On the Call for a Militant Anthropology: The Complexity of "Doing the Right Thing" Author(s): Steven Robins and

Nancy Scheper-Hughes Source: Current Anthropology, Vol. 37, No. 2 (Apr., 1996), pp. 341-346 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2744354 . Accessed: 12/04/2013 11:47
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Volume 37, Number 2, April I996

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both in South Africaand elsewhere,Scheper-Hughes's what lessons article is not very helpfulin identifying I987 (I782). Ensayo de historia SALVADOR. GILIJ, FELIPE can be learntfromsuch exercises. de la AcademiaNacioAmericana.3 vols. Caracas: Biblioteca The majorproblemwith the articleis thatit assumes nal de la Historia. that there was a clearly defined and unambiguous voyA the second relation of I968 (i596). LAWRENCE. KEYMIS, in theyeareI596 (fac- agenda forthe "militant" or activist South Africananand written age to Guiana,perfourmed simile).New York:Da Capo Press. Rather than investigatewhat South Afrithropologist. I986. CanciHEINEN. AND H. DIETER JULIO, LAVANDERO, did, eitherin the field,in theirpubcan anthropologists ones y bailes del ritualde la Nouara.MontalbanI7:I99-243. or in lecture halls, she simplydismisses their lication, Vol. I. del OrienteVenezolano. OJER, PABLO. I966. Formaci6n to the antiapartheid strugworkas politicallyirrelevant Caracas:UCAB. Creaci6nde las gobernaciones. SIR WALTER. I968 (i596). The discoverie of the RALEIGH, challengingthe power of the state. gle-as not directly New of Gviana (facsimile). Empyre large,richand bewtifvl who was trainedin As a South Africananthropologist York:Da Capo Press. at the Univerof Social Anthropology Department the DEMETRIO. I988 (I593). El mito de El Dorado. MaRAMOS, sity of Cape Town (UCT) in the early I98os, I feel drid:EdicionesIstmo. obliged to respond to her claims. I recognize that she P. G. I984. Individual and society in Guiana: A comRIVIERE, Cambridge: has done serious and important social organization. parativestudyofAmerindian workin Brazil and elsePress. University Cambridge made a valuable contribution also that she and where ALEXANDER. I970 (i8i9). Relation historVON HUMBOLDT, However, equinoxialesdu NouveauxConti- in herteachingwhile she was in South Africa. ique du voyageaus regions fora work is African extremely problematic her South Brockhaus. Vol. 2. Stuttgart: nent(facsimile). A history varietyof reasons,especiallyher failureseriouslyto enspirit: NEIL L. I988. Lordsof the tiger WHITEHEAD, ofthe Caribsin colonial Venezuelaand Guyana,I498-I820. and anthropologists gagewith theworkofSouthAfrican ForisPublications. Dordrecht: in of sides" the dilemmas "taking to reflect the upon The interpretatext: of anthropology The historical . i995. context. African South ANTHROPOLtionofRalegh'sDiscoverieof Guiana. CURRENT Scheper-Hughesdoes not seem aware that many OGY 36:53:74. did take sides but in ways SouthAfrican anthropologists that defythe simplisticdichotomiesof resistance/comas was the pliance and intervention/inaction. Moreover, theVietnamWar,when U.S. anthropologists case during collaboratedwith the militaryin Operation Camelot, but on intervened many South Africananthropologists "the wrong side." In South Africasuch interventions contributed towardsa reactionagainst "applied" or inas well as serious divisions terventionist anthropology and antagonismswithinthe discipline.Scheper-Hughes shows no signs of having grappledwith these complex STEVEN ROBINS of the University issues. Instead,she adoptsa narrowand naive interpretaDepartmentofAnthropology, WesternCape, Private Bag XI7, Bellville, Cape Town, tion of what it means to take sides, one that implies has to work fromthe that the militant anthropologist South Africa. I2 IX 95 barricadesor be a collaborator. (CA 36:409-20) calls on anthropologists Her colleagues at the Universityof Cape Town may Scheper-Hughes ofthe I990o not have thrownMolotov cocktails at the police, but to replacethe culturaland moralrelativism In fact,theywere were not collaborators. thatis politicallyand mor- theycertainly witha militantanthropology and engaged.She drawson herfieldwork involved in pedagogical practices that directly chalally committed experiences of povertyand violence in Brazilian and lenged apartheidideology by providinga powerfulcrito argue foran activistan- tique of cultural essentialism. Yet she dismisses their South Africanshantytowns themas "geninterventions and represents are witnessesto violence lecture-room If anthropologists thropology. argues,theyneed to in- teel colonials" complicitwith apartheid(p. 415): and injustice, Scheper-Hughes terveneand take sides. While completelysympathetic I beat the UniverIn the Departmentof Anthropology to her call fora politicallyengagedanthropology, lieve that her indictmentof South Africananthropolo- sityof Cape Town "business" proceededas intervenedto oppose usual. . ... "Race," "ethnicity,""tribe," "culture," gists for not having sufficiently and dedeconstructed and "identity"were dutifully apartheiddoes not begin to address a range of ethical essentialisedin Anthropology ioi, where theywere to thepoliticsof"applied" and "activquestionsrelating inventedand fictiveconcepts in South Africaand elsewhere. She taughtas historically ist" anthropology suggeststhat since (all?) South Africananthropologists (see Boonzaier and Sharp i988). Meanwhile, throughXhosas and Zulus (manipout the year South African failedto challenge apartheid,"in the necessarysettling
FERGUSON,

language.Editedby Ellen B. Basso,pp. 9-22. Tucson:Univer- of accounts now takingplace in the new South Africa, sityofArizonaPress. forreis a necessaryprecondition a radical self-critique EthofSt. Vincent: BOOMERT, ARIE. I986. The Cayo complex as a tool for human liberation" (p. anthropology casting aspectsoftheIslandCaribproband archaeological nohistorical necessary be may well "self-critique" such 4I5). While 66:3-68. lem.Antropol6gica Press. Research SantaFe: SchoolofAmerican tory.
R. BRIAN.

I995. Yanomami warfare:A political his-

On the Call fora Militant The Complexity Anthropology: of "Doing the RightThing"

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ulated by a government-orchestrated "thirdforce") tide I973, Faris I973, Frank I979, Onoge I979, Grillo daily slaughtered each otherin and aroundworker littlehas been writand Rew i985). Althoughrelatively hostels in the name of "tribe,""ethnicity," and "cul- ten about "applied" anthropology it is in South Africa, ture." The relativizing, deconstructionist exercise neverthless surprisingthat Scheper-Hughesdoes not seemed irrelevant to the materialhistory of opeven mention that one of her colleagues at the Unipressedand oppressor"tribes" in South Africaand versityof Cape Town, JohnSharp,has writtenon the to the recovery of "spoiled identities"and "spoiled German-influenced Volkekunde anthropologistswho ethnicities". . . in the politicallynegotiated process supplied apartheid ideologues with their "cultural of new-nationbuilding. expertise"on "tribalcustoms." In fact,one ofthe architects of apartheid,W. W. M. Eiselin, who happened to She claims forherselfthe moral high groundas custo- be the late Prime MinisterH. F. Verwoerd'sright-hand dian of a nonrelativizing militantanthropology without man, became the head of the firstVolkekundedepartthe historicallysituatedpo- mentat StellenboschUniversity any attemptto understand in I928 and is regarded litical motivationsthatproducedthese pedagogicaltac- as the cofounder ofAfrikaner anthropology (SharpI98I: the intellecprovided 29). Eiselin and the Volkekundiges ticts and "deconstructive"exercises. fora segregationist Scheper-Hughesseems unaware that these "decon- tual framework ideologythatconsidstructiveexercises" closely converged with the ANC's ered South Africa's nine "ethnic" groups timeless, response to apartheidpropagandaclaims of immutable bounded,immutable,and mutuallyincompatible ethnic and primordialcultural difference that were dissemi- nations-an ideologydrawnupon in an attemptby the nated in the schools, radio, television,and (some) uni- apartheid state to legitimate the Bantustan ("homeversities.For a young white studententering the UCT land") system. in the earlyI98os this constiIn perhapsan even moreextreme anthropology department reactionthanthatof tuted a powerfulcritique of apartheid.In otherwords, the NorthAmericananthropologists who ralliedagainst the political salience of deconstructingessentialist colleagues who collaboratedwith the U.S. militaryin ioi corresponded "tribal" discoursein Anthropology to Vietnam (Grillo and Rew i985), Scheper-Hughes's colthe liberationmovement's attemptsto decenterapart- leagues at the Universityof Cape Town-as well as heid ideas about immutable culturaland ethnic differ- anthropologists at Witwatersrand, Rhodes, and Natal one could say that Scheper-Hughes's Universities-severed all ties with the Volkekundeanences. If anything, UCT colleagues were too activist in their teaching. thropologists. Yet, Scheper-Hughesseems unaware of However, the political imperativefor challengingpri- the huge chasm and antagonism between these two mordialistideas about cultural identityhas exerteda camps. The pedagogical tactics of UCT facultyin the in thewake oftheongoing influence bloodshed I980s were aimed at challengingthe ideas of Volkepowerful in KwaZulu/Natal and right-wing These small acts ofresistancemay to the kunde anthropology. bombings prior April I994 democraticelections. not comparewithwieldingan AK-47,but theynevertheThese pedagogical tactics in the small spaces of lec- less challenged apartheidpropagandathat many white influencedstudentsarriving at studentswere exposed to priorto comingto university. ture rooms profoundly In their challenges to essentialist and primordialist after educauniversity havingbeen exposedto apartheid ethnic identities. notions of culture, race, and ethnicity,a number of tion and the fictionsof primordialist at English-speaking uniFor Scheper-Hughes,however, these anthropologists South Africananthropologists were merely"drinkingtea, talkingabout trifles, with- versities in the I980s, ended up endorsinga vulgar culturalidentities as meresuperdrawingfromthe struggle."Commentingon Scheper- Marxismthatrendered Hughes's article,Kuper(CA 36:424-26) correctly points structuralepiphenoma or "false consciousness." Such marxismconvincedstudentslike me thatethout that English-speaking were gener- orthodox anthropologists ally ANC supportersand sometimes "reproachedfor nic identities would undermine the solidarityof the movementand class and thenationalliberation allowinga political agendato steertheirscholarship"(p. working 425). Kuper concludes that Scheper-Hughes presentsa buttressthe divisive and oppressiveBantustansystem. drew on class analysis, deconstructed caricatureof colleagues who were activelyinvolved in So we dutifully our comresearchfocused on the social dislocation and violence racial and ethnic identities,and reconfirmed mitmentto a nonracial,unifiedSouth Africa.This fear to Gordon and Spiegel's (I993) of apartheid.Referring he arguesthat of the dangersand divisivenessof cultural,racial, and overviewof South Africananthropology, prevented us from recognizingthe it is "little short of outrageous" that Scheper-Hughes ethnic difference of Cape emancipatory potential of cultural identities and does not cite a single studyfromthe University in the past decade. struggles. Town department ofthe I99Os, however, has created The SouthAfrica Scheper-Hughesentirelyignores the historyof "apin SouthAfrica. She does the political space forall kinds of previouslyunthinkplied" or activistanthropology themulnot referto the extensive literatureon the politics of able projects, includingones thattake seriously While the tiplicityof cultural identitiesand struggles. knowledgethat emergedin the I96os, I970s, and I98os in response to the role of British,Dutch, and French ANC remains committedto nation building,a unitary in colonialismor ofNorthAmericanan- state, and an ideologyof nonracialism,since the i99OS anthropologists in South-East Asia and LatinAmerica(Bas- it has been less concernedwith containingand repressthropologists

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call to side with "the oppressed"is ing expressions of cultural and "ethnic" difference. Scheper-Hughes's because of her tendencyto treatthis group These days culturaldifference is even celebrated by the problematic Even during the darkest category. theme of President as an undifferentiated ANC, as was evidentin the official Mandela's inaugurationin I994: "One Nation, Many days of apartheid, siding with "the oppressed" was with complexityand ambiguity.For example, Cultures." Clearly, cultural differenceis no longer fraught in the mid-ig8os ArchbishopDesmond Tutu and the fearedas an apartheidstrategy of divide and rule. Allan Boesak placed theirlives and politScheper-Hughesfails to recognize the political and then-Reverend historical context within which the deconstructive ical credibility on the line when theyintervened to save moves of South Africananthropologists were located. the lives of suspected "impimpis" (police informers) She dismisses this pedagogicalprojectas politicallyir- whom angrycrowds were determinedto "necklace." relevanteitherbecause it is not sufficiently "militant" These courageous clerics could themselves have been forher or because she assumes thatthiswas all thatwas necklaced forattempting to save the lives of "the enwere caughtup in happeningin South Africananthropology. In fact,she emy." Similarly, pressphotographers gives no indication that she knows what researchany ethical dilemmas when police demanded their photoof Cape Town anthropologists and theirstu- graphsofsuch eventsin orderto identify University suspects.With dents were doing in the I98os. In i982 I was part of a the death of apartheidit is even more problematicto groupof fourpost-graduate studentswho went to rural view "the oppressed" as a homogeneousgrouping, and areas in South Africato investigate the social impactof "doingtheright thing"morethaneverrequiresa sophisforced removalsin South Africa'sBantustans. of the micropolitics The ratio- ticatedand nuanced understanding nale for this project was the need to document rural of local situations.The notion thatthe militantanthroas partofa nationalresearch the oppressed poverty projectcoordinated pologistwill have no problemidentifying by the economistFrancisWilson. We believed thatthis and the oppressorignoresthe immense difficulties and work would one day be useful to a futuredemocratic dilemmas that arise in fieldwork situationswhen local committed to developing the chroni- factionsand power brokersdeploy "outsiders" (e.g.,an(ANC) government to further all typesof"unprogressive" cally overcrowdedand impoverishedhuman dumping thropologists) and groundsof the Bantustansystem. exploitativeends, oftenin the name of the oppressed Scheper-Hughescalls for a "militant anthropology" masses. without any understanding of the motivationforsendClearly an argumentcould be made foranthropoloingpost-graduate studentsto Transkei,Ciskei, Qwaqwa, gists to intervenemore directlyin local strugglesand Lesotho. Instead of attempting to engagewith the work situations in specific contexts.However, this requires of membersof the UCT Anthropology of the complexitiesof local she a thoroughunderstanding Department, resortsto caricaturesof the departmental and power relations.We may hope that tea-roomas a understandings colonial outpost.She does not addresstheprofound need South Africananthropologists will continue to be infordecolonizingthe white-dominated discipline,a prob- volved in "applied" research and contributeto the lem that U.S. anthropologists are equally aware of in growth ofan anthropology ofdevelopment interventions theirown departments. Havingrecently thanretreating relocatedto the rather into the insularworldofthe acadblack and "coloured" Universityof the emy and esotericintellectualism.Scheper-Hughes's predominantly call WesternCape, I am even moreconvincedofthe urgency for a militant anthropology is unlikely to have much of this task. It involves radical pedagogicalinnovations impact in South Africa, but perhapsit will help to perin contextswhere the acquisition of conventionalaca- suade NorthAmericananthropologists to grapplemore demic literaciesand the ethnographic and racial violence canon(s)are expe- seriouslywith the desperatepoverty riencedas alienatingand intimidating. Transformation experienced by those who live in the urbanghettosborofouruniversities mayrequirenot "truth commissions" deringthe policed universitiesof Hyde Park,Berkeley, to examine the "complicity" of academic disciplines and MorningsideHeights. While North American anwith apartheid but a radicalrethinking ofdominantaca- thropologists such as Allen Feldman are doing impordemic discoursesand practices. tantworkon AIDs, substanceabuse, and homelessness, The call foranthropologists to intervenewhen they they remain outside an academy that looks upon "apencounter violence and injusticeis not necessarily with some disdain. prob- plied" anthropology lematic. However,dependingon the context,the interencounters convinceme thatdoing My own fieldwork vention of the "greatwhite" anthropologist can smack the rightthing is far more complicated than Scheperof paternalism and elitism and may aggravaterather Hughes cares to acknowledge.Moreover, ifthe reflexive than alleviate the suffering of the "beneficiaries"(see move in anthropology has taught us anything, it has Grillo and Rew i985). Whetheror not to intervene and made us more acutelyaware ofthe asymmetrical power which side to take in thefieldare generally not as unam- relationsthat shape most fieldwork encounters. Unless biguous and obvious as in Scheper-Hughes's interven- there is critical reflection on these questions, the call tion in a Cape Town shantytown. Even ifwe accept that fora militantanthropology could beginto resonatewith she oughtto have intervened in this instance,as many images ofU.S. "peace-keeping"interventions in the Perof us no doubt would have, most field situations in sian Gulf,Haiti, Grenada,Panama, Vietnam,and Korea. South Africain the ig80s would have been considerably Do we want to be associated with a new paternalism-a less straightforward. "Pax Anthropologica"?

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Reply
of California, University DepartmentofAnthropology, Calif.94720, U.S.A. I3 xI 95 Berkeley,
NANCY SCHEPER-HUGHES

"The Primacyof the Ethical" arguesfora dual vision of field-a fieldof studyas a disciplinary anthropology and as a forcefield-a site of struggleand resistance. There were exceptions, of course. Among 2othbut anthropology, The essay is not about South African century SouthAfrican anthropologists wereIsaac Schapin a few contentiousparagraphs it does make reference era and Monica Wilson, individuals of international statin Cape Town. The statements to social anthropology In his day Schaperawent to the final year of the democratictransition, ure and greatmoral integrity. referred present" against the grainof conventionalBritishsocial anthrothe "ethnographic I993-94, which constituted probof my researchand teachingyearin South Africa.I sug- pology by calling forthe study of contemporary lems, what he called the the "here and now" of South in Cape Town at thattimewas gestedthatanthropology some theoreticalconfusionand paralysis. Africans,including the study of the large "Cape Colexperiencing moment-the tab- oured" population of the WesternCape, whose special The latterwas capturedin a poignant leau of several members of the Departmentof Social social and political realityhad been largelyoverlooked in the de- by social anthropologistsinterestedonly in "tribal" at Cape Town sittingforlornly Anthropology As earlyas the mid-I930s, Schaperainthe South Africans. tearoomat highnoon on April27 during partmental sisted that the colonial administrator and the missiondemocratic elections in South Africa. They first-ever much a as of the tribal were social ary part system"as of were quietlydiscussing,over the nervousclink-clink the chief and the and magician" (Schapera I935:3I7) field research stora teacups,the day's task: dismantling But throughall, age room crowdedwith long unused and unwieldycan- that they should be studied together. vas tents,rusted mess-kits,half-usedbottles of insect Schapera"neveropenlytook up a politicalstancein anyhe wrote" He preferred (Gluckman I975:27). writrepellent,and torn mosquito nets. And so, just as the thing clatterof the ubiquitous tea-cartrumbles throughthe ing detailed and comprehensive ethnographiesfilled himselfwith "superficially exsatiricalnovels ofthe late BarbaraPym(some ofthese- with factsto concerning in citing [political] analyses, inadequately grounded antisee, forexample,Pym [I9871-dealing withBritish facts." the tearoomemergedin quarians and anthropologists), Monica Wilson, for her part, was sorely distressed as a generativemetaphorof postcolomy commentary when her friendand UCT colleague the historianJack in South Africa. nial Britishanthropology like all academic disci- Simmonswas "detained" and then "banned" forhis exWhitewriting. Anthropology, suffered fromthe imposed isola- plicitly antiapartheidpolitics, but she did not resign plines in South Africa, in protest tion ofthe academic boycott.One reactionwas a bunker fromher prestigiouspost as seniorprofessor The of of this action. business anthropology proceeded in an obsessive self-preoccupation manifested mentality that nonetheless fell short of a radically self-reflexive as usual. Wilson was critical of the state, althoughalpostcolonial critique. It had been politicallyexpedient ways in herquiet and unassumingway (see,forexample, to Wilson I975). It was said in her defensethat "Cookie," South African anthropologists for British-speaking inappropriate- her Africanservant,was allowed to wear the banned "demonize"-not thatthiswas entirely forhaving served as a willing ANC colorswhen she servedtable in the Wilson houseAfrikaner anthropology hold in Cape Town. And one could "read between the state(see SharpI98I, and complicittool ofthe apartheid the Anglophonetradition lines" that Wilson was often arguingin her writings Gordon I988) while defending as an intellectual force in the against the structureof migrantlabour. Althoughshe of social anthropology South Africanpresident, JanSmuts, antiapartheidstruggle(see Boonzaier and Sharp I988). invitedthe former civilized the so-called white to write the supremacist, But therewere some lapses and lacunae in this history. one of her her for Francis prologue books, son, Wilson, Despite pockets of activistresistanceamong social anat a in commented seminar Town his Cape honoring as the and their studentsas early I970S, thropologists would not have coexisted with motherin May I994 thatshe "probably for the most part social anthropology South done so as her own political awareness grew in later apartheidand survived at the English-language Natal, decades." universities African (Cape Town, Witwatersrand, the most Perhapsthe most egregious lapse came from active and Rhodes)by sidestepping political engagement or critique. As W. D. Hammond-Tooke (I970:80) of unlikely place. Max Gluckman, who took his firstdeat the Universityof WitwatersRhodes Universityanalyzed the situation for English- gree in anthropology to Great Britain,published an rand before emigrating at that time: speakingSouth Africananthropologists essay in I975 on "Anthropologyand Apartheid" in which he chastised these "younger anthropologists" Much more serious is the completedependenceof on the good will and who "alleged" that the colonial systemdominatedthe researcher the [anthropological] of social anthropologists working of the Departmentof Bantu Administra- researchand writings co-operation

tion and Colored Affairs. Permitsare necessaryfor entranceinto non-Whiteareas and can be summarily with no reasons given.... The generalefwithdrawn fectof this uncertainty is to forcethe research workerto "play it safe" . . . by selectingas politically neutrala topic as possible . . . [avoiding anything that]criticizesgovernment policy eitherimplicitlyor explicitly.

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Volume 37, Number 2, April I996 in the "dependent territories"of Africa. Gluckman noted that some South Africananthropologists "were deeplyinfluenced positivelyby the policyofsegregation which, afterthe election of the nationalist,dominantly Afrikaner, Governmentin I948 . . . became hardened into what is called apartheid(separateness)."Gluckman certainly fell into the stickyweb of apartheidideology when he noted that perhaps there was "some good," afterall, in the apartheidnotion "that indigenouscultureis excellentin its own right... and something they should clingto and fight for, just as Afrikaners fought for theirlanguage and cultureagainstthe mightof English

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Who speaks forwhom?Despite his provocativecomments (statedabove), Gluckman and most of his white in the "culSouth African colleagues did not participate tural uniqueness" discourse that was favored(forobviIf anything, ous reasons) by the apartheidgovernment. "unitheytendedto go to the oppositeextreme, favoring versalist"discoursesand avoidingreferences to distinct cultural traditions.Many white South Africananthropologists,includingGluckman,were intellectualmarxists who used political economic paradigmsto explain social differences. They emphasizedthe biological similaritiesand the sharedhuman intellectualand social caculture"(GluckmanI975 :2I-22). "I considerit un- pacities of all peoples. wise," he continued, "to neglect the ideological basis The anthropology facultyof UCT in I993-94 were which sees Africanculturenot only as appropriate and and are, as Robins notes, well-knownprogressives who valuable forAfricans, but Zulu cultureas good forZulu, took issue with the former state's racistideology, which Xhosa cultureas good forXhosa, Pedi cultureforPedi, explained social and economic differences in termsof etc. . . . There have also been 'liberal' segregationists biologicalrace and a biologizednotionof "culture" (betwho, in my judgement, tendedto emphasize the beauty terread,perhaps, as kultur). in the i980s, they Beginning and harmony,and even the appropriate uniqueness, of pursueda largeteachingand theoretical research project each African culture" (p. 22). This sentencealone in the aimed at deconstructing "race," "ethnicity,""tribe," recent annals of South Africananthropology merits a "gender,"and "culture" (see Boonzaierand Sharp I988). formalapologyfromthe profession. Any emphasis on "culturaldifference," uniqueness,and If the choice forAnglophonewhite South African was seen as playinginto thehands ofthe an- distinctiveness was not exactly "adapt or die," it was a apartheid But since thisSouthAfrican government. Keythropologists case of "accommodate or pursue anthropologyelse- wordsprojectwas not accompaniedby a relentless, selfcritique,it reproduced otherparadoxes. where." This was, in fact, what a great many white reflexive South Africananthropologists For one, the project to obliteratethe idea of unique did, therebygreatlyenriching our professionin the United States and the culturesand traditions(now to be understoodas social United Kingdom.Not all South African the comanthropologists, fictionsand historicalinventions)discredited of course,had equal opportunity to do so, and some pre- plicated attemptsof some marginalized groupsin South ferred to remain and to struggle-a choice fraught with Africa, such as the resettled"Bushmen" of Kagga-Kama and danger.Taking an explicitpolitical posi- and the "coloured" population of the Cape Flats, to redifficulty tion cost the life of one South Africananthropological claim a social, cultural,and political space, albeit one in i989. Otherburdensaccom- that flies in the face of ANC prioritiesand politics. activist,David Webster, panied the choice to remainin South Africa.Ian Glenn Moreover,the Keywordsproject was taught in a topmannerstifling ofEnglishat UCT, notedthata "poli- down,obligatory to explorealattempts (I994), a professor tics of suspicion" hangs over the work of all contempo- ternative and uses of culture,ethmeanings,references, rarywhite South Africanintellectuals and academics. nicity,and tribe. When,near the end of this period,HarrietNugubane, Their life's work is oftenread throughthe mandatory South Africananthropologist, and "politically correct" prism of political relevancy: a British-trained was apat UCT-the first Wheredoes this fitinto the struggle? pointeda professor black South AfriStill,I continueto question the failureofAnglophone can to fill such a position in the Departmentof Social SouthAfrican at UCT, to pro- Anthropology-she met a chilly reception from her anthropology, particularly duce even a small cohortofblack South African anthro- white male colleagues. She departedfromtheirobligato argue,instead,forthe distincpologists in the second half of the 20th centurywhen torydeconstructionism otherdisciplinesand professions at UCT (law,medicine, tive culturalidentityof her native South AfricanZulu religious studies) have found ways of circumventing community (see Nugubane I 988). The irony was not lost obstacles to do so. Of course,Dr. Mam- on Nugubane that she, a black South Africanwoman, state-imposed was simultaneously viewed as a "colonialist" and phele Ramphele,now poised to become in January I996 the first black South African vice-chancellor ofthe Uni- treated as an "outsider." She noted the arroganceof versityof Cape Town, is the dramaticexception.But those who criticizedher classes, modified her examinawhat if even a small numberof otherblack South Afri- tion questions,and made her feel superfluous. cans had been given a similar opportunity If we have learned one thingfromthe postcolonial, and encouragementto studyanthropology? That processis just now multiculturalargumentsthat have emergedsince the in earnest;Ramphele (i995:5) chides her uni- publication of Said's Orientalism in I979 it is respect beginning versityfor continuing to churn out "good little En- for the rightof individuals and groups to claim their glishmen" and calls for a "decolonization" process own social self-identity. It did not escape Nugubane and which would "make a clean break with colonial En- otherblack intellectualsat UCT that the "no race-no gland"(see Cape Times, October tribe-no culture" rhetoricof white South Africanan6, I995).

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thropologists best served theirpersonal,social, and political interests.In the postapartheid, democratic,and Africanmajoritarian state,white South Africans would have the most to gain fromradicallydeconstructed notions of ethnicity, race, and culture.

On ArchaeologicalTheory: Who's Who in Setting the Agenda?

Zheleznovodskaya Russia. 5 VII 95
L. S. KLEJN

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reacI am surprised by Murray's(CA 36:290-92) stormy of the collection in tion to my review (CA 34:508-II) I993). What which he participated(Yoffeeand Sherratt strikesme most about it is its errorin perceivingthe that I (justly or unjustly)attrigeneral characteristics to everyindividual bute to a whole approachas applying advocate of that approach.For example,with reference to whole Third World,I remarkedon the poor,hungry, and downtrodden,and Murray immediatelyfeels offorhis fended forAustralia.Let Klejn keep his sympathy fellowRussians,he suggests.Well, I shall. The Russians varitheirsocial systemnow, experiencing are changing themselves ous collisions and indeed sometimesfinding I sugunable to cope with their difficulties. Further, archaeologicaland gestedthat in generalcontemporary relativism resultedfrom a subconscious anthropological weariness in the advanced nations with the troublesof colonial- a wearinessstimulated peoples untilrecently by feelingsof guilt. But this does not mean that I suppose everyrelativistto be wearyand guilt-ridden. Klejn has misreadme, Murraydeclares,and does not understand our context.Of course,I could well be confused about that distant context,could be incorrectly language aboundingin readingstatementsin a foreign idioms and scholarly slang,but let us turnto theparticular realizationof these accusations: withthe same broad i. "Klejn tarsall the contributors brush" (p. 29i). Not all of them.I triedto difrelativist in the collection,to see the articlespresented ferentiate which ones were strongerand which weaker, which nearer to processualism and which to postprocessualand which not. In particular, Murism, which relativist raystipulatesthathe does not always followrelativism, in the relabut in realityhe expoundsnearlyeverything tivistspirit. 2. Klejn considers"all ofthe manyvarietiesofrelativism to implya kind of 'antiobjectivism"'(p. 29o). What "varieties of relativism" are meant here? Objectivism can be understoodas the absolutizationof the objective abperceptionof reality.PerhapsMurraycalls rejecting To me both solutizationa mildervarietyof relativism? and absolutizationofthe objectiveperception relativism of reality(I hesitateto call it objectivism)are extremes, and both are bad. 3. Klejn does not see that relativismhas contributed usefulto our disciplineand "does not undersomething betweenobjectivism standthatthereis a middleground and relativismin archaeologicalepistemology"(p. 292). of the However, I indicated the positive contributions

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