ANTHROPOLOGISTS LOOK THROUGH EYES OF THE ANTHROPOLOGISTS LOOK THROUGH EYES OF THE

GROUP/SYSTEM: GROUP/SYSTEM: WHAT WHAT MAKES INDIVIDUALS MAKES INDIVIDUALS TICK?TICK?

In preparing my paper for this congress I asked myself two questions

TWO CORE QUESTIONS

How enables TABOO, seen anthropologically from indigenous

societies, to explain and deal with contemporary transgression

problems of/with young men in our societies?

Can we find and determine human cultures/communities/

contexts where TABOO TRANSGRESSIONS are managed

effectively from a system’s survival point of view?

MEDIATORS BETWEEN TABOOS & THE SACRED

REDRESSING YOUNG MEN’S TRANSGRESSIONSREDRESSING YOUNG MEN’S TRANSGRESSIONS FROM SYSTEMIC ANTHROPOLOGYFROM SYSTEMIC ANTHROPOLOGY

REYNARD THE FOX A cultural hero in medieval European mythology mimicking contemporary human society.

Though Reynard is sly, amoral, cowardly, and self-seeking and transgressor of ‘sacred values’. Still a sympathetic hero, whose cunning is a necessity for survival of society.

source: Charles Solomon Hyperion 1995

paper presentation (copyright Moira CTT)

Dirck van Bekkum (moira@ctt.nl (www.ctt.nl) Cultural & Systemic Anthropologist, The Netherlands

Taboo Conference II (TaCo2104) Durham University United Kingdom

CLINICAL ANTHROPOLOGYCLINICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

As a ‘clinical’ Dutch anthropologist/therapist/teacher I:

1) worked for 10 years in NL psychiatry with young men

2) trained hundreds (mental) health care of professionals

3) since 2007 educate transcultural family therapists.

ad 1) About 500 young men I guided in mental health setting

ad 2) Our students are experienced youth & mental health

care workers with experience and for more than 50% from

families/communities with migration histories.

Transgressing taboos are important in young men’s

worlds and in professionals works settings.

YOUNG MEN AS TRANSGRESSORS OF CORE VALUESYOUNG MEN AS TRANSGRESSORS OF CORE VALUES

About 500 young men I guided were somehow

transgressing Dutch core values while they ended up in

rehabilitation/resocialization programs in youth care,

psychiatric and juvenile correctional settings

- Sexual, physical and psychological violence

(assault, rape, bullying, harassing, knives etc)

- Criminality

(sexual assaults, shoplifting, resisting arrest, robbery)

- ‘Abnormality’

(learning disorders, drug abuse, psychiatry disorders: impulse

disorder, anti-social personality, ..)

YOUNG MEN’S TRANSGRESSING TABOOS YOUNG MEN’S TRANSGRESSING TABOOS

AS DESIRE TO CONNECT WITH THE SACREDAS DESIRE TO CONNECT WITH THE SACRED

Close to THE SACRED means feeling whole/beautiful

To be in the ZONE (in chilling, dancing, rapping),

To tune yourself in bodily skills (sport/break-dance)

To space yourself out in taking drugs

To make fine love to a girl is arriving at your destination

To feel bliss in dare deviling, taking risks

To feel bliss by wearing yourself out to the limit

To feel good and deeply connected during dance events

CAN BE SEEN AS CRAVING FOR THE SACRED

YOUNG MEN’S WORLDS IN WHICH TO YOUNG MEN’S WORLDS IN WHICH TO

COPE WITH SACRED VALUES (TABOOS)COPE WITH SACRED VALUES (TABOOS)

- Coming of Age (in transition from leaving child to enter adult worlds)

- Gender (socializing male sexual and aggression drives into ‘fitting’ masculinities)

- Family Issues (divorce, domestic/sexual violence, unsafely)

- Education (schools: motivation problems, learning disorders, etc)

- Occupation (how get a fitting, steady, payed job?)

- Racism and Sexism (young men experience one or more forms of destructive exclusion)

Major issues from young men’s view were: ‘LIMINAL VULNERABILITIES’,

UNSAFE ENVIRONMENTS and ‘CONFLICTING LOYALTIES’ in their worlds

How do other indigenous societies cope with theses issues?

We co-developed several ‘clinical concepts/models’ from anthropological insights:

- ‘Balancing Ethnic & National Loyalties’ (1999, 2001, 2006)

- ‘Transitional Model’ Taking migration as life-phase-transition (1996; 2010)

This paper redresses these issues in a Batesonian systemic framework

INDIGENOUS CULTURES PREVENTING INDIGENOUS CULTURES PREVENTING

TRANSGRESSING OF TABOOS TRANSGRESSING OF TABOOS (SACRED VALUES) (SACRED VALUES)

A TRICKSTER IS GUARDIANA TRICKSTER IS GUARDIAN OF OF TABOOS AND ..TABOOS AND .. A A MEDIATOR BETWEEN TABOOS & THE SACRED. MEDIATOR BETWEEN TABOOS & THE SACRED.

HE/SHE JOKES AND SCARES PEOPLE TO THE BONE AND HE/SHE JOKES AND SCARES PEOPLE TO THE BONE AND ..CONVEYS THE DEEPER MESSAGE ..CONVEYS THE DEEPER MESSAGE

HOWHOW CRUCIAL TABOOS ARE IN SURVIVAL/PROSPERITYCRUCIAL TABOOS ARE IN SURVIVAL/PROSPERITY .. AS FRAGILE AS HUMAN SOCIETIES/COMMUNITIES ARE .. AS FRAGILE AS HUMAN SOCIETIES/COMMUNITIES ARE

Source: artist BritishSource: artist British Columbia Indigenous PeoplesColumbia Indigenous Peoples

REDRESSING THE TABOO CONCEPTREDRESSING THE TABOO CONCEPT

Redressing the taboo concept:

- from an anthropological-systemic

Batesonian perspective

- leads to an innovative explanation of

transgressions of young men in

contemporary societies

Some western projections:

“taboos are not necessarily sacred anymore”

“taboos prevent us from ‘real freedom’ so let go of them”

“‘primitive (non-western) cultures’ need taboos to control their sexual/aggression instincts: we don’t!”

Overcoming taboos concern mostly religion and sex

Marshall Sahlins claims in his 2008 Tanner Lecture:

that Europe’s most suppressed taboo is a deep seated

collective anxiety for chaos and anarchy in society

TABOO CONCEPT TABOO CONCEPT

BURDENED WITH WESTERN PROJECTIONSBURDENED WITH WESTERN PROJECTIONS

CROSSCROSS--CULTURAL COMPARISON AS METHOD CULTURAL COMPARISON AS METHOD

TO CLEANSE THE TABOO CONCEPTTO CLEANSE THE TABOO CONCEPT

Steiner (1956): 4 active ingredients in TABOO in indigenous societies:

1) represents values crucial to survival of the community

2) defines the value and effectiveness of rituals

3) protects the individual in danger

4) protects society from endangered/dangerous persons

Cross-Cultural Compared ..a taboo transgressing

individual and his family/community run the risk of

being punished by supernatural (ancestral) powers

(Haviland et al. 2013).

TABOO IS CONNECTED WITH TABOO IS CONNECTED WITH

SACRED VALUES AND RITUALSSACRED VALUES AND RITUALS

Expanding Bateson systems theory…

transgressing taboos can be translated as

endangering a system’s stability and survival.

He coins this as ‘runaway schismogenetic

communication patterns’ (Bateson 1972; 1987)

Schismogenesis, making differences, is all

present in biological, and thus in human, systems

CENTRAL THEME IN BATESON'S WORKCENTRAL THEME IN BATESON'S WORK

Schismogenesis can be translated to anthropological

conceptions of TABOO as disrupting/damaging sacred

values. (Bateson 1969/1991)

How to differentiate between constructive

(promoting survival) and destructive

(endangering survival) schismogenesis?

In his cybernetic systemic conception:

How do human systems restrain control

destructive tendencies of schismogenesis?

Bateson did not offer a definite answer to this question!

TRANSGRESSING INDIVIDUALS TRANSGRESSING INDIVIDUALS

AS CORRECTING SCHISMOGENETIC ERRORSAS CORRECTING SCHISMOGENETIC ERRORS

Bateson saw, following Durkheim on social

deviant (transgressing) individuals as change

agents in social systems. He himself tried to be one!

Can young men be seen as champions challenging

prevailing values and ethics? And…as systemic

‘whistle blowers’ when communicational patterns

become incongruent, pathological, and/or outdated?

COMBINING BATESON THEME WITH COMBINING BATESON THEME WITH

TURNER’S CONCEPTION OF TURNER’S CONCEPTION OF COMMUNITASCOMMUNITAS

..combining Bateson’s question with Victor and Edith Turner’s

conception of COMMUNITAS in rituals a clinical (applicable

and testable) answer emerges.

(V. Turner 1969; 1974; E. Turner 2012).

Young men, being liminal in order to leave child worlds and

enter adult worlds, are desperately in need of deep safe, congruent

transformational spaces where they can synchronize their

biological/hormonal with social maturation.

Being in COMMUNITAS emerging in initiation

rituals these ‘transitional’ spaces are offered.

CAN TABOOS BECOME PATHOLOGICAL?CAN TABOOS BECOME PATHOLOGICAL?

Self-evident value-loaden patterns of

communication, according to Bateson, can

indeed become pathological and can disrupt a

system’s self-correcting abilities. (domestic violence!!)

Connecting this with young men’ transgressing

could be taken as signaling unsafe contexts in

families, peergroups, schools, public spaces (rape),

companies (mass lay-off) etc.

COMMUNITAS AS A SACRED SPACECOMMUNITAS AS A SACRED SPACE

During the second ‘liminal’ phase in indigenous

rites of passage a sacred/transitional space emerges

in which, when sufficient emotional security

is generated ‘COMMUNITAS’ may occur.

This is a collective, trance but conscious, state during

which temporarily (gender-age-class-ethnic)

differences, inequalities, tensions and animosities

disappear to make room for deep feelings of

belonging, of bliss, of home, of heaven, of joy. Edith Turner (2012) Communitas: The Anthropology of Collective Joy).

COCO--CREATING SACRED/TRANSITIONAL SPACES CREATING SACRED/TRANSITIONAL SPACES

IN CLINICAL AND EDUCATIONAL SETTINGIN CLINICAL AND EDUCATIONAL SETTING

In our clinical settings with young men and

their families (Van Bekkum 2001) and in educating

transcultural family therapists we experienced in

numerous occasions co-creation of sacred/

transitional spaces in which collective experiences

of (different intensities of) communitas emerge.

(Van Bekkum 1999; Van Bekkum et. al. 2010).

YOUNG MEN AS UNCONSCIOUS TRICKSTERSYOUNG MEN AS UNCONSCIOUS TRICKSTERS

BY DISRUPTING OUR DAILY COMFORT ZONESBY DISRUPTING OUR DAILY COMFORT ZONES

CAN WE SEE YOUNG MEN AS MEDIATORS

BETWEEN TABOOS AND THE SACRED?

In any case, I see.. young men’s transgressing

TABOOS (time & context bound) as signaling

‘pathological’ schismogenetic tendencies in

social systems in which they come of age.

(families, peergroups, schools, companies, religions)

...the sacred cannot be housed only represented ...over and again......the sacred cannot be housed only represented ...over and again...

((after Dudley Young, The Origins of the Sacredafter Dudley Young, The Origins of the Sacred, 1991), 1991)

NO ARCHETYPES, BUT MOVING CONCEPTIONS

A GREAT FATHER AND A GREAT MOTHER

ANCIENT, FLEXIBLE, PERMABLE, ENOUGH

TO HOUSE OUR PAINS, FEARS, DESIRES

TO DIRECT US HOME AGAIN this are wooden sculptures made Dirck van Bekkum in 1995

in longing for the SACRED in-between Female and Male worlds