NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/sci/environm/14742

Text File | 1993-01-22 | 3.7 KB | 75 lines

Newsgroups: sci.environment
Path: sparky!uunet!haven.umd.edu!ames!saimiri.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!menudo.uh.edu!uuneo!sugar!claird
From: [e-mail] (Cameron Laird)
Subject: Trans-culturality:  themes of liminal space and domestication [LONG]
Organization: NeoSoft Communications Services -- [phone]
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 16:26:09 GMT
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Lines: 65

I recently posted this article (<[e-mail]>?) to
sci.anthropology.  Gil Hardwick has suggested to me that it
might be useful to have it appear also in sci.environment.
Both he and I are suffering through operating system ills this
month, and have had trouble re-transmitting this efficiently;
my apologies for not providing more detailed electronic tags
to the context in which I first wrote this.
____________________________________________________________________________
One point that has arisen tangentially in a number of recent
discussions, which I wish to underline, is this:  in much of
human affairs, it is *not* unusual to bridge cultures.  We
moderns tend to forget this.

There's still a bit of life in the is-horticulture-or-herding-
more-primitive? discussion, but discussants need to understand
that we have no models for pastoralism in isolation.  All the
well-attested ethnographies of pastoralists are of cultures
which interact in fundamental ways with their neighbors--trade,
raiding, apprenticeship, kinship, and so on.  Inhabitants of
late 20th-century cyberspace misapprehend their own cosmopoli-
tanism:  in global media-mediated culture, it is chic to
listen to a South African singer, recorded on Dutch tape,
transcribed by Japanese equipment, and so on.  We applaud
ourselves for our broad horizons.  In some ways, though, this
journey demands less subtlety and maturity than one which
moves five miles inland from the Caspian Sea, or Lake Winni-
peg, or the Bay of Biscay.  It often is not "praise-worthy"
for "traditional peoples" to speak several languages, to know
how to behave in the presence of princes and paupers, to
adjust the hems of their jackets for different fashions, or
to show good courtesy whether eating fish or fowl, flesh or
fruit; these are matters of daily life.

I conjecture that this explains some of Gil Hardwick's fre-
quent ill humor.  On the one hand, he reads of college
sophomores who grapple with such grave matters as whether
to enroll in sociology or psychology; on the other, he has
lived most of his life with people (both in Australia and
China) who, while nominally impoverished, know how to move
across whole continents, survive in radically different
cultural milieux, and take responsibility for construction
of their own lives and societies.  A bit of impatience
mightn't be out of order.

I submit positive propositions:  perhaps what is human is
not merely to bear a culture, but to be able to choose be-
tween several cultures, as situations warrant.  Let us honor:
the trader, for whom, as Gil has recently written me,
"[f]acing *risk*, developing relationships, and YES a desire
to see every one of one's friends, associates and acquantances
*prosper*, is the very essence"; the nomad, always a stranger
in a strange land, the vector of invention and destruction,
buboes and luxuries, honor and arrogance; and the fisherman,
who teaches those who remain at home how hostilely indiffer-
ent, and how abundantly wealthy, the larger world is.

Thanks to J. Fraser and P. Christian for setting me to think-
ing about some of these topics.  I recant, by the way, my
belief that English is a creole--provisionally, until I can
study it more.
--

Cameron Laird
[e-mail] ([e-mail])    [phone]
[e-mail] ([e-mail])      [phone]