Download On a nineteenth century argument against armchair

T.R. Edward
On a nineteenth century argument against armchair anthropologists doing fieldwork
Author: Terence Rajivan Edward, University of Manchester.
Abstract. In the nineteenth century, there were concerns about the reliability of the amateur
sources which academic anthropologists relied on. It was proposed that such anthropologists
leave their armchairs, go out and study primitive societies themselves. But an argument was
also put forward against doing this. In this paper, I reconstruct the argument and defend it
against one objection which is likely to be made today. But I also point out that it is
vulnerable to another objection.
Introduction
At present the discipline of social anthropology is closely associated with doing
fieldwork. More specifically, it is associated with doing fieldwork which involves
participating in the way of life of a small society. An anthropologist goes to a society,
participates in the way of life there for roughly a year or longer, takes notes regarding this
way of life and then informs other anthropologists about what they found. Both social
anthropologists and others who are acquainted with this discipline may well assume that if a
person is a social anthropologist, then they have done such fieldwork, or else a kind of
fieldwork descended from it. But this association of the discipline with fieldwork was not
present throughout its history.
In the nineteenth century, academic anthropologists were interested in what they
believed to be primitive societies, but they mostly did not do fieldwork. They relied on
amateur sources for information about these societies, such as missionaries and travellers.
They formed theories on the basis of these sources, notably theories about how societies
evolve. But a concern grew about the reliability of these amateur sources (Kuklick 1996:
1
T.R. Edward
613). Owing to this concern, arguments were made that anthropologists should leave their
armchairs and gather information about primitive societies themselves.
The historian of social anthropology Henrika Kuklick tells us that not all
anthropologists agreed with this argument. She tells us that there was in fact an argument put
forward against doing fieldwork, an argument that she presents as the official justification for
the division between armchair theorist and fieldworker (1996: 613). She does not give
sources for this argument apart from Sir James Frazer, whom she implies endorsed the
argument long after the height of its popularity (1997: 54). The Frazer source she refers to
does not explicitly make the argument, but it is suggested (1932: 918). The argument is that if
academic anthropologists did fieldwork in addition to their theorizing, it would compromise
their objectivity, because they would be tempted to report only data that supports their
theories and not data that challenges these theories; and compromising their objectivity is
something which they must not do (1996: 613).
I shall refer to this argument as Frazer’s argument, but it may well be that he was the
very last person to advocate it, and not the first. Here is a premise by premise reconstruction
of the argument:
(1) Anthropological theorists – those who form or evaluate theories about primitive
societies – should achieve uncompromised objectivity.
(2) Uncompromised objectivity can only be achieved by anthropological theorists if they
do not personally gather data about primitive societies, because they are likely to
report only data that supports their theories.
(3) If anthropological theorists do not personally gather data about primitive societies, the
only alternative (at present) is to rely on data gathered by amateur inquirers.
(4) If anthropological theorists rely on data gathered by amateur inquirers, this will not
compromise their objectivity.
2
T.R. Edward
Therefore:
(5) Anthropological theorists should not personally gather data about primitive societies.
Instead they should rely on data gathered by amateur inquirers.
The opponents of this argument at the time did not accept its fourth premise. They thought
that it is too risky to rely on amateur inquirers, whose prejudices and preconceptions had too
great an effect on reports. But there are other concerns that I anticipate being raised today.
One of these concerns is that uncompromised objectivity is not an appropriate goal for
anthropologists. In this paper, I consider how an advocate of the argument can defend
themselves against this concern. I also raise a different concern about the argument, a concern
that I think cannot be defended against.
The concern about uncompromised objectivity
Recall the content of premise (1): anthropological theorists should achieve
uncompromised objectivity. At least since the 1980s, many anthropologists have doubted that
anthropologists can achieve uncompromised objectivity. And if anthropologists cannot
achieve uncompromised objectivity, why say that they should achieve this?
Let us say that an anthropological theorist achieves uncompromised objectivity at a
certain point in time if, and only if, the theories they recommend at that point in time
correspond to how the world is and are justified by reliable data. One of the reasons why
some anthropologists doubt that they can achieve uncompromised objectivity is because
uncompromised objectivity would require understanding the world in a way that is not
distorted by the concepts of a culture, yet these anthropologists think that it is impossible to
know that one has understood the world in an undistorted way.
There are various responses which an advocate of Frazer’s argument can give to this
doubt. I shall present one response. We know very well that some representations of reality
3
T.R. Edward
are misrepresentations of it. For example, consider the statement, “England at present is ruled
by just one person, a Queen, and this Queen has absolute power, so that whatever she
instructs is done.” Anyone familiar with England today knows that this is a gross
misrepresentation of reality. The advocate of Frazer’s argument will say that we can expect
gross misrepresentations if anthropologists involved in theoretical debates also do fieldwork.
It is just that the misrepresentations will mostly be about other societies. An anthropological
theorist in the field will be tempted to describe the society under study so that it conforms to
their theories. If one of their theories is significantly false, gross misrepresentation will be the
result. Maybe it is too strong to say that anthropologists should achieve uncompromised
objectivity, but they should avoid such misrepresentations.
Is there really a danger of gross misrepresentation? Unfortunately, this defence of
Frazer’s argument can be given some support. I shall begin by considering misrepresentations
not of the people studied by anthropologists but of the discipline’s past. There are articles
which draw attention to how some anthropologists, as part of presenting themselves as
making novel contributions, have misrepresented previous anthropological work (Lewis
1998; Sahlins 1999). For example, Marshall Sahlins complains about contemporary
anthropologists who say that they are drawing attention to how there is frequent cultural
change, unlike anthropologists of a previous era, who supposedly portrayed cultures as
unchanging (1999: 404-405). His complaint is that earlier anthropologists believed in
frequent cultural change as well and did not work under the illusion that cultures are
unchanging. If there are cases of anthropologists producing gross misrepresentations of the
discipline’s past, it is reasonable to wonder whether the people anthropologists report about
in the present have also sometimes been subject to gross misrepresentation, when there is an
incentive to do so. The advocate of Frazer’s argument will say that we should reduce those
incentives by keeping the roles of fieldworker and theorist apart.
4
T.R. Edward
At this point, I anticipate someone saying that the roles can never properly be kept
apart. Rather the fieldworker will inevitably rely on an implicit theory. The advocate of
Frazer’s argument can say that this implicit theory will involve minimal commitments, which
it is not a problem to work with, such as the view that there are persons, that persons have
thoughts and feelings, and that these thoughts and feelings can differ from person to person. I
agree that an implicit minimal theory would not do damage to the division between theorist
and fieldworker, but the point needs further investigation. I shall leave this task aside here
and move on to another concern.
The concern about equal opportunities
In order to do social anthropology in the way envisaged by Frazer’s argument, there
would need to be a mutually exclusive division between two groups: fieldworkers and
theorists. In Frazer’s time, fieldworkers would have been amateur inquirers. In our own time,
they could be replaced by academic specialists in field research, but still a division between
the two groups has to be maintained, such that no one falls into both groups. Fieldworkers
would gather data. Even if they all implicitly rely on a minimal theory, they should not
actively form or evaluate general propositions about societies in their reports. That is the job
of theorists.
Imagine then the following situation, which is hypothetical but is based on actual
writings (Mauss 2002: 37). A fieldworker reads some theoretical works that are relevant to
anthropology. One such work is Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, where Smith assumes
that economies are either barter economies or else economies in which money is often used
for exchanges (Book I, Chapter 4). The fieldworker then realizes that their fieldwork data
provides a counterexample to this assumption. They have observed an economy which is not
a monetary economy, because there is no money, but nor is it adequately characterized as a
5
T.R. Edward
barter economy, because barter is not the main way in which ownership is transferred. Instead
the society is dominated by gift-giving.
If Frazer’s recommendations for anthropology were to be followed, the fieldworker
should not point out that they have found a counterexample. They should say, “In this
society, the main way in which ownership is transferred is by gift-giving.” But they should
not say, “Adam Smith’s theory involves an assumption that there are two types of economy
and this society is a counterexample.” Frazer places them under a duty to leave it to theorists
to make such connections between theory and field data. But to formally deny the
fieldworker the opportunity to gain recognition not just for gathering the data but also for
realizing the connection – for realizing that the data refutes a certain theory – seems very
unfair. Even to promote an informal norm not to say the things which could potentially gain
them this recognition, without formally denying the fieldworker the opportunity to gain it,
seems very unfair. I think there are norms of fairness which override the recommendations
that Frazer’s argument leads to regarding how anthropology should be organized.
The division of labour between theorists and field researchers was challenged in
anthropology at a time when it was also being challenged or was collapsing in other
disciplines. According to Kuklick, in Britain this division was associated with class divisions
(1997: 53). Theorists were supposed to be from the upper class, because the upper class were
supposed to have a greater capacity for devising and evaluating theories. Gathering data was
supposed to be for the lower classes, because it does not involve theoretical work and because
of the risks involved, such as the risk of gathering specimens from hazardous natural
environments or the (supposed) risk of being eaten by cannibals. Lower class lives were
judged to be of less value, meaning that it was better for them to undertake these risks. I do
not know who exactly held these prejudices, though they extended well beyond social
anthropology into natural history and geology. I do not know whether Frazer shared them.
6
T.R. Edward
But the denial of opportunities that we have considered would not have troubled some
original advocates of the argument, because they did not regard fieldworkers as people who
would make connections between theories and fieldwork data, owing to a lack of knowledge
of the relevant theories. This lack of knowledge was thought to be something good for
science, because it made fieldworkers all the more objective (Kuklick 1997: 54).
Anthropology today, which is not organized in a way that is based on class prejudices
and allows for combining the roles of fieldworker and theorist, is much more egalitarian. But
I also think that there are points which this statement potentially masks. Adam Smith would
have said that the division of labour is likely to reassert itself. Some people will prefer to
focus on gathering data, others on theorizing and they have much to gain from specializing
and working together. However, it is beyond the scope of this paper to investigate this point.
References
Frazer, J.G. 1932. Obituary: Canon John Roscoe. Nature 130: 918.
Lewis, H. 1998. Anthropology and Race, Then and Now: Commentary on K. Visweswaren,
“Race and Culture of Anthropology.” American Anthropologist 100: 979-981.
Kuklick, H. 1996. Islands in the Pacific: Darwinian Biogeography and British Anthropology.
American Ethnologist 23: 611-638.
Kuklick, H. 1997. After Ishmael: The Fieldwork Tradition and Its Future. In A. Gupta and J.
Ferguson (eds.), Anthropological Locations: Boundaries and Grounds of a Field Science.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Mauss, M. 2002 (originally 1950). The Gift. London: Routledge.
Sahlins, M. 1999. Two or Three Things that I Know about Culture. The Journal of the Royal
Anthropological Institute 5: 399-421.
7
T.R. Edward
Smith, A. 1904 (originally 1776). An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of
Nations. London: Methuen. Available at: http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN.html
8