which seems to indicate a lack of practical conservation knowledge. “Increase ceremonies,” for example, are a form of habitat maintenance that lacks scientific credibility, even though they are a core duty of indigenous men. Such traditions include pilgrimages to sacred sites, the painting of sacred images, and elaborate ceremonies that involve chipping or rubbing rocks and possibly letting human blood in order to replenish the land and its creatures. (Kinsley 1995:27). Singing is also considered a fundamental method of assuring vitality.

spiritual ancestors are still present in the land today and especially concentrated in sacred places. Geographic landforms such as mountains, rocks, waterholes, and caves are the homes of these spirits and are considered both sacred and dangerous. These spaces are regions in which the spiritual and material intertwine, allowing for the renewal and re-creation of the world (Tripcony 1996:1-7). Integral to this process is the interaction of humans with the spiritual land. For instance, Australians believe that a woman becomes pregnant when a Dreamtime spirit enters her womb while she passes through its sacred site. The child is seen as a temporary embodiment of that spirit that will eventually revert to the landscape after death. Therefore, it is imperative for the aborigines that they maintain a connection with the place of their spiritual conception. These places define their being, for the land is their being. While human existence is temporary, it is the land that is enduring and to which they shall return (Gallhofer et al. 2000:385; Kinsley 1995:25). As embodied spirits, humans share the responsibility for the renewal and maintenance of the earth. The Northern Land Council, an association of aboriginal landowners and people, describes themselves as “custodians” of the world. Their incarnation is understood as part of the never-ending dreaming cycle through which the earth is continually reborn (The Northern Land Council). Through the performance of ritual and song, humans ensure the health and survival of both the land and its inhabitants. This custodianship has been considered the very purpose of human existence, intrinsic to the maintenance of the universe (The Northern Land Council; Gallhofer et al. 2000:382). These beliefs form the basis of a strong environmental ethic within the aboriginal community. Land is not only seen as alive and sacred, it is part of all humans whose ultimate purpose is to revitalize the Earth. Animals are also intertwined in this

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

permanent. These beliefs lead to what Sackett deems to be too careless of an attitude towards the act of hunting and the surrounding vegetation. Aborigine spirituality, in this case, appears to hinder sound conservation ethic. On the other hand, research done in the Arhman Land Region demonstrates that indigenous groups are capable of translating their belief system into practical models of land and resource management (Ross and Pickering 2002; Altman 2003; Bowman and Vigilante; Whitehead 2003). After all, hunter-gatherers, whose survival depends on subsistence from the land, need a practical understanding of environment management. These groups have lived in intimate relations with the natural world for centuries. While Australian aborigines may not use the language of ‘conservation’ or ‘sustainability,’ they have amassed intricate knowledge of their habitat and its maintenance. This wide array of ‘traditional knowledge’ has always allowed for successful and sustainable land and resource management. It continues to do so today. Research conducted amongst the Kuninjku people of the Armhem Land Region, with respect to land management through landscape burnings, provides an example of how aborigines combine spiritual understandings of nature with practical ecosystem knowledge to create balanced managements systems. This community has an extensive knowledge of both the religious and utilitarian significance of over 90 animal species and 136 plant species (Altman 2009:67). They assure species vitality through periodic burns. These fire management tactics involve lighting controlled fires throughout the year, resulting in the temporary clearing of particular habitats. While these practices are now accepted in the scientific community, fire management remains extremely controversial within the larger Australian community. Indigenous groups have often been accused of transforming and defacing pristine wilderness through their

According to the indigenous belief system, it is through song that the landscape was originally created, and thus through music that it must be maintained. However, from a scientific perspective, none of these practices convert into viable conservation methods. In fact, some have suggested that the spiritual understanding of land maintenance has caused practical management to be ignored – Sackett notes, in his analysis of the Wiluna clan’s hunting practices, that wastage is common among aborigine communities (1979:225-226). His research shows that animals killed on hunting trips, but seen as inadequately skinny, were simply left where they had fallen while hunters continued to search for more substantial kills. When an appropriate animal was at last discovered, it was butchered on the spot. The desired meat was then cooked and returned to the clan, but the remaining organs, skins, bones, and undesired meat were left to rot (Sackett 1979:234-235). Although these practices seem to differ from aboriginal beliefs, Sackett suggests that this treatment of animals does not contradict the clan’s understanding of animals as kin. Instead, it results from aborigine understanding of the ecological balance as being maintained through ritual performance rather than secular concepts of wildlife preservation. For indigenous Australians, animal populations are replenished by coaxing spirits to impregnate animals through ritual; thus, humans play an instrumental role in bringing these animals into being (Kinsley 1995:27). When an animal is killed, its spirit is thought to be merely shedding material skin so that it may happily return to the land. If there is scarcity, humans only need to engage in ceremonial practice that will prompt spirits to impregnate animals once more (Sackett 1979:232). In Sackett’s analysis, this understanding of the world as a cyclic system of rebirth may in fact result in a negligence of sustainable practices. Cyclicity suggests that there is no finality or permanence to death. Spirits, as eternal beings, cannot be destroyed; thus no damage done to the earth is considered

Fields

Winter 2012 -

with the utmost respect. Ancient laws regulate and limit where and when these fires can be burnt. The Northern Territory government notes that inappropriate activity “may disturb the Spirit Ancestors with grave consequences for the Aboriginal people who are custodians to the place” (Perdan 2004:12). If carefully employed, fire management practices, as well as resource use in general, can be an important tool in maintaining both a spiritual and ecological balance. Recent scientific evidence shows that threats to this ecological balance result from a lack of human interaction rather than too much. Today, controlled indigenous burnings provide important defense against contemporary ecological problems, such as feral species invasion and uncontrolled wildfires (Altman 2003). This research is important when seeking to understand how indigenous belief and knowledge systems function in contemporary time. It has been argued by some that, due to forced relocation and assimilation programs, traditional knowledge and beliefs have been permanently lost. This is simply not the case, as demonstrated by the success of indigenous land management within the Arhman Land Region and the growing popularity of current outstation programs. People today are showing a strong desire to return to their original homes and traditional practices, perhaps because the land has always been so closely tied to aborigine identity. Traditional knowledge is not only being preserved, it is being passed on to a growing community who once again can apply it to their daily lives (Altman 2003:65). The successful re-inhabitance of the Australian hinterlands also demonstrates how the indigenous populations have been able to apply their system of beliefs to contemporary issues, resulting in the development of an environmental ethic appropriate for modern times. In efforts to maintain the balance of the land and protect sacred sites, contemporary aborigines have either formed or teamed up with

burning practices, resulting in what has been described as “a defilement of the natural world” (Australian Human Rights Commission). Critiques like these arise from a Western understanding of nature as dichotomous to culture; a view that draws clear borders between humans and nature, suggesting a loss of purity if these arenas combined. This Western perspective is in direct opposition to how indigenous people view their surroundings. For aborigines, the nature-culture divide is simply nonexistent. Humans are not viewed as distinct or in any way separate from nature; they are deeply embedded within it. In indigenous tradition, nature and humans are formed of the same essential spirits. They are not only interdependent, they are considered kin. These contesting views of nature, culture, and interdependence are at the root of the current Australian debate surrounding fire management. The popular, Western image of the nation’s North is that of a “Terra Nullius” – a natural world that is pristine only when untouched by human influence. Yet, in reality, indigenous peoples have been actively managing and consequently modifying their ‘natural’ landscapes for tens of thousands of years (Ross and Pickering 2002:190). A growing body of research is now showing that aboriginal fire management techniques have been fundamental in maintaining ecosystem health. The Kununjuk, for example, acknowledge that burnings have the practical use of driving animals out of the bush for hunting, while simultaneously clearing space for new growth and grazing land. This method also prepares the bushlands for harvest by allowing fruit seeds to germinate, ensuring healthy growth and an abundant crop (Bowman and Vigilante:101). In addition, fires serve to regenerate the land spiritually – the Kununjuk view this element as a force alive with spiritual beings. Burnings are believed to be an imperative step in recreating Dreamtime, allowing ancestral spirits to reinhabit the land. As a result, fire is always treated

Te r r a i n s

Hi v e r 2012 -

conversationalists due to their emphasis on biodiversity and scientific fact. The aboriginal community is acutely aware that the mine is located in one of the most biologically diverse regions in the world. The territory is home to over 1600 plant species and is a stronghold for a wide variety of species that are now threatened on an international scale. On a cultural front, the Mirrar have argued that the region is home to over 200 sacred sites that, along with species and habitat, will also be destroyed (Perdan 2004:8). The Mirrar claim that the development of the Jabiluka mine will have “genocidal impact on Aboriginal people of the region” (Perdan 2004:23). They state that the destruction of sacred places will “invoke powerful supernatural punishments” on both the perpetrators of the disturbance and on aborigines whose duty it is to protect the land (Mirrar Gundjeihmi Clan). The Mirrar activism against the Jabiluka Uranium mine is one of many examples of how northern Australian aborigines have fought to protect the environment in accordance with their religious beliefs. Australian aborigines have a deep bond with their natural environment that goes beyond a utilitarian perspective. For the people of this region, the land is not only sacred: it is a part of their very being. This spiritual understanding of interwoven connections and relationships, combined with their selfappointed duty of custodianship, has led indigenous Australians to develop a strong environmental ethic that has been interpreted into present forms of sustainable resource management. In the face of modern criticism, aborigines have shown that these beliefs can be utilized in contemporary times to support the environmental movement. During these times of environmental crisis, it is critical for both the land and indigenous communities that their belief system be given the respect it deserves. As one Mirrar woman responded when asked about current land developments: “More problems are coming up. It kill us.

a variety of organizations promoting spiritually and ecologically appropriate treatment of the land. Groups such as the North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance, the Northern Land Council’s Caring for Land Programme, and the Indigenous Knowledge Strategy Project all seek to form ties with larger scientific communities to better face issues such as feral species control and global warming (NAILISMA; Northern Land Council). The Caring for Country Unit, for example, describes its project objectives as becoming “involved in all aspects of re-establishing and maintaining traditional connections to the land while dealing with the myriad issues that have arisen since the advent of European settlers” (Northern Land Council ). Aborigines today are aware that environmental issues have drastically changed from past to present. By working with modern science and technology, they are seeking to uphold and re-establish the ancient duty of custodianship effectively within the contemporary era. One of the most recent demonstrations of application of the indigenous environmental ethic is the Jabiluka uranium mine development located within Kakaudu, Australia’s largest national Park. Kakadu is located within the Arnhem Land Region and the mine site falls within land legally owned by the Mirrar since the introduction of the Native Title Act passed in 1993. A provision in the Act that allows for government say in “the national interest” has permitted authorities to construct the mine irrespective of Mirrar wishes (Banerjee 1999). Since 1998, the Mirrar have joined with students, scientists, environmentalists, and international organizations to actively resist the construction of the Jabiluka mine. Their campaign has included blockades, tent embassies, media campaigns, and legal appeals to the United Nations, taking place on both a local and global scale (Hintjens 2000:2-6). The Mirrar describe their objectives in both religious and ecological terms, appealing to secular

Fields

Winter 2012 -

Management Alliance 2006 Indigenous Knowledge Strategy. www. nailsma.org.au. Kinsley, David 1995 Ecology and Religion: Ecological Spirituality in Cross-Cultural Perspective. New Jersey: PrenticeHall. The Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation 2011 Mirrar Gundjeihmi Clan,” 2011. www.mirarr.net. Northern Land Council 2003 Caring For Country. www.nlc.org.au. Perdan, Slobodan 2004 Social and Ethical Dimensions of Sustainable Development: Mining in Kakadu National Park. Sustainable Development in Practice: Case Studies for Engineers and Scientists. Ed. Adisa Azapagic. Pp. 397–425. John Wiley & Sons. Ross, Anne and Kathleen Pickering 2002 The Politics of Reintegrating Australian Aboriginal and American Indian Indigenous Knowledge into Resource Management: The Dynamics of Resource Appropriation and Cultural Revival. Human Ecology 30.2: 187-214. Sackett, Lee. 1979 The Pursuit of Prominence: Hunting in an Australian Aboriginal Community. Anthropologica 21.9: 223-226. Snodgrass, Jeffrey 2008 Indigenous Nature Reverence and Conservation: Seven Ways of Transcending an Unnecessary Dichotomy. SRNC 2.1: 7-24. Tripcony, Penny 1996 Too Obvious to See: Explaining the Basis of Aboriginal Spirituality. Australian Association of Religious Educators Conference. Pp. 1-7. Gold Coast, Australia. Whitehead, Peter 2003 Customary Use of Fire by Indigenous Peoples in Northern Australia: Its Contemporary Role in Savanna Management. International Journal of Wildland Fire 12: 415-425. Woinarski , John, and BarryTraill 2007 The Nature of Northern Australia: Natural Values, Ecological Processes and Future Prospects. Pp. 11-101. Darwin: ANU E Press, 2007.

Money not going to fix anything. This is our country. We live the land” (Banerjee 1999:18). References: Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority 2009 What is a Sacred Site. www.aapant.org.au. Altman, Jon 2003 People on Country, Healthy Landscapes and Sustainable Indigenous Economic Futures: The Arnhem Land Case. The Drawing Board: An Australian Review Of Public Affairs 4.2: 65-82. Australian Human Rights Commission 2009 Sustaining Aboriginal Homeland Communities. Social Justice Report 2009. www. hreoc.gov.au. Banerjee, Subhabrata 1999 Whose Mine is it Anyway? National Interest, Indigenous Stakeholders and Colonial Discourses: The Case of the Jabiluka Uranium Mine. Critical Management Studies Conference. Pp. 1-31. Bird Rose, Deborah. 1997 Common Property Regimes in Aboriginal Australia: Totemism Revisited. The Governance of Common Property in the Pacific Region. Ed. Peter Larmour. Pp. 127-142. Australian National University: Asia Pacific Press. Bowman, David and Tom Vigilante N.d. Conflagrations: The Culture, Ecology and Politics of Landscape Burning in the North Kimberley. In The Power of Knowledge, the Renaissance of Tradition. Ed. Graeme Ward and Adrian Muckle. Pp. 99-103. AIATSIS, Canberra. Gadgil, Madhav 1993 Indigenous Knowledge for Biodiversity Conservation. Ambio 22.2: 151-156. Gallhofer, Sonja, with Kathy Gibson, Jim Haslam, Patty McNicholas and Bella Takiari. 2000 Developing Environmental Accounting: Insights From Indigenous Cultures. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 13.4: 381-409. Hintjens, Helen 2000 Environmental Direct Action in Australia: the case of Jabiluka Mine. Community Development Journal 35.4: 377-90. North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea

Reviews - Comptes rendus

Pointe-à-Callière’s Colours of India

Nothing there is vulgar, all is of infinite grace and beauty.” A country from which two of the world’s most observed religions, Hinduism and Buddhism, emerged is depicted as steeped in a pure spirituality that imbues every person’s thought and action. Held’s large scale colour photographs contain saturated hues with metallic embellishment recalling the most pervasive symbols of the East in Western pop culture. The ornate perfection of the social and geographical landscape, as seen in the film The Darjeeling Limited, is verified. While these views are indeed culled from real life encounters of the photographer, they contribute to the exhibition’s failure to address the corollary to the country’s spiritual acuity, that is, it’s ascent into modernity and as one of the world’s fastest growing economies. These more industrious and, at times devastating, views are not on display. The result is a scintillating portrait which, though beautiful, perpetuates and preserves a distanced and exotic view of India as the spiritual other.

Pointe-à-Callière, Montréal, QC (November 8, 2011 to April 22, 2012) Ming Lin

Pointe-à-Callière’s Colour’s of India exhibition, realized in partnership with the Musée national des arts asiatiques Guimet in Paris and French journalist-photographer Suzanne Held, features an array of breathtaking photographs and fascinating objects from various regions in India. While providing an attractive glimpse into the culture’s many rich customs, it does little to challenge prevailing romantic and exotified notions of it. In introducing the nation with the second largest population and more than 1500 spoken dialects, the curators attempt to eschew essentialism by challenging certain conventions of ethnographic display. Rather than creating didactic representations of the culture using the classic technique of showcasing artifacts with photographs and dense text explicating them in depth, this exhibition employs a more poetic approach. With an emphasis on colour and spirituality, aesthetics are made the guiding principle. The exhibition proposes that rhythms and patterns govern everyday life in India. Large lengths of gold inflected coloured silk cascade from models, drawing the viewer into the exhibition hall. One of the introductory texts provides an excerpt from Held’s musings: “India is a hymn to colour, to grace, to aestheticism.

New student perspective at the 2011 meeting of the AAA

Palais des congrès de Montréal, Montréal, QC (November 16-20, 2011) Alice Walker

The weeks leading up to the meeting, I was unsure what to expect. From my background as an undergraduate student in a small department, seeing more than five anthropologists in the same room is an anomaly. Upon arriving at the meeting and witnessing thousands of students, professionals and enthusiasts flowing in and out of lecture halls was incredibly overwhelming. A stark contrast to the chaos in the hallways, the silence and calmness of each lecture hall made it easy to focus on the fascinating lectures at hand. With only fifteen minutes each,

Fields

Winter 2012 -

tight schedule, I only attended one workshop about photography in the field. The facilitators broke down everything about photography that an anthropologist could ever need, from technical details to how to use photos alone and combined with text. Apart from the constant stream of fantastic brain-food , the meeting had a continual array of events and activities. The welcome reception featured a neverending supply of hors d’oeuvres, along with a chance to network and relax. Throughout the week, the exhibition hall offered a huge selection of literature, usually including a good discount. Although the internet has made finding and purchasing books easier, there’s still something great about wandering from booth to booth and finding out what each publisher has to offer. Just next door, the graduate school fair and the career fair were in full swing over the weekend. As a young student, these resources were invaluable whil beginning to think about what the next move in my anthropology career should be. Many employers were from outside academia, which was encouraging for us students who are unsure about where we might fit in the workforce. Overall, the AAA Annual Meeting was great experience. Not only did I learn from the lectures of many incredible professionals, but I obtained valuable insight into the world of anthropology. I recommend the experience to anyone who enjoys the discipline and wants to get involved for a crazy, fascinating, actionpacked five days.

speakers summarized months of fieldwork and research, then, after realizing they have about a minute left, thumbed past multiple pages to get to the complex theories and observations that are the crux of their presentations. The audience, ears pricked, hastily scribbled notes and nodded subconsciously as they digested the complex material. Arriving at the event without any prior experience was incredibly intimidating, but well worth the initial discomfort. Not only were the papers incredibly interesting, but all the lecturers cared deeply about their research and spoke passionately. In my first day I was able to hear a huge array of topics from sex practices in Senegal to modern superstition in Italy. Although it may seem mundane to the seasoned anthropologist or regular AAA meeting attendant, I was blown away by topics that addressed new forms of personhood, identity, and symbolism that are relevant in the world right now, as opposed to the classical texts I consume in my classes. Many lectures addressed the methodologies or the problems that anthropologists face during fieldwork. My favorite topic was “Keeping Company: Ethnographic Portraits Revisited,” a group of lectures that discussed the central informant who is not only the necessary local link to the local community, but also provides an individual narrative that helps frame the ethnographic study. The workshops, targeted to make you a better anthropologist in several different areas, covered topics like getting published, finding jobs, and improving writing. With a

Co n t r ib uto rs

Co lla borate urs Ming Lin is a Joint Honours student in Anthropology and Art History. She is interested in the potential art has to inspire social action and engagement.

Amy Binning is a U3 Honours Anthropology student with a double minor in Religious Studies and East Asian Studies. Her particular research interests are in the anthropology of East Asian religions, and Buddhism in particular.

Heather McIntosh is a U2 major in Biodiversity and Conservation, and an English literature minor. Her research interests include habitat connectivity and species persistence, invasive species, and environmental management

Megan Galeucia recently completed her Bachelor of Arts at McGill. She studied Anthropology (major) and Social Studies of Medicine (minor). Her research interests include: the political and social impacts of new medical technologies, linkages between social justice and the lived-experience of health and illness, and community-based research. She is also interested in how audiovisual media, such as film and radio, can be used as empowering tools for communities and to conduct and present anthropological research.

Marion Provencher is a U3 arts student majoring in anthropology and international development. She is interested in medical anthropology, gender and sexuality, and food security. Héloïse Roy is a former Anthropology major and Field Studies minor. Her interests include immigration, suburbs, diasporas, cultural differences, and identities. Currently, she is pursuing a certificate in Sociology – Immigration Studies at UQAM

Jordan Graham is a U3 student in Honours Anthropology with a minor in Psychology. Her research interests are primarily in social archaeology and the modern applicability of archaeological research, though she is interested in a wide variety of interdisciplinary fields.

Émilie Sarrazin is a U3 Honours Anthropology student and a Classics minor. Her research interests include Egyptology, the relationship between textual and material evidence in archaeology, and the construction of both the past and the present through archaeology and museology.

Andrea Hoegler is a U2 Anthropology major with a minor in Geography. Her wide range of interests spans both areas of archaeology and socio-cultural anthropology, though her most current research involves the examination of gender roles and migration patterns in the fields of environmental and ecological anthropology.

Alice Walker is a U3 Honours Anthropology student with a minor in Political Science. Her research interests include sensory ethnography, anthropology of work in Northern Canada, identity formation, and gender. Her academic work and interests are deeply influenced by previous experience is journalism.

Christine King is majoring in International Development, with a minor in Anthropology. Research interests include African studies and the role of ethnic tourism in forming cultural identities within minority groups.

Winter 2012 Vo l . 2

Hiver 2012 Vo l . 2

F i e l d s - Te r r a i n s

McGill Undergraduate Journal of Anthropology -

Revue des étudiants au baccalauréat en anthropologie de McGill -