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Spatial Practices:
Fieldwork, Travel, and the Disciplining
of Anthropology
James Clifford
For George Slocking
The day after the Los Angeles earthquake of 1994, I \'latched a TV intervie\vwith an earth scientist. He said he had been "in the field" that morning
looking for new fault lines. It was only after a minute or so of talk that I realized he had been flying around in a helicopter the whole tin1e. c:ould this
pirical data. A satellite photo could provide that. What ma~e tl~is field:-ork
rhe act of physically going out into a c/,eared place of work. Going out preM
suppos("S a spatial distinction between a ho1ne base and an exterior p~ace of
discovery. A clea1ed space of work assunies that one can keep out d1stractiuv, influences. A ftcld, hy definition, is not overgrown. The earth scientist
1ould 1101 have done his helicopter "fieldwork" on a foggy clay. An archaeologist t:annot excavate a site properly if it is inhabited or built over. An an1111 opolog-ist 1nay frel it necessary to clear his or her field, at least conceprnallY of tourists, 1nissionaries, or govcrn1nent troops. Going out into a
4-1 1; 11'.;.d J>l<tcc of work presupp11ses specific practices of displace1nenl and fo~-11.,.t'd, disciplin<'d attention.
In 1his <haptcr I hope to chtfify <l crucial and au1bivalent anthropological
11g;1ey: tl1e n1le <if tra\'el, pl1ysical displacenlt"lll, and temporary dwelling away
In 1111 !10111t i11 the t1111slitulion of fieldwork. I will discuss fieldwork and travel
in 1hree stctions. The first sketches some recent developments in sociocul1ur;1l anthropoloh'Y showing where classic research practices are under pressun. I sug)~est why fieldwork rcni;1ins a cenLral feature of disciplinary selfdtlinition. rhe second section focuses on fieldwork as an embodied spatial
pr;urit't'. sho\vi11~ how, since the turn of the century, a disciplined profes-.ion<ll hotly h<ts hten <.trticulatcd along a ch<1.nging border with literary and
jour11alis1ic travel practices. In opposition to these purportedly superficial,
sul>'11c1i\'e, a11d hi;lsed fonns of knowledge, anthropological research was ori1ntl'd 1oward 1he production of deep, ndtural knowledge. I argue that the
bonier i.., unstable, const;ullly renegotiated. The third section surveys cur1 1nt c11ntts1<.11ion~ of norntative EuroAinerican travel histories that have long
s1r1 1ctur<d anthropology's research practices. Notions of community insides
.ind cnusidts, ho111es and ahroads, f1t~lds and n1etropoles, are increasingly
cli 41 11rugrd hy postcxotic, deculoniLing: trends. It is much less clear what
n 111111s, 111d<1y, as ;\fcep!ahle fit"ldwork, the range of spatial practices "cleared"
h\' 1hr discipline.
I borrow the phr;,1se "spatial practice" fnun Michel de Certeau's book 1'he
/)u1d 1r,, 11( F,1irryday /,ife (1984). for de <:erteau, "space" is never ontologic.ally
gi\t11. h is cli.scursivtly n1<1pptd and corporeally practiced. An urban ne1ghll11duic1d, for t'x; 1111 ple, nta)' he laid out physically according: to a street plan.
Bui i1 is not a splce uni ii it is practiced by people's active occupation, their
11 10\'t"lllt"nts 1hroL1gh <t1Hl around it. [n this perspective, there is nothing given
a\ 11111 1 a "licld." lt 1n 11s1 he worked, turned into a discrete social space, by embodied pr<tclicts ofintcrat1ive travel. I \viii have n1ore to say, en route, about
the exp;111dtd stnse, ;incl li1nit<1tions, of the term travel as I use it. And I will
he tonct'rned, p1-i 1uarily, wi1h nonns oind ideal-types. In chapter 1, Gupta
;ind Ftr14uson ;trgue 111;,ll rt11Te11t practice potentially draws on a broad range
c1f ttl11u1gn1pl1ic acti\'ilics, sonic of then1 unorthodox by rnodern standards.
But ther confirrn that, sinct" the HJ20S, a recognizable norm has held sway
\VitS
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18N
Sl'1\TIAL PRACTICES
JA~tES CLl'FORD
( :, 1nsidtr lht pr<~jtct of Karen r...1cC:arthy Hrown, who studied a vodou priestess in Hrooklyn (and acco1npanied her on a visit to llaiti). Brown traveled
i1110 1he held by car, or on the New York subway, fro1n her home in Manhattoul. Iler ethnography was less a practice of intensive dwelling (the "tent
()ur 1111strils lillccl with the s1nells of charcoal and roasting ntcat and our ears
h'ilh o\'trl<1ppi11~ episodes of salsa, reggae, and the bouncy n1onolony of what
If ai1ians call jal7.. Ani1nated conversations could be heard in 1-taitian French
C:nolc, Spanish. and 1nore than one lyrical dialect of English. The street was
a rra;.y <1uilt of shops: Chicka-Licka, the Ashanti Bazaar, a storefront Christian
d1urth wilh an iruprobably long and specific na1ne, a Haitian restaurant, and
g(,l;tnka Shan go-one or the apo1hecaries of New Work:I African religions oflt'riui.i; fast-luck ouul gc1-rid1-<1uick powders, High John the Conqueror root,
;uul \'Olive candles 1narked IOr the Sevt"n African Powers. I was no more than
<t ft_w 1niles fnun 1ny ho111e in lower Manhattan, but I felt as if I had taken a
w1ung turn. slip1>ed through a crack between worlds, and emerged on the main
'"'ttI ofa iropical rity. (l~rown 1991: 1)
C:o111parc this "arrival scene" (Pratt i986) with Malinowski's famous
"l111;1gi11<' yourstlf' !'it.'I down [on a Trobriand Island beach]" (Malinowski
t< 1f)1 ). Both rhe-1orically construct a sharply different, tropical "place," a topos
,t;ul topic for the work to li:>llow. But Brown's contemporary version is prestnted wilh a degree t>f in,ny: her lropical city in Brooklyn is sensuously real
a111J i111<1ginary-a11 "illusion," she goes on to call it, projected by an ethnogr.iphic 1raveler iu <l co111plexly hyhrid world-city. Hers is not a neighborhood
(urban village) study. If it has a n1icrocos1nic locus, it isAlourdes's three-story
189
JAMES CLIFFORD
Muhilocale ethnography (Marcus and Fischer 1986) is increasingly faniiliar; 1nullilocale fieldwork is an oxy1noron. I-low many sites can be studied
inlt'nsively betOre criteria of "depth" are compromised?~ Roger Rouse's fieldwork in l\VO linked sites retains the notion of a single, albeit mobile, com111unily (Rouse 1991 ). Karen McCarthy Brown stays within the "world" of an
individu<tl. But David Edwards's practice is 1nore scattered. Indeed, when he
ht~ins to link his dispersed instances of "Afghan culture," he rnust rely on
t~ 1 irly weak 1he111atic resonances and the corn1non feeling of "a1nbiguity" they
proc.lucr-at ltast for hirn. Whatever the horders ofEdwards's "1nultiply-in1lt11ed" cultural object (I-larding 1994), the range of spatial practices he
~Ld11pls to encounter ii is exen1plary. He writes that he has "carried out fieldwork" in,, city and refugee (an1ps~ he has "traveled" to observe the mujahadi11; he has "spent quite a bit of ti1ne" (hanging out deeply?) with Afghans
i 11 \t\'ashington, l).C.; and he has been "n1onitoring" the exiled co1nputer
iHwsgroup. l'his last elhnographic activity is the least comfortable for Ed'"arcls (19~)1= 349). At lhe ti1ne of writing, he has only been "lurking," not
p(1s1 ing his own 111essages. 1-lis research on the Internet is not yet interactive.
H111 ii is ve1v infonncHive. Edwards intensively listens in on a group of exiled
AIKhcuis-;nale, relatively affluent-worrying together about politics, reli~ii 111s J>ractices, and the nature and boundaries of their community.
rhr experiences of Karen McCarthy Hro\vn and David Edwards sub.-gest
-. 0 1111 of 1he current pressures on anthropological fieldwork seen as a spa1i;1l pracli<e of intcusivc dwelling. The "field" in sociocultural anthropology
has hern consti1u1ed by a "historically specific range of distances, boundaries,
;111d 1nodrs of trave-1" ({:lilford l~HJO: ()4). These arc changing, as the geogr;1phy of distance and difference alters in postcolonial/neocolonial situations, as power relations of research are reconfigured, as new technologies
of transport and co1nnu1nication are deployed, and as .. natives" are recognit<'(I for 1heir specific worldly experiences and histories of dwelling and traveling (Appadurai t988h; C:lifford 1992; Teaiwa 1993; Naray.in i993). What
re1nains of classic anthropological practices in these new situations? How are
1he1101ions of trave I, boundary, coresidence, interaction, inside and outside,
wl1irl1 l1ave de lined the field .and proper fieldwork, being challenged and
reworked in conte1nporary anthrnpolobry?
!\(fore 1;iking up thest <1uestions, we need a clear sense of what do1ninant
11 1;1c1 itts (If lht" "lie Id" ;ire al issut, and what issues of disciplinary definition
r 1 111,,tr; 1i11 current argurncnL'i. Fieldwork norn1;.11ly involves physically leaving
"ho111r" (however I hat is di:flnt"d) to Iravel in and out of some distinclly dif
/t>-r11t selling. Today, the setting can be 1-lighland New Guinea, or it can be
,1 nrighhorhood, house, offict", hospital, church, or lab. It can be defined as
;111111hile socitty, that ofh1ng-clistanC"e truckers, for example-providing one
o;pt1ut-. long hours in 1he cah, 1alking (Agar 1985). Intensive, "deep" inter-
SPATIAL PRACTICES
191
Hj2
JAMES ClJFI-'<)RD
its, frotn biology, fron1 cognitive science, frorn mi~or~ty and femi~ist sc~ol
<uship, fronl colonial discourse critique, from sem1oucs and media studies,
frorn lilerary and discourse analysis, fron1 sociology, frorn psychology, from
li11g11is1ics, front ecoloh')', from political economy, from ... .
. .
~orin(ultural anthropoloh'Y has always been a fluid, relatively open d1sc1plinc. It lias prided itself on its ability to draw on, enrich, and synthesize other
!irids of study. Writing in 1~164, Eric \Volf opti1nisti.cally defined_ anthropoloh'1' as a "disciplinr bttween disciplines" (Wolf 1964: x). But tlu~ openness
pi;.;cs recurring prohle1ns of self-definiti_on. A1_1d .ra.rtly becaus: Its theo~et
ic.d purview h<ts rernained so bnJad and 1nterd1sc1~hnary, despite recurnng
;ii1cn 1p1s to cut it down 10 size, the discipline has focused on resear.ch practitC'i ~ 1 ., ton', defininv; elc1nents. Fieldwork has played-and co11ttnues to
plav-; 1(tntral disciplining function. In the current conjt~ncture, the ~ang~
uf lopics anthropoloh')' can study and the array of theoretical perspectives It
c; 111 dei>loyare inuncnsc. In these areas the discipline is "hot,"constanrlychan?ing, hyhridii.ing. In the ..colder" do1nain of accepta~le fie~c~wor~; cha..nge is
; 1 js 11111 <urrin~ but 1nore slowly. In 1nost anthropological n11heus, real fieldwork l'Olltiinu.s 10 he actively defended against other ethnographic styles.
rhc t'Xotic exc1nplar-coresidence for extended periods away fro1n
hoTllt', tht "tent in th(' village"-relains considerable authority. But it has,
in pr.utitc, hc('ll dcrcntercd. l'he various spatial practices it authorized, as
wrll ;p; the. relev~u1t criteria for evalu;lling "depth" and "intensity," have
ch;ingc.d ;uul continue to change. C:onte1nporary polit~c~l, cultural, and eco1101nit' rondi1ions bring new pressures and opportunities to anthropology.
Th(' r;iugT of possible venues for elhnographic study has expanded dra111a1 iralh'. and rhe discipline's potential 111e1nbership is n1ore diverse. An1hropolohry's geopolitical location (no longer so securely in the Euro-~er
lt ; 111 .. rt'nter") is challenged. In this context of change and contestauon,
;1racltniic anlhropology struggles to reinvent its traditions in n~w ~ircur:r1st;uut.'i. I .ike the changing societies it studies, the discipline sustains itself tn
liliintd and polict"d h11rderlands, using strategies of hybridization and reaul Ii t' nt ilic;,1t ic111, ;,1.,si1nil<1t ion incl exclusion.
Suggestive hounclary problc1ns e111erge fron1 David Edwards's awkward
tiiue 011 1ht Afghan Internet. \\'hat ifso1neone studied ~he c.ulture of.compiHt'r hacktrs (a perfectly acceptable anthro.pology pr~~ct in many, l~ not
.tll, depar011ClltS) and in the process llCVCr "interfaced Ill the nesh with~
.,j 11 ,i;lt harkrr. Would tl1e 1nonths, even years, spent on the Net b~ fieldw..o~k.
rhc nsc.arch n1igh1 well pass both the length-of-stay and the depth /1n1tr;1tti\'ily tests. (\Ve know 1hat sonic strange and intense .convers~tions can
o<Tllr ovrr the Net.) And cleclronic travel is, o-lfler all, a kind of depayserrumt.
Jr could <tdd up to intensive participant observation in a different con1muuit\' \\'llhotlt one's cv<r physic;,1lly leaving ho1ne. When I've asked anthropologi.,ts whr1hcr this could be fieldwork, they have generally responded
SPATIAL PRA<:TJCES
'93
"maybe," even, in one case, "of course." But when I press 1hc point, asking
whether they would supervise a Ph.I). dissertation based pri1narily on this
kind of disembodied research, they hesitate or say no: it \vould not he currently acceptable fiel(lwork. (;ivcn 1hc traditions of the discipline, a graduate student woul<l be ill advised to follow su<h a course. We c.on1c up again.'it
the institutional-hislorical consuaints that enforce 1hc dis1i11cti1111 hetwte11
fieldwork and a broader 1ange of ethnographic activities. Ficlchvork in anthropology is sedimented with a discipli11ary history. and it lo11linues lo funttion as a rite of passage and n1arker of profcssio11<1lis111.
A boundary that currently preoccupies sociocultural anthropoloh'Y is lha1
which separates it from a heterogeneous collcclion of ac;1d<n1ic pr<1rtirc!'i
often called "cultural studies. "fi This border renegoliatcs, in a new <01Hex1,
sorne of the long-established divisions and crossings or so(iology and anthropology. Qualitative sociology, at least, has its own erhnog1aphic traditions, increasingly relevant to a postexoticist anlhropoloh'Y 7 Hui given fairly
firm institutional identities, in the Uni led States ;11 Jeast, the bonier with !;1r
ciology seems less unruly than that with "cultural studies." rhis new sit<' of
border crossing and policing partly repeats an ongoing, fraughl relationship with "textualism" or "lit crit." The n1ove to .. recaprure" anthropoloh'Ymanifested in disn1issals of the collection WritinK Culture ({:Jifl(lrd and f\-1arcus 1986) and n1ore recently, often incoherc111ly, in s\vrcping rcjrTlions of
"postmodern anthropology"-is by JlO\'I/ routine ill some quarters. But 1he
border with cultural studies 1nay be less n1anagcahle; for it is easirr lt> 1nai11tain a clear separation when the disciplinary Othcr-li1crary-rhttoric.al
theory or textualist semiotics-has no fieldwork con1ponent and at htst an
anecdotal, ..ethnographic" approach to cultural phcnorncna. "C:ultural studies," in its Birmingham tradition as well as in so111c of its soci11logical veins,
possesses a developed ethnographic tradition n111ch closer to anthropological fieldwork. The distinction "\Ve do fieldwork, they do cliscour~e analrsis"
is more difficult to sustain. Some anthropologists h;ne turned lo cultur;1l ~l\ul
ies ethnography for inspiration (Lave ct al. 199~), and inclccd there is n1uch
to learn from its increasingly coniplcx articulalions of class, gcnclC'r, race,
and sexuality. Moreover, what Paul Willis did with the worki11g-cl<1ss .. l;ids"
of Learning to Labour (1977)-hanging out with tl1c1n at school, 1alking with
parents, working alongside them on the shop floor-is c1nnparahle lo good
fieldwork. Its depth of social interaction was surely grcalt"r lhan, say, th<ll
achieved by Evans-Pritchard during his ten 1nonths \Vilh hos1ilc and reluctant Nuer.
Many contemporary anthropological pn~jtcts arc cliffi<11h to clisti11guish
from cultural studies work. For cxa1nplc, Susan J larding is writing an l'tl111ography of Christian fundatnentalis1n in the United States. She has done extensive participant observation in Lynchburg, Virginia, in and around jl'rry
Falwell's church. And of course the tclC'vision 1ninistry of f;1hvcll and others
JAMES CLIFFORD
like hint is very 1nuch her concern-her "field." Indeed, she is interested
not pri1narily in a spatially defined conununity but in what she calls the "disrourse" of the new funda1nentalis1ns. 11 She is concerned with rv programs,
sennons, novels, 1ncdia of all kinds, as well as with conversations and everycl<w hl"havior. f Iarding's 1nixture of participant observation, cultural criticis1n,
and n1C'dia and discourse analysis is characteristic of work in the current
1thnoj.{ltphic hordcr zones. How "anthropological" is it? How different is
Susilll I lanling's frequenting of evangelicals in Lynchburg fro1n Willis's or
Angela I\ le Robbie's snulies of youth cultures in Britain or the earlier work
11f the C:hi<ago School sociologists? There are certainly differences, but they
do not toalesce as a discrete 1neth~d, and there is considerable overlap.
( ltH' i1nportant difference is Harding's insistence that a crucial portion
ofhtr ethnographic work involves livinguJith an evangelical Christian fa1nilv. lndctcl, she reports that this was when she felt she had really "entered
1ht field." Previously, she had stayed in a motel. One might think of this as
a tla . . sic articulation of fieldwork deployed in a new setting. In a sense it is.
Hut i1 is part of a potentially radical <lecentering. For there can be no question of calling the period of iruensive coresidencc in Lynchburg the essence
or core of the pn~ject to which the TV viewing and reading were ancillary.
In I Ianting's project, "fieldwork" was an i1nportant way of finding out how
the new fundarnentalisrn was lived in everyday terms, And whilC it certainly
ht'lptcl define her hybrid pr<~ject as anthropological, it was not a privileged
'iiH" of interactive depth or initiation.
I larding's work is an exan1ple of research that draws on cultural studies,
discourse analysis, and gender and ntedia studies, while maintaining crucial
;tnlhropolo~ic<1l features. It 1narksa current direction for the discipline, one
in which fieldwork ren1ains a necessar}' but no longer privileged method.
Does this rnean that the institutional border between anthropology, cultural
.;tudits, and allied !raditions is open? Far from it. Precisely because the crossings an. so prorniscuuus an cl the overhtps so frequent, actions to reassert identity an nun1n1ed at str;:1tegic sites and 1no1ne11ts. These include the initialofy proctss of graduate certification, and 11101nents when people need to
I it d<11ied a job, funding, or authority. In the everyday disciplining that makes
anthropologists and not cultural studies scholars, the boundary is reasserted
1011ti11el~ l\lost publicly perhaps, when graduate students' .. field" projects
.ut ;ipproved, the distinctive spatial practices that have defined anthropologv h'IHI to he reasserted-often in nonnegotiable ways.
rJH roncept of !he field and the disciplinary pr.tctices associated with it
1011s1it111e a cenlral, ;;11nbiguous legacy for anthropology. Fieldwork has ben 111u a prohlc1n because of its posilivist and colonialist historical associations
( t hr fitlcl as .. lahoral ory," !he field as place of "'discovery" for privileged sojourners). It has ;dso beconte n1ore difficult to circumscribe, given the proliftr;11io11 of cthno~raphic topics and the tin1e-sp;1ce co1npressions (Harvey
SPATIAL PRACTICES
'95
The institutionalization of fieldwork in the late nineteenth and e;irly t\1tentieth centuries can be understood within a larger history of "travel." (I use
the tcrrn in an expanded sense, of which I will say 111orc in a 11101nc111.)
Among Westerners traveling and dwelling abroad, !he ;;n1thropological
fieldworker was a latecomer. Explorers, rnissionarics, colonial officers,
traders, colonists, and natural scientific researchers were well-established figures before the emergence of the on-the-ground an!hropological professional. Prior to Boas, Malinowski, Mead, Firth, and their colleagues, the anthropological scholar usually remained at hon1e, processing ethnographic
information sent by "men on the spot" who were drawn fron1arnong1he sojourners just mentioned. If metropolitan scholars ventured out, it \\'as on
survey and museum-collecting expeclilions. \.Vhate\'Cr exceptions there 1nay
have been to this pattern, interactive clep1h and co1-csidence were not yet
professional require1nents.
\tVhen intensive fieldwork began to be cha1npioncd by !he Ro;:isians and
Malinowskians, an effort was required to clislinguish the kind of knowledge
produced by this 1nethod from that acquired hy o!her long-term resident<;
in the areas studied. At least three "disciplinary Others" were held at ar1n's
length: the missionary, the colonial officer, and the travel writer (journ01list
or literary exoticist). Much could he said about an!hropology's fraugh! re
lations with these three professional alter egos \\'host' purportedly c11natc11r,
interventionist, subjective accounts of indigenous life would be "killed by
science," as Malinowski put it (1961: 11 ). w My focus, here, is li1ni1ccl to the
border with literary and journalistic travel. As a 1ncthodological principle, J
do not presuppose the discipline's self-definitions, whether positiv< ("'\ve ha\e
JAMES CLIFFORD
special research practice and understanding of human culture") or negative (''we are not inissionaries, colonial officers, or travel writers"). Rather, I
assu1ne that these definitions must be actively produced, negotiated, and
n~negotiated through changing historical relationships. It is often easier to
say clearly what one is nol than what one is. In the early years of modern anthropology, while the discipline was still establishing its distinctive research
tradition and authoritative cxen1plars, negative definitions were critical. And
in tin1es of uncertain identity (such as the present), definition may be
<tC'hievecl rnost effectively by narning clear outsides rather than by attempting
to reduce always diverse and hybrid insides to a stable unity. A more or less
pcrinanent process of disciplining at the edges sustains recognizable borders in entangled borderlands ..
1\1Hhropological research travelers have, of course, regularly depended
1111 n1issionaries (for granun<trs, transportation, introductions, and in certain
<ast's for a dcepc:r translation of language and custo1n than can be acquired
in a one- or two-year visit). The fieldworker's professional difference from
rhe n1issionary, based on real discrepancies of agenda and attitude, has had
to he a.c;serted against equally real areas of overlap and dependency. So, too,
\\:ith colonial (and neocolonial) regimes: ethnographers typically have as~trted their ain1 to understand not govern, to collaborate not exploit. But
tluy l1ave navigated in the do1ninant society, often enjoying \'o'hite skin privilege <uul a physical safety in the field guaranteed by a history of prior puniti\c txpeclitions and policing (Schneider i995: 139). Scientific fieldwork separated itself fro1n colonial regimes by claiming to be apolitical. This
distit1r1ion is currently being questioned and renegotiated in the_ wake of
;u11icolonial 1nove1nents, which have tended not to recognize the distance
fn1111 C(111texts of dornination and privilege that anthropologists have claimed.
rhe travel w-ritcr's transient and literary approach, sharply rejected in the
distiplining of fieldwork, has continued to tempt and contaminate the scientific practices of cultural description. Anthropologists are, typically, people
who leave and write. Seen in a long historical perspective, fieldwork is a dis1i1utivc cluster of travel practices (largely but not exclusively Western). Travel
and travel diM:oursc should not be reduced to the relatively recent tradition
11f litC"rary tra\el, a narrowed conception that e1nerged in the late nineteenth
;uul early twentieth centuries. This notion of "travel" was articulated against
;111 rn1r1ging ethnogr<iphy (and other fonns of "scientific" field research) on
the one hand, and against tourisrn {a practice defined as incapable of producing strious knowledge) on the other. The spatial and textual practices of
what rnight no\Y he called "sophistic;.Hed travel"-a phrase taken fro1n New
li-11k r;nv.~ supple1ntnt'i catering to the "independent" traveler 11 -function
,.,ithin an elile, 111d highly differentiated, tourist sector defined by the state111rnt .. \Ve are ,.ot tourist~.,. (Jean-Didier Urbain in L 'idiot du voyage [ 1991]
ha~ thoroughly analy1ed 1his discursive fonnation. See also Buzzard 1993.)
;1
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JAf\.iES CLIFFORD
SPATIAi. l'RA(:TH:Es
199
analysis and travel narration. l-ler account historicizes both her O\'/n and her
subjects' practices of dwelling and traveling. She deri,ed h('r kno\vlcclgc froin
.specific encounlers between diffCrently cosn1opolita11, gendtrcd i11diYirl11als, not cultural types. (See, particularly, Part rwo: ..A Scicn<e of 'I'ravel.'')
Her field site in what she calls an "out of the \Vay place" is n<ver taken for
granted as a natural or traditional environrncnt. It is a cont<ict space pro
duced by local, national, and transnational forces nf\vhich her r(search tr;:nel
is a part .
Edwards and Tsing exernplify exotic fieldwork <ll 1he edges of changing
academic practice. In both, differently spalialited, \\'<' see the increased
prominence of practices and tropes co1n1nonly asso<ia1td \Vilh rr;l\<I and
travel writing. 11 These are curre11tly visible in n1uch a111 hn1pological eth 1u 1graphy, figuring different versions of the routed/rooted researcher, the .. positioned su~ject" (Rosaldo 1989a: 7). Signs of the 1i1nes includ<' a 1rend 1o
ward use of the first-person singular pronoun in accounts of field\\ork,
presented as stories rather than as observations and interpretations. Often
the field journal (private and closer to the "sul~jec1ive" acToi1111s of travel \\Tiling) leaks into the "objective" field data. I arn not describing a linear ino,c1nent from collection to narration, objcctiYe lo sul~jectivc, irnpersonal 10 personal, coresidence to travel encounter. It is a question not of a progression
fro1n ethnography to travel writing but rather of ;1 shifting balance and a
renegotiation of key relation~ that have conslituterl the two prac1ices and
discourses.
In tracking anthropology's changing relations with !ravel, we 1nay find it ust'ful to think of the "field" as a habitus ralher than as a place, a clusler of ru1bodieddispositions and practices. The work of fcn1inist scholars has played a
crucial role in specifying the social body of the ethnographer, lvhile crilicizing the limitations of androcentric "gender-neutral" work ancl opening
up major new areas of unrlerstanding. 1 ~ Sirnilarly, anticolonial pressure's, coin
nial discours~ analysis, and critical race theory have clecr111rrrd the pre
dominantly Western, and white, traditional fieldworkC'r. S<'C'll in light ofthrse
interventions, the fieldwork hahitus of the Malinowskian generation appC'ars
as the articulation of specific, disciplined practices.
This normative "body" was not that of a lr;tvclcr. As ii drew on older traditions of scientific travel, it did so in .sharpened opposition 10 ron1antic, "literary," or subjective strands. The body legitimated by n1odern flel<hvork was
not a sensorium moving through extended space, across ho1ders. Ir was not
on an expedition or a survey. Rather, it wa."i ;:l hody circ11lct1ing and working
(one might almost say ..cornmuting") wilhin a dcli1ni1ed space. The local n1ap
predominated over the tour or itinerary as a technology of physical location.
Being there was more i1nportant than gelling there (and leaving there). The
fieldworker was a homebody abroad, not a cosn1opolitan ''isitor. I a111, of
2lH'
JAMES CLJFF()RlJ
SPATIAL PRA<:TICES
201
furn1ations gave thern a powerful tool against racial reductions. But in attacking a natural phenon1enon, they did not confront race as a ltiMorical
fOrrnation that located their sul~jccts politically ancl that sin1ultancously constrained and ernpowerc<l their own research (I larriso11 1991: :\). 11 ' Occasicn1ally, this positioning could he gli1npsed-f(H' cx;unplc, in Evans-Pri1chard's
introduction to '/'he Nuer (1940); but it W<IS not p;irt of the explicit body, the
professional habitu.s, of the fieldworker.
By contrast, travel 'vriters often noticed color and spoke fio1n a racializcd
position. Of course, they were not necessarily critical of lhe rela1ions invoked
-often quite the reverse! The point is not to celebrate a rclali\'cly greater
awarenes.<; of race-and gender-in tra\'el writing, hut to show how, in contrast, the hahitus of the ethnographer downplayed these historical detcrrninations. IIowever rnarked it 'vas by gender, rare, rastc, or tJass pri\ilege,
ethnography needed to transcend such loca1io11s in order to articulate a
deeper, cultural understanding. 'fhis artic11latio11 was based 011 powerful t<chniques, including at least the f'ollowi111r extended coresiclcntl; sy.stc1na1ic
observation and recording of data; effective interlocution in <H least one lo
cal language; a specific 1nix of alliance, ctnnplici1y, friendship, rcspet, coercion, and ironic toleration leading to "rapport"; a hern1cnc11tic attention
to deep or implicit structures and 111ea11ings. Tl1csc tcch11iq11es were design eel
to produce (and often did produce, \Vithin lhc horit.ons I a1n trying to drlirnit) n1ore contexual, less reductive understandings of local lifclays th;111
did the passing observations of the traveler.
Some writers who could be classified as tra\'clcrs st;1yed for extended periods abroad, spoke local languages, and had co111plcx views of indigc11011 ..,
(as well as of creole/colonial) life. So1ne classified as ethnographers srayed
relatively short times, spoke langu;1ges badly, and did not interact intenshely.
The range of actual social relations, con1nH1nicati\'C lethniques, and spatial
practices deployed between the poles of fieldwork and travel is a to111i111n11n,
not a sharp border. There has been considerable overlap. 17 But in spite of,
or r.tther because of, this hordcr con1plexity, the di~ursivc I ins1itu1ional lines
had to be clearly drawn. This need sustained pressures \\'hich, o\Tr ti1nc, got th
ered empirical experiences closer to lhe two poles. In 1his process, the .. superficiality" of the traveler and travel writer was opposed to the "depth" of
the fieldworker. But one rnight also say, pro\'ocati\cly, lhat the fonner's
"promiscuity" was disciplined in favor of the "fiunily values" often invoked
in ethnographic prefaces: fieldwork as a pructs..;; of getting along 'vi1h others, of adoption, initiation, learning loc,1! nor111s-11n1ch ;.1s a child lc~1rns.
The habitus of modern fieldwork, delint'cl <tgainst thal of tr;;1vcl, has proscribed interactive 1noclcs long ;1ssociatecl with tra\'tI cxperirntT. Perhaps
the 1nos1 absolute continuing taboo is on sexual Ji;1iso11s. Fieldworkers could
love but not desire the ..objects" of their <Hl<"ntion. On the continuurn of
possible relations, sexual entangle1nents were defined as dangerous, too
Continued on Part 2
Part 2
202
JAMES CLIFFORD
close. Participant observation, a delicate management of distance and proxin1ity, should not include entanglements in which the ability to maintain perspc<:tive rnight be lost. Sexual relations could not be avowed sources of research knowledge. Nor could going into trance or taking hallucinogens,
1hough the taboo there has been sornewhat less strict, a certain amount of
cxperintentation., so1ncti1nes being justifiable in the nan1e of participant
ohservation. Sexual experimentation \Vas, however, out of bounds. A discipli1ad, participant-observer ..went along"' \Vith indigenous life, selectively.
At its inception, though, the taboo on sex rnay have been less against "g<>in~ rrative" or losing critical distance than against .. going traveling," violating a professional habitus. In I ravel practices and texts, having sex, heter<>scxual and hornosexual, with locaI people was common. Indeed in certain
travel circuits, such as the nineteenth-century voyage en Orient, it was quasiohligatory. 111 A popular writer such as Pierre Loti consecrated his authority,
his a(-cess to the mysterious and ferninizcd Other, through stories of sexual
<"nrounter. In fieldwork accounts, however, such stories have been virtually
nonexistent. Only recently, and still rarely, has the taboo been broken (Rabi now 1977; Cesara 1982). Why should sharing beds be a less appropriate
'itllllTe of fieldwork knowledge than sharing food? There may, of course, be
111any practical reasons for sexual restraint in the field, just as certain places
and ~u:tivities may be off-litnits to the tactful (and locally dependent) s<>.inurner. Hut they are not off-lirnits in all places and at all times. Practical con_<;l r<iinls, which vary wiclcly, cannot account for the disciplinary taboo on sex
ill fiekhvork. l!t
Enough has been said, perhaps, to nlake the central point: a disciplinary
hahitus has been sustained around the e1nbodied activity of fieldwork: an
ungendered, unraced, sexually inactive subject interacts intensively (on
hern1eneutic/scientific levels, at the very least) with interlocutors. If actual
experiences in the fteld have diverged from the norm, if the taboos have
so1ne1i1ncs heen hroken, and if the disciplinary habitus is now publicly contested, its nor1native power re1nains.
r\1H)lht'r con11non tnn:el pr<lCtice befOre 1900, cross-dressing, was suppressed
or channeled in the disciplining of modern fieldwork's professional "body."
This is a far-reaching topic, ancl I n1us1 limit n1yself lo preliminary remarks.
J);u1i<'I llefert ( 1984) has written suggestively on lhe history of "clothing" in
r11des c1fEuropea11 tr:otvt>I ohseTvation prior to the nineteenth century. Asu~
s1a111ial, integral link was once assu1ned between the person and his or her
c111nvarcl appearanc-e-liabituJ, in Dcfert's prernodern usage. 20 In a deep sense
ii w;1s understood 1h;1t "clothes n1ake the n1an" ("/,'habit fait le 1noine"). lnteq>rt'l<Hions of habillls, not to he confused with habits (clothes) or with the
later concept of culture, were ;1 necessary part of travel interactions. This in,-h1dtd 1he con1111u11icative n1anipulation of appearances-what might be
SPATIAL PRACTICES
203
called, somewhat anachronistically, cultural cross-dressing. By the nineteenth century, in Defert's account, habitus had been reduced to habits, to
surface coverings and adornment<;; co.stume had ernerged as a deformation
of the richer coustume (a term which combined the ideas of costume and
custom).
Clothes would becoine just one of 1nany clernents in a taxono1ny of observations made by scientific travelers, components of an e1nerging cultural
explanation. Defert perceives this transition in GCrando's scientific advice
to travelers and explorers, published in 1800. Explorers have often merely
described the clothes of indigenous peoples, he wrote. You should go further and inquire why they may or may not be willing to give up their traditional clothing for ours, and how they conceive the origin of their customs
(Defert 1984: 39). Herc, the interpretive grid of habitus is replaced (and made
to seem superficial) by a deeper conception of identity and difference. Travel
relations had long been organized by complex and highly codified protocols, "surface" semiotics and transactions. The interpretation and manipulation of clothing, gesture, and appearance were integral to these practices.
Seen as the outcome of this tradition, nineteenth-century culttiral cross-dressing was more than just dress-up. A serious, comrnunicative play with appearances and a site of crossover, it articulated a less absolute or essential
notion of difference than that instituted by relativist notions of culture with
their concepts of nativeness inscribed in language, tradition, place, ecology.
and-more or less implicitly-race. The experiences of a Richard Burton
or an Isabelle Eberhardt passing as "Orientals," and even the rnore blatantly
theatrical costuming of Flaubert in Egypt or Lotion shore leave, partake of
a complex tradition of travel practices held at arm's length by a 1nodernizing ethnography. 21
Seen from the perspective of fieldwork (intensive, interactive, based in
language learning), cross-dressing could appear only as superficial dress-up,
a kind of touristic slumming. In this view, the practices of an ethnographer
like Frank Hamilton Cushing, who adopted Zun~ dress (and even, it has been
suggested, produced "authentic" indigenous arlifaCL"i), would be somewhat
embarrassing. His intensive, interactive research was not quite "rnodern fieldwork." A similar sense of embarrassment is experienced today by many viewers of Timothy A"iche's film A Man (',a//M Bee, devoted to Napoleon Chagnon 's
research among the Yanomami. 1 am thinking particularly of the opening
shot, which zooms in slowly on a painted, scantily clad figure in a fighting
pose who turns out, finally, to be the anthropologist. Whatever the intent of
this opening, satiric or otherwise (it's not entirely clear). the impression remains that this is not a ..professional" way to appear. A certain excess is registered, perhaps too easily written off as egotis1n. Liza Dalby's book Gei.tha
(1983), which includes photographs of the anthropologist being transformed through makeup and wearing full geisha attire, is more acceptable,
JAMES CLIFFORD
since the adoption of a geisha "habitus" (in Dcfert's older sense-a mode
of being, manifested through clothes, gesture, and appearance) is a central
issue in her participant observation and written ethnography. Yet the photographs of Dalby looking ahnost exactly like a "real" geisha break with established ethnographic conventions.
At another pole are the photographs published by Malinowski (in Coral
(;ardrns and "f'JieJr ftrfagic [ 193_~]) of hi1nself in the field. He is dressed entirely
in white, surrounded by black bodies, sharply distinguished by posture and
<lltitude. This is a 1nan insistently not about to "go native." Such a self-prestntation is akin to the gestures of colonial Europeans who dressed formally
for dinner in sweltering climates so as not to feel they were slipping "over
1he edge." (The miraculous stafchccl collars of Conrad's accountant in Heart
of !Jarkne.~s are a paradign1 case in colonial literature.) But ethnographers
have not, typically, been so fonnal, and I would suggest that their fieldwork
habit us was 1nore of an intermediate formation, predicated on not theatrically standing out fro1n local life (not asserting their difference or authori1y by wearing 1nilitary unifor111s, pith helrnets, and the like), while rernaining clearly 1narkerl by white skin, proximity to cameras, notepads, and other
nonnative accotllreinents. 22 Most professional fieldworkers did not try to disappear into the field by indulging in "superficial" travel practices of masquerade. rheir embodied distinction suggested connections at deeper,
henncneutic levels, understandings forged through language, coresidence,
and n1/Ju.ral knowledge.
l\iorc than a few telling glirnpses of the anthropologist's habitus, overlapping and distinct fro1n that of the traveler, are provided by Levi-Strauss
in rn_~J"s rropiqttes (1973). "In Septemher 1950," he writes, "I happened to
hnd 1nyselfin a Mogh village in the Chittagong hill tracts." After several days,
ht asct'nds to the local te111ple, whose gong has punctuated his days, along
with the sound of ..childish voices intoning the Burmese alphabet." All is innocenct" and order. "We had taken off our shoes to clin1b the hillock, and
1hc fine, damp clay felt sofl under our bare feet." At the entry to the simple,
he;u1tif11l tcn1ple, built on stilts like the village houses, the visitors perform
Mprescribed ablutions," which after the cli1nb through the mud seem "quite
na1ural and devoid of ;u1y re-ligious significance,"
A p< <1ct"ful, baTn-likt' atn1ospht'1-e pervaded the place and there was a srncll of
hI)' in the air. The sirnple and spacious roo1n which was like a hollowed-out
haysta<.k, the co11r1cous behaviour of the two priests standing next to their beds
with straw 1nattrcs.'i<.'S, lhe 1ouching care with which they had brought together
cir 111ade lhe iusrn1111rnt'iofworship-all 1hcse things helped to bring me closer
1h;u1 I had t-vrr hten IK'forc to 1ny idea of what a shrine should be like. '"You
nrrd not do whal I a1n doing." 1ny con1p<tnion said to me as he prostrated himsrlf on the ground four ti111es before the altar, and I followed his advice. Howf'\'fT, I did so lt'ss through self-ronsciousncss than discretion: he knew that I did
0
SPATIAL PRACTICES
205
not share his beliefs, and I would have been afraid of debasing the rilual gestures by letting him think I considered the1n as 1nerc COtl\'entions: bul for once.
I would have felt no e1nbarrass1nent in pcrfonning thcnt. Between 1his fonn of
religion and myself, there was no likelihood of 1nisundcrs1anding. It w;_1s not a
question of bowing clown in front of idols or of adodn~ a suppo.~td supernalural order, but only of paying hon1age 10 1he drdsivc wisd(Hll 1ha1 a thi11kcr, or
the society that created his legend, had e\'olvcd lW('nly-livc f'("llllffics ht'f()I'(' and
to which rny civilization could conlrihutc 011ly h)' confinning it. (197;r 410-.111)
Going barefoot could hardly be a casual gesture fo1 LCvi-Strauss: hut here,
along with ritual cleansing prior to entering the shrine, it seen1s si1nply natural. Everything dra\vs him into syn1pathy and participation. But he 1narks
a line at the physical act of prostration. 'fhe line expresses a specific diJnftion, that of a visitor who looks beyond "rnere conventions" or going along
with appearances to a deeper level of respect based on historical kno\vlcdgc
and cultural con1prehension. The anthropologist's oullhentic bo\v to Bucidhism is a mental one.
LCvi-Strauss is te1npted, retrospectively at least, to pro:<.tnllc hirnselfin the
hill temple. Another anthropologist 1night \veil have done so. My point in
noticing this line between physical and hcrn1cneutic ;u1s of co111uction is
not to clai1n that Levi-Strauss draws it in a pl;1cc typic<1I of;111thropologi.~ts. I
do want to suggest, however, that a siinilar line will he clra\\111 son1cwhrrt',
sometime, in the maintenance of a professional ficlchvork hahitus. Lt,iStrauss is clearly not one of those Western spiritual tra\'elcrs \Vho st~journ in
Buddhist temples, shaving their heads and \Vcaring saffron robes. And in this
he represents the traditional ethnographic nonn. One could, of course, irnagine a Buddhist anthropologist bcco1ning alrnost indistinguishable, in bo1h
practice and appearance, front other adepts during a period of fieldwork in
a temple. And this would be a li1nit case for the discipline, to be uta1ed wilh
suspicion in the absence of other clearly visihle si~ns of profCssional disrrftion (etymologically: a separation).2::i
Today, in many locations, indigenous penplt.\ cthnogri-lphcr.<;, and tourisl.o;
all wear T-shirts and shorts. Elsewhere, distinctions of dress arc 111orc salient.
In highland Guaten1ala it 1nay be a ncces.<iily of dccoru1n, a sign of respect
or solidarity, to wear a long skirt or an embroidered shirt in puhlic. But this
is hardly cross-dressing. Can, should, an anthropologist \Vear a turban,
yarmulke,jallabryya, huipi~ or veil? Local conventions vary. But \vhatever tac
tics are adopted, they are en1ployed from a position of assurnecl n11Jural discretion. Moreover, as ethnographers \vork increasingly in their own societies,
the issues I have been discussing in an exoticisl frarne bccon1c confused, 1he
lines of separation less self-evident. En1borliccl professional practices of .. the
field"-gendered, raced, sexualized locations and crosso\crs, fonns of self~
presentation, and regulated patterns of access, cleparlure, a11<I rc1t1r11-are
renegotiated.
206
SPATIAi. PRACTICES
JAMES CLIFFORD
I havt' 1ricd to identify so111e of the sedi1ne11ted practices lhrough and against
which newly diverse ethnographic project~ struggle fo1 recognition within
an1hropology. Established practices co1ne under pressure as the range of sites
that can he 1rcatecl ethnographically multiplies (the acadernic border with
"tultural studies") and as differently positioned, politically invested scholars
entrr the field (the: challenge of a "postcolonial anthropology"). The latter
d<"\'tlc1pn1e11t has f~tr-reaching in1plications for disciplinary reinvention.
Fieldwork defint?d through spatial practices of travel and dwelling, through
tht" disciplintd, e1nhoclicd intt;ractions of participant observation, is being
nrcitlled by "indigenous," "postcolonial," "diasporic," "border," "n1inority,"
acti\'ist," and ..co1nn1unity-ha.sed" scholars. The terrns overlap, designating
c1n1111l<'x sites ( >f identification, not discrete identities.
Kirin Narayo.111 (1~193} questions the opposition of native and nonnative,
insider ;incl outsider anlhropologists. This binary, she argues, stems from a
discredited, hierarchical colonial structure. Drawing on her own ethnography in different part-; of India, where she feels varying degrees of affiliation
and disrance, Nar;;1yan shows how "native" researchers are con1plexly and
111ultiply lo(<llcd vis-;l-vis their work sites and interlocutors. Identifications
crosstlll, co1111>le1nent, ancl trouble each other. "Native" ;;tnthropologistslike all <tnthropologists, Narayan argues-"belong to sever.ii communities
si 1nultaneously (not least of all the conununity we were born into and the
co1n111unity of professional acadcn1ics)" (Narayan 1993: 24). Once the structuring: opposition between "native" and "outside" anlhropologist is displaced, the relations of cultural inside an<l outside, home and away, same
;uul different that have organized the spatial practices of fieldwork must be
rt'thcntght. flow does the disciplinary injunction that fieldwork involve some
~ort of /nn1t'L-a practice of physical displacement that defines a site or objtt1 of in1ensive research-constrain the range of practices opened up hy
Naravan and others?
ln,Narayan's ilnalysis, fieldwork begins and ends in displacernent, enacted
<ltToss con!'.litutive borders-fraught, an1orous edges. There is no simple,
undivided, "native" position. Once this is recognized, however, the hybriditv she en1hrares needs specification: What are its li1niL~ and conditions of
n;ovt111t111? ()ne can he rnore or less hybrid, native, or ..diasporic" (a term
rh:.tt 1><rhaps htst c;ipturt's Naray<1n 'sown complex locations) for detennin;llt' historical reasons. Indeed, the title of "native" or "indigenous" anthropologist 1nig-hl he rt'l;;lincd lo design;;Ue a person whose research travel
11;1ds out and h;itk fro1n " horne base, "travel" understood as a detour
through a university or other site rhat provides analytic or comparative per~p<'cli\'e on the place of dwelling/research. Here, the usual spatialization
of hon1e and abroad would he reversed. Moreo\'er, for many fieldworkers,
neither the university nor the field provides a stable hasc; rather, both serve
as juxtaposed sites in a 1nobile co1nparativc projr(t. A continuu1n, not an
opposition, separates the explorations, detours, and rc111rns of the indig-<nous or native scholar fron1 those of the diasporir or postcolonial.~ 1 Thus,
the requiren1ent that anthropological fieldwork invoJ\'C .WJllU' kind of lra\'t')
need not 1narginalize those forn1erly callt'd "na1iv<"s . ., l"hc roots and routes,
the varieties of "travel," need to he 11101-c broadly understood.
Recent work by Mary Hchns (198H), l)avid Scott (1~)89), 1\n1ita\' (;hosh
(1992), Epeli Hau'ofa ct al. (19~t~), Ten:sia Tcai\v;1 (1~19:\), B<"n Finney
(1994), and Aihwa Ong (1995), a1nong: others, has rei11forct'd ;i growing
awareness of discrepant travel routcs-lraditions of 1110\'l'llH'nt and inlerconnection not definitively orien1cd hy the "\Ve.st" a11cl an expanding tuJtural-economic world systenl. 'rhese routes follow "traditional" <llHI "1nodern" paths, within and across contc1nporary transna1 ion al and i11tcrrcg:ional
circuits. A recognition of these paths n1akcs space for tr;uel (and fieldwork)
that does not originate in the n1etropolcs ofEuro-A111crica or their ottlposts.
If, as is likely, so1ne form or travel or displaccnH_'llt rcn1ai11s a constinuing ele1ncnt in professional fieldwork, reworking !he "ficld'' 11111st nHa111nultiplying the range of acceptable routes and pracli<Ts.
An attention to the varieties of "travel" also helps claril): ho\v, in the pasl,
cleared spaces of scicntifi< work hilV<' ht't'll co11stit111ecl through lhe suppression of cosnH>politan experiences, especially Ihose of the people under
study. Generally speaking, the localization of "11a1ivcs" 1ncoint that i11te11.~ivc
interactive research was done in spatially dclitnitcd fields and not, for t'X
ample, in hotels or capital cities, on ships, in 111ission schools or 1111i,crsi1 ics,
in kitchens and factories, in refugee can1ps, in di;tsporic 11cighborhoocls, on
pilgrimage buses, or at a variety of cross-cultural silcs of rncounlt"r.~'' As~'
Western travel practice, fieldwork was grounded by a his1oric;1I \'ision, \vha1
Gayatri Spivak calls a "worlding," in which one .section of hu111<111i1y was restless and expansive, the rest rooted and inunobilc. lndigcuous authori1ics
were reduced to native inforn1ants. The 1nargin;11i.lation of lra\'el practices,
those of researchers and hosts, contributed to a donu.\liration of licld\\ork,
an ideal of interactive dwelling lh.at, ho\vcvt'f lc1npo1oiry, tould not he sttn
as merely passing: through. That anthropoloi.,ry's intcrloc111ors often saw thi11gs
differently did not, until recently, dis111rb the discipline's S<"lf~i111;ige.:i 1 i
Alternate for1ns of travel/lield\\'Ork, whC'thcr inclig-t11ous or diasporic,
grapple with rnany problems siniilar to those of coll\'Clllional research: problems of strangeness, privilege, 1niscon1prchensi1>11, slen111yping, <u1d p11li1 ical negotiation of the c11cou11ter. (;bosh is tsprrially 1uncha111 on the potentially violent 111isco1nprchensions and stcrcorypc.~ in1<gr;1l 111 his research
as a doktar al lli11di a1nong M11slin1s. Eptli J lau'ofa speaks for an interconnected "Oceania," but he does so as a To11ga11 lhing in F~ji. a lo(:alinn not
forgotten by his diverse Islander a11dic1ucs. At lht so1111e 1inH', lhr routes and
JAMES <:LIFFORD
SPATIAi. l'RAC:TIC:ES
By raising in difTerent ways the problc1n of "l>late" and the non-Wtstern an-
thropologist, both Talal Asad (19!-h~) and A~j1111 Appad11n-1i (19KKa) have sug
gested that to undennine the asynunetry in anthropological praclirt 1nany
1nore such anthropologisL'i should study Wcsl(rn socictirs. This, 10 be sure, is
a step in the right direction inasn1uch as it suhvC'l'IS thr perv<isivr notion 1h;l1
the non-\Vestcrn su~jecl can speak only within the 1crn1.~ of his/ hl'r own culture. Moreover, it privileges in son1e clcgrre the possibility of lacking h;ick and
forth between cultural spaces. At the sa1nc ti111c, it would scent to fix and repeal the colonially establish('d tf"rritorial bo1111dari<'s within which 1he post
colonial is encouraged to 1nove: centerI periJ>h<ry-and typically, tht" cen1tr
of neocolonial governance and the periphery of 11rigin. European ;1ncl A1nerican anthropologists continue to go wl1cre lh<y pl(asr, while the p11stnloni;1I
stays ho1ne or else goes \Vest. ()ne wonders whether thtn 1night not he a 11101-e
engaging problc1natic to be encountered wlure the postnilonial i11ttllectual
fiu1n Papua New Guinea g()(__'S, not tu Philadl'~Jhict hut 111 Boin h.:1~01 Kingston
01 Accra. (Scott 1989: Ho)
Escape from the polarizing historical f{>rce field of lhe "\Vcsl" is no easy 1natter, as Scott's subsequent discussion of (;hosh 1nakes cle.ir. But Scoll also argues that the cross-cultural "tacking" of anthropologists should not be reduced to movements between centers and peripheries in a \vorld sysletn.
Contemporary ethnography, including Scott's own fron1 Jan1aica via Ntw
York lo Sri Lanka, is necessarily "traveling in the West" ({;hosh, quoted hy
Scott 1989: 82). It is also traveling in and against, through the West.
Ethnography is no longer a nor1native practice of outsiders visiting or
studying insiders but, in Narayan's words, of attending to "shifting identities
in relationship with the people and issues a11 anthropologist seeks to rcpr<'sent" (Narayan 1993: 30). How identities are negotiated relationally, in determined historical contexts, is thus a process constituting both the sul~jtcts
and objects of ethnography. Much emerging work now tnakes these complex
relational processes explicit. Paulla Ebron (1994. t<>rthcon1ing), for CX<llll
pie, conducts research on Mandinka praise-singers hoth in \Vest Africa :uul
in the United States, where they find apprt~ciative audiences. I Irr elhnog:raphy is multiply located and-as she clearly Shows-cnlanglcd in the 1r<1\'
cling culture circuits of world 1nusic and 1ourism. Ehron's ethnography alsc1
works in tension with a history of clo1ninant Weslern inv<"ntions of Afric.ashe cites Mudimbe (1988)-and more or less rcnnantici1.C'd African A1nerican projections formed in reaction to historiC's of racistn. Ehron 1110\cs anltlng:
these intersecting contexts. "Africa" cannot he held ..out 1herc." It is an c1npowering and problematic part of her own African Arnerican tradition as
well as a relay-not an origin-in a contint1ing diasporic hislory of transils
and returns. This history implicates her acaclc1nic ethnography, whose sile
is the relational negotiation of ..sul~ject'i in diflCrcnce," a spac<" where praisesingers, tourists, and anthropologists clai1n and negotiate cultural n1eaning:s.
Her field includes the airports where thC'se travelrrs cross.
210
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CLIFF<)RD
SPATIAL PRACTICES
211
,,,
JAMES Cl.IFFl>RD
SPA'flAI. l'RACTU:Es
21)
JAMES CLIFFORD
and embodied practices, an injunction to listen are all elements of the fieldwork tradition they v.ilue and hope to preserve. Moreover, Gupta and Ferguson's nolion of shifting locations suggests that even when the ethnographer is positioned as an insider, a .. native" in her or his community, some
taking of distances and translating differences will be part of the research,
analysis, and writing. No one can be an insider to all sectors of a community. I-low the shifting locations are rnanaged, how affiliation, discretion,
and critical perspective are sustained, have been and will remain matters
of t<lctical i1nprovisation as 1nuch as of formal methodology. Thus, whatever
ccnnes to be recognized as a refonned fieldwork will entail David Scott's
"tacking between cultural spaces," though not necessarily or solely along
colonial or neocolonial axes of center and periphery.
Moreover, the constitutive displace1nents need not be between "cultural"
spaces, at least not as the term is conventionally defined in spatial terms. An
ethnography focused on shifting locations would assume only that the borders negotiated and crossed were salient to a co-constructed project in a specific "cunt.act zone" (Pratt 1992). This would mean not that the borders in
question were invented or unreal, but only that they were not absolute and
could be crosscut by other borders or affiliations also potentially relevant to
lhe project. These other constitutive locations might become central in other
historical and political co1~junc1ures or in a differently focused project. One
cannot represent "in depth" all salient differences and affinities. For example. a 1niddle-class researcher studying a1nong working people may find class
to he a critical location, even if his or her research topic is explicitly focused
elsewhere-say, on gender relations in secondary schools. In this case, race
n1ight or 1night not be a site of crucial difference or affinity.
A project will always "succeed" on certain axes and "fail" (in Visweswaran's
constitutive sense) on others. Thus, we should not confuse a more or less
conscious research strategy of shifting locations with being located (often antagonistically) in the ethnographic encounter. For an Indian Hindu working in Egypt, religion 1nay be imposed as a prime differentiating factor, asserting its salience for a research project on agricultural techniques, in spite
of the author's desires (Ghosh 1992). Moreover, the process need not be antagonistic. A student of his or her own community may be located firmly and
loving!}' as .. farnily,,. thus putting real restrictions on what can be probed and
revealed. A gay <)r lesbian ethnographer 1nay be constrdined to highlight or
downplay sexual location, depending on the political context of research.
Or an anthropologist from Peru may find himself or herself negotiating a
national boundary when working in Mexico, but a racial one in the United
Si ates. The ex~unples could be 1nultiplied.
None of these locations is optional. They are imposed by historical and
political circun1stances. And because locations are multiple, conjunctural,
and cros.OR:utting, there can be no guarantee of shared perspective, experi-
SPATIAi. PRACTICES
ence, or solidarity. l build here on a nondis111issive critique of identity politics that has been compellingly stated by June.Jordan (198!)) and developed
by many others (for exa1nple, Reagon t983; ~1ohotnty 1987). In ethnography, what was previously understood in tcr1ns or rajJ/HJrl-a kind of achie\cd
friendship, kinship, e1npathy-now appears as so1ncthing closer to atlianrr
lrnilding. The relevant question is less "What fund;unenlally uniles or separates us?" and 1nore "What can we do for each other i11 the present conjuncture?" What, fro1n our si111ilaritics and diffen_JH'.cs, can
hend toge! htr.
hook up, articulate? (See l-lall 1986: r}2-r>rl; 1-lannvay 199~: ;\ofl-;\1;,.) A11d
when identification becu1nes too close, htnv can a disarticulation of <lgt'ndas be managed, in the context of alliance, without resorting to clairns to
objective distance and tactics of definitive departure? (For a sensitivt' account
of these issues in the context of lesbian ethnography, M'C Le\vin 199!).)
A stress on shifting locations and tactical affiliations explicitly recogni1_es
ethnography's political din1ensions, di111ensions th;1t can be hidden by presumptions of scientific neutrality and h11111an rapporl. Hui "political" in whal
senses? There are no guaranteed or n1orally unassailable positions. In the
present context-a shift fro1n rapport to alliance, fron1 representation to
articulation-rigid prescriptions of advocacy have a lendency to enu1)~-r. An
older politics of neutrality with ils goal of ulti1natc discngage1nent 1n;1y si1nply be reversed-a binary starkly evident in the juxtaposition of eloquent,
opposing essays by Roy <l'Andraclc and Nancy Schepcr-1 h1ghes in a 19~t!i fortun of Current AnthropohJf!J. The place for a politics of skcpli<is1n and <Titique (nol to be confused with dispassion or neutrality). for engaged disloyalty, or for what Richard lIandler ( 1985, quoting Sapir) calls "des1rurtivc
analysis," seems endangered. An alliance 111odel l<avcs little roo1n for work
in a politicized situation that pleases none oflhc contcst;inls. I a111 not suggesting that such research is superior or n1ore ol~ject iv<'. It, tcu>, is parlial and
located. And it should not be excluded fio1n the range of sin1ated research
practices now con lending for the 11an1e "anthropology."
'''l'
216
JA~1ES
<:LIFFORD
Sl'ATIAl. PRAC:TJ<:ES
217
or
srATIAL PRACTICES
JAMES CLJFl-"ORD
\'Vestern travel practices. I have suggested, too, that othe1 travel traditions
Th;inks to the following pc-ople for criliral readings: Judith Aisse11,Ja1nes Fergu
son, Akhil (~upla, Susan I larding, Michelle Kisliuk, Ann Kingsol\'er, William Ladu.;aw, and ();1\'itl Schneider.
1. For tht t111ergtnct of this fieldwork norn1 and its Mmagic," see George Stocki111.(s cla.~<;ir accou1H (Stocking 1~19~a: chapter 1). My discussion here is largely lin1-
"9
ited to Euro-American trends. I join Gupta and Ft."rguson (chapter 1 of this book)
in admitting my"sanctioned ignorance" (Spivak 1988;Jnhn 1989) of1nany non-\Veslern anthropological contexts and practices. And t'vcn within 1lu. contrsted hu1 powerful disciplinary "center," rny discussion is pri111arily ftiruscd 011 Nc1nh A1nerica ;111d,
to some extent, England. If the issues rais1;1d extend heyond 1hc:i;c nnHcxts, !hey do
so whh reservations I an1 not yet able to discus.-; sys1e1natically.
2. Renato Rosaldo 1nade this n1n1111e11t at thr "Antl1rop11l11J..'Y ;u1cl '1l1e Fielcl'M nHJference on 18 April 1994. The context was a coniparison 11f cthnoJ.\Taphy by postexotic anthropologists and cultural studies scholars, a discussion of wh;it, in the ;ihst'IHT
of extended coresidence, guarantees interac1i\'e ..<l(pth."
3. In his recent survey of cntt.'rging "n1uhi-sitcd e1h11ography." c;rorge ~1anuo;;
(1995: 100) confronts this question and aq~ues that such rlhnographirs are -inevitablythe product of knowledge h<tses of varying intensi1ies ancl q11ali1iC's." I le adtls:
"It is perhaps anthropologists' apprecitttion of the difficuhy of doing inttnsi\e
ethnography at any site and the sa1isfaclion th;tl cotnts fro1n such work in 1hc pas1
when it is done well that would give then1 pause when the ethnogr:1pher btcon1ts
mobile and still clailns to have done good fieldwork." ()verall, Marcus'!ii iinportant
attempt to grasp an emergent phenon1eno11 hypas!iies the question ofjip/dwr1rk. lie
simply calls all the new mobile prac1ices elhrw;~raJ1h_v. a 1nanifcstly interdisciplinary
orientation, albeit retaining certain recogni1.ahle anthnpol1gic:1l featuns: 11pclose perspectives, cross-cultural translations, language learning, atten1ion lo e\"t'r~
day practices, and the like.
4. Criteria of adequate fieldwork have te1Hkd lo be enforced through 1aci1 nn1sensus rather than explicit rules. A prolCssional culture recog11i1.es "good" ethnography and ethnographers in ways that can appear nhscure, even arbitrary, 10 <1n otlf
sider. I am not concerned, however, with dis1inguishing research of different qualit~
or with showing how such distinctions function professionally. This would require a
history and sociology of the discipline that I an1 nol qualified 10 supply.
5. A single offering that would auen1pt 10 i1itegrate current work in physical :u1thropology and archaeology is barely conceivable. Most departnun1s suslain separate tracks with hopes-more or less serious-of cros.o;.fertili1a1io11.
6. It is a fraught border that, in the United States al leao;1, can lake 1hc for111 ol
turf wars. On the anthropological side, there has been recurrenl gnnnblin~ about
misuse of the culture concept and superficial eth~ography. Moreo\er, sonic l"1nba1tled anthropologists have been tempted 10 disn1is.o; cuhural snuties asjust rnorc trench
"postmodern ism ... This renex is currently \'isihle in negative reac1io1ls lo 1he new tclitorial policies of Barbara and Dennis Tedlock al the discipline's flagshipjournal American Anthropologilt. A tnotion to censure the jo11rnal"s "posunodern turn Mwas i111roduced (and defeated) at the American Anthropological Associalion 'sannual 1nec1ing.
Expressing a more ambivalent sense of the fra11gh1 border, Dale Eickehnan (quo1ed
by the Chronick of Higher Education) finds a rece11t "pho10-!iitudded article on 1he marketing of religious kitsch in Cairo [10 be] something 'radically new' for 1he journal,
work that 'recaptures some of the territory appropriated hy cultur.-1.I s1uclies'" (Zalewski 1995: i6). Handler (199:.i,) ghes a judicio11s account of tht cuhur.-1.I studies border, from the anthropological side.
7. One thinks of the Chicago School. More recently, one 1uight nuntion IJoward
Becker's work (e.g., 1986) or work by Van Maancn (1988), Hurawoy C"t 411. (1991),
220
JAMES (;LIFFORD
and Wellman (1995), all of which expliciliy address anthropological debates about
t1hnographic authority. Anthrupology has until relatively recently been distinguished
fnun sociology by a research object (the pritnitive, the tribal, the rural, the subalterntspecially non-Western and premodern). Michele Duchet (1984) has traced the
en1ergence of anthropology's special object to eighteenth-century anthropologysociology, which divided up the globe according to a series of familiar dichotomies:
\\;th/without history, archaic/modern, literate/nonliterate, distant/nearby. Each opposition has, by now, been empirically blurred, politically challenged, and theoretically rleconstructed.
K. My comments here are based on conversations with Susan Harding. Indeed, her
hybrid research practice was my starting point for reconsidering the "field" in anthropoloKY. Puhlica1ions fron1 her work in progres.'> include Harding 1987, 1990, and 1993.
q. As J send this chapter to press, I sadly note the death of my colleague David
Sc-J~neider, who never tired of re1ninding me that fieldwork was not the sine qua
non 0 anthropology. 1lis general position, a critique of my work among others,
has just appeared in Schneider on Schneider (1995: esp. chapter 10), a mordant, hilarious, intemperate hook of in1erviews. Schneider argues that famous anthropologists are distinguished by ideas and theoretical innovations rather than by good
licldwork. Ethnography, as he sees it, is a process of generating reliable facts that
h'IHI 10 confirm preconceived ideas or are irrelevant to the work's final conclusions.
Fieldwork is 1he e1npirical alibi for a questionable positivism. He dismisses claims
1l1<tt field research involves a distinctive or particularly valuable form of interactive
ll'arning. But under pressure frorn his interlocutor, Richard Handler, Schneider
rt.>lrea1s fro1n his n1ore ex1re1ne points. For example, he accepts that good ethnogr;iphy <utd theory are not strictly separable in the forging of reputations and recogni1.ts that anthropologists do (1nisguidedly) place a special, defining emphasis
on fit"lclwork. I-le also concedes that work in the field can produce new ideas and
lhallt"nge presuppositions. He does not co1nment, however, on how approved
tthnography functions in nonnative ways within the discipline. Schneider's charJcleristicallyvehe1nen1 strictures are a corrective lo the focus of this paper. And his
linal position seems to be that if fieldwork is indeed a distinctive mark of socioruhural anlhropology, it should nut be fetishized. I agree. I do not agree that an1hropology is (rt"ad, should be) "the study of cuhure." That, too, is a problematic
clisciplinary life raft. I will 1niss David's loyal provocations and certainly do not claim
tht l;.1s1 word in this argu111enL
10. See also l..uwie's 1-listory of Ethnological Theory (1937), which begins by sharply
tli!i>linguishing anthropological ethnography from exoticist, "literary" trdvel. See Mary
Louise Pratt's critique (1986) of this discursive move.
11. 'fhe "Sophisticated Traveler" supplements, which feature travel essays bywellknown writt"rs, <tre-along with the weekly Sunday travel section-major sources of
ach-enistn1t"nt rc\'cnue. An introd1H'.tion by New York Times editors A. M. Rosenthal
-.u1d Arthur (;db to 1he first of a series of anthologies based on the supplements claims
an t"<jllivalence between sensitive journalis1n and literary travel writing (Rosenthal
;uul (;elb 1~1l-t4).
1~. Many "good" hookstorf's now consecrate the tourist/traveler distinction by
1naintaining wellstocked, 1~aTale sections for guideOOoks and travel books.
SPATIAL PRACTICES
221
222
JAMES CLIFFORD
22. In her gently reflexive ethnography Storytelltrs, Saints, and Scoundrels (1989),
Kirin Narayan provides a photo of herself in the field. The focus of her research was
the apartment of Swarniji, a Guru storyteller in India, and the photo shows several
wo1nen seated on the aparunent lloor. None of them is Narayan, though were she
.~tated anong thern, she would not with her sari and "Indian" features be easily distinguished from the other South Asian wo1ne11. The caption reads: "Listening at1enlively from the women's side of the room. The bag and camera cover mark my
presence. "The accoutrements of her trade occupy the ethnographer's discrete place.
Indeed, throughout the book, Narayan 's tape recorder is an explicit topic of discussion for Swamiji and his followers.
2:\- Appearances are powerful. Dorrine Kondo {1986: 74) begins her important
txplt1ration of the processes of dissolution and reconstitution of the self in fieldwork
tnnn111terswith a disturbingglin1pse of her own image, reflected in a Tokyo butcher's
display case as she shops for her Japanese "family." For an instant she is indistinKUishahle in every particular-clothes, body, gesture-from a typical young housewife, "a wo1nan walking with a characteristically Japanese bend in the knees and sliding of the feet. Suddenly I clutched the handle of the stroller to steady myself as a
wa\'t" of dizziness washed over me .... Fear that perhaps I would never emerge from
this world into which I was immersed inserted itself into my mind and stubbornly reft1sC"d 10 leave, until I resolved to ntove into a new apartment, to distance myselrfrom
rnyJapanese home and nyJapanese existence." In the border-crossings of fieldwork,
,. holistic ..experience'" is mobilized, and at risk. Kondo argues that this etnbodied
rxpe1ience needs to be brought into explicit ethnographic representation.
2,1. On 1he nonidentical. imbricated, relationship of indigenous, diasporic, and
J)<1stcolonial locations, see Clifford (1994).
2~. I a1n, of course, referring to normative patterns and pressures. Much fieldwork has, in fact, been done outside the (metonymic) "village" or "field site." In an1hropolngy, this is pt'nnitted, as long as the work is seen to be peripheral to a cen1ral sitr of intensive encounter. In other fieldwork traditions-for example, those of
tlicitation and transcription in linguistics-hotels and even universities can be pri1nary "field" sites. Such practices have been actively discouraged in anthropology.
26. Thus, rnany anthropologists were stung-or bemused-by attacks such as Deloria's in Cu.slt'T /Jittl for Your Sins (1969). The predatory visitor he dt'scribed, little betlt"r than a tourist, seen1ed a caricature. Anthropologists were being hostilely ..located,"
roughly shaken out of a self-confirming persona.
'l7. Thanks to Teresia Teaiwa. For her own very complex "native" location, see
j11;111nen1ariebarker and Tt"aiwa (19H4).
2H. In the short run, no1ions of "real fieldwork, shaped by canonical exemplars,
will co111inue to relegate emergent practices to what Weston (chapter 9) calls "virtual
tthnography," not qui le fit'ldwork. Uut the enforcing of fieldwork norms is uneven,
;1111! 10 a degree otlways has bc.en. l-low hierarchies of practice in a diversified/
fragnunted discipline are sustained and reformed remains to be seen.
:l9. I hold to this even in the face of n1y colleague Chris C..onnery's mots on Paul
Tht>roux: "'fravel narrows!"
R
REFERENCES
Abu-Lughod, Lila
1991
Writing against Culture. In Recapturing Anthropology: Working in
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465-604.
Adas, Michael
1989
Machines as the Measure of Man: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
Adler, Judith
1988
(On youth travel). Annals of Tourism Research.
African Studies Newsletter
1969
2(6-7): (November-December). Entire issue.
Agar, Michael
1985