@article{oai:minpaku.repo.nii.ac.jp:00004227,
 author = {太田, 好信 and Ota, Yoshinobu},
 issue = {3},
 journal = {国立民族学博物館研究報告, Bulletin of the National Museum of Ethnology},
 month = {Feb},
 note = {This paper is an examination of implications that postcolonial
criticism adumbrates for anthropological theories. Although recent advances
in critical theories in literature seem, prima facie, to have very little
in common with anthropological theories, they now constitute a
strong critique of many assumptions inherent in anthropological theories
and practices. Among these critical theories the most relevant for anthropologists
is exemplified in the text of Edward Said's Orientalism
[1978]. Said points out that Orientalism, a discourse on the Orient by
Western scholars, systematically reduces the multiplicity of the Orient to
a stereotypic image, often sexualized, and essentializes the Orient as the
residual category of the Occident. Moreover, he interprets Orientalism
as a form of power which disempowers the people of the Orient by claiming
the objectivity of scientific methodology. Now, is anthropology a
kind of Orientalism as defined by Said?
The fact that for anthropologists Orientalism may have remained
for a while an enigmatic text suggests a quite complex answer to that
question. This is because Orientalism seems to criticize the interpretive
stance of hermeneutically oriented anthropological thinking, as
represented by Clifford Geertz's; while at the same time it explicitly exonerates
anthropology by distinguishing it from other forms of Orientalism--
Said lauded the very Geertz as a typical anthropologist in this
sense.
It is James Clifford who has first recognized two positions Said had
assumed toward anthropology. One position, critical of realist
epistemology, is based on the philosophy of Foucault, who has analyzed
the discursive nature of academic disciplines in the human sciences. The
other is that of the humanist in search of authentic encounters with the
Other. These two mutually contradictory positions from which Said has
launched his critique of Orientalism may have been a source of the
enigma mentioned above, and, as a consequence, the virtual neglect of
this text in anthropological circle until 1987, when at the annual meetings
of American Anthropological Association Said was invited to deliver a
paper entitled "Representing the Colonized: Anthropology's Interlocutors."
In this presentation Said is no longer generous with his
praises for anthropology; he attacks the fact that many anthropologists
have still remained oblivious to those world-historical conditions that
enabled Western scholars to study non-Western cultures: that is,
hegemony of the West over the rest of the world.
Thus, it has become obvious that anthropologists cannot ignore
Said's postcolonial critique of the disciplinary foundation. But, such a
re-evaluation of Said's work has occurred rather recently; Clifford's
review of Orientalism has been a sole exception. In his reading of Orientalism
Clifford [1988] has formulated many questions directly relevant
for the future of anthropology: for example, "Can one ultimately escape
procedures of dichotomizing, restructuring, and textualizing in the making
of interpretive statements about foreign cultures and traditions?"
My assessment of Clifford's reading of Orientalism is that he has produced
an epistemological reading of it, as opposed to a political one, the latter
being the reading clearly more in line with Said's own representation.
A political reading of the text positions a reader in actual social settings;
therefore, it allows the reader to evaluate the epistemological
readings as abstract; consequently, the epistemological reading privileges
those already in power, while disempowering the marginalized in the
name of objectivity. Thus, after exposing those contradictory positions
in the text—discursive and humanist-realist perspectives—this paper
calls for an oppositional, political, rather than a merely epistemological,
reading of Orientalism.
A political reading of the text points to the more socially situated
understanding of anthropological theorizing. For example, what does it
mean to suggest that the aim of anthropology is to understand the
Other? Who is the Other? Does the Other mean the same thing for anthropologists
in the United States, Japan, Indonesia, of African countries?
What is the purpose of this understanding in the light of
economic and political inequalities pervading throughout the world?
Answers for these questions are not easily forthcoming; however, for anthropologists,
the political circumstances of the world have been so
quickly changing that anthropologists are now faced with challenges
from "native peoples" all over the world: the era of anthropological innocence
is gone.
In the days of Malinowski, "native" people questioned neither the
right (nor a lack thereof) of anthropologists in conducting field researches,
nor the authority of anthropologists' scholarship. But, now, both
right and authority are called into question. In Oceania, for instance, a
discourse on "the invention of culture," a discourse anthropologists have
successfully constructed with purely academic interest alone, has been
under attack from leaders of native cultural movements, for it disempowers
the local people of Oceania to define what is rightfully their own
tradition. No anthropologists could remain immune to this kind of
political development in which a discourse on culture is constantly contested
by local political leaders of cultural movements.
In Japan, an Ainu women has raised a voice of protest against an anthropologist
who used her photo without her permission in the book she
does not approve of. In a close reading of the published court proceeding,
I suggest that what has been debated is not so much an issue of
individual right (to be photographed) as the nature of anthropological
discourse, which is, to borrow a phrase from Clifford [1988], purely "entropic":
the Ainu culture has disappeared already. An entropic narrative
of culture displaces the Ainu people to the past, denies their current
struggles in gaining socially recognizable positions in Japanese society,
and disempowers their existence in the guise of objective research.
Then, is nativism an answer to this kind political predicament?
Are the peoples of Oceania the only peoples to have a claim to a
discourse on their own culture? Should (and will) and Ainu people exclude
the "Japanese" (wajin) scholars from studying their culture? As
Said's answer to Orientalism is not Occidentalism, nativism is not my
recommendation for dealing with this political predicament.
As one of Japanese anthropologists with interest in studies on our
own culture as well as other cultures of the world, how can I re-imagine
anthropology in these complex political conditions of the late twentieth
century? How do anthropologists situate themselves in relation to anthropologies
of metropolitan centers in Europe and the United States?
Is it possible to envision anthropology as a discourse on the Other
without entailing domination of the Other?
Certainly these questions cannot be answered easily. Nevertheless,
following a suggestion from Mitsuru Hamamoto, I propose, first, that
ethnographic authority be abandoned in favor of a mode which allows
constant re-writing and re-editing not only by anthropologists alone but
also by whoever has access to it, as is already happening in electronically
mediated communications. What is needed, with assistance from newly
developed communicational technology, is doing away with ethnographic
authority for a more anarchical presence of voice carefully articulated
to subvert the authorial intention; my suggestion here differs from
Clifford's: his is representing textually (in ethnography) the polyvocal
quality of ethnographic encounters.
Second, I recommend a form of anthropological practice that does
not circumvent political contests, taking the side of the politically oppressed
and always critical of hegemonic history; and I also recommend
a form of "narrative" that acknowleges the emergence of new cultural
differences. Such an entanglement in political contests does not always
call for every anthropologist to become a political activist; however, it
certainly calls for an explicit awareness of the political nature of every anthropological
discourse and a clear recognition of the anthropologist's
relationship to the local people. A relation between fans and the performing
group (such as a rock group) may serve as a possible analogy in reimagining
the future relationship between anthropologists and the people
they study or work with.
Although a constant questioning of ethnographic authority has been
judged to be counter-productive in conducting fieldwork and writing an
ethnography, these two activities many no longer be the characteristics
defining anthropology. What is anthropology, then? Waning of
authority to speak on someone else's culture will bring this question to
the center of attention among anthropologists. Lost innocence is not
the end of anthropology; it is only the beginning of re-imagining anthropology
for the future.},
 pages = {453--494},
 title = {オリエンタリズム批判と文化人類学},
 volume = {18},
 year = {1994},
 yomi = {オオタ, ヨシノブ}
}