The Extended Agency of Alfred Gell

Author(s): Simon Harrison

Source: Anthropology Today, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Aug., 1998), pp. 1-2
Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland
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The extended agency of

,nthro ology

Alfred Gell
I was privileged a few months ago to read the page
proofs of Alfred Gell's Art and Agency, which he com-

pleted just before his tragically early death at the age of

fifty-one in January last year (see Obituary, A.T., April
1997). In this book, recently published by Oxford

Vol. 14 No. 4 August 1998

Every two months oday

University Press (?35, ?15.99 pb), one of the most

powerful and creative thinkers in the field of the anthropology of art systematically develops and syn-

thesizes the central themes that preoccupied him in

Contents

most of his earlier work.

Art and Agency begins with a critical examination,

The extended agency of Alfred Gell (SIMON HARRISON) page 1

and rejection, of the merely semiological and aesthetic

approaches which have tended to hold sway in the anthropological study of art. Gell proposes instead that art

DAWN CHATTY

objects are most profitably regarded, from an anthropo-

Enclosures and exclusions: conserving wildlife in pastoral areas of

logical view, as material parts, or extensions, of the

the Middle East 2

agency of those who create or utilize them; artworks

are artefacts endowed so to speak with the status of
honorary persons, with the special property of partici-

MARGARET LOCK

Breast cancer: reading the omens 7

pating, actively or passively, in social relationships with

human beings and with each other. They form part of
what Gell conceived, in one of his most arresting ideas,

CHRIS WRIGHT

as a 'technology' of human social interaction: the pan-

The third subject: perspectives on visual anthropology 16

oply of material artefacts which people devise and use

specifically to captivate, intimidate, soothe, coerce, attract and otherwise engage with each other in sociality.

COMMENT 22 ELIZABETH C. DUNN on Polish civil society

FILM 23 SARAH PINK on Gottingen festival 1998

It follows from Gell's conception of art as part of a

social or interpersonal technology that personhood must

be understood as extended or distributed among the

CONFERENCES 25 JONATHAN SKINNER on ASA 1998

many objects it fashions and employs in social action,

OBITUARY 26 Denise Paulme, Sheila Patterson

properly conceived, is not co-terminous with the human

LETTERS 27 PAUL R.P. KILLWORTH on ethnographers' reciprocity

body; it is disseminated among all the 'prosthetic' ex-

not as something singular or discrete. Social agency,

NEWS 27

tensions and augmentations by means of which it acts

CALENDAR 29

towards others and thereby expresses itself. Gell syste-

RAI NEWS 31

matically unpacks the implications of these insights in

CLASSIFIED 32

CAPTION TO FRONT COVER page 31

the course of nearly three hundred pages of often meticulous analysis, encompassing a wealth of fascinating

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examples of human artistry, ranging from the euvre of

Marcel Duchamp, to the corpus of extant Marquesan
art, to the intricately convoluted patterns which Indian
housewives draw on their threshholds each morning to

ward off demons. I must emphasize that Gell's purpose

is to construct a truly anthropological theory of art, not

a theory of some misconceived category of non-West-

ern, ethnographic or 'primitive' art. That is to say, he

gives us a theory of all art viewed from the perspective

of social relations, which are in his view (and mine

also) anthropology's fundamental subject matter.

One implication of Gell's theory, which of course did

not escape him, is that the things people create are parts
of themselves which may, after their deaths, carry on
pursuing their intentions for them, continuing as it were
to act and speak in this world on their behalf. Certainly,
the book is in itself a thoroughly successful vindication

Signed articles represent the views of their wnlters only. All submissions other than short reports and letters are
peer-reviewed ? RAL 1998.

of its own thesis: anyone who knew Gell will recognize

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on every page his vivid presence, and that distinctive

mour, and striking originality of thought, which was so
attractive a characteristic of Gell as a thinker and
writer, and indeed as a person. In fact, at one level this
book could be read simply for the pleasure of his very

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the text yields into the ways in which an exceptionally

gifted mind operates.

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This 'handface' tattoo

Gell had the capacity to make connections between

from the Marquesan

apparently quite disconnected phenomena, in ways that

Islands, eastern

Polynesia, is analysed by

were often at the same time playful and immensely il-

Alfred Gell in Art and

luminating. I doubt that it would occur to many writers

Agency. '[T]he

on art to call Michelangelo's 'David' a 'big doll for

characteristic involution

grown-ups'; or to characterize geometrical decorative

of the Dravidian kinship

patterns, such as Celtic knotwork, intended to mes-

universe, where political

succour and brides

merize and enmesh devils in their maddenly complex

come from an enclosing

reticulations, as 'demonic fly-paper'. And certainly very

circle of matrilateral

few art theorists would imagine there could be anything

relatives, is connected,

at all in common between the artist and a soldier in Pol

via a scheme transfer, to

body arts which enclose
the individual in a

Pot's army, who scatters physical embodiments of his

Ir-C

agency in the form of landmines, artefacts which con-

protective wrapping of

tinue inexorably to pursue the soldier's appalling objec-

tattooing'; Gell argues

tives long after he himself has vanished.

that visual styles are not

If Art and Agency is read, at least initially, mainly by

generated by culture,

those with a particular interest in the anthropology of

but have a relative

art, Gell's argument has a significance, and will cer-

'inter-artefactual'

tainly have repercussions, far beyond this specialist

autonomy. (Source: Karl

von den Steinen, Die

field. Actually, it is likely to move the whole subdisci-

Marquesaner und Jhre

pline of the anthropology of art much closer to the

Kunst, Berlin, 1925).

centres of current anthropological theorizing. For

clearly, Gell's view of art has implications for the way

we understand some of the key issues in the social

sciences; if he is right, a proper understanding of art is

Simon Harrison is

A 1

Reader in Anthropology
at the University of
Ulster, and has

published widely on

critical to a truly adequate theoretical understanding of

- for example - the nature of human subjecthood and

-6 6

of social relationships. Gell endowed this book with a

strong identity and a very powerful intelligence. He has

Melanesian topics and

left us an important presence soon to start acting among

on ritual and symbolism.

us, and on us, and on some of the central concepts of

He is in the process of

our discipline, with effects that we cannot yet foresee.l

handing over the

Editorship of the

Simon Harrison

Journal of the Royal

Anthropological Institute
after a three year period
of office.

Enclosures and exclusions

Conserving wildlife in pastoral areas of the Middle East

DAWN

CHATTY
The author is Deputy

Wildlife conservation schemes which, by design, set

vironment and were thus obstacles to effective natural

out to protect endangered fauna and flora, have a rela-

resource management.

tively recent history in northem Arabia. First in Saudi

Over the past decade there has been a perceptible

Arabia, then in Oman and Jordan, projects have been

change of heart. International conservationist circles do

now, at least, discuss the concept of 'conservation with

Director and Senior

set up over the past two decades to reintroduce the

Research Fellow at the

Arabian oryx to its original habitat. In so doing, large

a human face' (Bell 1987). A few promising examples

Refugee Studies

tracts of grazing land have been fenced to enclose these

of African conservation are emerging where efforts are

precious creatures in a relatively confined space and

being made to integrate indigenous human populations

thus protect them from the dangers which contact with

into conservation and development projects (IIED

Programme, Queen
Elizabeth House,
University of Oxford.
Her recent publications

humans is assumed to pose for them. The philosophical

1994). But when transposed to Arabia, this new found

include Mobile

underpinnings of such a policy stem from a long Afri-

conservation wisdom loses something in the translation.

can colonial and post-independence tradition. In East

Using the internationally supported wildlife reintroduc-

Pastoralists:

Development Planning
and Social Change in
Oman (Columbia UP,

Africa and elsewhere, pastoral populations were long

tion project in Oman as a starting point, I aim to show

ago forced off their grazing lands in order to create

that conservation schemes in Arabia continue to regard

1996) and Organizing

parks for wildlife and tourists (Turton 1987, Howell

local populations as obstacles to be overcome - either

Women: Formal and

1987, McCabe et al. 1992). This preservationist style of

with monetary compensation or with special terms of

Informal Women's
Groups in the Middle
East (Berg, 1997). This

management which aimed to provide opportunities to

local employment - instead of partners in sustainable

experience the natural environment - that no longer

conservation and development. Conservation in Arabia

existed in the domesticated landscapes of Europe (An-

is still basically defined by its enclosures for the preser-

longer paper presented

derson and Grove, 1987) - meant the forced exclusion

vation of flora and fauna and its exclosures of the do-

at the AAA in

and, for some, resettlement of thousands of pastoral

mesticated herds of pastoral tribes. The land upon

Washington, November

people.I The assumption then was that local pastoral

which all this takes place is, to say the least, of con-

article is based on a

1997.

populations overstocked and overgrazed the natural en-

tested usufruct.

2 ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY Vol 14 No 4, August 1998

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