An Anthropology of the Enlightenment

Moral Social Relations Then and Today

Huon Wardle, Nigel Rapport, Huon Wardle, Nigel Rapport

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781350086593
• eBook ISBN: 9781000181562
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

In a time of intellectual uncertainty, the question of how we know what we do about human lives becomes ever more pressing. The essays collated in this volume argue that anthropology can be used to acknowledge, explore and interpret divergence and ideological conflict over human meaning. Using questions raised as part of the Enlightenment movement, this volume is structured around some of the key themes the Enlightenment fostered, including human nature, time, Earth and the Cosmos, beauty, order, harmony and design, moral sentiments, and the query of whether wealthy nations make for healthy publics. The volume focuses in particular on how 'moral sentiment' offered a guiding idea in Enlightenment thought. The idea of 'moral sentiment' is central to the essays' grappling with the ethical anxieties of contemporary anthropology. The essays therefore trace historical connections and fissures and focus on Adam Smith's attempts toward an understanding of what would later be called 'modernity'. With an afterword from Marilyn Strathern, this volume will be a strong addition to the Association of Social Anthropologists conference proceedings.

1
After Sympathy, a Question

Anne Line Dalsgård

‘Here! Read this book and you will know everything about me’. Evinha handed me a small paperback with almost yellow pages and a worn out cover. ‘Julia’, the title read. I took it with me and made sure to read it before meeting her next time. I was interested in Evinha’s life, had known her since she was 15, and now – 32 years old – she was one of the key informants in my fieldwork. The novel told the story of a young woman in the United States, who worked as an interior designer. She had recently started her own company when she met a man, whom she first found to be a superficial, rich playboy, but in time came to love deeply. Julia was slim and blond (was that in the book or in my imagination?), she definitely wore jeans and flat shoes, and she looked breathtaking in the silk dress she wore at the wedding at the end of the book. She was perky, chic and independent. It is probably needless to say that the novel was very predictable, and yet I was totally absorbed in it. What needs mentioning, though, is that I did not see any similarity between Julia and Evinha. Why did Evinha give it to me? Trying to answer that question, I became aware of another.

In the following I will describe how I found my way to a kind of understanding of Evinha’s statement and where that left me. I will present a small piece of fictional writing (you could call it sympathetic imagining) and Evinha’s reaction to it; then I will discuss Adam Smith’s notion of sympathy and its relevance for anthropological fieldwork and understanding; and finally I will return to Evinha and the question she left me with – a question which has to do with friendship and the proper posture towards a friend’s distress. You could say that it reaches beyond anthropology and is a matter of personal, moral judgement; you could also say that friendship has nothing to do with the anthropological endeavour, as every relation between the anthropologist and the people he or she studies is inherently unequal, instrumental and temporary; but, obviously, this all depends on how we understand friendship and how we practise anthropology. In the following I locate the question within a discussion of ethics and the moments in fieldwork when typifications like ‘fieldworker’ and ‘informant’ are destabilized (Throop 2012: 164) or simply made irrelevant. I then return to this discussion later, at the end of the chapter.

The particular fieldwork that I draw upon took place in a low-income neighbourhood on the outskirts of the city of Recife in northeast Brazil in December 2013. I have conducted fieldwork in this neighbourhood over periods of varying length since 1997, when I first arrived there as a PhD student (see Dalsgård 2004; Dalsgård and Frederiksen 2014).

Ethics and fieldwork: An old discussion

The discussion of ethics is not new to anthropologists. How often have we not discussed the notion that the ethical questions of our profession cannot be answered by rules and guidelines, but need to be an integrated part of our research practices (Hastrup 2009: 7)? That ethics in our kind of research is not a matter of ‘abstractly correct behaviour, but of relations between people’ (Patai 1991: 145), as we repeatedly find ourselves in situations in which we are forced to consciously consider the correct ethical response. This is seldom just a response to a practical matter; often it concerns our intervention into people’s self-understanding and sense of agency. Though in the 1960s it was still possible to ask whether anthropologists were only ‘playing an intellectual game in which nobody outside our own tiny circle is interested’ (Gjessing in Caplan 2003: 6), we have had to acknowledge since then that our interlocutors in the field may be readers, perhaps also of our research if we publish in their language, and we can no longer pretend that we do not have a responsibility towards these readers. Even without reading our analyses, our interlocutors may be provoked by the anthropological approach to reflect upon their own lives, perhaps by comparing life situations (Gay y Blasco and de la Cruz Hernández 2012), perhaps just through the questions we ask face to face, which may touch upon matters otherwise unquestioned.

In her essay ‘U.S. Academics and Third World Women: Is Ethical Research Possible?’, Daphne Patai writes on ethnographic interviewing that ‘part of what those interviewed “get” from the process is precisely the undivided attention directed at them by another individual’ (1991: 142). Doing fieldwork among low-income women in Brazil, Patai observed that the opportunity to talk about one’s life, to make sense to oneself and to another human being of choices made and actions taken (or not) seemed to be ‘an intrinsically valuable experience’ (1991: 142). Like Patai, I have found that my so-called informants often appreciate interviews as meaningful occasions for reflection, and not only in Brazil. Doing fieldwork among accountants in Denmark, we noticed that ‘most informants appreciated the opportunity to share experiences and their possible meaning with a couple of outsiders, and a question like “Why did you become an accountant?” seemed to allow for thoughts that were rarely touched upon in the daily hubbub’ (Dalsgård 2008: 147, my translation).

The inequality of social status, however, makes the intervention into women’s lives in Brazilian low-income neighbourhoods more ethically dubious, or at least this is what we usually think: the attention and ‘comparatively non-judgemental acceptance’ (Stacey 1991: 117) that ethnographic interviews may offer interviewees may lead to a level of intimacy on false premises, as ‘the lives, loves, and tragedies that fieldwork informants share with a researcher are ultimately data – grist for the ethnographic mill’ (Stacey 1991: 113) and the researcher can leave the field much more freely than the research subject, without leaving any intimate revelations behind in exchange for the ‘data’ she carries away (Patai 1991: 142). The conclusion to be drawn may very well be that truly ethical research cannot be done in an unethical world (Patai 1991: 150). From that perspective, any illusion about friendship necessarily withers away. However, knowing that I risk being judged and being regarded (at best) as naïve, I wish to present a different conclusion: that some encounters in the field force us to step out of the safe framework of research and accept friendship with all that it involves in terms of affection and commitment. In If Not the Words Keith Ridler places ‘the dense fabric of friendship, its close-woven texture, multiple – sometimes conflicting – role expectations, its emotional weight in carrying us beyond the conceptual boundaries of self’ at the heart of the ethnographic encounter as it is experienced in fieldwork (Ridler 1996: 250). Ridler’s background is one of long-term, repeated fieldwork and practical engagement in everyday activities of the field, and it may be the difference between just interviewing and participant observation during longer periods that evokes these different perspectives on fieldwork.

At least, the question of ethics that I address in the following is likewise tied to the kind of fieldwork in which you live with the people you study over lengthy periods and to whom you return for subsequent fieldwork, thereby affirming that your relationships in the field are more than just instrumental and temporary. You meet the same people in many different life situations, and you yourself change over the years. Life stories get intertwined when – as in the case of Evinha – the girl whom you once met as the timid daughter of one of your informants grows up and works with you as an assistant in order to earn money for entering nursing school; subsequently taking part in your research as an informant when she is a young mother. Her projects have changed along the way, as have my own. We have helped each other: she once told me that I was the first person in her life to trust her capacity to work (when I gave her a job as an assistant); and I have asked her a lot of questions for my research, because I like her sincere answers and the way she confronts my ignorance. We have also simply spent time together, often sitting on her sofas, which over the years have improved in quality. While much more has passed between us, I will focus upon a particular occurrence in the following, which I shall call a moment of mutual sympathy.

The concept of sympathy that I employ is Adam Smith’s concept of the sentiment of an impartial and well-informed spectator, by way of whom one may imaginatively put oneself in the situation of another. His is thus not necessarily a caring sentiment; just a feeling along with someone. I argue that writing fiction based on ethnographic data may be a sympathetic experiment in which the situation of another can be explored, and I describe how such an experiment may be received by the other person whom it sets out to understand. Moreover, I will argue that friendship is a potential realization of such a sympathetic imagining. This argument involves, as we shall see, a definition of friendship which is based on the mutual recognition of difference. It also involves a question of responsibility, which transcends the framework of research and moves us into ‘the “poetics” of fieldwork’, i.e. the construction and performance of relationship (Ridler 1996: 246), and shows us that fiction can be real (including the fiction of anthropological field research identified by Clifford Geertz) because it has real consequences. Evinha, who is at the centre of my argument, is a young woman of Afro-Brazilian descent, who grew up in a house in illegally occupied territory in a so-called favela with parents who could only afford the most basic necessities. Today she lives with her husband and two children, and her days are full of activities, as she has a job in town and also takes care of kids and does the housework. She and her husband have their difficulties. I have always found Evinha beautiful with her lively movements and infectious laughter. Over the years she has acquired a slightly more ample girth, but that does not prevent her from squeezing into a pair of tight shorts to go for a stroll in the neighbourhood in the evenings. Evinha is not the person I write about in the story below, but her story along with others formed part of the empirical foundation for my writing. After telling the story I shall explain how it changed my relationship with her.

A fictional story

It’s been a long time since Betty last cried. She feels an urge to give in and sob until she’s inside out. She pulls her legs up and gets the rocking chair moving. Yes, she is sad and she needs to be held. The rain is dripping down between the roof tiles, which have always leaked. She can hear the heavy splashing on the concrete below. The sounds have come closer and the mosquitoes have settled on the wall. The rocking of the chair is making her calm. She keeps it going to hold back the tears. Like some kind of spell. ‘Betty! Hurry. The key!’ She isn’t getting up. ‘Beeetty!’ He keeps going but she doesn’t want to get up. Doesn’t want to go outside, open the gate and let her father in. All of a sudden she feels faded. Just rocking. ‘Betty, meu Deus! Come out and open up!’ She takes the key, steps out into the soggy courtyard and opens the padlock on the gate. The hinges squeak, and the gate has to be lifted back into place. She pulls the chain back around the bars and puts the padlock on. Click! ‘Have you eaten?’ he asks on his way in. He hurries through the rain. She immediately knows that he’s been drinking, the white in his eyes always goes a little brown. She is hungry, but still says yes. ‘You need to eat well, my girl. I’ve brought some bread.’ Betty doesn’t reply. She returns to the rocking chair and turns on the TV. It’s very small and the image is so fuzzy. It’s actually hard to see anything at all, but it’s an excuse for not listening. The eight o’clock novela is on. Some middle-class wife gets a visit from her son. Their voices are shrill, one fast line after the other. An unimportant argument.

Her father is rummaging around in the kitchen, the sound of eggs being fried. And then the smell of steamed cuscuz that spreads to the living room. That dented steamer is her childhood. The lid doesn’t really fit anymore, allowing the smell to move more freely around the house. It carries with it the happiness of being at home back then when she still didn’t know who she was. When she still didn’t know that she was going to live such a predictable life. Back when she thought that everything belonged to her and that she had a choice. The worst thing wasn’t the disappointment, but the fact that no one had told her the truth.

Whistling, shouts and laughter by the gate. ‘Bettiiiii!!’ Her father goes to open. Comes back in, accompanied by her sister. ‘What terrible rain! I almost floated all the way down to the highway, had to take off my sandals so they didn’t leave me behind.’ Nonsense and laughter as always. Anita’s shorts and legs are covered in sprays of mud from her sandals. She gets a towel from the kitchen. As she’s wiping herself off, she looks at her sister. Severely. But quickly changing to a teasing look. She can’t help it. It’s tiresome, but somehow protective. It’s almost impossible to talk about problems when Anita is around. Betty gets up from the rocking chair to check on the boy. Her breasts tighten. She straightens the little blanket without knowing if she wants him to wake up or not. She runs a hand through her hair and pulls her nightgown into place. She’s been wearing it all day. Anita has sat down by the table. Betty takes a seat next to her. There are crumbs of bread left from this morning. She hasn’t wiped the oilcloth and the dishes aren’t done. Anita, my dear sister with the long nails and cheeky smile, can’t you for once just be quiet and take my hand? A puddle of water on the tablecloth. Betty dips her finger and draws a line. Her father puts a plate of cuscuz, bread and eggs in front of her and takes a seat in the rocking chair with his own full plate.

She sits up a bit straighter and starts picking at the food. Anita tells them about her new job at the telephone company. The mobile customers keep calling with stupid questions. It’s easy to spend too much time on them and she has started simply cutting them off if the call drags out. It’s piecework. Her wrist is aching from using the mouse. She spends too much time in front of the computer every day. Maybe she’ll have to quit soon. Even though she’s doing a good job. So they told her the other day. Talk, talk, talk. But then a break: ‘You need to find a job soon, sister, or you’ll go mad! You can’t just let father support you.’ Anita glances at her father, he’s eating and watching TV. In a lowered voice she adds, ‘People have started gossiping about you.’ Anita knows about gossip, she’s been the subject of it herself. You walk down the street with a shiver on your back and a thundering silence in your ears whenever gossip surrounds you. It’s evil and without intention at the same time. Anita used to cry a lot when people said that she had been a loose woman, that her daughter had many fathers, that she’d spread her legs for anyone. Most of all she cried because she had loved once and she knew that happiness is possible.

Why is Anita talking about the gossip? Doesn’t she know that you have to let it pass? That there’s no room in life for concerning yourself with gossip? People can think what they want. We all have our own inner world to take care of, and the outer world only exists so that we can survive. We need it, but only because we need food, a place to sleep, work, sex. What’s real is the abyss inside each of us. The condensed desire, beauty and pain that is tearing at our bodies. This is where she lives. Betty is watching her sister’s hands move through the air, the long fingers with the nails that make them even longer. Her hands look like insects, long legs, sharp claws, the bending joints. Anita lives a different life than she does. Anita is good, Anita is loving, Anita believes that you can change the past by loving another person. Anita keeps insisting that her child was planned. A love child.

A sex child? That term doesn’t exist. But the children exist. It’s believed that young women get pregnant out of stupidity. But Betty wasn’t stupid. She was wild. Her body vibrating and strong. The darkness surrounded her, pounding through her and pulling her down. In the light at the doctor’s, when the test confirmed her situation, everything was different and too late. She ended up as expected. Just one of a large number of young mothers who had been careless and didn’t use protection. Typical for her economic status and her home in a poor neighbourhood. Sh...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• Preface: The ‘Star’ Consortium and the ASA Decennial Conference
• Introduction: Moral Social Relations as Methodology and as Everyday Practice
• 1 After Sympathy, a Question
• 2 His Father Came to Him in His Sleep: An Essay on Enlightenment, Mortalities and Immortalities in Iceland
• 3 On ‘Bad Mind’: Orienting Sentiment in Jamaican Street Life
• 4 Westermarck, Moral Relativity and Ethical Behaviour
• 5 Saving Sympathy: Adam Smith, Morality, Law and Commerce
• 6 ‘Can We Have Our Nature/Culture Dichotomy Back, Please?’
• 7 Who Are We to Judge? Two Metalogues on Morality
• 8 ‘We Are All Human’: Cosmopolitanism as a Radically Political, Moral Project
• 9 Transference and Cosmopolitan Politesse: Coming to Terms with the Distorted, ‘Tragic’ Quality of Social Relations between Individual Human Beings
• 10 Afterword: Becoming Enlightened about Relations
• Index