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Jadran Mimica, Intimations of lnfinity: The Mythopoeia of the Iqwaye Counting System and
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Barry Morris, Domesticating Resistance: The Dhan-Cadi Aborigínes and the Australian State Edited by
Thomas C. Pate¡son, The Inca Empire: The Formation and Disintegration of a Pre-Capitalist
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Roy Ellen and Katsuyoshi Fukui
Max and Eleanor Rimoìdi , Hahølís and the Labour of Loae: A Social Mouement on Buka Island
Pnina Werbner, The Migration Process: Capítal, Cifts and Offerings among Pakistanis in Britain
Joel S. Kahn, Constituting the Minangknbau: Peasants, Culture, and Modernity in Colonial
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Victoria Goddard, Josep Llobera and Cris Shore (eds), The Anthropology of Europe: Identity
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Pat Caplan (ed.), Uiderptanding Disputes: The Politics of ArgtLment
Daniel de Coppet and André Iteanu (ed.), Society and Cosmos: Their lnterrelations or Their
Coalescence in Melanesia
Alisdair Rogers and Steven Vertovec (eds), The Urban Context: Ethnicity, Social Networks and
situational Analysis
Saskia Kersenboom, Word, Sound, Image: The Life of the Tamil Text BERG
Daniel de Coppet and André Iteanu (eds), Cosmos and Socíety in Oceania
Oxford . Washingdon, D.C.
XXlI Preface
1
Introduction Introduction
;.1 ¡
Similarly, Marilyn Strathern Í7980: 7771, in the same volume/
reiterates the position:
compares the interpenetration of culture and nature in the evocation in the formal genre of song poetics intensifies the
acoustical universe of the Japanese, French and Mosi (Burkino relationship between the feelingful, experiential dimension of
Faso). He examines differing degrees of arbitrariness in the cultural identity, and the adaptive dimensions of ecological
meanings attached to sounds. Thus, in Japanese and Mosi verbal knowledge,and awareness.
expressions the use of ideophones is preeminent, including those
for non-acoustical sensations, whereas in French these are
virtually absent. Insfrumental sound communications range from The Otherness of Nature
pan-human signs such as alarms, through culturally modified
melodic and rhythmic patterns, to highly conventionalized forms
of communication, such as Mosi drum language. The inter-
penetration between nature and culture in the sound universe is
exemplified by instrumental interpretation of natural sounds,
such as bird vocalizations, which are corunon in Japanese and
French, but virtually absent in Mosi. However, Japanese
interpretations are usually associated with a limited number of wilderness, and except for those who live off the sea, essentially
species, mostly based on the idea of the rebirth of human beings terrest¡ial. But ideas of what is the best exemplar of that natural
who have died in unfortunate circumstances. Thus, sound other vary. For the Satawalese, described here by Tomoya
relationships of this kind might best be understood as part of an Akimichi, it is predominantly the sea. Though the sea is more
idiom of human-animal metamorphosis. intractable than the land when it comes to physical modification,
Taking his cue from an observation by Roy Rappaport, that it is not iÍunune, and is subject to elaborate forms of cognitive re-
effective constructions of the environment may be less those that structuring. Moreover, cultural images of natural otherness do
are objectively correct than those which invest parts of nature not necessarily comply with biological history as the chapter by
with value 'beyond themselves', Feld looks at two dirnensions of Charles Frake in this volume well demonstrates. Frake shows us
the interrelatedness of adaptation and aesthetics amongst the how what rnight be considered the domain of nature and things
Kaluli of Papua New Guinea: the first is the ecology of sound, the natural is the consequence of pre-meditated cultural actions and
second the cartography of song. The natural soundscape of the dramatic re-interpretations. He is concerned with the narratives
Kaluli rain forest features the calls of some 130 species,of bird, as which the people of a part of Norfolk in England employ to make
well as the sounds of many frogs and the rhythms of rfhny kinds sense of and orientate themselves within a particular landscape.
of insects. Additionally, there is the sonic presence of creeks, The dominant idiom is one which refers to 'the subtle tracei of
streams, waterfalls, pools and other forms of water. These sound past human endeavour enthusiastically discerned and inter-
patterns index the time of day, seasons of the yea¡, vegetation preted by those in the present\th present purposes in mind,.
cycles, migratory patterns, heights and depths of forest, and The Norfolk landscape is a produèt of past activity that requires
many other aspects of the environment. In relation to this, Feld constant cognitive attention and behavioural intervention to
explores what Kaluli perceive and know about natural diversity preserve and reconstruct what is valued in contemporary images
in their world through these sounds, and how their own vocal of the past. This reading of the landscape is a cultural practice
and instrumental music is inspired by, modelled on, and motivated not only by social entailments and political or econ-
performed through them. Similarly, Kaluli song texts are omic agendas, but also by the experiential en¡ichment afforded
organized as maps of place names. The sequences of these are by a meaningful epgagement with the past of one's place.
textually co-articulated with names of trees and vegetation, And what works for the English countryside would appear to
waterways and birds. Feld explores how nature (place) is quite work also for Japanese industrial forest, for which John Knight
literally 'placed' in the memory, and how its codification and
Introduction Introduction
17994) has demonstrated an evocation of the same wild qualities use. Increasingly, the domain of the invisible (e.g. the world of
as those associated with natural forest. An even more dramatic spirits) is connected with these gradients. Inasmuch as nature is
example of the attribution of wildness to what is tristorically a 'other than culture', the comparative data suggest that in low
tamed landscape is found in that epitome of natural otherness, intensity systems, like that of Kubo hunter-horticultu¡alists of the
'jungle'. This is the English borrowing of the U¡du word jongøI lowland interior relying heavily on wild sago and living in
and has come to mean impenet¡able tropical forest. Its history dispersed settlements, the analogue of nature ls the invisible
however, as Michael Dove [1992: 2411 suggests, is more complex. world and that, with increasing intensification, emerging
In what is now Pakistan, forest was removed by humans in order geographic connections between the invisible and the visible
to create jangala, a savarìna vegetation suited to the keeping of predispose to an identification of the 'other' with some
livestock. Only later, as jongal, did it come to mean forest in any components of a perceived external nature. The artefactual
sense. Thus, what are categorized as nature and cultu¡e not only Western notion of wilderness, now largely divorced from the
shift and merge, but may even change places. invisible, represents an extreme position on this continuum.
s-o .gl4 ssllqlggey r-.
I
ç Nature as Essence
¿_ep-ç4Þ1ry¡y*39l-:g9$S_fel.ÏL91l-4_yieJgs..Thisiswellexemplifi ed
in the review provided here by Tim Ingold. According to Ingold, Thethirdcogn:tivepropenslE:Jsbiçhqq!sg]y_q$9r99-s*ly"b-e_{l.we
hunters and gatherers deny with marked consistency that there Ë-e,Il-tPt.Ie
is a rigid separation between the world of human persons and This may
that of non-human agencies and entities, between society and involve recognition of a force exogenous to human will but
nature. Anthropological accounts, howevet typically present this ¡which can to varying degrees be controlled, or it may define an
view as entailing â particular social and cultu¡al construction of irreducible core or an essence within things, such as the fluids
nature, thereby reproducing the very dichotomy that, in other and pulses associated with life; or it may be simultaneously, or
contexts, is recognized as peculiar to the Western tradition. Two varyingly, both, in equal or unequal measure. Thus, we have
consequences follow. First, the 'perceived' environment is seen to nature as opposed to nurture, instinct as opposed to reason,
I differ from the 'real' environment as the product of the ordering wildness as opposed to control, rawness as opposed to
of sense data according to an imposed cultural schema (a theme refinement lStrathern 7980:277, following Mathieu]. We can see
to which I shall be retuming latei in this introduction). Selondly, other examples of the same thing in culturally equivocal
the practical operations of hunting and gathering are reduced to descriptions of nature as variously robust and fragile, benign and
interactions within a given, physical world, as implied in the malign, capricious and ordered, perverse and tolerant, eternal
notion of 'foraging'. In short, the perception of the environment and ephemeral [Schwartz and Thompson 7990: 2-73]. These
is culturalized and the activities of production are naturalized. qualities do not simply allow us to locate things in the world but
Ingold argues for an alternative theory more consistent with the to morally evaluate them as well. To say something is unnatural
view of hunters and gatherers themselves, where the environ- is to condemn it as reprehensible. This is not to say, however, that
ment is only reyealed to the perceiver through an active process what is repreþensible is therefore to be understood as the logical
of engagement, rather than constructed through an ordering of complementóf natu¡e, meaning cultu¡e. This would not work in
sensations passively received. English semantics. On the other hand, to say that something is
The argrrment that natu¡e is an emergent property of culture is uncultured is nõt to mean that it is natural in this sense. It is all
taken still further by Peter Dwyer. In New Guinea, ecological
intensification (e.g. population increase and a growth in the
importance of agriculture) is associated with gradients in land
10 Introduction Introduction 11
is different' [ibid.: 218]. culture is a distinction which the human mind is predisposed to
European conceptions of nature are no easier to grasp. We make. Of course, some will say that if the latter is true then so is
have already seen this with respect to the essential qualities with the former, or at least we can never know. Let us take the first
which it is associated in contemPorary thought, and as it has assumption first.
been opposed to different doctrines at different points in history Historical accounts of changing modalities of nature in
so its mèanings have altered lMacCormack 1980: 20]. We shall Western thought and science are hardly new. Collingwood [1945],
explore this further in the next section, explicitly in relation to for example, provides us with a surprisingly contemporary
sciãntific thought. But however nature is culturally constructed, interpretation of the shifts and continuities between Greek,
and whatever (if any) its underlying cognitive template, in the Renaissance and modern views. In the conventions of a
way we use it is always a synergy of the utilitarian and the presentist history of ideas it has become usual to locate the origin
aesthetic, the pragmatic and the symbolic, and knowledge of it of the idea that nature is independent of our perception of it,
can never be independent of relations with it [Norgaard 1987: and relations with it, in Greek physis artd nomos: that which is
1181. 9r.!o_pgJ !! qir-gþt-Iy {ifferen!.1y.þ-o¡g lgociety views nalury is unconnected with human agency and that which ¡esults from the
ilf*i! e. f+S99n of how qocig_ry_þ9_ \4ry u1a human capacity to conceive and execute. But the popular pre-
tlit¿riliirràl ðgnéèþçlons of nature er; tþe-pco- Christian Greek view of nature was essentially animist, in many
evolve' lDove 7992: 246]. respects resembling that of animist peoples recorded for the
ethnographic present. Outside the treatises of individual
philosophers, the Greek world of nature was saturated by mind.
The Cultural Construction of Nature in Science By contrast, the Renaissance view denies the Greek idea of nature
as an organism, and asserts that it is both devoid of innate
To delineate variations in the cultural construction
'and
of nature is ¡- knowingness and more akin to a machine, subject to laws
arguably easy - some would say - increasingly self- produced by an exogenous intelligence [ibid.: 5]. This is more in
indulgent.&eJg¡lpf pþ-!ç.+,-4.Il-i-v--ei-w--b-qg-weqþq-glvethatthe keeping with one interpretative stream in Greek thought, linking
Plato with Aristotle ll.loyd
elely!'l_Sgl"Sp_lt qp_e_losy)_qrç
a¿gig.n t fi calg gqry/
Ë -ry,91!
üñJüI,_,!8"_4 9"
s3!19_ç4qgue.-Notonlyql-g-+g-gl-e-e+Ê.qgltuf.gf o1\c,onceptq,Jhey
also form the basis pf a_çegPþI se.:gt-g!4iùqlglqqq-ll.scre¡ge
tiyç el4
escriptive
gs-çtp and BlgrylsFgYg {g!i-ces. and
interpretative deüices, 1nd
Many have contributed to this view in '*S*"_q_-o"lgl.'eßl9gy-þglw_ee3p-{-ocesf
e.t9-tthe4e!]rte!¡g_qrl4-e+
recent years, but few as persuasively as Dona Flaraway 11989,
1991; see also Jordanova 1986I. l¡-q¡4qlo-4eal-Igith ltrc-ry4y*1¡
which nature is used !l plgfçlqional scientific discourse (a1{-I
,¡_4Lþ9]q.l'9!é_p¡i1"âi¡ry-9n6¡oiogyqndanrhropglge{}*:ry, l¡f ç{çç !.. !bg",Ix qge and culture bec ame reif ie.SL gs_ ç-çiegllflc
d-isãñguls-ñ 6etwèén several lèvels. of assumption. The first is that conceptgjtradltionef__oæçqy_e\¡tq1yþ4æ_g4glg94-*r:r1_bjo-lqåy
nattlre reall¡r exists out there in the world in a positivist sense, a wa¡4 whiç\ made us- think,-that
and that science offers us a realistic model of how it is different qt4er{_ _o-f
g}s ryle_Ë_q+p .t-o:.!b. it. By
from culture. The second assumption is that nature itself is out üe_qey_e_+tçstthsçs!{r_it_be4j9-ç_q!ßç__qq!r_e_ql+g_w_lU_qb ç-o_qd_be
there but that science (including folk science) can only apprehend quantif ie d,_!ge chaL{2e3.__e1d
{çltpnetir q d [We s tf a ll 79 9 2],
it through shifting cultural lenses. The third assumption is that 'distanced from the world of sense and common sense' [Torrance
even if nature is not out there, the contrast between nature and 7992:vil. What some may think even more remarkable is the way
in which this Western tradition has spread and taken hold in
74 Introduction Introduction 15
other parts of the world which have been influenced by Western rj qgsgl{lqlly !hç qe*ç a-q _{,qmes-tication [M4cbeth 1989]. 'How
science and thought, including Japan. However, such a view of strange, then, that in another version of the biological
the emergence, growth, spread and global acceptance of a imagination (that of classical evolutionary taxonomy) domesti-
European culture of science and its associated conception of cated animals and non-endemics are, somehow, nof the real
nature is problematic. The-way in which scientists have used the thing. The complexities of biological reality, enhanced by the
word nature has never been wholly consistent, and it has become insights of modern ecology and genetics, make drawing the
increasingly apparent that what was once thought to be a clear frontiers between organism and environment, between what is
distinction between nature and culture is at the very l-qast cultural and what is natural, almost impossible.
a,mb,iguous. So, while it is often remarked that oriental and Secondly, whether some thing is natural or cultural may
occidental conceptions of nature are in certain over-arching depend on the level of abstraction in our arguments, our
symbolic senses opposed, such a view is not necessarily methodology, or on time phase or context, not on any intrinsic
inconsistent with uniformity at the level of practical experience qualities. At different levels nature and culture are identified in
[Bruun and Kalland 7995: 16]. There may, in other words, be a different ways: while at the most abstract level Amazonia as a
disjunction between the timeless qualities of cosmologies whole may be seen as nature in cont¡ast to the urban sprawl of
organized through symbolic logic and the pragmatic, experi- São Paulo, at a local level nature is remnants of rain forest as
ential character of everyday subsistence lCroll and Parkin 7992b: opposed to secondary forest and cultivated areas. Sirnilarly,
16; Ellen 1994 456). The extent to which we can really claim that technology is neither intrinsically nature nor culture. A tool may
Japanese working within the tradition of Western science have begin as a stone unmodified by humans, but through perception
simply internalized for practical purposes a Western opposition of its functions it becomes cultural. Again, a plant or animal may
between nature and culture, man and environment, is an become food (culture) without any material change ever having
assertion which really requires much further careful investi- taken place; food is thus simultaneously cultural and natural.
gation. Certainly, tve assume, for all intents and purposes, that Much the same can be said of bodily techniques: walking, eating,
there is now one academic culture in which there is a sufficiently defecating, and so on.
shared understanding of what nature is for science to work as a Thirdly, conceptions of nature of a broadly Western kind, with
global discourse. But even though we must make it, there are which individual scientists of diverse cultural backgrounds may
problems with this assumption. Let us exarnine some of these. operate, are often, notwithstanding, affected by local folk or
Jo beg!4 w-ith, humans mo-dify the world around them on an philosophical traditions. The significance of this has only
,càtg, and have dôie so through .o-".rolLtiotãty emerged i¡r recent years through the ethnographic and historical
"nòrrrroùs for many thousands of years. Effeçliye_]¿ a.l1
interactions study of comparative culture. For example, iri "Christianity,
lqndry4peq -with which humans routinely interact are therefore movement across the animal-human boundary was, quite
cultural: and our environment is every bit as much what is made literally, a'transgression', an abomination against God's creation,
socially g_,s,w-htl ig-ryt. Frake's chapter supplies a nice illustration whereas in Buddhism and Shintoism, by contrast, there is no
of this, but in a more esoteric realm high energy physicists, in sharp demarcation. Indeed, in Shinto natural phenomena and
their attempts to understand the underlying character of matter, species may be deified. ]apanese downplay oppositional contrast
quite literally produce 'new' nature in a particle accelerator and emphA,sise the fuzziness between opposites of nature and
[Nothnagel 7994], and in this context nature is manifestly nof culture [Ohnuki-Tierney 7987), and there is a pervasive folk
something which can 'take care of itself'. And perhaPs most ideology that Japanese are 'closer to nature' than those in the
significantly from the point of view of this book, the literature on West. Animals can assume human form, which has led to much
¿ðr¡rçqti-çeligl p-rgyi.q-es us lvith many exagrples whicñ late greater freedom to anthropomorphize in primate studies
non_selqg gf 3nyhard and fast distinction, none more so than the [Asquith 7986a,1986b]. In a sense, this parallels the breaking-
proposal that the conservation and regulation of 'wild' animals down of the nature-culture opposition among Western
76 Introduction htroduction 77
pdmatologists as a result of the recognition of the close molecular Western thought and science. More generally, many [e.g. Horigan
rights are no 1988] have abhorred the rigid oppositional uses of nature and
wardship of culture, noting that these obscure more than they reveal.
ectually and
extend con-
sciousness and free will and culture to non-human animals, even
Nature and Culture as Analytic Categories in
if that culture is not quite what most anthropologists have in
mind. Anthropological Theory
The problem is that in the real world finding out how things
work must utilize modes of expression d.iawn from our I!ç'hs-!p_ty _q{ e+thro.p-o.-lggy iç ; jn.one wey or 4¡-o_!h_e1.-_ (þe
c¡,¡f !ure, By posing th e
hiqlqy__ol_the_ grleg9_r1$ ÀaJUIe _ ?n4
subjective lives. This is so even if what is held to define science is
relationship between the two and using it to legitimate
democracy, Lévi-Strauss claimed that Rousseau had invented the
subject [Freeman 1983: 30]; and to speak the language of nature
and culture is for many inheritors of the British structural-
functionalist consensus to relive the classic controversies of the
nineteenth centur ¡opolqgy.we know
4¡ld use nature which bear little
¡"*--!i-t"".e !.. objectivè anglytic
categories,.-anqe-s_ 1 co-g_njgy_q gp-1lgg_i{gl. At
Flowever, such techniques are used in conjunction with others translated into the ism vãrsuö-Ëultùialìsm,
are part of a long and complex debate. This set of chapters
which presume the existence of mythical islands, fabulous ,þese
does not seek to resolve, or even specifically to address, this
species such as yellow whales
debate, except in so far as the debate itself has perpetuated and
It would be misleading to po
functional or metaphorical. Ra reified concepts of nature and culture. The nature and culture of
this domain natural and supernatural are parts of I unified
system of knowledge. In one form or anothèr, such úiews are
agenda, it has been able to show just how insecure and viewpoint the process is the same. Domestication as a process
contingent the nature-culture distinction is. I!\qg-{o-r1g thi,t- by raises intriguing issues of intention, selection and co-evolution,
demonstrating empirically the extent to which the natural has and poses iri an acute form the difficulty of the terms nature and
been influenced by the cultural ,by u systemic app¡gach which culture in scientific discourse.
abhors simplç dq4!is{u9. eld þy- it-lrrçlreLrng .þ-o¡ ¡ Jhe most Sadao Sakamoto elucidates the process by which cultural pre-
esoteric elements of culture *igltt intricately affect our use of the ferences in the early stages of the domestication of six cereal
environment and even regul3te ou1.1et3!!9¡s w]t\!!, ]l_tus, in his cultivars found only in east and southeast Asia led to the
ContriUúton tó lhis volume, Mitsuo ichikawa shows how such convergent co-evolution of waxy çndosperm variants. He argues
that what favoured the selection of waxy endosperm mutants in
various kinds of rice and millets was a well-established prefer-
ence for sticky foods such as yam, taro and banana. He further
Zairebasinhãs bèen thê habitat of hunting and gathering peoples adduces that a pre-existing waxy endosperm food culture
for many centuries. Ichikawa shows how the Mbuti have made favoured the selection of waxy varieties of maize when this was
use of their profound knowledge of the forest: as plants used for introduced into the area in the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries.
food, medicine, poison, tools and construction, and for ritual and Sakamoto's is a classic ethnobotanical study which illustrates the
other non-material purposes. Plants are also shown to be difficulties of separating an understanding of the genetic process
indirectly useful as sources of food for other species which the of domestication from a knowledge of detailed culinary ethno-
Mbuti hunt or make use of. Ichikawa argues that despite their graphy. His paper illustrates the importance of ritual in the
heavy dependence on forest resources, the Mbuti have not development of new domesticates and the essential conservative-
obviously degraded plant and animal populations. Indeed, they ness of innovation: waxy varieties of rice mimicking waxy
have actually improved the forest as a human habitat through varieties of tubers.
marginal modifications. Understanding the character of the co- The origin of diversity in cultivated plants has long been
existence maintained between Mbuti and their environment understood to be either the result of natural selection modified
provides important data for reconsidering what we mean by by human interaction or the consequence of deliberate human
nature, and what the implications are for planned state actions. But such views cannot explain how and why such
conservation, for the sustainable use of forest, and for diversification occurred in the first place and was maintained
maintaining the integrity of Mbuti culture itself. under earlier agriculture. Taking examples from the ensete
(Ensete aentricosum) zone of southwestern Ethiopia (Ari),
Masayoshi Shigeta examines how new landraces are created and
Relations between Specific Domesticates and Human how and why diversity is maintained. Shigeta argues that
Populations 'cognitive selection', the categorization of the external appear-
ances of plants, must be distinguished from utilitarian selection,
The !ta{ç_qua_cy Af.--thç diEtinçtfg¡ þ-eïwçer-L-,ry-ha!--lrYe that based on the usefulness of particular landraces. He
ç_9¡ryenË9¡4_UJ*g4l!-t9"1glç-end culture i s no b e tter e xe mp lif ie d demonstrates the existence of the former as a qualitatively
e¡ami4ation of particular domesticates, species different thra of selection, devoid of value judgement, but with
lbCILLEp_ggh-þg
w\ich qw_e- !he!¡ c¡rrrg4t genetic composition to close encounters an indispensable role in establishing new types in a repository of
with hurnan populations which harvest them for food and ofher landrac e s. þe_4s_ia.tç_q¡a!c,9. 9f gç{!94C di-vetp lty !q 9 ¡ gprp liflgd b-y
p-rcd-uc-ts. When domesticated animals appear in human 'f gL\ _ U\
q_itg l_ c g¡rs e¡y 4_t¡94, lho.qgh
-why- dr_ve r s it¡4 .s_hgrr-t d- þ e
subsistence systems we see this as the intrusion of culture; when ¡qql4!1in_e d i q nqlg ç qnpf 9x,. S-hi g g!3'ej e c !9 !\e g llliQ1ian -view
animals domesticate humans it is natural. From an ecological o!þ4dryc9 divelsity because it does not accuratefy reflgct qçtual
pglt-qffrs of use, and instead seeks to explain why it should b-e
I
ì
l 22 Introduction lntroduction 23
I
ie ìåí,r'1 - r4'¡J¿ n tt.. 1,{-
¡
u,,L'-' -\\:;\ - -'. {if ,:r':h
Introduction 25
24
Introduction
appropriateness and potential for extrapolation to unlike areas. The first part of the paper presents Nuaulu hunting as a set of
These strategies are useful and adoptable beyond the boundaries social relations which not only make some contribution to daily
from which they originate. Most managed fallows select for protein requirements, but which - through patterns of meat
plants of economic value and are intimately connected to a distribution, exchange and ritual - constitute a necessary part of
mythology which supports their valuation. While it is not that process through which 'houses', clans and a traditional
required that such strategies be culturally explicit, fallow authority structure are reproduced. These demands place stress
management is often a conscious strategy, and Moran investi- on the ecological system without regulating it, and those ritual
gates whether this is more coÍunon where regrowth is fastel, as prohibitions which do limit extraction do so in ways which have
one might predict on pragmatic grounds. To get a 95 per cent a rninimal impact on rates of human predation. More important
biomass regrowth some areas require as little as eight years, in conserving the meat supply are storage, time constraints and
while others are believed to require no less than 100 years due to the need to attend to the provisioning of other key resources,
soil differences. especially palm sago. The second part of the paper examines the
Many anthropological studies have argued that pragmatic technical and ecological efficiency of Nuaulu hunting inputs in
conservation may be achieved through ritual practices. In his the context of what is known of the distribution and population
contribution, Michael Dove suggests that the techniques of bird dlmamics of game species on Seram.
augury employed by the Kantu' and other indigenous peoples of
Borneo help to randomize behaviour in selecting swidden sites
and minimize a tendency towards systematization. The intra- A Response to the Deconstruction of Nature
and inter-household diversity in swidden strategies which this
promotes ensures a successful adaptation to a complex and How can we bring together the various strands of the argument
uncertain environment. Dove examines the implications for this explored here? The meanings of nature are evidently myriad,
system of augury through the questions raised by Gregory multivalent and shifting, bothbetween different populations and
Bateson on the abrogation of human choice, and argues that in within them. In the foregoing sections it has sometimes been
this case it represents an appeal not to a lesser intelligence but to appropriate to generalize about dominant cultural ideas of
a greater one, the goal of which is to overcome the lack of nature, but as Lloyd Í7992:71has shown for the ancient Greeks,
humility and systemic thinking in human affairs. This requires a Murray 17992: 291for the, European Middle Ages, and Strathern
distancing of society from its own circumstances, which is made [1980] for the modern Hageners, different ideas of nature are
possible, in part, by the cultural construction of a parallel spirit associated with different contexts, or linked to different philo-
realiry the contemplation of which gives the Kantu' a perspective sophical traditions. Indeed, as individuals, we constantly attach
on their own affairs they would otherwise lack. This same to nature different moral nuances, draw its boundaries in
perspective can be found in Tomoya Akimichi's chapter on the different ways'depending on how it suits us. For some, an algal
significance gf navigational knowledge among the Satawalese of bloom of non-human origin on the surface of water is pollution,
the central C rohne islands. as it resembles detergent effluent; for others, flowers which are
__B,gje_neio_tpl_o-Ì_i-glr¿lg_ry_ar_B-ry9r!-_q{Cgltgele-{aptalion very much a consequence of human interference and which are
ellryq{Lorntne_-o_b¿ery_qqgl_.tlelple-qq.gqwlÉçh_a1eob jgctiv_ely ecologicallfinoxious may be seen not only as non-polluting but
efficient in maintaining_!_he biolo-gical viability of a human popu- as intrinsically part of the beauty of nature. Nature prfovides us,
laqon_i¡9_¡911þly¡_tþ*ge!tþosgculturallyp:eqç1iþ__e_{Jor in the words of Schwartz and Thompson [7990: 6-13], with
_tsqy EU"l 4_dd-rgs.ses this issue by
'pluralrationalities'Çtyerr¡lhgsltelsjyeCf_igç_el{_eb49-9f
-th.ç199,t
different appqgachgq !g -!hg ar-r-elysis telys9¡q-illy_o-u]+_Þ9I_e39,9$_b_i9j_o-gs_91999^tha-!y_"ryi4ngygr
etailed analysis of thg etlnggtgpby_ qai.lf.-þg aþlç tq uqe the.ç-onçept of nature without thinking
of Nuaulu hunting on the eastern Indonesian island of Seram.
I
,--
28 lntroduction lntroduction 29
twice - . . or more. We now understand the importance of the surmount the problem of solipsism) is no basis for scientific
t_.lgråg" *-g and about the tyrannicãI nécestity _o{ comparison, intellectual communication or practical action. It
dichotomies. We "s9,
should not privilege our own concepts above may or may not be the case that 'we cannot in principle
those of our informants without first asking why we should do distinguish between the constructed nature of our intelligible
so and what the consequences are of so doing. world and the "independent" structure of the brute world'
This is not only crucial for the private practice of [Margolis 7997:3]; but by talking about the cultural construction
anthropologists, but has significant implications and applications of nature there must be some assumption that concepts of nature
for other disciplines and professions. The problematic and exist. The more you talk about nature the more you create a meta
contingent - the fundamentally anti-monosemic - character of discourse which reìies upon its existence, and the more you give
our constructions of nature is still not understood by many it life as a ruling concepti in trying to get beyond nature and
practitioners of science where such an understanding has an culture we reify an opposition. The possible alternative, the idea
obvious impact on their mode of analysis. And the matter is an of 'the total interconnectedness of things', is not something which
urgent and crucial one where science impinges on policy. best organizes day-to-day information we need in order to act on
Definitions of nature in the discourse on the new reproductive the world. The philosophical language of ecology in which
technologies [e.8. Strathern 7992], on transplant and prosthetic nature is dissolved is remote and not easy to grasp for many
surgery, are increasingly acknowledged as being of practical people, and we can see our inherent cognitive tendencies at work
moral import, though it is palpably contested conceptual in the way in which'ecology'has become the same as environ-
territory. And it is also at the heart of environmental politics ment in British political discourse; the deliberately inclusive ,
lDdhl 1993], development and conservation practice lCroll and exclusive, the persuasively monist dualist. The human mind
Parkin 7992a; E1len 19941. It is not only science which works with requires shape and discreteness in order to perceive the universe.
its own and often conflicting definitions of nature; it is also tme There is a similar problem with the seductive claim of Gibsonian
of states, bureaucracies and their agencies, which often have to psychology that environment is constituted in relation to the
navigate the interface between scientific concepts and political organisrn that dwells in it, for relational 'affordances' grounded
pressures. I!_"_4g"4 to examine the extent to which official defin- in practice are almost always first translated into abstract cultural
itions of nature simply legitimate those of the morally and knowledge suitable for storing and recall which is not necessarily
pótiti¿äny p-ó*"i"f,it u"á thã degree to which they combine ghe relational in character, aL least not in the initial perceptual sense.
definitions of different constituencies. We need to ask how It is this reorganized knowledge which feeds back into practices
p;iti."-tã_+f.$¡.g.-""ry the interests of particular of perception. We do not learn them as affordances. Most of what
gfgups, whethe-r thçqç"f bq "ut".èìèt"e
the conservation lobby, the Roman we do is habitual, not novel, and we act or react to culturally
Catholic Church, o¡ r_rllgenous
-truäitionpeoples_whg s,e.e advantages_in situated cues with culturally routine responses. It is as if we
rèinventing a particuiåi of nature - the ecological Eden carulot avoid'a concept very much like nature to make sense of
pqq4_e_!lV3¡C-eg q1d,..{isçher.1986: l2!ì. In the necessity of the world, and that if we try to dispense with it we will have to
international orgTnizanons, such as the IJN Environmental Pro- invent something remarkably similar to replace it. Arrd this is not
gramme and \ÂIWF, to develop a shared working language we simply a folk compulsion, it is funclamental to the pursuit of
can see a new route to the globalization of concepts of nature i
science. \
which will have practical consequences for the kinds of know- I
I
For some, nature is very real, itself the product of human
ledge we generate añd for the lives of millions of ordinary cognitive evolution - a kind of Ur-nature which differs from its
people. various cultural manifestations. In this view - argued most
Yet, we must be careful not to get caught up in a web of persuasively in this volume by Boster - natural forms have a
reflexiveness which will ultimately prevent us from explaining different perceptual character from cultural forms, and nature is
anything. Recognition of infinite relativity (even if we can
I
I
essentially coterminous with, and shaped by the discontinuities
I
I
I
30 lntroduction Introduction 31
of, the biological world lsee also Berlin 7992 on the 'inherent cultural dualism is the core of the self-world or nature-culture
structure of biological reality' (p.8) and 'the unconscious dualism, and is the result of evolutionary adaptation. We can
recognition of "nature's plan"' (p.267)1. But even if nature is a therefore have - and at this point I feel justified in reintroducing
semantic fiction, it is a very convenient one. A set of conventions the inverted commas - 'nature' and nature. The opposition
concerning nature as an object of scrutiny had gained such between nature and culture is not spurious lcontra Horigan 1988:
widespread currency in international scientific circles by the 61, though the distinction may well be tautological, in that it is
beginning of the twentieth century that it became very difficult invoked only to explain itself [ibid.: 110]. But to say this is an
to dislodge. It just so happened that science as a global cross- observation of its formal status, and is not fundamental to its
cultural practice consolidated at a particular point in history. existential character. Nature-culture dualism is created through
Having established the rules, rules which worked well enough, the symbolic construction of experience and is in nature only in
as evidenced by the productivity of scientific work, there was no so far as Homo sapiens is also in nature. As we have seen, food
particular point in changing them, and once invented, changing (both raw and cooked), techniques and bodies are all simul-
them would have been extremely difficult. The reason why the taneously in nafure and in culture. Culture emerges from nature
Western paradigm has apparently become the ruling one may, as the symbolic representation of the latter. As culture is a
therefore, not necessarily be because it is demonstratively a more subclass of nature (the most inclusive class) nature cannot be
truthful way of perceiving the world, but because it had fully specified using ordinary language, which is a kind of
historical infrastructural priority. Similarly, nature-culture, like symbolic culture. Thus, the tautology of cultural adaptation and
other dichotomies, is useful or misleading, not true or false; a cultural meaning [see Ingold 7992: 39,53ì is really an instance of
simplifying model for organizing thought, not a way of the world the conundrum of Epimenides, that because all Cretans are liars
lGould 7997 (7987):9]. As Stephen J. Gould reminds us, Goethe then Epimenides (himself a Cretan) must also be a liar. As
realized that some dichotomies must interpenetrate, and do not Bertrand Russell observed, such statements are internally
struggle to the death of one side, because èach of their opposite contradictory because they include themselves within their
poles - say, inhaling and exhaling - captures an essential scope. If culture gives meaning to nature, then nature gives
property of any intelligible world [ibid.: 19]. meaning to culture, then culture gives meaning to nature
At the heart of our discussions about nature lies a logical (humans adapt), and so on ad infinitum. The 'paradox results
tautology. Individual Homo'sapiens use symbolic culture as part from considering non-nameability and indefinabitity as elements
of their extended phenotype to maintain and increase their in names and definitions' [Russell 1956: 61]. And 'whatever
adaptiveness, but the very existence of symbolic culture involves all of a collection (meaning, culture, nature) must not
separates human self-ontology from an existential environment itself be part of the collection' [ibid.: 63]. Culture is subsumed
(nature, the natural world, the other. . . whatever we wish to call with nature both empirically and within the logical constructs of
it). In other words, the emergence of culture necessitated a ordinary language, and the opposition of nature and culture is
bifurcation between experience and representation, and all therefore a pseudo-problem arising out of reflexive symbolic
cognition ultimately Çerives from experience. In the most constructs (ordinary language) within culture itself.
fundamental sense, crllture is the symbolic representation of
experience, and evolution has effected an a priori dualism in our \
dealings with the world. We construct symbolic models of the Notes
world, the most primary being the self-ontology model which
presupposes self-other dualism. In this view, resembling that 1. This introduction is based in part on notes taken and
recommended to us by John Locke, the human environment circulated at the Kyoto and Atami conference at which the
comprises the sum total of the objects of our perception, which is papers collected here were originally presented. Some of the
O*,lt existential and partly cognitively realized. This existential-
-
32 Introduction Introduction 33
text also follows closely abstracts of papers submitted by the Berlin, 8., Ethnobiology classification: principles of categorization of
various participants. I can, therefore, fairly claim that it is not plants ønd animals in traditional societies, Princeton, New Jersey:
all my own work, and that I am indebted to all those who Princeton University Press, 7992
contributed to the discussion. I am particularly grateful to Berque, A., Le snuaage et I'artifice: les laponais deaant la nature,
John Peacock, whose thinking and words are reflected i. *y Paris: Gallimard,7986
final remarks on nature-culture as a pseudo-problem. Bruun, O. and A. Kalland (eds), Asiqn perspectiaes of nature: a
2. The problematic status of the words nature and culture, and critical approach, Copenhagen: Curzon Press, for Nordic
the concepts which accompany them in different contexts, is Institute of Asian Studies, 1995
now so thoroughly acknowledged in the scholarly literature Collingwood, R.G., The idea of nature,Oxford: Clarendon Press,
that placing them in ironic quotation marks or in italics, or in 7945
some other font, to highlight this, is wholly redundant. Conklin, H.C., 'An ethnoecological approach to shifting agri-
Indeed, in a book of this kind, constantly to resort to such culture', kansactions of the New York Acødemy of Sciences 77,
textual devices quickly becomes irritating, confusing and 7954a, pp.73342
absurd. Therefore, outside quoted passages, they are not used. relation of Hanunóo culture to the plant world', New
3. It is not surprising, therefore, that the conference at which -,'The
Haven: PhD dissertation, Yale University, 1954b
these papers were first presented started from a recognition Hanunóo øgriculture: a report on an integrøl system of shtfting
that many of the old certainties bound up with conventional -, cultiaation in the Philippines, Rome: Food and Agricultural
Western scientific notions of nature no longer hold. This was Organization of the United Nations, 1957
deemed to be so both in the sense of nature as a cultural 'Des orientements, des vents, des riz. . . pour une etude
concept which can be shown to be endlessly malleable, and - -, lexicologique des savoirs traditionnels', lournal d'Agriculture
even - in its objectivist sense, where the discoveries of modern Tlopicale et de Botanique Appliquée 32,1986, pp.3-10
i
ecological arr$ evolutionary biology, and of environmental 'Language and environment: the nature of folk categori-
anthropology, show that the boundary between what is -, zation and the classification of domesticates', University of
natural and cultural is inherently fuzzy and dynamic. Such a Yale: Unpublished conference paper, 7992
view is well exemplified in the various volumes of the Croll, E. and D. Paìkin (eds), Bush base, forest farm: culture,
National Museum of Ethnology series entitled Liaing on the enaironment and dea eloipment, London: Routledge, 1992a
earth, and edited by Fukui [Fukui 1995; Hori in press; Kakeya 'Cultural ulderstandings of the environment', in E. Croll
1994; Komatsu in press; Ohtsuka 79941, and it was this project -, and D. Parkin (eds), Bush base, forest farm: culture, enaironment
which provided the original conference framework. and deaelopment, London: Routledge, 1992b
Dahl, G. (ed.), Green arguments and local subsistence (Stockholm
Studies iÀ Social Anthropology 37), Stockholm: University of
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I
r.
Introduction