moving while standing still

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The Sensation of Moving, While Standing Still

Author(s): Sidney W. MintzSource: American Ethnologist, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Nov., 1989), pp. 786-796Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/645121 .

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the sensation of moving,while standing still

SIDNEY W. MINTZ--ohns Hopkins University

ethnographer and informant: two viewsLifehistories and autobiographies are different from other sorts of ethnography, and usefulto anthropology in differentways. Books such as The Autobiography of a Winnebago Indian(Radin 1963 [1920]), Sun Chief (Simmons 1942) and Nisa (Shostak 1981) open up to view

particular egments of the ethnographic anatomy, while raisingspecific questions for moderntheory. They enable one to look more closely at the relationship between informantand eth-nographer. Indirectly,they addressthe ethnographer's vision of the context and purpose of thework itself. Because differentpeople say who and what they are-how their lives were lived-in differentways, the space between personal experiences and the events to which they areattached will be differentlyconstructed in each case. Whatever the space, the ethnographercannot avoid playing a role in that construction. What the ethnographerthinks of his findings;what his or her relationshipto the informantsignifies for the findings; what is done with theinformant'swords and thoughts-such questions take on added meaning when the outcomeof the cooperation is the written life of somebody. Finally, changing professional opinionsabout the usefulness of life histories,and about the natureof the relationshipbetween "native"andethnographer, suggest how prevailingorientationsinthe discipline may be pushed this wayand that. Lookingat what life histories are interpretedto mean is also a way of looking at whatanthropology is thought to be. Iwant to discuss some of these issues in termsof a particular ifehistory.In 1960, Ipublished the life historyof a Puerto Ricansugarcane laborer,"Taso" Zayas. Thebook is called Worker n the Cane. Itreceived relatively little attentionwhen itwas published.'Buta review of it in the American Anthropologistpointed up what was seen by the reviewer,Joseph Casagrande,as a defect in the book's methodology. Taso, he writes, was never paid forbeing an informant; he relationshipbetween him and me:

was based on mutualregardandesteem ... thisvery relationshipmayhave servedto make Tasoapoorer ubject oranautobiography. s Mintzhimselfnotes,". . . yethe mustalwayshavebeen on hisguard o tryto protecthe imagehe would have me retainof him." In a relationshipmarkedby reci-procity,would notsucha need also be reciprocatedytheanthropologist?Casagrande961:1358].Thiscomment embodies a canon of effective fieldwork of that era. Mutualregardand esteemcould not preventdistortion;they might even encourage it. Implicitly,an informantwho wasnot a friend could provide more "objective" findings than an informantwho was.Inhis introduction to Inthe Company of Man(1960), Casagrande enlarges his position. Herehe enumerates those relationshipshe regardsas analogous to thatwhich takes shape betweenanthropologist and informant, declaring that the relationship "has many of the attributesof... studentand teacher, employer and employee, friendsor relatives ... psychiatristand hispatient" (1960:xi). But because the dyads Casagrande lists are radically differentfrom eachother, and because each is quite different from the informant-ethnographer elationship,the listis not helpful. All that seems firmin Casagrande'sview is that the informant,whatever else heor she may be, should not be a friend.

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This is not as odd as it may sound to modern ears. We have always had some practitionerswho "go native" with a vengeance. Such persons still pop up occasionally, and the results oftheir immersion are not always beneficial to the hosts, let alone to science. Raymond Firthwrites:Iregardwithscepticismhe claimof any European riter hathe has"beenacceptedbythe nativesasone of themselves".... such a claimis usually oundedupona misapprehensionf nativepolitenessor of a momentarymotionalverbal dentification ith themselvesof a personwho shares heirsym-pathies.... Thisproblem f identification ith the nativeculture s notmerelyan academicone. Eu-ropeanswhoallegethat hey"havebecomea member f thetribe,"or "areregarded ythe nativesasone ofthemselves,"reprone o layclaim oknowingwhat he nativehinks,o bequalifiedorepresentthe nativepointof view. On a particularssuethismaybe in substancerue,but too oftendogmaticstatements bout deasare substitutedordetailed videnceof observedbehaviourFirth 936:10-11].

Nadel said some of the same, differently:Thescientific alueof fulladoption ntoa nativecommunitys also limited.Theacquisition f a definiteplaceandsocial rolewithinacommunitymay nvolve he lossoftheadvantages f a detachedobserver.Instratifiedrrigidlyubdividedocietiesa socialplacecan be assumed n one stratum r sectiononly,andestrangementromthe people belonging o other strataor sections,and even theirenmity,mayresult.Thus nthe Nigerian ocietyinwhichIworked,close friendshipwith the alien,Mohammedanruler aste aroused he suspicionof the paganaboriginal easantpopulation, nd vice versa.Theonlysolution s to emphasize hedetached, mpartial,cientificaimof an investigatorromoutside,and soto capitalizewhat has been termed . . his"strangeralue"[Nadel1949 [1939]:327].

Though Firth,Nadel and their colleagues recognized that things were not really as simple asall that,they were prudent.An overidentification with one informantor the befriendingof onesegment of the community were dangerous practices, to be avoided. The maintenance of af-fectless relations between ethnographer and informant was a way to keep the facts straight.Brandes,writinga decade ago about Taso, invoked Nadel's strictures:

It sof courseessential o be on goodtermswith an informant,aysNadel,but hedesirabilityf estab-lishing lose emotional ies withhim squestionable.Mintz,as ifinadvertentlyo substantiatehispointofview,admits hathisautobiographicalnformant, onTaso,with whom he was close friends,"mustalwayshave been on hisguard o try o protecthe imagehe wouldhaveme retainof him"(1960:9).Strangeralueconsistsprecisely fthe informant'sackofdeepemotional take nhisrelationship iththe interviewer;heoretically,his situation nablesthe informanto confideof his lifehistoryn a freeandemotionally nfettered ayto the interviewerBrandes 977:6].2These writers address a common problem. They conceptualize in broadly similarways the

relationshipbetween the fieldworkerand the person of different culture with whom he or sheisworking. Firth s subtle but authoritative;he neither believes complete identification with theinformant is possible, nor does he think it beneficial to science. Casagrande and Brandes, intheir view of Taso's story, see a failure to achieve objectivity (which they apparently believedwas otherwise possible) when the ethnographer and the informantare friends.3But there is a quite differentway to conceptualize such relationships. Here, ethnographerand informantare equals, rather han friends. One version of this contrastingview comes fromthe pen of Kevin Dwyer (1982). Dwyer's book on his work with a Moroccan farmer takes theform of uninterrupteddialogues, each such treatingan event which took place duringthe timethey spent together. Dwyer sees this format as one step-if, indeed, there is any-toward es-caping from the built-in asymmetryof powerful Outsider (subject)and defenseless Other (ob-ject). Today's world, he tells us, challenges "conceptions of an independent Self and Other,and calls into question views that breakthe tie between individual action and its social con-text":For t is a worlddominatedby ideological ystems hatclaimuniversalityndgovernedbyeconomicforces and institutions that weld geographically distant regions into tightly connected net-works .. wheredifferences etween,andvarietywithin,humangroupsare remodeledntohierarchyanddomination1982:273-274].

Dwyer's objection to what he calls a "contemplative interpretationof human reality" isaimed at the illusion that the anthropologist is an uninvolved, somehow culture-free lens

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throughwhich the Other (otherculture, other person)can be objectively described, explainedand analyzed. Itis, then, an objection to everythingthat affectless neutralityseems to standfor.In its place, Dwyer aims at a relationshipof emerging equality (though he believes in fact thatthe differences between the anthropologist's society and the informant'ssociety make suchequality impossible). Startingfrom the assumption that the relations between poor countriesand rich countries are naturally asymmetrical (and analogous to relations between, say, infor-mantand anthropologist),Dwyer argues that by a totally faithfulreportingof the dialogues be-tween the two, and of the events with which they are concerned, redress of an initial inequalitymay begin. Dwyer's book aims to deny to the anthropologisthis armor of objectivity, culture-lessness and positivism, and thus questions the underlying assumptions of a scientific anthro-pology.Inassessing the worth of life historieswhich, rather han seeking objectivity, aim at achievingtruthby intimacy without much dialogue (as in the case of Worker n the Cane), Dwyer's cri-tique takes a different form. He thinks it a fiction that Self and Other can attain real understand-ing. He is especially wary of the penchant of life-historycollectors to cut and paste the wordsof their informants,which he sees as distortingthe truthwhile implyingthatSelfand Other "areonly provisionallydifferent"(Dwyer 1982:276-277). Of Taso's life history, Dwyer writes:

Mintzadmits xplicitly hat"creating utobiography"aises mportant roblems, nd he does not re-ducedialogue o theappearance f monologue,as Lewisdoes. Nonetheless, lthough ecognizinghathehad oseverely ditthe finalmanuscriptfit "were o be readasautobiography"1960:8),Mintz ailstoaddress hesignificance isactimpartso themanuscript1982:277].Dwyer's view provides a contrast to those cited earlier. The text of the book in question isthe same as it was in 1960; but that is not an issue. When it firstappeared, the book's biggest

failing was its alleged lack of objectivity, the result of working with an informant who was afriend. In 1982, when Dwyer judged the book, it had a different,almost opposite, failing. Therelationshipbetween Taso and me was tilted against Taso because we are not equals, and byfiddlingwith the texts Imaintained or increased the inequality between us. At firstsuspect be-cause Iwas overfriendly,I had now become not friendly enough.Both criticisms may have substance. On one hand, the book may be skewed and partisanbecause Taso and I were so busily transferringand counter-transferring.On the other, it maygive a misleading picture because rearrangingthe text could violate the meaning of the en-counter between Taso and me, and thus hide the way the relationship was linked to Taso'sview of his own life. Butrightor wrong, these criticisms may be able to tell us something aboutthe course of anthropological thinking.

Dwyer says I fail to address the significance of editing Taso's manuscript, "if it were to bereadas autobiography." But the passage from which this phrase is taken reads as follows:Iemphasizehedifficultynd he risks f thisentireprocedure eliminatingndrearranginghe interviewmaterialsnchronologicalrder], nd thethoughtfuleaderwillsee why.Theexactsequenceof Taso'snarration ould reveal ome clues to hischaracter, ut hesequencecould not be entirelypreservedfthe finalmanuscript ereto be readas autobiography.believe one can learnmuchaboutTaso romreading iswordsastheystand.ButI also want o makeclearwhat hisbook isnot,as well as what t is[Mintz 960:7-8].The book is, of course, a life history. Even more important. I believe, it is history, bared

through experience. Ina concluding chapter entitled "Historywithin History,"the parallelbe-tween Taso's narrationand what happened to Puerto Rican society in the firsthalf-centuryofhis life is spelled out. In a general way, I already knew well what Taso recounted for me-itcan be found in my chapterof ThePeople of PuertoRico (Stewardet al., 1956), and was writtenyears before Taso and Ibegan work on the life history. I did not yet see how that historycom-posed the material world within which a single individualexperiences what is happening, seesit on reflection as what is happening to him, and narratesit in this way. The autobiographicalmaterial hatparallelsthe historyis edited so thatthe autobiographywill be chronological. Tasoreminisces like most of us, and events are notalways presented by him in precise chronological



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order. My editing restoredpartof that order, but it did so by sometimes forsakingthe order inwhich Taso recounted his life.

finding TasoNearly25 yearsafterthe book was published, duringa visit to Brazilwhere Ihad been invitedto lecture on life history,a colleague asked me to write a paper for a special journal issue onlife history,to explain how I had chosen Taso. Iwrote the paper (Mintz 1984) and explainedthat I had not really "chosen" Taso at all. Briefly,the background to my work with him is asfollows.InJanuary1948, Ihad been sent to PuertoRico as a member of a student team assembled by

JulianStewardto carryout research there. Each of us selected the community in which he orshe was to work, butaccording to a theoretical design Stewardhad developed, consistent withhis own evolving theoretical view, called "culturalecology."Iworked in a community I had picked as representativeof the private sector of the PuertoRicansugarindustry.That sector was principallycorporate-only a few large plantationswerefamily-owned enterprises-and in largemeasure NorthAmerican. The community I chose con-sisted of three small settlements in a ruralbarrio, BarrioJauca Primero, located in the southcoast municipalityof Santa Isabel. I lived in BarrioJauca for over a year, and eventually wrotemy dissertation,a "community study," about it.The person from whom I learned the most during my stay in Jaucawas a sugarcane workernamedAnastacio (actually,as itturnedout, Eustaquio)ZayasAlvarado,nicknamed "Taso." Hewas one of a couple of dozen individualswhom Icame to know well in Jaucathe firstyearthatI lived there. They included males and females of widely varying physical type or "race," andof all ages; most were born locally, but some had migratedto Jauca in search of work. Therewere a couple of storekeepers and a few semiskilled persons-an electrician, a policeman, acouple of public car drivers-and some fishermen. But most of the people whom I came toknow were sugarcane workers. All but a couple were seasonally employed. None owned anyproductive propertyto speak of; none produced anything significantthat he or she could con-sume; all had to sell their labor, and to buy in stores everything they needed. Though therewere a few chickens and pigs, one cow, and some herbs growing here and there, this was aspurely proletariana community as Ihave ever seen.4 Nearly half of the people lived incompanyhouses and on company land at that time, but this feature of local life was changing fast. Alsoabout to change-though unforeseeable at the time-was the predominant place of sugar inregionaleconomic life (Ferguson1985). "Taso" worked on the railroad,which belonged to thereigningU.S. corporationof the region; it transported sugarcane and nothing else. The corpo-rationoperated three mills and supervised the production of cane on its own lands and onleased or rented lands stretchingover several municipalities. It had taken Taso half of his lifeto achieve the dubious, poorly paid security his job provided, but thatsecuritywas nonethelessgreaterthan what cane cutting or "seeding" or even operating a tractor or being a machinistwould have affordedhim.

Frommy firstencounters with him in the spring of 1948, Taso Zayas seemed to me to bedistinguishedfrom his fellow Jauquenios n certain regards. He was of course much like themin most ways: he spoke the same language, wore the same kind of clothes, ate the same food,seemed to seek his security in the same practices (forexample, informal "water" baptism ofchildren, compadrazgo relationswith friendsand relatives,machismo expressed in sexual andworkattitudes,playing the illegal lottery)and symbols; and shared the same most importantormost evident values (forexample, sexual jealousy, the subordination of women, the concept ofrespeto, the rejectionof birthcontrol, distrustof the Catholic Church, and so on). But Taso hada remarkable vocabulary; in his expressed opinions, he revealed a genuinely sophisticated



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knowledge of the political implications of events; he had a subtle sense of humor; and heseemed to understand better than anybody else I knew in Puerto Rico (and not just in BarrioJauca)what Iwas tryingto do there. That understanding, his startlingly high intelligence, andmy feeling that he somehow stood outside his community even though he was thoroughly partof it, made him a rich source of facts and corroborationfor me. I thought that he was an ex-traordinaryperson for his time and place.I lived in Jauca from the spring of 1948 until August, 1949. My study of BarrioJauca waswritten(and accepted in thesis form) in 1951.5 Though Icontinued to visit BarrioJaucaeverychance Igot after1949, Idid not do fieldwork there again until 1953. It seems important o mein restrospect hat Ihad done more than a year of intensive fieldwork there on my firstvisit, hadlearned the language reasonably well, had gone home, and had done fieldwork elsewhere,before thinkingabout more fieldwork in Jauca. During the intervening years Iwas able to visitand to see my friends there. Fouryears separated the end of my first fieldwork stint in Jaucafrom the reinitiation of my work there on the life history. Bythe time that Iundertookthe workwith Taso, Ibelieve that Iknew a good deal about Jauca, and a fairamount about Puerto Rico.Itwas afterIhad returned o the mainland in 1949 to write my dissertationthat Ilearned fromTaso'snephew, Lalo,thatmy friend had become a member of the Pentecostal Church. He hadbeen in trance, he had spoken in tongues, and he had given up various kinds of behavior-drinkingalcohol, swearingand gambling, among them-as partof his conversion. Iwas greatlystartledby the news of these events, and returned to Jauca to ask whether we might sit downtogetherto record his life history.Taso agreed without hesitation, and from our work togetherthere eventuated the book. Though my decision to ask to record Taso's life originated in mysurpriseat his conversion, his view was doubtless somewhat different. At the very least, I nowbelieve, he wanted me to understand the conversion in terms of the whole of his life up to thattime. I thinkthat, at the moment we agreed to work together, not only were the thoughts in ourtwo heads different,but also that his thoughts probably came much closer to being good socialscience than my own.As Iexplain early in the book, the firstnight we sat down to talk about his life, Taso askedfortime to think about it. Idid not turn on the wire recorder that night. The next night, beforewe began to talk, he produced a few sheets of paper torn from a notebook, on which he hadwritten a life statement. A couple of days later he produced a second such statement. Taso hasonly a fourth-gradeeducation, and he is not accustomed to write at lengthabout anything. Suchfacts make these writtenstatementsall the more remarkable.Ireproduced them in translation,unaltered, in the book; they form its thirdchapter, and they are presented exactly as he wrotethem, chronologically. The first ends around 1932, the second starts around 1945.At the time that Taso gave those statements to me they exerted a strong influence over mychoices of subject matterin our discussions and the order in which Isought to elicit informa-tion-including the period the statements did not cover. Inthis and other ways Taso affecteddeeply the form and the outcome of our work together. It is especially worth noting that, as wemoved ahead with his story, he interpretedhis conversion as being only one in a series of im-portant urning points in his life. His effortsmade visible for me the whole of his life trajectoryas he experienced it, thereby reducingto more understandable, life-size proportionsthe eventshe sees as articulatingit.

foreground, backgroundI have noted that Taso's life parallels significantly the historyof his community and region.His recountedexperiences embody-incarnate-that history. Surelynot everyone inJaucaex-

perienced those things in just the same way. Butour outsiders' knowledge of what happenedto the community becomes more immediate, richer,through having the testimony of a person



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being typicalInthe book, I stressedTaso's lack of representativeness,if what is meant by that term is typ-

icality, ordinarinessor average-ness. Taso is not in my view (nor, Ibelieve, in his own) repre-sentative of Puerto Rico, of working people, or even of rural,working-class Puerto Rico. Be-cause he is unusually intelligent and articulate,Taso would probably stand out among his fel-low human beings in most cultures. Yet Iwould insist that Taso is nonetheless representativeof his time, his place, and his people, because his personal narrative,enriched by special in-sight, expresses the experience of a community, a region, and a country-albeit embodyingeach on somewhat different levels of abstraction.Through his personal story,Taso conveys tothe reader in an individual way the collective experience of a conquered people. What hap-pened to him happened in the broadest terms to his society as well. His gift is to reveal hisexperiences as they are embodied in, and embody, the historyof his society. Inthis way Tasoemerges as a historicalfigure;what he explains to us is history,and by his own words, recount-ing his deeds, he becomes powerfully representativeof his culture and his time, without beingeitherordinaryor typical.It is when one sets aside individual uniqueness to address the shared perceptions that Tasovoices-shared with his family, neighbors, work partners,compadres and friends-that the is-sue of representativenessneeds to be addressed. I think that it concerns the extent to which aperson lives out, in her or his thoughts and acts and beliefs, the pressing issues that confrontthe society of which she or he is a part.The notion of representativenessI have in mind heremay also have to do with the difference between how events are experienced, and what con-structionsone makes of them morally.In terms of Taso's experiences, it seems to me there cannot be much argument over howNorth American business interests took over PuertoRico's south coast to produce sugarfortheAmerican marketat a profit.Nor can there be much argumentabout the general effects of thattakeover on local life. To be sure, interpretationsmay vary.One mighteven imagine a lengthyexchange of judicious opinions about whether it was, in the short runor the long run, "goodfor" the Puerto Rican people-at least for those who did not immediately and enduringly feelthat takeover. Butwhatever the interpretation,when Taso tells us what was happening to him,we discover it to be the obverse, integrateddistinctively by his intelligence and moral judg-ment, of what others might call "the world system." Inmy work Idid not tryto ask anyone toconfirm on some general or abstract basis Taso's opinions about the political and economicconsequences of NorthAmerican rule in the south coast sugar industry.As to the basic facts ofthatoverlordshipand its consequences for local people, Ithink that it would have been ludi-crous to raise doubts about what it meant. Of course, the facts do not "speak forthemselves";no "facts" do. Ina life historythat eventuates in being historyas well, any corroborationarisesfrom the perceptions of the individual reader, who is free to accept (or reject) the degree ofdepicted conjuncture between the life and its external constraints.

discovering myselfI would never have undertaken the life-historyproject at all if I had not known Taso and,

indeed, if we had not been friends. Itwas that I already knew him (and thought I knew himbetter than Idid) that moved me to try. Butthe object of our work together became more andmore to make clearer and more visible what happened to people like Taso, by making clearerand more visible what had happened to Taso. Ithink I was aware of at least some of the manyrisksof distortioninvolved in our procedures. The goal of the projectseemed worthwhile evenso.

Insteadof publishing Worker n the Cane, Icould have attemptedto publish, in the order inwhich they were recorded and without commentary or interruption, he more than 300 pages



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of interviews;there would have been good grounds fordoing so.6 Such a document would noteasily attracta publisher,however. Evenallowing for all the defects of my prose style, itwouldprobablyhave been less interestingto read than the book Ipublished. Isuspect, moreover, thatitwould not have been equally revealing about the changes which marked Barriohistory(andfor that matter,Puerto Rican history) during the course of Taso's life. Though I am much lesscertain, Isubmit that it might have revealed less about Taso, as well-at least of a certain sortof insight.Assembling chronologically clusters of his words on the same subject reveals con-sistencies and tensions that might otherwise be less apparent. But I chose to do the book as Idid, and I acknowledge my responsibility for any resultingdeformation in Taso's story. Ifmyfriendshipwith Taso resulted in a loss of objectivity, then that is also my fault, but I am unableto take this very seriously. Iwas not Taso's employer or teacher. Iwas not his psychoanalyst; Ididn'teven think Iwas his psychoanalyst.Istartedout intending mostly to be Taso's scribe, to find out if Icould how the man Ithoughthim to be had chosen the route he had for his life, particularlythe last-for me, wholly unex-pected-"turn." Ihave already explained thatTaso's narrationbrought into view a much morecoherent renderingof his total life than I had been prepared for, and also that his life line ranparallel to the historyof the region. As Taso got more deeply into his story, I began to senseunanticipated links among events and people in it, and I tried to interpretthose links. I don'tknow whether Iought to have done so; what is more, Idon't know how to find out.

imagesThere are images behind the two rather different criticisms of Taso's life historyto which Ihave referred.The firstsuch image has to do with science. Scientific objectivity is possible. Itrequireseither that the ethnographer ignore the fact that he/she, too, is a human being; or so

completely "prosthetize" the method that he/she becomes invisible. Then the life history ispushed out in front of the reader with a long stick, from offstage (Mintz 1979:23). One objec-tifies the data collection by becoming a camera, a lens, near-transparent;one capitalizes onnondirectiveness, neutrality,strangervalue. The second such image has to do with self. Objec-tivity, in this image, is impossible. The ethnographer remembers that there is no such thing asa fact; there are only interpretationsbecause he or she, as well as the informant,is a humanbeing. One must deobjectify the data collection because one is partof the data and the dataare partof one; one never separatesoneself from one's own thoughts, during the data collec-tion. (These renderingsof mine are of course only crude representationsof the subtleties in-volved.)The contrasthas, I think, political implications but they may not be apparent. Both the sci-entist and the self-person may be of the Rightor of the Left; or instance, either may believe inself-determination for dependent peoples, or its opposite. Neither is bound naturallyto anyparticularpolitical ideology. It is not that anthropology as a field, or in its viewpoints, hasmoved in any particulardirection on the political spectrum. It is merely that 40 years ago thereseem to have been more scientists; now there appear to be more selves.Some political implicationsdo enter, butby a differentroute. Anthropology began as a West-ern project. It had to become aware of its limitationsas a form of objective inquiry,and thus tounderstandbetter the conditions under which ethnographer and informant work together. Tothe extent that its practitionersmay fail to recognize this, anthropology can serve as handmai-den for other forms of Western penetrationof the rest of the world. Then its role in projects ofthe sortTaso and Iundertooktogethercan be to conceal, rather han reveal, a historyof oppres-sion. Butthat is the politics of understanding how nations, societies, and peoples are relatedtoeach other. Itis a different matter from the ways in which individuals-say, the informantandthe ethnographer-are relatedto each other.



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Ifone defends the possibility thatanthropology, in spite of its limitations, may play a part indocumenting what the West has done to other societies, then giving people like Taso voice(while admittingthat by our errorsor bad intentions, we deform and distortwhat they say) isbetter than leaving them mute. Some readers of Worker n the Cane, though they may admirethe remarkablehuman being who tells his storythere, have probablywished that he could havetold itwithout the proddings and cockeyed imaginingsof some foreign social scientist, most ofall one coming fromthe colonial power that rules Puerto Rico. ButTaso's storywas "there"allalong-he just had not told it to anyone. He may not even have known that he was ready totell it; and then I came along. The kind of person he is, the conditions under which he lived,his place in his society, the point at which we became friends,all figuredin the writingof thebook. Itsstory always was, and still is, Taso's story. I do not know by what means other thanourjoined intent it could have become something others might read and think about.To question one's project along the way is essential. But thatquestioning ought not, it seemsto me, turn into a self-consciousness so sensitive that the purpose of the inquiry is forgottenwhile the methodology is being perfected. Ifthat self-consciousness settles too heavily uponthe ethnographer'sworries about who he or she reallyis, then one runs the riskof being reducedto communicating mostly about oneself. Then it is the informant who may become back-ground. Of course, that does not mean that such communication cannot become a book. Butifthe ethnographer upstages the informanttoo much, the informantmay disappear fromsight,even while he or she is being made equal.Itseems to me entirely likely that the emotional quality of the relationshipbetween ethnog-rapherand informantwill vary enormously from case to case, and that it will depend in eachinstance upon all sorts of unpredictable, even imponderable, factors. That must have been astrue 35 years ago as it is today. Less easy to explain is the quite noticeable shift away fromobjectivity to what may be called reflexivity.That has not happened because the objectivistshave all gone away; nor is it because there didn't used to be any reflexivists.What has hap-pened does seem to have to do with the way the anthropological ego is managed.Therewas a time when the "real" Self could hide behind the ethnographic Self, leaving theethnographic Self "objective." It was not entirely true, of course; but people did it. Now itseems as if the ethnographic Self should be disowned by the real Self, because the real Selfmust cope with its own subjectivity. I don't think that's entirely true, either; but people aredoing it.These are not, it seems to me, absolutes. The fight is as old as the hills. Ibelieve that anthro-pology must be humanistic in its orientation. But anthropology must be scientific, too. It hastasksto accomplish, some of them practical as well as scientific.7 Indeed, it has succeeded atsome of those tasks, even when they involved humans studyingother humans. That not everyfact may be equal in status to every other fact does not prove that there is no objective reality,or liberate us fromthe obligation to tryour best to specify such realitiescarefully.Thereappearto be no facts, not because facts do not exist, butbecause facts exist only in relationshipto eachother. Hence, the specification of relationships means an interpretationof reality, not a longlistof facts;and interpretationof human behavior by humans means only thata certain kind ofscience is not feasible. This does not mean that there are not betterinterpretationsand less goodinterpretations,and perhaps that is partlya matterof the times. But if one believes in causationin human events, if one believes that history is not simply what people feel it is, then one ispreparedto interpret n a manner thatallows others to judge the interpretations orthemselves,on a basis that providesat least some opportunityfor proofor disproof.Itis important o me that life historycontinue to be regardedas a legitimate anthropologicalundertaking,even if the ethnographer does not get equal billing. It has to be possible for us torecord what someone of differingculture says, forexample, about how he or she experienceda war, a hurricane, or a depression, even if we are not in the book. Taso's book is the samebook it was in 1960. But each readerreads itdifferently,and the declared reasons why itwasn't



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a betterbook havegone on changing.I have no doubtthatif I knewmyselfbetter, twouldhavebeen a betterbook.Perhapsf I'dputmoreof me in it, itwould have beena betterbook,too. ButhadI been a moreeffective ieldworkern otherways that count-like knowing helanguage better, knowing the community and its historybetter, planning the questions better,workingharder, ndfeelinglesssorry ormyself-I think hatmighthavematteredmore.

a final wordWhat motivated me more and more to continue my work with Taso, as we went furtherwithhis story, was my conviction that his life and how he interpretedit should be made availableforothers o studyandponder.Idid not thinkmuchabout himandme doingthisas we were

doing it, and perhaps Iought to have. I thought instead about how better to explore with himmore partsof his experience, at greater depth, more completely. Often Iwent over by myselfwhat I had learned n the precedingsessions,to look forconnections,trying o understandbetterthe course of events. Taso would come back from a hot day of backbreaking labor, andjoin me to talk. We would often continue afterdinner for a few hours. The next day, as Istrug-gled to transcribeour evening's exchanges, he would be back at work.8As I have already said, the answer to how I "chose" Taso for the life history is simple: hechose me. Hecouldhaverefused o see me thefirstdaywe met;buthe helpedme instead.Hecould have done the same on innumerable occasions thereafter,but he never refused to helpme. And when Ivisited him for the first time after our work in 1956 was done-the collectingfinished, the seemingly endless transcribing, translating,and editing underway-I rememberthat he said the only thing he has ever said to me that gave me a pang of guilt, though I amcertain he did not intend it to. "I miss you," he said, "I miss our work together. Now that thelittlehouse behind ours standsempty, Iremember our work."There is the unequalness, the asymmetrythat most matters in the relationship between an-thropologist and informant,as opposed to the unequalness, the asymmetry that matters be-tween metropolis and colony. ForI enjoyed the continuing freedom to associate with othersforthe fun of it-to teach and thinkand readand write for a living. AfterTaso's book was done,Icould go on observing, loafing, experiencing vicariously. My friend, every bit my equal-inmost importantways, Ibelieve, my clear superior-went on workingwith his hands, at terriblyhardwork, for too long hours, at too little pay.

notesAcknowledgments. esearch n the life historyof "Taso"Zayaswas supported y the Wenner-GrenFoundation. hewriterwarmlyhanksKevinDwyer,Richard rice,RebeccaScott,GillianFeeley-Harnik,AshrafGhani, ackieMintz,JimCliffordndDickFox or heirvaluable riticismsf thispaper n itsseveralversions. regrethatnoneof themcanbe heldresponsiblenanywayforitspersisting ifficulties.'Onereview ntheBrooklyn ablet, well-known onservativeCatholicweekly,washarshlyriticalofme forhavingaskedquestions hat led to answerswhich,in theopinionof the reviewer,a priest,oughtonlyto havebeen toldto a priest nconfession.Agentlerpriest,who liked he book,stated nthe liberalCatholicweeklyAmericahat,hadIvan llichnotbeenbanished romPuertoRico wherehehadpreviouslyworked)o Mexico,Tasowouldnot haveconvertedo Protestantism.2GillianFeeley-Harnikointsout thatthe terms"stranger"nd "friend" reculturallypecific,as aretheconceptionsheyrepresent.What uchtermsmean o theethnographer ay ail ocorrespond reciselytowhat heymean othe"native."31 think hatBrandes asinterpreted adel'sargumentoo literally.There s a substantialifferencebe-tweenkeepingalooffrombeingidentifiedwithone or another ocialclass or in-groupn a smallcom-munity, ndnotmakingriendsatall.Nonetheless, eadersmaywishtoturn o LeoSimmons'ntroductiono SunChief oranexampleof theobjective,non-friendlypproach.Simmonshadbegunto workwith DonTalayesva,whom he hadmetthroughMischaTitiev.HevisitedDon atOraibi everal imes.Don washiredat35? an hour or heformalinterviewing,hichcontinued ver acoupleofyears.Of his1940visit,Simmonsells us:"Uptothis ime



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about 350 hours had been spent in interviewing,and he [Don] had writtenabout 3,000 pages of diary inlonghand. Rapportwas very satisfactoryand much new information was obtained; but near the end of mystaysome difficulties arose over the question of informationon the ceremonies" (Simmons 1942:5). Simplyput, the "difficulties"were thatTalayesva refused to discuss secret religiousceremonies. Simmons reportsthat he told him that their work could not go on otherwise, paid him off, and preparedto leave the pueblo.Faced with this ultimatum(including the loss of a job), Don came to Simmons laterthat day, apologized,and agreed to talk about the secret ceremonies (1942:6).4Thisdoes not mean people lacked valuable skills, some of which they sold; nordoes it mean thattherewas no reciprocal unremuneratedservice, gift exchange, or other nonmonetary social interaction. Muchto the contrary,in fact;Jauquehosclearly demarked the nonmonetary in theirdaily lives. Butthe proletar-ianization of life was nonetheless entirely clear and recognized.5itwas not published until 1956, due to the logistical and intellectual problems of integratingfive dis-sertations and much else in a single volume.6Good structuralgrounds, Gillian Feeley-Harnik says. Butother grounds, too. My dear friend, the lateCharlesRosario,would have liked to see two books, one being the unaltered texts. Inthe best of all possibleworlds, Iwould certainlybe in favor of that.

7Drawingthe distinctions somewhat differently,Friedrich(1989) has written recently of the "analytic-scientific" and the "emotional-ethical" approaches.8Wedid not ever discuss the fact thatI called what Idid "work,"and he called what he did "work." ButTaso had a way of talkingabout some particular ob in the sugarcane in the past, when itwas very difficult,thatIalways liked: "Esetrabajo,ese trabajoes lo que se llama trabajo,"he would say. Ialways felt slightlyfoolish calling what Idid by the same term.

referencesBrandes,S.1977 EthnographicBibliographiesin American Anthropology. CentralIssues in Anthropology 1:6.Casagrande,J.1960 In the Company of Man. New York:Harper.1961 Review of Worker in the Cane. American Anthropologist63:1358.Dwyer, K.1982 Moroccan Dialogues. Baltimore:Johns Hopkins UniversityPress.Ferguson,B.1985 Class Transformations n Puerto Rico. Ph.D. dissertation. New York: Columbia University.Firth,R.1936 We the Tikopia. London:George Allen & Unwin.Friedrich,P.1989 Language,Ideology and Political Economy. American Anthropologist91(2):295-312.Marcus,G. E.1986 Contemporary Problems of Ethnography n the Modern World System. In WritingCulture. Clif-ford, J., and G. E.Marcus,eds. pp. 165-193. Berkeley: Universityof California Press.Mintz,S.1960 Worker in the Cane. New Haven: Yale.

1979 The Anthropological Interviewand the LifeHistory.The Oral HistoryReview 1979:18-26.1984 EncontrandoTaso, me Descobrindo. Dados 27(1):45-58.Nadel, S. F.1939 The InterviewTechnique in Social Anthropology. In The Study of Society. Bartlett, F., M. Gins-berg, E.Lindgren,and R.Thouless, eds. pp. 317-327. London: Routledge and KeganPaul.Radin,P.1963[1920] The Autobiographyof a Winnebago Indian. New York: Dover.Shostak,M.1981 Nisa. Cambridge: HarvardUniversityPress.Simmons, L.1942 Sun Chief. New Haven: Yale UniversityPress.Steward,J.H., RobertA. Manners,EricR.Wolf, Elena PadillaSeda, Sidney W. Mintz, Raymond L.Scheele1956 The People of Puerto Rico. Urbana: Universityof Illinois.

submitted22 May 1989revisedversion submitted 24 July 1989accepted 25 July1989

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