beyond culture_ space identity and the politics of difference_ferguson_gupta
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Beyond "Culture": Space, Identity, and the Politics of DifferenceAuthor(s): Akhil Gupta and James FergusonReviewed work(s):Source: Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 7, No. 1, Space, Identity, and the Politics of Difference(Feb., 1992), pp. 6-23Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Anthropological Association
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Beyond "Culture":
Space, Identity, and the Politics ofDifference
Akhil GuptaDepartmentof Anthropology
StanfordUniversity
James FergusonDepartmentofAnthropology
Universityof California,Irvine
For a subjectwhose centralriteof passageis fieldwork,whoseromancehas rested
on itsexplorationof theremote("the most otherof others" [Hannerz1986:363]),whose criticalfunction s seen to lie in itsjuxtapositionof radicallydifferentwaysof being (located "elsewhere") with that of the anthropologists'own, usually
Western, culture,there has been surprisingly ittle self-consciousnessaboutthe
issue of spacein anthropologicalheory.(SomenotableexceptionsareAppadurai[1986, 1988], Hannerz 1987], andRosaldo[1988, 1989].) This collectionof five
ethnographic rticlesrepresentsa modestattempt o deal with the issues of spaceandplace, alongwithsome necessarilyrelatedconcernssuchas thoseof location,
displacement, ommunity,andidentity.Inparticular,we wish to explorehow the
renewed interestin theorizing space in postmodernistand feminist theory (An-zaldua1987;Baudrillard 988;Deleuze and Guattari1987;Foucault1982;Jame-
son 1984;Kaplan1987; MartinandMohanty1986)-embodied in such notions
as surveillance,panopticism,simulacra,deterritorialization, ostmodernhyper-
space,borderlands, ndmarginality-forces us to reevaluate uchcentralanalyticconcepts n anthropology s thatof "culture"and,by extension,theideaof "cul-
turaldifference."
Representations f space in the social sciences areremarkably ependenton
images of break,rupture,and disjunction.The distinctivenessof societies, na-
tions, andcultures s basedupona seeminglyunproblematic ivisionof space, on
the fact thatthey occupy "naturally"discontinuousspaces. The premiseof dis-
continuity ormsthe startingpoint from which to theorizecontact, conflict, and
contradiction etweenculturesand societies. Forexample, the representation f
the world as a collection of "countries," as in most world maps, sees it as aninherently ragmented pace, dividedby differentcolors intodiverse nationalso-
cieties, each "rooted" in its properplace (cf. Malkki, this issue). It is so taken
forgranted hateachcountryembodiesits own distinctivecultureandsociety that
the terms"society" and "culture" areroutinelysimply appended o the names
6
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BEYOND "CULTURE" 7
of nation-states,as whena touristvisits Indiato understand"Indianculture"and
"Indiansociety," or Thailand o experience"Thaiculture," or theUnitedStates
to get a whiff of "Americanculture."Of course,thegeographical erritories hatculturesand societies arebelieved
to map onto do not have to be nations. We do, for example, have ideas about
culture-areas hatoverlapseveralnation-states,or of multiculturalnations. On a
smallerscale, perhaps,areourdisciplinaryassumptionsabout the associationof
culturallyunitarygroups (tribesor peoples) with "their" territories: hus, "the
Nuer" live in "Nuerland" and so forth. The clearest illustrationof this kind of
thinkingare theclassic "ethnographicmaps" thatpurportedo displaythe spatialdistributionof peoples, tribes, and cultures. But in all these cases, space itself
becomes a kindof neutralgridon which culturaldifference, historicalmemory,andsocietalorganizationare inscribed. It is in this way thatspace functions as acentralorganizingprinciplein the social sciences at the same time that it disap-pearsfromanalyticalpurview.
This assumedisomorphismof space, place, and cultureresultsin some sig-nificantproblems.First, there is the issue of those who inhabitthe border,that
"narrow tripalongsteep edges" (Anzaldua1987:3)of nationalboundaries.Thefiction of culturesas discrete, object-likephenomenaoccupying discretespacesbecomesimplausible or those who inhabit heborderlands.Relatedto border n-
habitants rethose who live a life of border rossings-migrant workers,nomads,and membersof the transnationalbusiness and professionalelite. What is "theculture" of farmworkerswho spendhalf a year in Mexico andhalf a yearin theUnitedStates?Finally, there are those who cross bordersmore or less perma-nently-immigrants, refugees, exiles, andexpatriates.In theircase, the disjunc-ture of place andculture s especially clear:Khmerrefugees in the UnitedStatestake "Khmerculture" with them in the same complicated way that Indian im-
migrants n England ransport"Indianculture" to their new homeland.A second set of problemsraised by the implicit mappingof cultures onto
places is to accountforculturaldifferenceswithin a locality. "Multiculturalism"is both a feeble acknowledgmentof the fact that cultureshave lost theirmooringsin definiteplaces and an attempt o subsume this pluralityof cultures withintheframeworkof a nationalidentity. Similarly, the idea of "subcultures"attemptsto preservethe idea of distinct "cultures" while acknowledgingthe relation ofdifferentculturesto a dominantculturewithin the same geographicaland terri-torialspace. Conventionalaccountsof ethnicity,even whenused to describecul-turaldifferences n settingswherepeople fromdifferentregionslive side by side,
rely on an unproblematicink between identityandplace.' Althoughsuch con-
cepts aresuggestivebecausethey endeavorto stretchthe naturalizedassociationof culturewithplace, they fail to interrogatehis assumption n a trulyfundamen-tal manner.We need to ask how to dealwithculturaldifferencewhile abandoningreceived ideas of (localized) culture.
Third, there is the importantquestionof postcoloniality. To which placesdo the hybridcultures of postcoloniality belong? Does the colonial encountercreate a "new culture" in both the colonized andcolonizing country,or does it
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8 CULTURALANTHROPOLOGY
destabilizethe notion thatnations andculturesare isomorphic?As discussed be-
low, postcoloniality furtherproblematizesthe relationshipbetween space and
culture.
Last,andmostimportant, hallenging herupturedandscapeof independentnations and autonomous cultures raises the question of understanding ocial
changeand cultural ransformation s situatedwithin interconnected paces. The
presumptionhatspaces are autonomoushas enabled the powerof topography o
conceal successfullythe topographyof power. The inherently ragmented paceassumed n the definitionof anthropologyas the studyof cultures(in the plural)
may have been one of the reasons behind the long-standingfailure to write an-
thropology'shistoryas the biographyof imperialism.For if one begins with the
premisethat spaces have always been hierarchically nterconnected, nsteadof
naturallydisconnected,then culturaland social change becomes not a matterof
cultural ontactandarticulationbut one of rethinkingdifferencethroughconnec-
tion.
To illustrate, et us examine one powerfulmodel of culturalchangethat at-
temptsto relatedialecticallythe local to largerspatialarenas:articulation.Artic-
ulationmodels, whetherthey come from Marxist structuralism r from "moral
economy," posita primevalstate of autonomy usuallylabeled"precapitalist"),which is then violatedby global capitalism.The result s thatboth local andlarger
spatialarenasaretransformed, he local more than the global to be sure, but notnecessarily n a predetermined irection.This notion of articulation llows one to
explorethe richly unintendedconsequencesof, say, colonial capitalism, where
loss occurs alongside invention. Yet, by takinga preexisting, localized "com-
munity" as a given startingpoint, it fails to examine sufficientlythe processes
(suchas the structures f feeling thatpervadethe imaginingof community)that
go into the constructionof spaceas place or locality in the first nstance. In other
words, insteadof assumingthe autonomyof the primevalcommunity,we need
to examinehow it was formedas a community ut of the interconnected pacethat
always alreadyexisted. Colonialism, then, representsthe displacementof oneformof interconnectionby another.This is not to deny thatcolonialism, or an
expanding apitalism,does indeedhaveprofoundlydislocatingeffects on existingsocieties. But by always foregrounding he spatial distributionof hierarchical
powerrelations,we can betterunderstand he process wherebya space achieves
a distinctive dentityas a place. Keepingin mind that notions of locality or com-
munityrefer both to a demarcatedphysical space and to clusters of interaction,we can see that the identityof a place emerges by the intersectionof its specificinvolvement n a systemof hierarchicallyorganizedspaces with its culturalcon-
structionas a communityor locality.It is for this reason that what Jameson(1984) has dubbed"postmodernhy-
perspace"has so fundamentally hallengedthe convenient fiction that mappedculturesonto places andpeoples. In the capitalistWest, a Fordistregime of ac-
cumulation,emphasizingextremely argeproduction acilities, a relativelystable
work force, and the welfare state, combined to create urban "communities"
whoseoutlineswere mostclearlyvisible in companytowns (Davis 1984;Harvey
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BEYOND "CULTURE" 9
1989;Mandel 1975). The counterpart f this in the international renawas that
multinational orporations,under he leadershipof the UnitedStates, steadilyex-
ploitedthe rawmaterials,primarygoods, andcheaplabor of the independentna-
tion-statesof thepostcolonial"ThirdWorld."'Multilateral genciesandpowerfulWesternstatespreached,andwherenecessarymilitarilyenforced,the "laws" of
themarket o encourage he international low of capital,while national mmigra-tionpolicies ensuredthatthere would be no free (i.e., anarchic,disruptive) low
of labor to the high-wage islands in the capitalistcore. Fordistpatternsof accu-
mulationhave now been replacedby a regime of flexible accumulation-char-
acterizedby small-batchproduction,rapidshifts in product ines, extremelyfast
movementsof capital o exploitthe smallestdifferentials n laborand rawmaterial
costs-built on a more sophisticatedcommunicationsand informationnetworkandbettermeans of transporting oods andpeople. At the same time, the indus-
trialproductionof culture, entertainment,and leisure that first achieved some-
thingapproaching lobaldistributionduring he Fordisteraled, paradoxically, o
the invention of new forms of culturaldifference and new forms of imagining
community.Somethinglike a transnational ublic spherehas certainlyrendered
any strictlyboundedsense of communityor locality obsolete. At the same time,it has enabled the creation of forms of solidarityand identitythat do not rest on
an appropriation f space where contiguity and face-to-face contact are para-
mount. In the pulverized space of postmodernity,space has not become irrele-vant: t hasbeen reterritorializedn a way that does not conformto theexperienceof space that characterizedhe era of high modernity.It is this that forces us to
reconceptualizeundamentallyhepoliticsof community, solidarity, dentity,and
culturaldifference.
Imagined Communities, Imagined Places
Peoplehave undoubtedlyalways been more mobile andidentities less fixed
thanthe static andtypologizing approachesof classical anthropologywould sug-gest. But today, the rapidly expandingand quickeningmobilityof people com-
bines with the refusal of culturalproductsandpracticesto "stay put" to give a
profoundsense of a loss of territorial oots, of an erosion of the culturaldistinc-
tiveness of places, and of ferment n anthropological heory.The apparentdeter-
ritorialization f identity that accompaniessuch processes has made Clifford's
question(1988:275) a key one for recentanthropologicalnquiry:"Whatdoes it
mean, at the end of the twentieth century, to speak . . . of a 'native land'? What
processes rather than essences are involved in present experiences of cultural
identity?"Suchquestionsare of course notwholly new, butissuesof collective identity
todaydo seem to take on a special character,when more and more of us live inwhat Said (1979:18) has called "a generalizedcondition of homelessness," aworldwhereidentities are increasinglycoming to be, if not wholly deterritorial-
ized, at least differentlyterritorialized.Refugees, migrants,displacedandstate-less peoples-these are perhapsthe first to live out these realities in their most
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10 CULTURALANTHROPOLOGY
completeform, but the problemis more general. In a world of diaspora,trans-
nationalcultureflows, and mass movements of populations,old-fashioned at-
temptsto mapthe globe as a set of cultureregionsor homelandsare bewildered
by a dazzlingarrayof postcolonialsimulacra,doublingsandredoublings,as IndiaandPakistanapparently eappearn postcolonialsimulation n London,prerevo-lutionTehranrises from theashes in Los Angeles, and a thousand imilarcultural
dreamsareplayedout in urbanand ruralsettingsall across the globe. In this cul-
ture-playof diaspora, amiliar ines between "here" and"there," center andpe-
riphery,colony andmetropolebecome blurred.
Where "here" and "there" become blurred n this way, the culturalcer-
tainties andfixities of the metropoleareupset as surely, if not in the same way,as those of thecolonizedperiphery.In this sense, it is notonly thedisplacedwho
experiencea displacement cf. Bhabha1989:66). Foreven people remaining n
familiarand ancestralplaces findthe natureof their relationto place ineluctably
changed,andthe illusion of a naturaland essential connection between the placeandthe culturebroken. "Englishness," for instance, in contemporary, nterna-
tionalizedEngland s just as complicatedandnearlyas deterritorialized notion
as Palestinian-ness rArmenian-ness, ince "England"("the realEngland")re-
fers less to a boundedplace than to an imaginedstate of being or moral location.
Consider,for instance,the following quotefroma young whitereggaefan in the
ethnicallychaoticneighborhoodof Balsall Heathin Birmingham:
there's no such thing as "England" any more . . . welcome to India brothers Thisis theCaribbean . . Nigeria . . . Thereis no England,man. This is whatis com-
ing. BalsallHeath s thecenterof the melting pot, 'cos all I ever see whenI go out is
half-Arab,half-Pakistani,half-Jamaican,half-Scottish,half-Irish. I know 'cos I am
[halfScottish/half rish] . . . who amI? . . . Tell me who I belongto?Theycriticize
me, the good old England. Alright,wheredo I belong?You know, I was broughtupwithblacks, Pakistanis,Africans,Asians, everything,you name it ... who do I be-
long to? . . . I'mjust a broadperson. The earth is mine . . . you know we was notborn in Jamaica .. we was not bornin "England." We were bornhere, man. It's
ourright.That's the way I see it. That's the way I deal with it. [Hebdige 1987:158-
159]
The broad-minded cceptanceof cosmopolitanism hat seems to be impliedhere is perhaps more the exception than the rule, but there can be little doubt that
the explosion of a culturallystableandunitary"England" into the cut-and-mix
"here" of contemporary Balsall Heath is an example of a phenomenon that is real
andspreading.It is clearthat the erosionof such supposedlynaturalconnections
betweenpeoplesandplaces has not led to the modernist pecterof globalcultural
homogenization Clifford 1988). But "cultures" and "peoples," however per-sistentthey maybe, cease to be plausiblyidentifiableas spotson the map.
The irony of these times, however, is that as actual places and localities be-
come ever more blurred and indeterminate, ideas of culturally and ethnically dis-
tinct places become perhaps even more salient. It is here that it becomes most
visible how imagined communities (Anderson 1983) come to be attached to imag-ined places, as displaced peoples cluster around remembered or imagined home-
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BEYOND "CULTURE" 11
lands, places, or communitiesin a world that seems increasinglyto deny such
firmterritorialized nchorsin their actuality. The set of issues surrounding he
construction f place andhomelandby mobile anddisplacedpeople is addressedin differentways by a numberof the articlesin this issue.
Rememberedplaces have often served as symbolic anchors of communityfor dispersedpeople. This has long been true of immigrants,who (as Leonard
[1992] shows vividly) use memoryof place to construct maginatively heir new
lived world. "Homeland"in this way remainsone of the mostpowerfulunifying
symbolsfor mobile anddisplaced peoples, thoughthe relationto homelandmaybe very differentlyconstructedn differentsettings(see Malkki,this issue). More-
over, even in more completely deterritorializedtimes and settings-settings
where "home" is not only distant,but also where the very notionof "home" asa durably ixedplace is in doubt-aspects of our lives remainhighly "localized"
in a social sense, as Peters(1992) argues.We need to give upnaive ideasof com-
munitiesas literalentities (cf. Cohen 1985), but remainsensitive to the profound
"bifocality" that characterizes ocally lived lives in a globally interconnected
world, and the powerful role of place in the "near view" of lived experience(Peters1992).
The partialerosion of spatiallybounded social worlds andthe growingrole
of the imaginationof places from a distance, however, themselves mustbe situ-
ated withinthe highly spatializedtermsof a global capitalisteconomy. The spe-cial challengehere is to use a focus on the way space is imagined(butnot ima-
ginary )as a way to explore the processes throughwhich such conceptual pro-cesses of place makingmeet the changingglobal economic andpolitical condi-
tions of lived spaces-the relation, we could say, between place and space. As
Ferguson this issue) shows, important ensionsmay arise whenplaces that have
been imaginedat a distance must become lived spaces. For places are always
imagined n the contextof political-economicdeterminations hat have a logic of
their own. Territorialitys thus reinscribed at just the point it threatens to be
erased.The idea thatspace is mademeaningful s of course a familiarone to anthro-
pologists; indeed, there is hardlyan older or better establishedanthropologicaltruth.East or West, insideoroutside, left orright,moundor floodplain-from at
least thetimeof Durkheim,anthropologyhas known that theexperienceof spaceis alwayssocially constructed.The moreurgent ask, takenup by several articles
in this issue, is to politicizethis uncontestableobservation.Withmeaningmakingunderstoodas a practice, how are spatial meanings established? Who has the
powerto makeplaces of spaces?Who contests this? What is at stake?
Suchquestionsareparticularlymportantwhere the meaningfulassociationof placesandpeoplesis concerned.As Malkki(thisissue) shows, two naturalisms
mustbe challengedhere. First s what we will call theethnologicalhabitof takingtheassociationof a culturallyunitarygroup(the "tribe" or "people") and"its"
territoryas natural,which is discussed in the previous section. A second, and
closely related, naturalism s what we will call the national habit of takingthe
associationof citizens of statesandtheirterritoriesas natural.Here theexemplary
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12 CULTURALANTHROPOLOGY
image is of the conventionalworldmapof nation-states, hroughwhich school-
children are taughtsuch deceptively simple-soundingbeliefs as that France is
where the French ive, America is where the Americans ive, and so on. Even a
casualobserver,of course, knows thatnot only Americans ive in America, and
it is clear that the very questionof what is a "real American" is largely up for
grabs. But even anthropologists till talk of "American culture" with no clear
understandingf what thatmeans, because we assume a naturalassociation of a
culture ("American culture"), a people ("Americans"), and a place ("theUnitedStates of America"). Both the ethnologicalandthe national naturalisms
presentassociations of people andplace as solid, commonsensical,and agreed-
upon,whenthey arein fact contested,uncertain,and in flux.
Muchrecent work in anthropologyand relatedfieldshas focused on thepro-cess throughwhich suchreifiedandnaturalizednationalrepresentations recon-
structed ndmaintainedby states and nationalelites. (See, forinstance,Anderson
1983; Handler 1988; Herzfeld 1987; Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983; Kapferer1988;Wright1985.) Borneman this issue) presentsa case wherestate construc-
tions of nationalterritoryare complicatedby a very particular ort of displace-ment,as theterritorial ivisionandreformation f Germany ollowingthe Second
WorldWarmadeunavailable o thetwo states the claims to a territorially ircum-
scribedhome andculturallydelineatednation thatareusuallyso central o estab-
lish legitimacy.Neither could their citizens rely on such appealsin constructingtheirown identities. Inforgingnational dentitiesestranged n thisway from both
territory ndculture,Bornemanargues,the postwarGermanstates andtheir cit-
izensemployedoppositionalstrategies,ultimatelyresulting nversionsof the dis-
placed and decentered dentities that mark what is often called the postmoderncondition.
Discussionsof nationalismmakeit clear that statesplay a crucial role in the
popularpolitics of place makingandin the creationof naturalized inks between
places andpeoples. But it is important o note that state ideologies are far from
beingtheonly pointat which the imaginationof place is politicized. Oppositionalimagesof place have of coursebeen extremelyimportantn anticolonialnation-
alistmovements,as well as in campaignsfor self-determination ndsovereigntyon the partof ethnic counter-nations uch as the Hutu(Malkki, this issue), the
Eritreans,and the Armenians.Bisharat 1992) traces some of the ways in which
theimaginingof placehasplayedinto the Palestinian truggle,showingbothhow
specificconstructionsof "homeland" have changedin responseto political cir-
cumstancesandhow a deeply felt relation o "the land" continuesto informand
inspire he Palestinian trugglefor self-determination.Bisharat'sarticleservesas
a usefulreminder, n the light of nationalism'soften reactionary onnotations nthe Westernworld, of how often notions of home and "own place" have been
empowering n anticolonialcontexts.
Indeed,futureobserversof 20th-century evolutionswill probablybe struck
by thedifficultyof formulating arge-scalepoliticalmovementswithoutreference
to nationalhomelands.Gupta(this issue) discusses the difficultiesraised in at-
tempting o rally people aroundsuch a nonnational ollectivity as the nonaligned
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BEYOND "CULTURE" 13
movement;and he points out that similarproblemsare raisedby the proletarianinternationalistmovement, since, "as generationsof Marxists afterMarx found
out, it is one thingto liberatea nation,quiteanother o liberate he workersof theworld" (Gupta,this issue). Class-basedinternationalism'sendenciesto nation-
alism(as in the historyof the Second International, r thatof the U.S.S.R.), and
to utopianism maginedin local rather hanuniversalterms(as in Morris'sNews
from Nowhere [1970], where "nowhere" [utopia] turns out to be a specifically
English "somewhere"), show clearly the importanceof attaching causes to
placesand the ubiquityof place makingin collective politicalmobilization.
Suchplace making,however, neednot be national n scale. Oneexampleof
this is thewayidealizednotionsof "thecountry"havebeenusedinurban ettings
to constructcritiquesof industrialcapitalism(cf. in Britain,Williams 1973; forZambia,Ferguson,this issue). Anothercase is thereworkingof ideasof "home"
and "community" by feminists like Martinand Mohanty(1986) and Kaplan
(1987). Rofel (this issue) gives anotherexamplein her treatment f thecontested
meaningsof thespacesand local historyof a Chinesefactory.Heranalysisshows
bothhow specific factorylocations acquiredmeaningsover time and how these
localizedspatialmeaningsconfounded hemodernizing,panopticdesignsof plan-
ners-indeed, how the durabilityof memoryand localized meaningsof sites and
bodies calls intoquestionthevery ideaof a universal,undifferentiated moderni-
ty."It must be noted that suchpopularpolitics of placecan as easily be conserv-
ative as progressive. Often enough, as in the contemporaryUnited States, the
associationof placewithmemory,loss, andnostalgiaplays directly ntothe hands
of reactionary opularmovements.This is true notonly of explicitly national m-
ages long associatedwith the Right, but also of imaginedlocales and nostalgic
settingssuch as "small-town America" or "the frontier," whichoften play into
andcomplementantifeminist dealizationsof "the home" and "family."2
Space, Politics, and Anthropological Representation
Changingourconceptionsof the relationbetweenspace and culturaldiffer-
ence offers a new perspectiveon recentdebatessurroundingssues of anthropo-
logicalrepresentation ndwriting.The new attention o representational racticeshas already ed to moresophisticatedunderstandings f processesof objectifica-tionandtheconstructionof other-ness n anthropologicalwriting.However, with
this said, it also seems to us that recentnotions of "culturalcritique" (Marcusand Fischer 1986) dependon a spatializedunderstanding f culturaldifference
thatneeds to be problematized.The foundationof culturalcritique-a dialogicrelationwithan "other" cul-
turethatyields a criticalviewpointon "our own culture"-assumes an already-
existingworldof manydifferent,distinct"cultures," and an unproblematic is-
tinction between "our own society" and an "other" society. As MarcusandFischerput it, the purposeof culturalcritiqueis "to generatecriticalquestionsfrom one society to probethe other" (1986:117); the goal is "to applyboth the
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14 CULTURALANTHROPOLOGY
substantiveresults and the epistemological lessons learned from ethnographyabroad o a renewal of the critical function of anthropologyas it is pursuedin
ethnographic rojectsat home"
(1986:112).Marcusand Fischerare sensitiveto thefact thatculturaldifference s present"here at home," too, and that "the other" need not be exotic or far away to be
other. But the fundamental onceptionof culturalcritiqueas a relation between
"different ocieties" endsup, perhapsagainst he authors' ntentions,spatializingculturaldifference in familiarways, as ethnographybecomes, as above, a link
between an unproblematized home" and "abroad." The anthropological ela-
tion is not simplywith people who aredifferent,but with "a differentsociety,""a different culture," and thus, inevitably, a relation between "here" and
"there." In all of this, the terms of theopposition
("here" and "there," "us"
and"them," "our own" and "other" societies) aretakenas received:the prob-lem for anthropologistss to use our encounterwith "them," "there," to con-
structa critiqueof "ourown society," "here."
Therearea numberof problemswith thisway of conceptualizing he anthro-
pologicalproject.Perhaps he most obvious is the questionof the identityof the
"we" thatkeeps coming up in phrasessuch as "ourselves" and "our own soci-
ety." Who is this "we"? If the answer s, as we fear, "the West," thenwe must
askpreciselywho is to be includedandexcludedfrom this club. Nor is the prob-lem solved simply by substituting or "our own society," "the ethnographer'sown society." Forethnographers,as for othernatives, the postcolonialworld is
aninterconnected ocial space;formany anthropologists-and perhapsespeciallyfor displacedThirdWorld scholars-the identityof "one's own society" is an
open question.A secondproblemwiththe way culturaldifference has been conceptualized
within the "culturalcritique"project s that,once excludedfromthatprivilegeddomain"our own society," "the other" is subtlynativized-placed in a separateframe of analysisand "spatially incarcerated" Appadurai1988) in that "other
place" that s proper o an "other culture." Cultural ritiqueassumesanoriginal
separation,bridgedat the initiationof the anthropological ieldworker.Theprob-lematicis one of "contact": communicationnot within a sharedsocial and eco-
nomicworld, but "across cultures" and "between societies."
As an alternative o this way of thinkingabout culturaldifference, we want
toproblematizeheunityof the "us" andtheothernessof the "other," andques-tionthe radicalseparationbetweenthe two thatmakes the oppositionpossible in
the firstplace. We are interested ess in establishinga dialogic relationbetween
geographicallydistinctsocieties than in exploringthe processesof productionof
difference n a worldof culturally,socially, andeconomicallyinterconnected nd
interdependentpaces. The differenceis fundamental,and can be illustratedby abrief examinationof one text that has been highly praisedwithin the "cultural
critique"movement.
MarjorieShostak'sNisa: TheLifeand Wordsof a KungWoman 1981) has
beenvery widelyadmired or its innovativeuseof life history,andhas beenhailed
as a noteworthyexampleof polyphonic experimentationn ethnographicwriting
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BEYOND "CULTURE" 15
(Clifford1986, 1988:42;MarcusandFischer 1986:58-59; Pratt1986). But with
respectto the issues we have discussed here, Nisa is a very conventional, and
deeplyflawed,work. The individual,Nisa, is granteda degreeof singularity,but
she is used principallyas the token of a type: "the Kung." The San-speaking
Kungof Botswana "the Bushmen"of old) arepresentedas a distinct, "other,"and apparentlyprimordial"people." Shostak treatsthe Dobe Kungas essen-
tially survivalsof a priorevolutionary age: they are "one of the last remainingtraditionalgatherer-hunterocieties," raciallydistinct, traditional,and isolated
(1981:4). Theirexperienceof "culturechange" is "still quiterecentandsubtle,"and their traditionalvalue system "mostly intact" (1981:6). "Contact" with
"othergroups" of agriculturaland pastoralpeoples has occurred,accordingto
Shostak,only since the 1920s, and it is only since the 1960s thatthe isolationofthe Kunghasreallybrokendown, raisingfor thefirst ime the issue of "change,"
"adaptation,"and "culturecontact" (1981:346).The spacethe Kung nhabit,the Kalaharidesert, is clearlyradicallydiffer-
ent andseparate romourown. Againandagainthe narrative eturns o the theme
of isolation: n a harshecological setting, a way of life thousandsof yearsold has
been preservedonly through ts extraordinary patial separateness.The anthro-
pologicaltask, as Shostakconceives it, is to cross thisspatialdivide, to enterinto
this land that time forgot, a land(as Wilmsen[1989:10] notes) with antiquitybut
no history,to listento the voices of women, whichmightreveal"what their iveshad been like for generations,possibly even for thousandsof years" (Shostak
1981:6).The exoticization mplicitin thisportrait, n which the Kungappearalmost
as living on anotherplanet, has drawnsurprisingly ittle criticism from theorists
of ethnography.Pratthasrightlypointedout the "blazingcontradiction"between
theportrait f primalbeings untouchedby historyand thegenocidal historyof the
white "Bushmanconquest" (1986:48). As she says,
What icture f the Kungwouldone draw f instead f defininghemas survivors fthestoneageanda delicate nd omplex daptationo theKalahariesert, ne ookedat themassurvivors f capitalist xpansion, ndadelicate ndcomplex daptationothree enturiesf violenceand ntimidation?Pratt 986:49]
Buteven Pratt etains he notion of "the Kung"as apreexistingontologicalenti-
ty-"survivors," not products still less producers),of history. "They" are vic-
tims, havingsufferedthe deadlyprocessof "contact" with "us."
A verydifferentand much moreilluminatingwayof conceptualizing ultural
difference n theregionmaybe found in Wilmsen'sdevastatingrecentcritiqueof
theanthropological ultof "the Bushman"(1989). Wilmsen shows how, in con-stant nteractionwith a wider networkof social relations,thedifferencethat Shos-
tak takes as a startingpoint came to be producedin the firstplace-how, one
might say, "the Bushmen" came to be Bushmen. He demonstrates hat San-
speakingpeoplehave been in continuous nteractionwith othergroupsfor as longas we haveevidence for;thatpoliticalandeconomic relations inkedthe suppos-edly isolated Kalahariwith a regionalpoliticaleconomy both in the colonial and
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16 CULTURALANTHROPOLOGY
precolonial ras; hatSan-speakingpeoplehaveoften heldcattle;andthat no strict
separation f pastoralists ndforagerscan be sustained.He arguespowerfully hat
theZhu( Kung)have neverbeen a classless society, and that f theygive such an
impression,"it is becausetheyareincorporated s anunderclass n a wider social
formation hat ncludesBatswana,Ovaherero,andothers" (Wilmsen 1989:270).
Moreover,he shows that the "Bushman/San"label has been in existence for
barelyhalf a century,the categoryhavingbeen produced hrough he "retribali-
zation" of the colonial period (1989:280); and that "the culturalconservatism
uniformlyattributed o these people by almost all anthropologistswho have
workedwith themuntilrecently, is a consequence-not a cause-of theway theyhave been integrated nto the modem capitalisteconomies of BotswanaandNa-
mibia" (1989:12).Withrespectto space, Wilmsen is unequivocal:
it is notpossible o speakof the Kalahari'ssolation,protectedy its ownvastdis-tances.To those nside, heoutside-whatever outside"heremayhavebeenatanymoment-wasalwayspresent.Theappearancef isolation nd tsreality f dispos-sessedpoverty rerecentproductsf a processhatunfolded ver wo centuriesndculminatedn the astmoments f thecolonial ra.[1989:157]
Theprocessof the productionof culturaldifference, Wilmsendemonstrates,oc-
curs ncontinuous,connectedspace, traversedby economicandpoliticalrelationsof inequality.Where Shostaktakes differenceas given and concentrateson lis-
tening"acrosscultures," Wilmsenperforms he moreradicaloperationof inter-
rogating he "otherness"of theother, situating he productionof culturaldiffer-
ence within the historicalprocesses of a socially and spatially interconnected
world.
What is needed, then, is more thana readyear and a deft editorialhand to
captureandorchestratehe voices of "others";whatis neededis a willingnessto
interrogate,politically and historically, the apparent"given" of a world in the
firstplace dividedinto "ourselves" and "others." A firststep on this roadis tomove beyond naturalized onceptionsof spatialized"cultures" and to exploreinstead the productionof difference within common, shared, and connected
spaces-"the San," for instance,not as "a people," "native" to thedesert,but
as a historicallyconstitutedandde-propertied ategorysystematicallyrelegated
to thedesert.
The move we arecalling for, most generally, is away from seeing cultural
differenceas thecorrelateof a worldof "peoples" whose separatehistorieswait
to be bridgedby the anthropologistandtowardseeing it as a productof a shared
historicalprocessthatdifferentiates heworldas it connectsit. For theproponentsof "culturalcritique," differenceis takenas startingpoint, not as end product.
Given a worldof "differentsocieties," they ask, how can we use experiencein
one to commenton another?Butif we questiona pre-givenworldof separateand
discrete "peoples and cultures," and see insteada difference-producing et of
relations,we turnfroma projectof juxtaposingpreexistingdifferencesto one of
exploring he constructionof differencesin historicalprocess.
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BEYOND "CULTURE" 17
In thisperspective, powerdoes not enter the anthropologicalpictureonly at
the momentof representation, or the culturaldistinctivenessthat the anthropol-
ogist attemptsto representhas always alreadybeen producedwithin a field of
power relations. There is thus a politics of othernessthat is not reducible to a
politics of representation.Textual strategiescan call attentionto the politics of
representation, utthe issue of othernessitself is not really addressedby the de-
vices of polyphonictextualconstructionor collaborationwith informant-writers,as writers ike Clifford andCrapanzano ometimesseem to suggest.
In addition o (not insteadof ) textualexperimentation, hen, there s a need
to address he issue of "the West" and its "others" in a way thatacknowledgestheextra-textual oots of the problem.Forexample, the area of immigrationand
immigrationaw is one practicalarea where the politics of space and the politicsof otherness ink up very directly. Indeed, if the separatenessof separateplacesis not a naturalgiven but an anthropologicalproblem, it is remarkablehow little
anthropologists avehadto say aboutthecontemporary oliticalissues connected
withimmigrationnthe United States.3If we accepta worldof originallyseparateand culturallydistinctplaces, then the questionof immigrationpolicy is just a
questionof how hard we should try to maintainthis originalorder. In this per-spective, immigrationprohibitionsare a relativelyminor matter.Indeed,operat-
ingwitha spatiallynaturalizedunderstanding f culturaldifference,uncontrolled
immigrationmay even appearas a danger o anthropology, hreateningo blur orerasethe culturaldistinctivenessof placesthat s ourstockintrade.If, on theother
hand,it is acknowledged hat culturaldifferenceis producedandmaintained n a
field of powerrelationsin a worldalways alreadyspatiallyinterconnected, hen
the restrictionof immigrationbecomes visible as one of the mainmeansthroughwhichthedisempoweredarekeptthatway.
The enforced"difference" of places becomes, in this perspective,partand
parcelof a global system of domination.The anthropological askof de-natural-
izing culturalandspatialdivisions at this point links up with the political task of
combatinga very literal "spatial incarceration f the native" (Appadurai1988)withineconomicspaceszoned, as it were, forpoverty.In thissense, changingthe
waywe thinkabout he relationsof culture,power, andspaceopensthepossibilityof changingmore thanourtexts. There s room, forinstance,for agreatdealmore
anthropologicalnvolvement, both theoreticaland practical,with the politics of
the U.S./Mexico border,with the political and organizing rights of immigrant
workers,and with theappropriationf anthropological onceptsof "culture"and
"difference" intotherepressive deological apparatus f immigrationaw andthe
popularperceptionsof "foreigners" and "aliens."
A certainunityof place andpeople has been long assumedin the anthropo-logical conceptof culture.But anthropological epresentations nd immigrationlaws notwithstanding,"the native" is "spatiallyincarcerated"only in part.The
abilityof people to confoundthe establishedspatialorders,eitherthroughphys-ical movementor through heir own conceptualandpolitical acts of re-imagina-
tion, meansthatspace andplace can never be "given," and that the process of
their sociopolitical construction must always be considered. An anthropology
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18 CULTURALANTHROPOLOGY
whoseobjectsare no longerconceived as automaticallyandnaturallyanchored n
spacewill need to pay particular ttention o theway spacesandplaces aremade,
imagined,contested,and enforced. In this sense, it is no paradox o say thatques-tionsof spaceandplace are, in this deterritorialized ge, more centralto anthro-
pologicalrepresentationhan ever.
Conclusion
In suggesting the requestioningof the spatial assumptions mplicit in the
mostfundamental ndseemingly innocuousconcepts in the social sciences such
as "culture," "society," "community," and "nation," we do not presumeto
lay out a detailedblueprint or an alternative onceptualapparatus.We do, how-ever, wish to pointout some promisingdirections or the future.
Oneextremelyrich vein has been tappedby those attempting o theorizein-
terstitialityand hybridity: n the postcolonial situation(Bhabha 1989; Hannerz
1987;Rushdie1989);forpeople livingonculturaland nationalborders Anzaldua
1987; Rosaldo 1987, 1988, 1989); for refugees and displacedpeoples (Ghosh
1989; Malkki, this issue); and in the case of migrantsand workers (Leonard
1992).The "syncretic,adaptivepoliticsandculture"of hybridity,Bhabhapointsout(1989:64), questions"the imperialistandcolonialistnotionsof purityas much
as it question[s]the nationalistnotions." It remainsto be seen whatkind of pol-itics are enabledby such a theorizationof hybridityandto whatextent it can do
awaywithall claimsto authenticity, o all forms of essentialism,strategicoroth-
erwise (see especially Radhakrishnan 987). Bhabhapoints to the troublesome
connectionbetween claims to purityandutopianteleology in describinghow he
came to therealization hat
theonlyplace n theworld o speak romwasat a pointwhereby ontradiction,n-
tagonism,hehybriditiesf culturalnfluence,he boundariesf nations,werenotsublatedntosomeutopianenseof liberationr return. heplace ospeakromwas
throughhose ncommensurableontradictionsithinwhichpeople urvive,arepo-litically ctive,andchange. 1989:67]
The borderlandsarejust such a place of incommensurable ontradictions.The
termdoes not indicate a fixed topographical ite betweentwo other fixed locales
(nations,societies, cultures),but an interstitialzone of displacementand deter-
ritorializationhatshapesthe identityof the hybridizedsubject.Rather handis-
missingthem as insignificant,as marginalzones, thinsliversof land betweensta-
ble places, we want to contendthat the notion of borderlandss a moreadequate
conceptualization f the "normal" locale of the postmodern ubject.Anotherpromisingdirection that takes us beyond cultureas a spatiallylo-
calizedphenomenon s providedby theanalysisof whatis variouslycalled "mass
media," "public culture," and the "culture industry." (Especially influential
herehas been thejournal,Public Culture.)Existing symbioticallywith the com-
modityform, profoundly nfluencingeven the remotestpeople that anthropolo-
gists have madesuch a fetishof studying,mass mediapose the clearestchallenge
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BEYOND "CULTURE" 19
to orthodoxnotions of culture.National, regional, andvillage boundarieshave,of course, never containedculture n the way thatanthropological epresentationshave often implied. However, the existence of a transnationalpublic spheremeansthat the fictionthatsuch boundariesenclose culturesandregulatecultural
exchangecan no longerbe sustained.
Theproductionanddistribution f massculture-films, television andradio
programs,newspapersand wire services, recordedmusic, books, live concerts-is largelycontrolledby those notoriously placeless organizations,multinational
corporations.The "public sphere" is thereforehardly"public" with respectto
controlover the representationshat arecirculated n it. Recent work in cultural
studieshasemphasized hedangersof reducing hereceptionof multinational ul-
turalproduction o thepassive act of consumption, eavingno room fortheactivecreationby agentsof disjuncturesanddislocations betweenthe flow of industrialcommodities and culturalproducts.However, we worryat least as much abouttheoppositedangerof celebratingthe inventivenessof those "consumers" of thecultureindustry especially on the periphery)who fashion somethingquite dif-ferentout of productsmarketed o them,reinterpretingndremaking hem, some-timesquiteradically,andsometimes in a direction hatpromotesresistanceratherthanconformity.The dangerhere is the temptation o use scatteredexamples ofthecultural lows dribbling romthe "periphery"to the chief centers of the cul-
tureindustryas a way of dismissing the "grandnarrative"of capitalism(espe-cially the "totalizing" narrative f latecapitalism),and thus of evadingthe pow-erfulpoliticalissues associated with Westernglobal hegemony.
The reconceptualization f space implicit in theories of interstitialityand
publicculturehas led to efforts to conceptualizeculturaldifference without in-
voking the orthodox idea of "culture." This is a yet largely unexploredand
underdeveloped rea.We do, clearly, find the clusteringof culturalpractices hatdo not "belong" to a particular"people" or to a definiteplace. Jameson(1984)has attempted o capturethe distinctiveness of these practicesin the notionof a
"culturaldominant," whereas Ferguson(1990) proposes an idea of "culturalstyle," which searches for a logic of surfacepracticeswithoutnecessarilymap-ping suchpracticesonto a "total way of life" encompassingvalues, beliefs, at-
titudes, et cetera, as in the usual concept of culture. We need to explore whatHomiBhabhacalls "the uncannyof culturaldifference."
culturaldifferencebecomes a problemnot whenyou canpointto theHottentotVenus,or to thepunkwhose hair s six feet up in the air;it does not have that kindof fixable
visibility. t is as thestrangenessf thefamiliarhat t becomesmoreproblematic,bothpoliticallyandconceptually. .. whenthe problemof culturaldifference is our-
selves-as-others,thers-as-ourselves,hatborderline.1989:72]
Why focus on thatborderline?We have arguedthatdeterritorialization asdestabilized hefixityof "ourselves" and"others." But it hasnottherebycreated
subjects who are free-floating monads, despite what is sometimes implied bythoseeagerto celebrate hefreedomandplayfulnessof thepostmodern ondition.As MartinandMohanty 1986:194)pointout, indeterminacy, oo, has itspolitical
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20 CULTURALNTHROPOLOGY
limits, which follow from the denial of the critic's own location in multiple fields
of power. Instead of stopping with the notion of deterritorialization, the pulveri-zation of the space of high modernity, we need to theorize how space is beingreterritorialized in the contemporary world. We need to account sociologicallyfor the fact that the "distance" between the rich in Bombay and the rich in London
may be much shorter than that between different classes in "the same" city. Phys-ical location and physical territory, for so long the only grid on which cultural
difference could be mapped, need to be replaced by multiple grids that enable us
to see that connection and contiguity-more generally the representation of ter-
ritory-vary considerably by factors such as class, gender, race, and sexuality,and are differentially available to those in different locations in the field of power.
Notes
Acknowledgments. his collectionof articlesoriginallygrewout of two organizedsessions
presentedat the 1988 meetingsof the AmericanAnthropologicalAssociationin Phoenix.
One, organizedby Akhil Guptaand Lisa Rofel, dealt with "The Cultureand Politics of
Space"; the other, organized by Liisa Malkki and JamesFerguson,concerned "Themes
of Place and Locality in the Collective Identityof Mobile and Displaced Populations."
Earlyversionsof all of the articlesin this collection wereoriginallypresentedas papers n
thesepanels,with theexceptionof Gupta's"The Songof theNon-AlignedWorld," whichwas written ater.
It was Arjun Appaduraiwho first suggested that the two themes might be brought
together,and who firstput us in touch with each other. For that, he has our thanks and
appreciation.Akhil Guptawould also like to thankLisa Rofel for co-organizingthe orig-inalpanelandPurnimaMankekar,whose criticalreadingandcommentary hroughouthas
contributedmuch to the project.JamesFergusonwould like to acknowledgethe influence
of Liisa Malkki'sthinking n shapinghis ideas aboutspace, place, andidentity.Her acute
commentsandimaginativediscussion contributedgreatlyto this introductory rticle. We
arebothgrateful o John Petersfor a helpfulcriticalreadingof the article at a late stage.
'This is obviously not true of the "new ethnicity" literature,of texts such as Anzaldua
(1987) andRadhakrishnan1987).
2See also Robertson 1988, 1991)on the politics of nostalgiaand "native place-making"in Japan.
3Weare, of course, aware thata considerableamountof recent workin anthropologyhas
centeredon immigration.However, it seems to us that too muchof this work remains at
the level of describingand documentingpatternsand trendsof migration,often with a
policysciencefocus. Suchwork is undoubtedlymportant,andoftenstrategically ffective
in the formalpolitical
arena.Yet there remainsthe challengeof takingup the specificallycultural ssues surroundinghe mappingof othernessonto space, as we have suggestedis
necessary.One area where at least some anthropologistshave taken such issues seriouslyis thatof Mexican mmigrationo the United States(e.g., Alvarez 1987;Bustamente1987;
Chavez 1991;Kearey 1986, 1990;KearneyandNagengast 1989;and Rouse 1991). An-
otherexample is Borneman(1986), which is noteworthyfor showing the specific links
betweenimmigrationaw andhomophobia,nationalismand sexuality, in the case of the
Cuban"Marielito"immigrants o the UnitedStates.
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BEYOND CULTURE"21
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