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The Headman and

Ambigllity and Ambivalence
the Fieldworking Experience

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A"stin and L011don

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. Introduction
This book is about the Panare Indians of enezuelan Guiana and me,
the investigating anthropologist. have already written a book about
the Panare (Dumont 976). True, it was more about Panare objects
than about Panare subjects, more about " thing" than about them.
Now, as am about to take a second look at the Panare, wish to shift
tl1e focus of my analysis, reorienting it toward the goal of an anthropology of the subject. Not only will continue to direct my gaze at
them; addition, want to consider how they gaze at me. Myeffort
will be directed toward perceiving, apprehending, and interpreting the
"and" of the relationship which my fieldwork built between an ""
and a "they."
emphatically do not intend to dwell myopically either of two
extremes: neither the self-indulgent emotions of a fieldworker vainly
attempting, by confessional narratives, to create an introspective travelogue, nor the simpleminded obsession for the hard, computerizable,
and computerized data which, with their positivistic aura, pass for the
ultimate scientific sopl1istication some anthropological circles. Between these two different forms of the same monologue tl1ere must be
room for something else.
This something else may be difficult to pinpoint, yet it is nothing
other than the result of ' complete immersion a foreign culture.
What is at issue here is the recognition of a dialogle established, despite all odds, between an "" and a "they"; fact, it is the whole
process of anthropologizing whic11 takes place there, t11roughout the
entire time "" and "they" are associated. Although every single fieldworker must eventually face such a process, it comes as a surprise to
me that few of my colleagues hae paid more than serice to it. Yet
an ethnographer obseres what he/she is prepared to observe, more
and less; other words, my preparation, my goal as a knowledgeabsorber acts upon my material as a filter, that is, as a contrivance for
freeing data acquisition from the suspended impurities of experience.
addition, my own cultural and psychic makeup is such tl1at do not

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, observe passively: act and react, toward .and something. This some1 thing happens to be a someone who is also acting toward and reacting
\to me. This particular kind of interaction, implied and brought about
"by immersion and insertion a concrete fieldwork situation, determines both the locus of my discourse and its focal . this ven'. ture, hope to gain some insight about "" and "them"; otherwise
- do not see the point of having gone "." Thus, it might even be
said that anthropology as such interests me minimally and that my
attention at this point is turned rather toward anthropologizing.
This
is not say that do not recognize a great heuristic value anthropological models; fact, the reverse is true, since freely use one or
another depending upon my specific conceptual needs. The issue here,
however, involves dialogue and interaction rather than one-sided displays of data and conclusions. this attempt at interpreting my fieldwork experience, am actually trying to answer only one question,
narnely: "Who (or what) was Ifor the Panare?"
Even though am not a strict hermeneutician, have not used the
verb "interpret" haphazardly, and can see a congruence between my
use of this term and its definition by Palmer: "Interpretation
... can
refer to three rather different matters: an oral recitation, a reasonable
explanation, and a translation from another language .... all three
cases, something foreign, strange, separated time, space or experience is made familiar, present, comprehensible: something requiring
representation, explanation or translation is somehow 'brought to understanding' -is interpreted" ( 969: 14),
The interpretation of the relationship that existed between the
Panare Indians and myself requires what would like call a return
to the text, if may use the word "text" a metaphorical sense, referring to the development time, the interweaving the process of
certain types of interactions. ~y interaction with the Panare is bounded
space and timeJ It began a Saturday afternoon, September 2,
1967, when first met Juanchito, the Panare headman of Pavichima
my first arrival at Caicara, and it ended a cloudy morning late
~.Rebruary 1970, when left the settlement of Turiba Viejo for good.
Ut began and it ended. It is made up of a rnultiplicity of actions and .
manipulations, of performances which acquire t11eir full meaning l
a posteriori reference to the context which the interactive text
developed.
The text is only supposed be rneaningful-in
fact loaded
with meaning-but
also amenable description, even a "thick description" to use the e,xpression which Geertz (1973: 7) borrowed
from ~e (1949 yet
such a thick description of the text, if is to

Introdz/ction

Introd"ction

be an interpretation, also requires

interpretation of the context
with which it interacts a dialectical relationsh@ It should be clear
that the context always, and by definition, precedes the text. Thus it
follows t11at, order to comprehend the relationship which established with the Panare, is necessary, although certainly not suffi.cient,
first to acquire some familiarity with the way the Panare interact
among themselves and with others, whoever these others may be.
Thus "context" this case refers to the system of communication
existing among the Panare, one that is both st~ctural and eventual,
possessing both form and content. "" here refers to something
more fluid, rnore concrete, more diffi.cult to apprel1end, and can be
said to require the use of " actor-oriented method" which "attempts
to understand the actor's view of his own social world. involves
analysis of the Sbls which give meaning and through which understanding is possible, as well as the social and econonic conditions
within which these symbols operate; other words, how experience is
organized" (Rabinow 1975: 3).
both the context and the text, one can recognize an ideal, mative aspect as well as an actual, behavioral one. It is the of
articulation of th.ese two aspects which interests me. And it can be seen
now that my original question, "Who was for the Panare?" was but
a pretext, the ordinary sense of the term as well as its etymological sense. For such a question-rather
than the spontaneous and immediate answer given to it-continually
informed my anthropologizing throughout the duration of my fieldwork. many different ways,
and imperceptibly for me at the time was happening, the answer
to this question was provided daily the field. But addition, the
answer wl1ich now can be provided a meditated, reflective, and terpretative way calls forth a whole set of other questions prompted
by the first question.
relationship between '' and "they" is necessarily dialectical
and eventuates three logical, yet overlapping and, as it were, progressivo-regressive stages: a confrontation, a search for meaning, and,
optimally, a recognition. These t11ree stages correspond roughly to t11e
three dialectical steps: thesis, antithesis, and synt11esis. The confronta~ ..L'!
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corresponds to the initial situation which am and they are
they, eac11 his own terms. The search for meaning corresponds to
the~in
whic11 an exchange takes place, one which
they figure me out and figure them out, so to speak. Finally and timally (which rneans t11atit does not necessarily happen), recognition
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takes place, at wl1ich point the t-~ris recognized his,Lb.eLQtherness.
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Therefore, by taking the pretext of my initial question beyond an

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Introductio71

Introduction

volvement" had been repressed for the sake of a hoped-for "detachment."

this sense, the founders of modern anthropology such as Boas,
Kroeber, Radcliffe-Brown, and Evans-Pritchard, to mention only a few,J
are all detached, and this is purposely so. Indeed it was the status of
. anthropology as a science which was at stake with them. eliminate
the perceiving subject, i.e., themselves as participant-observers,
from
their reports was an attempt at both a more factual objectivity than ~
that of their predecessors and a stronger grasp of social and cultural
realities. fact, they were reacting strongly against two kinds of people.
Freilich i:ientifies this reaction reporting

investigation of text and context, seek to detail the texture of my

social insertion among the Panare, the texture of anthropologizing.

this a texture of compatibility or of domination? Ultimately, does anthropology fall below its aim, thus remaining pure confr9ntation, even
an endorsement of ethnocide? Does it reach it~ aim, Jtt&IClngto the
other's meaning? Is it capable of going beyond its aim, toward tlle
recognition of someone else' s otherness? Such is the series of questions
which will mark the path of the present work, so tllat, starting from a
precise and definite anthropological praxis, may this way add my
modest contribution to tlle elaboration of a critique of anthropological
reason.
It goes without saying that this type of reflection does not occur
a historical vacuum. Quite to the contrary, am only pursuing an
effort which, one way or the otller, has already been undertaken.
matter how critical and even polemical, tlle following pages still constitute a tribute of sorts to my predecessors, since it is reading them
that acquired a taste for anthropological reflection.
Jim Watson reports that one day the late Ralph Linton .asked a
graduate student, already back from the field for sone time, how the
writing of his dissertation was coming. " 'Oh, it shud move along
. quite well,' replies the student, ''once get through beating the life out
-of my material' " (Watson 1972: 299). Authenticated or apocryphal,
this anecdote rings true to most anthropologists, am sure. And yet,
- sometimes wonder whether most of anthropology has not embarked
- the same ill-fated course as this mercifully anonymous student.
Even practically speaking, there are good reasons for maintaining the
liveliness of the experience. Put facetiously, a little life our work
will not kill us. But more seriously, there are imperative theoretical
reasons for doing so.
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Few sociocultural anthropologists have cohfined themselves to the
aJ:tL:ii!I!:!:.!:J.~r.':'!:t~
method their fieldwork. But practically all
anthropologists have used this method, through which they maintain
the required "balance between empathic involvement and disciplined
detachment" (Mead 1973: 248) with the huma1). group they study.
her perceptive narration of her four fieldworking experiences, Powdermaker expresses herself almost identical terms: "The self concept of many anthropologists seems to have one characteristic common: the image of stepping and out of society, of being involved
and detached" (1966: 289-290). Yet, the publications of anthropologists have long consisted of ''objective'' monographs which their
presence the field has been bracketed out, as if the "empathic -

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the following statements of Lowie and Evans-Pritchard: 'be

travellers mingled fancy with observation, indulged in the StIperficial psychologizing that dllped Klemm and otherwise twisted
the facts from initial bias" (Lowie 1937: 70). The missionaries
and administrators, althOlIgh frequently "men of greater o.ltlJre
than the gentlemen of fortune of earlier times" (Evans-Pritchard
1964: 67) were thelnJ'elves often far from objective describing primitive society and cultzre. Their data was therefore also
"twisting of the facts." the time the synthesizers (of the 19th
centztry) had added their own interpretations and had completed
their attempts [! the data preconceived theories of evolz and progress, descriptions of primitive society were far removed from the reality being depicted (Freilich 1970: 7, footnote ).

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TlliS effort toward more objectivity had paradoxical consequences.

More thorough fieldwork was undertaken, and more "empathic volvement" was achieved the field experience from which their
predecessors had been detached, either because they were superficial
and prejudiced observers or because they were armchair anthropologists who synthesized from afar. At the same time, the more that "volved sympathy" emerged during the fieldwork experience, the more
"disciplined detachment" was found the published reports under
the pretext of objectivity. As late as 1960, Casagrande could write the
following: "Field research is a challenging scientific undertaking, an
adventure of botll the mind and the spirit. It is also a memorable hztman experience, yet most anthropological writings tend to obscure the
fact" (1960: , his emphasis). But twelve years later, Kimball and
Watson could still write: ''It is small irony that a field where

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Introduction

personal involvement is both deep and inevitable the literature is

largely committed to the third person. This must be small part of
the reason that the experiential field has remained indeterminate"
(1972: 7) .
Anthropologists'
reluctance to speak of their field experience is
reported by Freilich the following terms: "The sparsity of writings
anthropological field methods and field experiences is explained by,
first, a fieldwork culture that nnderemphasizes methodology and supports private rather than public comInunications of field experiences,
and, second, the 'rewards' field workers receive for keeping their errors
and their personalities 11idden and for maintainin~,a romantic attachment to the fieldwork mystique" (1970: 36). /
Because anthropology is "the most sciefu.nc of humanities, the
most humanistic of sciences" as Wolf ( 964: 88) succinctly puts it, it
would be inconceivable that an "involved" fieldworker could successfully repress his/her own perceiving self without ''leaks.'' One of the
earliest of t11esecame from Malinowski himself, who did so much
tl1e way of elevating antl1ropology to its present statns, writing
about t11eTrobrianders the introduction to his magistral Argonallts
oj the Westel'n Pacific: "1 began to feel that 1 was indeed touch
with t11enatives, and this is certainly the preliminary condition of being able to carry successful field work" ([ 192 2] 96 : 8). Despite
his minute descriptions of 110whe worked the field, infinitely more
light is shed his field experience by his now famous Diary, which
was certainly not meant to be published and which, significantly, was
not released before 1967.
Since Malnowski's lengthy introduction, the literature fieldwork 11asexploded. But as late as the fifties, such a distinguished anthropologist as Laura Bohannan used a double protection to relate her
fieldwork experience West Africa: she fictionalized it and also used
a pseudonym (Bowen 1954). The fact that the next most successful
fieldwork account was also written by a woman (Powdermaker 1966)
cannot be taken lig11tly. Since Margaret Mead had already become also
the most formidable public relations agent for American anthropology, it suggests that women, all of whom had already established their
reputations the straight course of traditional anthropology, were
left Wit!1the task of conjuring t11eimpurities of experience. They had
to cope with the blood, sweat, and tears aspect of fieldwork-feelings
and sentiments included-while
the men were exclusively doing "the
real thing."
With an outpouring of sex, grass, rock, and dollars came the
vibrant sixties, and a deluge of fieldwork literature. It 11adbecome not

Introdttcti011

l permissible bnt hip, then cool, for people who were neither to
speak of the fieldwork experience anthropology. It is this climate
that Malinowski's Diarywas released to an avid pnblic and
w1101ebooks were devoted to fieldwork, from Bdl..ind Many Masks
(Berreman 1962) tOcMa..!.J{!.!!ql
J.ali.1l.ifS(I;r.ei1ich 1970), not to men~
tion the immensely successful introductory chapters to monographs
such as '(/]QJ.71a11:Ji.:..he.Eie.u.e-!.f.IJ.1!.kJ. Chagnon 1968) and the honest efforts of female colleagues W omen in the Fie/d (Golde
1970).
._._.._.-"~.,,"~,-,,._.._With few exceptions-among
which Ih,!'.!!.ig~}:::!!.yey (Read
1965) and N,~7::!!..i1:J~4u.g.~riggs
1970) Clefinitely stan'dOrt-most
this literature is confessional, undoubtedly informative about its
authors and the' sixties. At the same time, and not unexpectedly, it is
very repetitive. The human group that the anthropologist studied became the pretext for his/her lyricism, and by the same token almost
disappeared. The "balance between empathic involvement and disciplined detachment" does not exist here any more than before. Moreover, tl1e snbject of t11eanthropological experience was condemned to
an introspective monologue and remained unable to introduce an authentic dialogue with t11epeople under scrutiny. mere juxtaposition
of self-consciousness and objective data does not reflect t11erole of the \
anthropologist the field at all but rather obscures
Accurately, Rabinow notes tl1at t110seworks which have dealt
with t11equestion of participant observation "have varied a great deal
keenness of perception and grace of style, but they all cling to t11e
key assumption that the field experience itself is basically separable
from the mainstream of theory anthropology-that
the enterprise
of inquiring is essentially discontinuous from its results" (1977: 5)
And yet, 1 would like to take a stance less severe than Rabinow's as a
judge of this literature. lndeed, 1 perceive its self-indulgence. Bnt 1
also prefer to see it the begun, yet unfinished, movement of a programInatic dialectic, the antithesis foretelling tl1e synthesis to come.
As, Freilicb ~.!.s.it2.'.:t.h~".q~~j,i!:.~Q.Qli.!!!hr9'()lQg~~~.s~~!ch
is t11eresearc11er h.irps.~lf:':"( 1970: 33). This tool is self-conscious, as
pointed out by Powdermaker: ' peculiar character of field work
anthropology and other social sciences is that the scientist has to
communicate with the objects studied aad they with him, and that he
is part of the situation studied" (1966: 286-287).
Turning away
from the American tradition w11ich leaves me hopeful but unsatisfied,
perceive a greater, albeit still flawed, awareness the French tradi-

()

tion.
This is mainly dne to Levi-Strauss'

momentous

Tristes Tropiqttes

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11l/'cIl11

/ntrod1lctioll

([ 1955J 1974), which renewed a pl1ilosophical and literary genre

initiated the sixteenth century by Montaigne ([ 77 4 J 1955) and
continued by innumerable Philosophical Voyages and other Sentimentalf ourneys. Of course, British writers sucl1 as oung ( [1792 J
1969) and Sterne ([ 1768J 1967) come to mind, but Levi-Strauss'
style is decidedly more reminiscent of Chateaubriand' s Voyage en
Ameriqtte ([ 827 J 1964). Someday, if this has not already been
dope, someone will profitably compare the former's description of
Santos with the latter' s of Philadelphia.
read TI'istes res avidly as a teenager, as did a whole generation of French anthropologists who had suddenly discovered their
vocation. read it with blind passion, over and over again, and now
feel awkward noticing some imperfections it, as if some ungraceful wart had just appeared the otherwise perfect smile of this tellectual Giaconda. Levi-Strauss had done some fieldwork, but nothing comparable to tllat of 11isAnglo-Saxon colleagues. Anthropologists
l1ave remained reticent with this book, whicl1 is "treated ... either as
a fine piece of French literature or, snidely and true to form, as an
overcompensation for tlle author's shortcomings the bush" (Rabinow 1977: 4). course, the crux of the problem was radically different, for the criticism turn reveals the reluctance, if not the sheer
inability, of anthropologists to cope wth Levi-Strauss' lucid effort at
integrating anthropological theory and anthropological praxis. The
difficulty lies elsewhere, the timid and unsystematic aspect of the
attempt.

dent. He contrasts the attitudes of law and medicine students with

their arts and sciences counterparts and speaks of the latter a revealing way, for it qualifies him too:
for the ftttJlre scholar I'esearcher, his aim commensltI'able
only with the time-span of the ltniverse. Nothing cottld be more
mistaken, then, than lead him to believe that their choice
form of commitment,- even when they think ! is, the commitment does not consist in their accepting Ila datlIm and
identifying themselves with one 'other of its ft-tnctions and in
accepting the personal opportt-tnities and risks ! involves, bttt in
jt-tdging ! from the olltside, as they themselves 1(Jerenot !
of ,- their commitment jlnt their own special way of remaining lIncommitted. /n this respect, teaching and research are not
be conftlsed 1(Jithtraining for profession. Their greatness and
their mi.rfortt-tne that they are reflIge mission ([ 1955]
1974: 54-55).
What ultimately leaves me dissatisfied Witll Tristes Tropiqttes is
not the absence of dialectics, but that dialectics are not pushed far
enollgh. When turn to the last page, have witnessed the dialogue
between abstract objects-the
Caduveo, Bororo, Nambikwara, and
Tupi-Kawahib among others-and
an abstract subject-not
Strauss himself but as I'es cogitans. At the most, find there an interobjectivity where had hoped for an intersubjectivity. Myexperience,
as well as my consciousness, of anthropology is different. the tradition of his book, recognize that the theory and the praxis of anthropology are inseparably united. But wish to go one step further the
examination of their relationship. As pointed Ollt by Rabinow, "all
cultural activity is experiential, ... fieldwork is a distinctive type of
cultural activity, and ... it is this activity which defines the discipline.
But what should be the very strength of anthropology-its
experiential, reflective, and critical activity-has
been eliminated as a valid
area of inquiry by an attachment to a positivistic view of science,
which find radically inappropriate a field which claims to study
humanity" (1977: 5).
mail1 concern 11erewill be tl1e reintroduction of the concrete
subject as the necessary condition of any anthropological understanding. Clearly, my feelings as a fieldworker are per se of interest
whatsoever to the profession. Similarly, the people stidied are per se
an illusion, for there is essence of a tribal group. What exists, however, is a concrete situation which "," the anthropologist, and

Masterflll as it remains, Tristes es carries tl1e mark of the

analytical thought which begot Despite Levi-Strauss' perceptiveness,
the tragedy of the events he had to struggle with, and tl1e psychological stress to which he was submitted, his book, at least, he remains
outside. The events are described, discussed, digested, integrated, and
ultimately structured by a subject whose awareness remains exterior to
thenI. Consciousness does not seem to reslllt from the experience of
otherness. It rather seems the intellectual apprehension of an alienated
elsewhere by an abstracted and withdrawn subject. other words,
even i the deep of the bush, rain or shine, his mastermind is at work
_or at play. There is back and forth movement between experience
-and consciousness. TllingS and beings, incllIding Levi-Strallss himself, are objectified for the benefit of an oml1ipotent consciousness.
Even the field, he is still superbly, if uncomfortably, ensconced
tlle Louis V armchair of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. This problem is
pointed out by Uvi-Strauss himself, who recalls the year 1928, when
he dropped Ollt of law school to become a full-time philosophy stu-

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lntrodIJCtion

lntroduction

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"they," tlle studied people, caIne togetller a series of interactions

whicl1 deeply affected our mutual perception. definition, tlle situation is dialectic, so that ''1'' and "they" transformed each other.
Furthermore, and taking tllis dialectic seriously, it becomes possible to perceive that the anthropologizing
subject is the occasion, the
pretext, and the locus of a drama that he/she is to ref!ect . As a
consequence, fieldworking indeed become a tool, but a ref!ective
one, that is, a heuristic device. become less instrumental than operational. Hence the necessity of using myself as a discovery procedure,
for the chain reaction tllat our meeting induced will allow me to perceive the studied culture and society action. The studied people are
not tllere, passively waiting for me to take their picture. Nothing
seems more fictitious to me now tllan the classic monograph n which
a human group is drawn and quartered along the traditional categories
of social, economic, religious, and other so-called organizations and
everything holds together. Moreover, the more modern attempts at
studying culture change hardly fare any better, for although they are
not trapped out of time, tlleir time is mechanistic, at any rate unreal,
and cut off from any historical dialectic.
my , the point is to reintro~u~~. the process of anthrop()logizing into th.~_r~?~11t~_
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given, f!oating out of iJ:_C01!c::re~e..
sitat;.llt-a-f(-ss..acquist.
;thjii process, theincidental and the anecdotal become of paramount
importance. For this is how the anthropologist is encultured and acculturated 1 by the people 11e/she lives with. The changes one is subjected to, as well as the changes one introduces, are not impure epiphenomena. Quite to the contrary, as every fieldworker has experienced,
they are discovery procedures through which the very articulations of
the studied cultur~nd
society manifest themselves. instead of focusing either obje~f
study or the perceiving subjects, and so
doing blurring botll, it seems to me that we sl10uld Eocus the 11appening anthropology itselE, that is, these impurities through
whicll an authentic understanding can be constituted "between the
West and the rest" (Sahlins 1976: 54).

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lEnculturation
refers to the process through which an individual, gen
eral a child, is taught the proper ways of behaving, thinking, and expressing
feelings 11is/her own culture. Acculturation, the otller 11and, refers the
process of culture cllange Wllicll occurs within one culture under the external
pressure of anotller, otller words, enculturation is tlle process of socializa
of an incIivitIual witllin Ilis/ller Qwn culture, wllile acculturation is tlle
more or less forced social cllange which results from interethnic contact.

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this resect, my work emphasizes not an objective viewpoint

but a multiplicity viewpoints, all Wllich passed tllroUgh the warp'
ing prism of my consciousness. have not attempted to test anything,
l to understand the relationship that fieldwork created. thus find
myself complete agreement with Mead when she writes: "There is /
such thing as an unbiased report any social situation. biased report is, fron tl1e standpoint of its relevance to the ethos, i
report at all; it is comparable to a colorblind man reporting a sun-
set" (1949: 299),
The present work is ultimately a modest effort the direction of
self.ref!ectivity, even a tiInid one, as realize. More programmatic than
actualized, less achieved than to be achieved, the statement Redfield
which resounds my memory is still order: " me, man and thropologist do not separate themselves sharply; used to think
could bring about that separation scientific work about humanity.
Now cone to confess that have not effected it, and indeed
think it is not possible to do " ( 953: 165), And yet, as understand it, this is the path toward listening to what "the rest" are telling
us with voices that are longer faint, despite their progressive de
pletion.
It is botl1 appropriate and urgent for "the West" to answer tl1e
legitimate anger of an Oglala Sioux (Deloria 1969, 1970), and
throUg!1 him to answer the Old Indians as well as the New Indians:
Custer died for our sins indeed, but from now , you talk, we listen.