beyond culture - akhil gupta

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Beyond "Culture": Space, Identity, and the Politics of DifferenceAuthor(s): Akhil Gupta and James FergusonSource: Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 7, No. 1, Space, Identity, and the Politics of Difference(Feb., 1992), pp. 6-23Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Anthropological Association

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Beyond "Culture":

Space, Identity, and the Politics ofDifference

Akhil GuptaDepartmentof Anthropology

StanfordUniversity

James FergusonDepartmentofAnthropology

Universityof California,Irvine

For a subjectwhose centralriteof passageis fieldwork,whoseromancehas rested

on itsexplorationof theremote("the most otherof others" [Hannerz1986:363]),whose criticalfunction s seen to lie in itsjuxtapositionof radicallydifferentwaysof being (located "elsewhere") with that of the anthropologists'own, usually

Western, culture,there has been surprisingly ittle self-consciousnessaboutthe

issue of spacein anthropologicalheory.(SomenotableexceptionsareAppadurai[1986, 1988], Hannerz 1987], andRosaldo[1988, 1989].) This collectionof five

ethnographic rticlesrepresentsa modestattempt o deal with the issues of spaceandplace, alongwithsome necessarilyrelatedconcernssuchas thoseof location,

displacement, ommunity,andidentity.Inparticular,we wish to explorehow the

renewed interestin theorizing space in postmodernistand feminist theory (An-zaldua1987;Baudrillard 988;Deleuze and Guattari1987;Foucault1982;Jame-

son 1984;Kaplan1987; MartinandMohanty1986)-embodied in such notions

as surveillance,panopticism,simulacra,deterritorialization, ostmodernhyper-

space,borderlands, ndmarginality-forces us to reevaluate uchcentralanalyticconcepts n anthropology s thatof "culture"and,by extension,theideaof "cul-

turaldifference."

Representations f space in the social sciences areremarkably ependenton

images of break,rupture,and disjunction.The distinctivenessof societies, na-

tions, andcultures s basedupona seeminglyunproblematic ivisionof space, on

the fact thatthey occupy "naturally"discontinuousspaces. The premiseof dis-

continuity ormsthe startingpoint from which to theorizecontact, conflict, and

contradiction etweenculturesand societies. Forexample, the representation f

the world as a collection of "countries," as in most world maps, sees it as aninherently ragmented pace, dividedby differentcolors intodiverse nationalso-

cieties, each "rooted" in its properplace (cf. Malkki, this issue). It is so taken

forgranted hateachcountryembodiesits own distinctivecultureandsociety that

the terms"society" and "culture" areroutinelysimply appended o the names

6








BEYOND "CULTURE" 7

of nation-states,as whena touristvisits Indiato understand"Indianculture"and

"Indiansociety," or Thailand o experience"Thaiculture," or theUnitedStates

to get a whiff of "Americanculture."Of course,thegeographical erritories hatculturesand societies arebelieved

to map onto do not have to be nations. We do, for example, have ideas about

culture-areas hatoverlapseveralnation-states,or of multiculturalnations. On a

smallerscale, perhaps,areourdisciplinaryassumptionsabout the associationof

culturallyunitarygroups (tribesor peoples) with "their" territories: hus, "the

Nuer" live in "Nuerland" and so forth. The clearest illustrationof this kind of

thinkingare theclassic "ethnographicmaps" thatpurportedo displaythe spatialdistributionof peoples, tribes, and cultures. But in all these cases, space itself

becomes a kindof neutralgridon which culturaldifference, historicalmemory,andsocietalorganizationare inscribed. It is in this way thatspace functions as acentralorganizingprinciplein the social sciences at the same time that it disap-pearsfromanalyticalpurview.

This assumedisomorphismof space, place, and cultureresultsin some sig-nificantproblems.First, there is the issue of those who inhabitthe border,that

"narrow tripalongsteep edges" (Anzaldua1987:3)of nationalboundaries.Thefiction of culturesas discrete, object-likephenomenaoccupying discretespacesbecomesimplausible or those who inhabit heborderlands.Relatedto border n-

habitants rethose who live a life of border rossings-migrant workers,nomads,and membersof the transnationalbusiness and professionalelite. What is "theculture" of farmworkerswho spendhalf a year in Mexico andhalf a yearin theUnitedStates?Finally, there are those who cross bordersmore or less perma-nently-immigrants, refugees, exiles, andexpatriates.In theircase, the disjunc-ture of place andculture s especially clear:Khmerrefugees in the UnitedStatestake "Khmerculture" with them in the same complicated way that Indian im-

migrants n England ransport"Indianculture" to their new homeland.A second set of problemsraised by the implicit mappingof cultures onto

places is to accountforculturaldifferenceswithin a locality. "Multiculturalism"is both a feeble acknowledgmentof the fact that cultureshave lost theirmooringsin definiteplaces and an attempt o subsume this pluralityof cultures withintheframeworkof a nationalidentity. Similarly, the idea of "subcultures"attemptsto preservethe idea of distinct "cultures" while acknowledgingthe relation ofdifferentculturesto a dominantculturewithin the same geographicaland terri-torialspace. Conventionalaccountsof ethnicity,even whenused to describecul-turaldifferences n settingswherepeople fromdifferentregionslive side by side,

rely on an unproblematicink between identityandplace.' Althoughsuch con-

cepts aresuggestivebecausethey endeavorto stretchthe naturalizedassociationof culturewithplace, they fail to interrogatehis assumption n a trulyfundamen-tal manner.We need to ask how to dealwithculturaldifferencewhile abandoningreceived ideas of (localized) culture.

Third, there is the importantquestionof postcoloniality. To which placesdo the hybridcultures of postcoloniality belong? Does the colonial encountercreate a "new culture" in both the colonized andcolonizing country,or does it








8 CULTURALANTHROPOLOGY

destabilizethe notion thatnations andculturesare isomorphic?As discussed be-

low, postcoloniality furtherproblematizesthe relationshipbetween space and

culture.

Last,andmostimportant, hallenging herupturedandscapeof independentnations and autonomous cultures raises the question of understanding ocial

changeand cultural ransformation s situatedwithin interconnected paces. The

presumptionhatspaces are autonomoushas enabled the powerof topography o

conceal successfullythe topographyof power. The inherently ragmented paceassumed n the definitionof anthropologyas the studyof cultures(in the plural)

may have been one of the reasons behind the long-standingfailure to write an-

thropology'shistoryas the biographyof imperialism.For if one begins with the

premisethat spaces have always been hierarchically nterconnected, nsteadof

naturallydisconnected,then culturaland social change becomes not a matterof

cultural ontactandarticulationbut one of rethinkingdifferencethroughconnec-

tion.

To illustrate, et us examine one powerfulmodel of culturalchangethat at-

temptsto relatedialecticallythe local to largerspatialarenas:articulation.Artic-

ulationmodels, whetherthey come from Marxist structuralism r from "moral

economy," posita primevalstate of autonomy usuallylabeled"precapitalist"),which is then violatedby global capitalism.The result s thatboth local andlarger

spatialarenasaretransformed, he local more than the global to be sure, but notnecessarily n a predetermined irection.This notion of articulation llows one to

explorethe richly unintendedconsequencesof, say, colonial capitalism, where

loss occurs alongside invention. Yet, by takinga preexisting, localized "com-

munity" as a given startingpoint, it fails to examine sufficientlythe processes

(suchas the structures f feeling thatpervadethe imaginingof community)that

go into the constructionof spaceas place or locality in the first nstance. In other

words, insteadof assumingthe autonomyof the primevalcommunity,we need

to examinehow it was formedas a community ut of the interconnected pacethat

always alreadyexisted. Colonialism, then, representsthe displacementof oneformof interconnectionby another.This is not to deny thatcolonialism, or an

expanding apitalism,does indeedhaveprofoundlydislocatingeffects on existingsocieties. But by always foregrounding he spatial distributionof hierarchical

powerrelations,we can betterunderstand he process wherebya space achieves

a distinctive dentityas a place. Keepingin mind that notions of locality or com-

munityrefer both to a demarcatedphysical space and to clusters of interaction,we can see that the identityof a place emerges by the intersectionof its specificinvolvement n a systemof hierarchicallyorganizedspaces with its culturalcon-

structionas a communityor locality.It is for this reason that what Jameson(1984) has dubbed"postmodernhy-

perspace"has so fundamentally hallengedthe convenient fiction that mappedculturesonto places andpeoples. In the capitalistWest, a Fordistregime of ac-

cumulation,emphasizingextremely argeproduction acilities, a relativelystable

work force, and the welfare state, combined to create urban "communities"

whoseoutlineswere mostclearlyvisible in companytowns (Davis 1984;Harvey








BEYOND "CULTURE" 9

1989;Mandel 1975). The counterpart f this in the international renawas that

multinational orporations,under he leadershipof the UnitedStates, steadilyex-

ploitedthe rawmaterials,primarygoods, andcheaplabor of the independentna-

tion-statesof thepostcolonial"ThirdWorld."'Multilateral genciesandpowerfulWesternstatespreached,andwherenecessarymilitarilyenforced,the "laws" of

themarket o encourage he international low of capital,while national mmigra-tionpolicies ensuredthatthere would be no free (i.e., anarchic,disruptive) low

of labor to the high-wage islands in the capitalistcore. Fordistpatternsof accu-

mulationhave now been replacedby a regime of flexible accumulation-char-

acterizedby small-batchproduction,rapidshifts in product ines, extremelyfast

movementsof capital o exploitthe smallestdifferentials n laborand rawmaterial

costs-built on a more sophisticatedcommunicationsand informationnetworkandbettermeans of transporting oods andpeople. At the same time, the indus-

trialproductionof culture, entertainment,and leisure that first achieved some-

thingapproaching lobaldistributionduring he Fordisteraled, paradoxically, o

the invention of new forms of culturaldifference and new forms of imagining

community.Somethinglike a transnational ublic spherehas certainlyrendered

any strictlyboundedsense of communityor locality obsolete. At the same time,it has enabled the creation of forms of solidarityand identitythat do not rest on

an appropriation f space where contiguity and face-to-face contact are para-

mount. In the pulverized space of postmodernity,space has not become irrele-vant: t hasbeen reterritorializedn a way that does not conformto theexperienceof space that characterized he era of high modernity.It is this that forces us to

reconceptualizeundamentallyhepoliticsof community, solidarity, dentity,and

culturaldifference.

Imagined Communities, Imagined Places

Peoplehave undoubtedlyalways been more mobile andidentities less fixed

thanthe static andtypologizing approachesof classical anthropologywould sug-gest. But today, the rapidly expandingand quickeningmobilityof people com-

bines with the refusal of culturalproductsandpracticesto "stay put" to give a

profoundsense of a loss of territorial oots, of an erosion of the culturaldistinc-

tiveness of places, and of ferment n anthropological heory.The apparentdeter-

ritorialization f identity that accompaniessuch processes has made Clifford's

question(1988:275) a key one for recentanthropologicalnquiry:"Whatdoes it

mean, at the end of the twentieth century, to speak . . . of a 'native land'? What

processes rather than essences are involved in present experiences of cultural

identity?"Suchquestionsare of course notwholly new, butissuesof collective identity

todaydo seem to take on a special character,when more and more of us live inwhat Said (1979:18) has called "a generalizedcondition of homelessness," aworldwhereidentities are increasinglycoming to be, if not wholly deterritorial-

ized, at least differentlyterritorialized.Refugees, migrants,displacedandstate-less peoples-these are perhapsthe first to live out these realities in their most









completeform, but the problemis more general. In a world of diaspora,trans-

nationalcultureflows, and mass movements of populations,old-fashioned at-

temptsto mapthe globe as a set of cultureregionsor homelandsare bewildered

by a dazzlingarrayof postcolonialsimulacra,doublingsandredoublings,as IndiaandPakistanapparently eappearn postcolonialsimulation n London,prerevo-lutionTehranrises from theashes in Los Angeles, and a thousand imilarcultural

dreamsareplayedout in urbanand ruralsettingsall across the globe. In this cul-

ture-playof diaspora, amiliar ines between "here" and"there," center andpe-

riphery,colony andmetropolebecome blurred.

Where "here" and "there" become blurred n this way, the culturalcer-

tainties andfixities of the metropoleareupset as surely, if not in the same way,as those of thecolonizedperiphery.In this sense, it is notonly thedisplacedwho

experiencea displacement cf. Bhabha1989:66). Foreven people remaining n

familiarand ancestralplaces findthe natureof their relationto place ineluctably

changed,andthe illusion of a naturaland essential connection between the placeandthe culturebroken. "Englishness," for instance, in contemporary, nterna-

tionalizedEngland s just as complicatedandnearlyas deterritorialized notion

as Palestinian-ness rArmenian-ness, ince "England"("the realEngland")re-

fers less to a boundedplace than to an imaginedstate of being or moral location.

Consider,for instance,the following quotefroma young whitereggaefan in the

ethnicallychaoticneighborhoodof Balsall Heathin Birmingham:

there's no such thing as "England" any more . . . welcome to India brothers!Thisis theCaribbean! . . Nigeria! . . . Thereis no England,man. This is whatis com-

ing. BalsallHeath s thecenterof the melting pot, 'cos all I ever see whenI go out is

half-Arab,half-Pakistani,half-Jamaican,half-Scottish,half-Irish. I know 'cos I am

[halfScottish/half rish] . . . who amI? . . . Tell me who I belongto?Theycriticize

me, the good old England. Alright,wheredo I belong?You know, I was broughtupwithblacks, Pakistanis,Africans,Asians, everything,you name it ... who do I be-

long to? . . . I'mjust a broadperson. The earth is mine . . . you know we was notborn in Jamaica .. we was not bornin "England." We were bornhere, man. It's

ourright.That's the way I see it. That's the way I deal with it. [Hebdige 1987:158-

159]

The broad-minded cceptanceof cosmopolitanism hat seems to be impliedhere is perhaps more the exception than the rule, but there can be little doubt that

the explosion of a culturallystableandunitary"England" into the cut-and-mix

"here" of contemporary Balsall Heath is an example of a phenomenon that is real

andspreading.It is clearthat the erosionof such supposedlynaturalconnections

betweenpeoplesandplaces has not led to the modernist pecterof globalcultural

homogenization Clifford 1988). But "cultures" and "peoples," however per-sistentthey maybe, cease to be plausiblyidentifiableas spotson the map.

The irony of these times, however, is that as actual places and localities be-

come ever more blurred and indeterminate, ideas of culturally and ethnically dis-

tinct places become perhaps even more salient. It is here that it becomes most

visible how imagined communities (Anderson 1983) come to be attached to imag-ined places, as displaced peoples cluster around remembered or imagined home-








BEYOND "CULTURE" 11

lands, places, or communitiesin a world that seems increasinglyto deny such

firmterritorialized nchorsin their actuality. The set of issues surrounding he

construction f place andhomelandby mobile anddisplacedpeople is addressedin differentways by a numberof the articlesin this issue.

Rememberedplaces have often served as symbolic anchors of communityfor dispersedpeople. This has long been true of immigrants,who (as Leonard

[1992] shows vividly) use memoryof place to construct maginatively heir new

lived world. "Homeland"in this way remainsone of the mostpowerfulunifying

symbolsfor mobile anddisplaced peoples, thoughthe relationto homelandmaybe very differentlyconstructedn differentsettings(see Malkki,this issue). More-

over, even in more completely deterritorializedtimes and settings-settings

where "home" is not only distant,but also where the very notionof "home" asa durably ixedplace is in doubt-aspects of our lives remainhighly "localized"

in a social sense, as Peters(1992) argues.We need to give upnaive ideasof com-

munitiesas literalentities (cf. Cohen 1985), but remainsensitive to the profound

"bifocality" that characterizes ocally lived lives in a globally interconnected

world, and the powerful role of place in the "near view" of lived experience(Peters1992).

The partialerosion of spatiallybounded social worlds andthe growingrole

of the imaginationof places from a distance, however, themselves mustbe situ-

ated withinthe highly spatializedtermsof a global capitalisteconomy. The spe-cial challengehere is to use a focus on the way space is imagined(butnot ima-

ginary!) as a way to explore the processes throughwhich such conceptual pro-cesses of place makingmeet the changingglobal economic andpolitical condi-

tions of lived spaces-the relation, we could say, between place and space. As

Ferguson this issue) shows, important ensionsmay arise whenplaces that have

been imaginedat a distance must become lived spaces. For places are always

imagined n the contextof political-economicdeterminations hat have a logic of

their own. Territorialitys thus reinscribed at just the point it threatens to be

erased.The idea thatspace is mademeaningful s of course a familiarone to anthro-

pologists; indeed, there is hardlyan older or better establishedanthropologicaltruth.East or West, insideoroutside, left orright,moundor floodplain-from at

least thetimeof Durkheim,anthropologyhas known that theexperienceof spaceis alwayssocially constructed.The moreurgent ask, takenup by several articles

in thisissue, is to politicizethis uncontestableobservation.Withmeaningmakingunderstoodas a practice, how are spatial meanings established? Who has the

powerto makeplaces of spaces?Who contests this? What is at stake?

Suchquestionsareparticularlymportantwhere the meaningfulassociationof placesandpeoplesis concerned.As Malkki(thisissue) shows, two naturalisms

mustbe challengedhere. First s what we will call theethnologicalhabitof takingtheassociationof a culturallyunitarygroup(the "tribe" or "people") and"its"

territoryas natural,which is discussed in the previous section. A second, and

closely related, naturalism s what we will call the national habit of takingthe

associationof citizens of statesandtheirterritoriesas natural.Here theexemplary









image is of the conventionalworldmapof nation-states, hroughwhich school-

children are taughtsuch deceptively simple-soundingbeliefs as that France is

where the French ive, America is where the Americans ive, and so on. Even a

casualobserver,of course, knows thatnot only Americans ive in America, and

it is clear that the very questionof what is a "real American" is largely up for

grabs. But even anthropologists till talk of "American culture" with no clear

understandingf what thatmeans, because we assume a naturalassociation of a

culture ("American culture"), a people ("Americans"), and a place ("theUnitedStates of America"). Both the ethnologicalandthe national naturalisms

presentassociations of people andplace as solid, commonsensical,and agreed-

upon,whenthey arein fact contested,uncertain,and in flux.

Muchrecent work in anthropologyand relatedfieldshas focused on thepro-cess throughwhich suchreifiedandnaturalizednationalrepresentations recon-

structed ndmaintainedby states and nationalelites. (See, forinstance,Anderson

1983; Handler 1988; Herzfeld 1987; Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983; Kapferer1988;Wright1985.) Borneman this issue) presentsa case wherestate construc-

tions of nationalterritoryare complicatedby a very particular ort of displace-ment,as theterritorial ivisionandreformation f Germany ollowingthe Second

WorldWarmadeunavailable o thetwo states the claims to a territorially ircum-

scribedhome andculturallydelineatednation thatareusuallyso central o estab-

lish legitimacy.Neither could their citizens rely on such appealsin constructingtheirown identities. Inforgingnational dentitiesestranged n thisway from both

territory ndculture,Bornemanargues,the postwarGermanstates andtheir cit-

izensemployedoppositionalstrategies,ultimatelyresulting nversionsof the dis-

placed and decentered dentities that mark what is often called the postmoderncondition.

Discussionsof nationalismmakeit clear that statesplay a crucial role in the

popularpolitics of place makingandin the creationof naturalized inks between

places andpeoples. But it is important o note that state ideologies are far from

beingtheonly pointat which the imaginationof place is politicized. Oppositionalimagesof place have of coursebeen extremelyimportantn anticolonialnation-

alistmovements,as well as in campaignsfor self-determination ndsovereigntyon the partof ethnic counter-nations uch as the Hutu(Malkki, this issue), the

Eritreans,and the Armenians.Bisharat 1992) traces some of the ways in which

theimaginingof placehasplayedinto the Palestinian truggle,showingbothhow

specificconstructionsof "homeland" have changedin responseto political cir-

cumstancesandhow a deeply felt relation o "the land" continuesto informand

inspire he Palestinian trugglefor self-determination.Bisharat'sarticleservesas

a usefulreminder, n the light of nationalism'soften reactionary onnotations nthe Westernworld, of how often notions of home and "own place" have been

empowering n anticolonialcontexts.

Indeed,futureobserversof 20th-century evolutionswill probablybe struck

by thedifficultyof formulating arge-scalepoliticalmovementswithoutreference

to nationalhomelands.Gupta(this issue) discusses the difficultiesraised in at-

tempting o rally people aroundsuch a nonnational ollectivity as the nonaligned








BEYOND "CULTURE" 13

movement;and he points out that similarproblemsare raisedby the proletarianinternationalistmovement, since, "as generationsof Marxists afterMarx found

out, it is one thingto liberatea nation,quiteanother o liberate he workersof theworld" (Gupta,this issue). Class-basedinternationalism'sendenciesto nation-

alism(as in the historyof the Second International, r thatof the U.S.S.R.), and

to utopianism maginedin local rather hanuniversalterms(as in Morris'sNews

from Nowhere [1970], where "nowhere" [utopia] turns out to be a specifically

English "somewhere"), show clearly the importanceof attaching causes to

placesand the ubiquityof place makingin collective politicalmobilization.

Suchplace making,however, neednot be national n scale. Oneexampleof

this is thewayidealizednotionsof "thecountry"havebeenusedinurban ettings

to constructcritiquesof industrialcapitalism(cf. in Britain,Williams 1973; forZambia,Ferguson,this issue). Anothercase is thereworkingof ideasof "home"

and "community" by feminists like Martinand Mohanty(1986) and Kaplan

(1987). Rofel (this issue) gives anotherexamplein her treatment f thecontested

meaningsof thespacesand local historyof a Chinesefactory.Heranalysisshows

bothhow specific factorylocations acquiredmeaningsover time and how these

localizedspatialmeaningsconfounded hemodernizing,panopticdesignsof plan-

ners-indeed, how the durabilityof memoryand localized meaningsof sites and

bodies calls intoquestionthevery ideaof a universal,undifferentiated moderni-

ty."It must be noted that suchpopularpolitics of placecan as easily be conserv-

ative as progressive. Often enough, as in the contemporaryUnited States, the

associationof placewithmemory,loss, andnostalgiaplays directly ntothe hands

of reactionary opularmovements.This is true notonly of explicitly national m-

ages long associatedwith the Right, but also of imaginedlocales and nostalgic

settingssuch as "small-town America" or "the frontier," whichoften play into

andcomplementantifeminist dealizationsof "the home" and "family."2

Space, Politics, and Anthropological Representation

Changingourconceptionsof the relationbetweenspace and culturaldiffer-

ence offers a new perspectiveon recentdebatessurroundingssues of anthropo-

logicalrepresentation ndwriting.The new attention o representational racticeshas already ed to moresophisticatedunderstandings f processesof objectifica-tionandtheconstructionof other-ness n anthropologicalwriting.However, with

this said, it also seems to us that recentnotions of "culturalcritique" (Marcusand Fischer 1986) dependon a spatializedunderstanding f culturaldifference

thatneeds to be problematized.The foundationof culturalcritique-a dialogicrelationwithan "other" cul-

turethatyields a criticalviewpointon "our own culture"-assumes an already-

existingworldof manydifferent,distinct"cultures," and an unproblematic is-

tinction between "our own society" and an "other" society. As MarcusandFischerput it, the purposeof culturalcritiqueis "to generatecriticalquestionsfrom one society to probethe other" (1986:117); the goal is "to applyboth the









substantiveresults and the epistemological lessons learned from ethnographyabroad o a renewal of the critical function of anthropologyas it is pursuedin

ethnographic rojectsat home"

(1986:112).Marcusand Fischerare sensitiveto thefact thatculturaldifference s present"here at home," too, and that "the other" need not be exotic or far away to be

other. But the fundamental onceptionof culturalcritiqueas a relation between

"different ocieties" endsup, perhapsagainst he authors' ntentions,spatializingculturaldifference in familiarways, as ethnographybecomes, as above, a link

between an unproblematized home" and "abroad." The anthropological ela-

tion is not simplywith people who aredifferent,but with "a differentsociety,""a different culture," and thus, inevitably, a relation between "here" and

"there." In all of this, the terms of theopposition

("here" and "there," "us"

and"them," "our own" and "other" societies) aretakenas received:the prob-lem for anthropologistss to use our encounterwith "them," "there," to con-

structa critiqueof "ourown society," "here."

Therearea numberof problemswith thisway of conceptualizing he anthro-

pologicalproject.Perhaps he most obvious is the questionof the identityof the

"we" thatkeeps coming up in phrasessuch as "ourselves" and "our own soci-

ety." Who is this "we"? If the answer s, as we fear, "the West," thenwe must

askpreciselywho is to be includedandexcludedfrom this club. Nor is the prob-lem solved simply by substituting or "our own society," "the ethnographer'sown society." Forethnographers,as for othernatives, the postcolonialworld is

aninterconnected ocial space;formany anthropologists-and perhapsespeciallyfor displacedThirdWorld scholars-the identityof "one's own society" is an

open question.A secondproblemwiththe way culturaldifference has been conceptualized

within the "culturalcritique"project s that,once excludedfromthatprivilegeddomain"our own society," "the other" is subtlynativized-placed in a separateframe of analysisand "spatially incarcerated" Appadurai1988) in that "other

place" that s proper o an "other culture." Cultural ritiqueassumesanoriginal

separation,bridgedat the initiationof the anthropological ieldworker.Theprob-lematicis one of "contact": communicationnot within a sharedsocial and eco-

nomicworld, but "across cultures" and "between societies."

As an alternative o this way of thinkingabout culturaldifference, we want

toproblematizeheunityof the "us" andtheothernessof the "other," andques-tionthe radicalseparationbetweenthe two thatmakes the oppositionpossible in

the firstplace. We are interested ess in establishinga dialogic relationbetween

geographicallydistinctsocieties than in exploringthe processesof productionof

difference n a worldof culturally,socially, andeconomicallyinterconnected nd

interdependentpaces. The differenceis fundamental,and can be illustratedby abrief examinationof one text that has been highly praisedwithin the "cultural

critique"movement.

MarjorieShostak'sNisa: TheLifeand Wordsof a !KungWoman 1981) has

beenvery widelyadmired or its innovativeuseof life history,andhas beenhailed

as a noteworthyexampleof polyphonic experimentationn ethnographicwriting








BEYOND "CULTURE" 15

(Clifford1986, 1988:42;MarcusandFischer 1986:58-59; Pratt1986). But with

respectto the issues we have discussed here, Nisa is a very conventional, and

deeplyflawed,work. The individual,Nisa, is granteda degreeof singularity,but

she is used principallyas the token of a type: "the !Kung." The San-speaking

!Kungof Botswana "the Bushmen"of old) arepresentedas a distinct, "other,"and apparentlyprimordial"people." Shostak treatsthe Dobe !Kungas essen-

tially survivalsof a priorevolutionary age: they are "one of the last remainingtraditionalgatherer-hunterocieties," raciallydistinct, traditional,and isolated

(1981:4). Theirexperienceof "culturechange" is "still quiterecentandsubtle,"and their traditionalvalue system "mostly intact" (1981:6). "Contact" with

"othergroups" of agriculturaland pastoralpeoples has occurred,accordingto

Shostak,only since the 1920s, and it is only since the 1960s thatthe isolationofthe !Kunghasreallybrokendown, raisingfor thefirst ime the issue of "change,"

"adaptation,"and "culturecontact" (1981:346).The spacethe !Kung nhabit,the Kalaharidesert, is clearlyradicallydiffer-

ent andseparate romourown. Againandagainthe narrative eturns o the theme

of isolation: n a harshecological setting, a way of life thousandsof yearsold has

been preservedonly through ts extraordinary patial separateness.The anthro-

pologicaltask, as Shostakconceives it, is to cross thisspatialdivide, to enterinto

this land that time forgot, a land(as Wilmsen[1989:10] notes) with antiquitybut

no history,to listento the voices of women, whichmightreveal"what their iveshad been like for generations,possibly even for thousandsof years" (Shostak

1981:6).The exoticization mplicitin thisportrait, n which the !Kungappearalmost

as living on anotherplanet, has drawnsurprisingly ittle criticism from theorists

of ethnography.Pratthasrightlypointedout the "blazingcontradiction"between

theportrait f primalbeings untouchedby historyand thegenocidal historyof the

white "Bushmanconquest" (1986:48). As she says,

What icture f the!Kungwouldone draw f instead f defininghemas survivors fthestoneageanda delicate nd omplex daptationo theKalahariesert, ne ookedat themassurvivors f capitalist xpansion, ndadelicate ndcomplex daptationothree enturiesf violenceand ntimidation?Pratt 986:49]

Buteven Pratt etains he notion of "the !Kung"as apreexistingontologicalenti-

ty-"survivors," not products still less producers),of history. "They" are vic-

tims, havingsufferedthe deadlyprocessof "contact" with "us."

A verydifferentand much moreilluminatingwayof conceptualizing ultural

difference n theregionmaybe found in Wilmsen'sdevastatingrecentcritiqueof

theanthropological ultof "the Bushman"(1989). Wilmsen shows how, in con-stant nteractionwith a wider networkof social relations,thedifferencethat Shos-

tak takes as a startingpoint came to be producedin the firstplace-how, one

might say, "the Bushmen" came to be Bushmen. He demonstrates hat San-

speakingpeoplehave been in continuous nteractionwith othergroupsfor as longas we haveevidence for;thatpoliticalandeconomic relations inkedthe suppos-edly isolated Kalahariwith a regionalpoliticaleconomy both in the colonial and









precolonial ras; hatSan-speakingpeoplehaveoften heldcattle;andthat no strict

separation f pastoralists ndforagerscan be sustained.He arguespowerfully hat

theZhu(!Kung)have neverbeen a classless society, and that f theygive such an

impression,"it is becausetheyareincorporated s anunderclass n a wider social

formation hat ncludesBatswana,Ovaherero,andothers" (Wilmsen 1989:270).

Moreover,he shows that the "Bushman/San"label has been in existence for

barelyhalf a century,the categoryhavingbeen produced hrough he "retribali-

zation" of the colonial period (1989:280); and that "the culturalconservatism

uniformlyattributed o these people by almost all anthropologistswho have

workedwith themuntilrecently, is a consequence-not a cause-of theway theyhave been integrated nto the modem capitalisteconomies of BotswanaandNa-

mibia" (1989:12).Withrespectto space, Wilmsen is unequivocal:

it is notpossible o speakof the Kalahari'ssolation,protectedy its ownvastdis-tances.To those nside, heoutside-whatever outside"heremayhavebeenatanymoment-wasalwayspresent.Theappearancef isolation nd tsreality f dispos-sessedpoverty rerecentproductsf a processhatunfolded ver wo centuriesndculminatedn the astmoments f thecolonial ra.[1989:157]

Theprocessof the productionof culturaldifference, Wilmsendemonstrates,oc-

curs ncontinuous,connectedspace, traversedby economicandpoliticalrelationsof inequality.Where Shostaktakes differenceas given and concentrateson lis-

tening"acrosscultures," Wilmsenperforms he moreradicaloperationof inter-

rogating he "otherness"of the other, situating he productionof culturaldiffer-

ence within the historicalprocesses of a socially and spatially interconnected

world.

What is needed, then, is more thana readyear and a deft editorialhand to

captureandorchestratehe voices of "others";whatis neededis a willingnessto

interrogate,politically and historically, the apparent"given" of a world in the

firstplace dividedinto "ourselves" and "others." A firststep on this roadis tomove beyond naturalized onceptionsof spatialized"cultures" and to exploreinstead the productionof difference within common, shared, and connected

spaces-"the San," for instance,not as "a people," "native" to thedesert,but

as a historicallyconstitutedandde-propertied ategorysystematicallyrelegated

to thedesert.

The move we are calling for, most generally, is away from seeing cultural

differenceas thecorrelateof a worldof "peoples" whose separatehistorieswait

to be bridgedby the anthropologistandtowardseeing it as a productof a shared

historicalprocessthatdifferentiates heworldas it connectsit. For theproponentsof "culturalcritique," differenceis takenas startingpoint, not as end product.

Given a worldof "differentsocieties," they ask, how can we use experiencein

one to commenton another?Butif we questiona pre-givenworldof separateand

discrete "peoples and cultures," and see insteada difference-producing et of

relations,we turnfroma projectof juxtaposingpreexistingdifferencesto one of

exploring he constructionof differencesin historicalprocess.








BEYOND "CULTURE" 17

In thisperspective, powerdoes not enter the anthropologicalpictureonly at

the momentof representation, or the culturaldistinctivenessthat the anthropol-

ogist attemptsto representhas always alreadybeen producedwithin a field of

power relations. There is thus a politics of othernessthat is not reducible to a

politics of representation.Textual strategiescan call attentionto the politics of

representation, utthe issue of othernessitself is not really addressedby the de-

vices of polyphonictextualconstructionor collaborationwith informant-writers,as writers ike Clifford andCrapanzano ometimesseem to suggest.

In addition o (not insteadof!) textualexperimentation, hen, there s a need

to address he issue of "the West" and its "others" in a way thatacknowledgestheextra-textual oots of the problem.Forexample, the area of immigrationand

immigrationaw is one practicalarea where the politics of space and the politicsof otherness ink up very directly. Indeed, if the separatenessof separateplacesis not a naturalgiven but an anthropologicalproblem, it is remarkablehow little

anthropologists avehadto say aboutthecontemporary oliticalissues connected

withimmigrationnthe United States.3If we accepta worldof originallyseparateand culturallydistinctplaces, then the questionof immigrationpolicy is just a

questionof how hard we should try to maintainthis originalorder. In this per-spective, immigrationprohibitionsare a relativelyminor matter.Indeed,operat-

ingwitha spatiallynaturalizedunderstanding f culturaldifference,uncontrolled

immigrationmay even appearas a danger o anthropology, hreateningo blur orerasethe culturaldistinctivenessof placesthat s ourstockintrade.If, on theother

hand,it is acknowledged hat culturaldifferenceis producedandmaintained n a

field of powerrelationsin a worldalways alreadyspatiallyinterconnected, hen

the restrictionof immigrationbecomes visible as one of the mainmeansthroughwhichthedisempoweredarekeptthatway.

The enforced"difference" of places becomes, in this perspective,partand

parcelof a global system of domination.The anthropological askof de-natural-

izing culturalandspatialdivisions at this point links up with the political task of

combatinga very literal "spatial incarceration f the native" (Appadurai1988)withineconomicspaceszoned, as it were, forpoverty.In thissense, changingthe

waywe thinkabout he relationsof culture,power, andspaceopensthepossibilityof changingmore thanourtexts. There s room, forinstance,for agreatdealmore

anthropologicalnvolvement, both theoreticaland practical,with the politics of

the U.S./Mexico border,with the political and organizing rights of immigrant

workers,and with theappropriationf anthropological onceptsof "culture"and

"difference" intotherepressive deological apparatus f immigrationaw andthe

popularperceptionsof "foreigners" and "aliens."

A certainunityof place andpeople has been long assumedin the anthropo-logical conceptof culture.But anthropological epresentations nd immigrationlaws notwithstanding,"the native" is "spatiallyincarcerated"only in part.The

abilityof people to confoundthe establishedspatialorders,eitherthroughphys-ical movementor through heir own conceptualandpolitical acts of re-imagina-

tion, meansthatspace andplace can never be "given," and that the process of

their sociopolitical construction must always be considered. An anthropology









whoseobjectsare no longerconceived as automaticallyandnaturallyanchored n

spacewill need to pay particular ttention o the way spacesandplaces aremade,

imagined,contested,and enforced. In this sense, it is no paradox o say thatques-tionsof spaceandplace are, in this deterritorialized ge, more centralto anthro-

pologicalrepresentationhan ever.

Conclusion

In suggesting the requestioningof the spatial assumptions mplicit in the

mostfundamental ndseemingly innocuousconcepts in the social sciences such

as "culture," "society," "community," and "nation," we do not presumeto

lay out a detailedblueprint or an alternative onceptualapparatus.We do, how-ever, wish to pointout some promisingdirections or the future.

Oneextremelyrich vein has been tappedby those attempting o theorizein-

terstitialityand hybridity: n the postcolonial situation(Bhabha 1989; Hannerz

1987;Rushdie1989);forpeople livingonculturaland nationalborders Anzaldua

1987; Rosaldo 1987, 1988, 1989); for refugees and displacedpeoples (Ghosh

1989; Malkki, this issue); and in the case of migrantsand workers(Leonard

1992).The "syncretic,adaptivepoliticsandculture"of hybridity,Bhabhapointsout(1989:64), questions"the imperialistandcolonialistnotionsof purityas much

as it question[s]the nationalistnotions." It remainsto be seen whatkind of pol-itics are enabledby such a theorizationof hybridityandto whatextent it can do

awaywithall claimsto authenticity, o all forms of essentialism,strategicoroth-

erwise (see especially Radhakrishnan 987). Bhabhapoints to the troublesome

connectionbetween claims to purityandutopianteleology in describinghow he

came to therealization hat

theonlyplace n theworld o speak romwasat a pointwhereby ontradiction,n-

tagonism,hehybriditiesf culturalnfluence,he boundariesf nations,werenotsublatedntosomeutopianenseof liberationr return. heplace ospeakromwas

throughhose ncommensurableontradictionsithinwhichpeople urvive,arepo-litically ctive,andchange. 1989:67]

The borderlandsarejust such a place of incommensurable ontradictions.The

termdoes not indicate a fixed topographical ite betweentwo other fixed locales

(nations,societies, cultures),but an interstitialzone of displacementand deter-

ritorializationhatshapesthe identityof the hybridizedsubject.Rather handis-

missingthem as insignificant,as marginalzones, thinsliversof land betweensta-

ble places, we want to contendthat the notion of borderlandss a moreadequate

conceptualization f the "normal" locale of the postmodern ubject.Anotherpromisingdirection that takes us beyond cultureas a spatiallylo-

calizedphenomenon s providedby theanalysisof whatis variouslycalled "mass

media," "public culture," and the "culture industry." (Especially influential

herehas been thejournal,Public Culture.)Existing symbioticallywith the com-

modityform, profoundly nfluencingeven the remotestpeople that anthropolo-

gists have madesuch a fetishof studying,mass mediapose the clearestchallenge








BEYOND "CULTURE" 19

to orthodoxnotions of culture.National, regional, andvillage boundarieshave,of course, never containedculture n the way thatanthropological epresentationshave often implied. However, the existence of a transnationalpublic spheremeansthat the fictionthatsuch boundariesenclose culturesandregulatecultural

exchangecan no longerbe sustained.

Theproductionanddistribution f massculture-films, television andradio

programs,newspapersand wire services, recordedmusic, books, live concerts-is largelycontrolledby those notoriously placeless organizations,multinational

corporations.The "public sphere" is thereforehardly"public" with respectto

controlover the representationshat arecirculated n it. Recent work in cultural

studieshasemphasized hedangersof reducing hereceptionof multinational ul-

turalproduction o thepassive act of consumption, eavingno room fortheactivecreationby agentsof disjuncturesanddislocations betweenthe flow of industrialcommodities and culturalproducts.However, we worryat least as much abouttheoppositedangerof celebratingthe inventivenessof those "consumers" of thecultureindustry especially on the periphery)who fashion somethingquite dif-ferentout of productsmarketed o them,reinterpretingndremaking hem, some-timesquiteradically,andsometimes in a direction hatpromotesresistanceratherthanconformity.The dangerhere is the temptation o use scatteredexamples ofthecultural lows dribbling romthe "periphery"to the chief centers of the cul-

tureindustryas a way of dismissing the "grandnarrative"of capitalism(espe-cially the "totalizing" narrative f latecapitalism),and thus of evadingthe pow-erfulpoliticalissues associated with Westernglobal hegemony.

The reconceptualization f space implicit in theories of interstitialityand

publicculturehas led to efforts to conceptualizeculturaldifference without in-

voking the orthodox idea of "culture." This is a yet largely unexploredand

underdeveloped rea.We do, clearly, find the clusteringof culturalpractices hatdo not "belong" to a particular"people" or to a definiteplace. Jameson(1984)has attempted o capturethe distinctiveness of these practicesin the notionof a

"culturaldominant," whereas Ferguson(1990) proposes an idea of "culturalstyle," which searches for a logic of surfacepracticeswithoutnecessarilymap-ping suchpracticesonto a "total way of life" encompassingvalues, beliefs, at-

titudes, et cetera, as in the usual concept of culture. We need to explore whatHomiBhabhacalls "the uncannyof culturaldifference."

culturaldifferencebecomes aproblemnot whenyou canpointto theHottentotVenus,or to thepunkwhose hair s six feet up in the air;it does not have that kindof fixable

visibility. t is as thestrangenessf thefamiliarhat t becomesmoreproblematic,bothpoliticallyandconceptually. .. whenthe problemof culturaldifference is our-

selves-as-others,thers-as-ourselves,hatborderline.1989:72]

Why focus on thatborderline?We have arguedthatdeterritorialization asdestabilized hefixityof "ourselves" and"others." But it hasnottherebycreated

subjects who are free-floating monads, despite what is sometimes implied bythoseeagerto celebrate hefreedomandplayfulnessof thepostmodern ondition.As MartinandMohanty 1986:194)pointout, indeterminacy, oo, has itspolitical








20 CULTURALNTHROPOLOGY

limits, which follow from the denial of the critic's own location in multiple fields

of power. Instead of stopping with the notion of deterritorialization, the pulveri-zation of the space of high modernity, we need to theorize how space is beingreterritorialized in the contemporary world. We need to account sociologicallyfor the fact that the "distance" between the rich in Bombay and the rich in London

may be much shorter than that between different classes in "the same" city. Phys-ical location and physical territory, for so long the only grid on which cultural

difference could be mapped, need to be replaced by multiple grids that enable us

to see that connection and contiguity-more generally the representation of ter-

ritory-vary considerably by factors such as class, gender, race, and sexuality,and are differentially available to those in different locations in the field of power.

Notes

Acknowledgments. his collectionof articlesoriginallygrewout of two organizedsessions

presentedat the 1988 meetingsof the AmericanAnthropologicalAssociationin Phoenix.

One, organizedby Akhil Guptaand Lisa Rofel, dealt with "The Cultureand Politics of

Space"; the other, organized by Liisa Malkki and JamesFerguson,concerned "Themes

of Place and Locality in the Collective Identityof Mobile and Displaced Populations."

Earlyversionsof all of the articlesin this collection wereoriginallypresentedas papers n

thesepanels,with theexceptionof Gupta's"The Songof theNon-AlignedWorld," whichwas written ater.

It was Arjun Appaduraiwho first suggested that the two themes might be brought

together,and who firstput us in touch with each other. For that, he has our thanks and

appreciation.Akhil Guptawould also like to thankLisa Rofel for co-organizingthe orig-inalpanelandPurnimaMankekar,whose criticalreadingandcommentary hroughouthas

contributedmuch to the project.JamesFergusonwould like to acknowledgethe influence

of Liisa Malkki'sthinking n shapinghis ideas aboutspace, place, andidentity.Her acute

commentsandimaginativediscussion contributedgreatlyto this introductory rticle. We

arebothgrateful o John Petersfor a helpfulcriticalreadingof the article at a late stage.

'This is obviously not true of the "new ethnicity" literature,of texts such as Anzaldua

(1987) andRadhakrishnan1987).

2See also Robertson 1988, 1991)on the politics of nostalgiaand "native place-making"in Japan.

3Weare, of course, aware thata considerableamountof recent workin anthropologyhas

centeredon immigration.However, it seems to us that too muchof this work remains at

the level of describingand documentingpatternsand trendsof migration,often with a

policysciencefocus. Suchwork is undoubtedlymportant,andoftenstrategically ffective

in the formalpolitical

arena.Yet there remainsthe challengeof takingup the specificallycultural ssues surroundinghe mappingof othernessonto space, as we have suggestedis

necessary.One area where at least some anthropologistshave taken such issues seriouslyis thatof Mexican mmigrationo the United States(e.g., Alvarez 1987;Bustamente1987;

Chavez 1991;Kearey 1986, 1990;KearneyandNagengast 1989;and Rouse 1991). An-

otherexample is Borneman(1986), which is noteworthyfor showing the specific links

betweenimmigrationaw andhomophobia,nationalismand sexuality, in the case of the

Cuban"Marielito"immigrants o the UnitedStates.








BEYOND CULTURE"21

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