‘A twenty-four hour job’. Hildred and Clifford Geertz’s first foray into the field and the scholarly persona of the ethnographer

IF 0.6 2区 历史学 Q3 ANTHROPOLOGY History and Anthropology Pub Date : 2023-11-06 DOI:10.1080/02757206.2023.2275787
Matteo Bortolini
{"title":"‘A twenty-four hour job’. Hildred and Clifford Geertz’s first foray into the field and the scholarly persona of the ethnographer","authors":"Matteo Bortolini","doi":"10.1080/02757206.2023.2275787","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTThe paper details how, during the 'Modjokuto Project' of 1952–1954, Hildred and Clifford Geertz embodied in their decisions and actions the ‘Malinowskian palimpsest’ of the lonely ethnographer, thus creating a series of oppositions between their individualistic understanding of the ethnographer and the needs of teamwork in the field. Apart from the historical record, this reconstruction aims at focusing on several questions in the history of cultural anthropology and the social sciences: How do ethnographers come to understand their professional role and the specific scientific virtues attached to it? How are scholarly personae and other cognitive-normative schemas put to the test (and modified) during fieldwork? How does the lack of methodological reflection on the ways of the anthropologist impact on the completion of specific research projects and, more generally, the reproduction of professional lore and structures?KEYWORDS: Scholarly personaethnographyClifford GeertzHildred GeertzteamworkCold War social science AcknowledgementsThanks to the participants in the George W. Stocking, Jr., Symposium (Seattle, 12 November 2022), the members of the Anthropology group of the Consortium for History of Science, Technology, and Medicine (1 February 2023), and two anonymous reviewers from History and Anthropology. I would especially like to acknowledge the help of Karen Blu, Freddy Foks, Matt Watson, Alice Kehoe, Herb Lewis, Jason Pribilski, Tullio Viola, Stephen Foster, Stephen Turner, Gary Alan Fine, David H. Price, Hans Bakker, Harlan Stelmach, Bijan Warner, Andrea Cossu, Gerardo Ienna, Giovanni Zampieri, and Zhe Yu Lee. Archival materials are cited by courtesy of Karen Blu and the Harvard University Archives. This article is dedicated to the memory of Hilly Geertz, whom I had the fortune to meet for one last interview in September 2021.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 I wrote this article using mainly letters written by Clifford and Hildred Geertz to friends and relatives in America and preserved as part of the Geertz Papers (henceforth CGP) at the Special Collections Library of the University of Chicago. Their copious fieldnotes from the period were checked to confirm my hypotheses, but were not incorporated into the text as a deeply reflected-upon decision on my part. The letters that ethnographers write home might have different functions, especially if fieldwork is conducted in a faraway land and relatives, friends, and colleagues might have expressed their worry about, or even opposition against, the trip. Letters might thus involve (and almost certainly do) a Goffmanian front/backstage dynamic, where ‘the personal, the familiar, the intimate’ (Dobson Citation2009, 57) are intertwined with encouraging words written in order to reassure the receiver. To make a careful selection and hierarchization of the sources it becomes crucial to understand the reciprocal positioning of senders and addressees. In the case at hand, the recipients included at least three groups of people: parents, close relatives, and the occasional family friend; fellow graduate students in anthropology, professors, and administrative staff at Harvard or the MIT; other significant individuals, such as George R. Geiger, Clifford’s mentor at Antioch College. After comparing the letters addressed to different categories of acquaintances, it seems clear to me that the most interesting were those written to colleagues and peers. In the communications exchanged with the members of a peer group who shared similar aspirations, training, attitudes, goals, and grievances, the Geertzes needed not hide their innermost feelings as they would when writing to worried parents or grim supervisors. As Roger Sanjek (Citation1990, 111) would say, these letters were ‘a first step in committing headnotes to paper’. Given the Geertzes’ positioning as graduate students (a particularly ambivalent condition, swinging rhythmically between excitement and misery, then as now), it is clear that often their correspondence with their peers—and especially the exchanges between Clifford Geertz and the Ayoubs—had the pace and the flavor of a continuous therapeutic session on various levels (methodological, organizational, disciplinary, normative, and personal, to say the least) where meaning, identity, and solidarity were not only expressed, but constructed via the very acts of writing, narrating, reading, and reacting (on narrative and the scholarly self see Gross Citation2008, 269 ff.). It is not clear if the letters sent by the Geertzes circulated beyond the specific individuals to whom they were addressed, but one might easily imagine their content becoming the object of prolonged gossip and discussion among those who were still (or already) ‘at home’. On the other hand, while (some) letters might not be fully transparent or truthful, fieldnotes seem to be too idiosyncratic (and often chaotic) to become a reliable source for historical research. In this case, the absence of any methodological reflection on the use of fieldnotes as empirical or archival data for the history of anthropology and ethnography does not help.2 Quotes (verbatim) from Clifford Geertz to Victor and Millah Ayoub, December 28, 1952, CGP, box 6, folder 1; Clifford Geertz’s fieldnotes, fn#70.5, p. 232, CGP, box 10, folder 1. The move was also recounted in Clifford Geertz to ‘Dave’ [probably Laudry], December 1, 1952, CGP, box 6, folder 1; Hildred Geertz to Family, December 9–10, 1952, CGP, box 4, folder 7.3 Clifford Geertz to Victor and Millah Ayoub, December 28, 1952, CGP, box 6, folder 1. As it will be clear later in the paper, the Geertzes were never really ‘alone’, for they formed a couple of equals. This, however, does not invalidate my claim on the influence of the Malinowskian palimpsest, for the latter was for the most part a symbolic and regulative model.4 I will use the words ‘anthropologist’ and ‘ethnographer’ as synonims throughout this paper, but see the last section for an assessment of this decision.5 In this paper, I will use ‘iconic’ and related terms in a technical sense. According to Dominik Bartmanski and Jeffrey C. Alexander (Citation2012, 2), ‘icons are cultural constructions that provide believer-friendly epiphanies and customer-friendly images’. As such, they allow members of groups (and sometimes entire societies) ‘(1) to experience a sense of participation in something fundamental whose fuller meaning eludes their comprehension and (2) to enjoy the possibility for control despite being unable to access directly the script that lies beneath’. On the specific topic of iconic social thinkers see Bartmanski Citation2012, which includes a section on Malinowski.6 It was clear that studying Javanese society put into question any artificial distinction between ‘primitive’ and ‘urbanized’ societies. A trace of this reflection (which will be the topic of another paper) can be found in the unpublished version of Clifford Geertz’s dissertation (Geertz Citation1956).7 In the United States the number of institutions offering instruction in anthropology tripled between 1894 and 1917, grew fourfold by 1940, and then doubled again before 1948 (Voegelin Citation1950, 351; UNESCO Citation1954, 177 ff.).8 As shown by Steven Shapin (Citation2008, ch. 6), in the 1950s an intense discussion on the pros and cons of teamwork in the natural sciences revolved around the paramount values of the independence and personal genius of individual scientists. The bias in favor of the individual scholar I am sketching here thus seems to be connected to a broader conception of the scientific ethos. This said, it seems that the importance attributed to being able to ‘see the whole’ and its intrinsic relationship with being alone in the field is a constellation of requisites/virtues that was typical of the discipline of anthropology.9 The 1949 USD100K grant roughly corresponds to USD1.2M in 2023.10 John Robert’s letter to K. Spencer of September 9, 1949 (HUG 4490.20, Clyde Kluckhohn Papers, Harvard University Archives) is quoted in Powers Citation1997, 1965. On Roberts see Goodenough Citation1995.11 As far as I know, the economic and political goals of the Modjokuto Project were never explicitly formalized. At the same time, it was well-known that Indonesian markets were crucial for US import and export, so that the young postcolonial republic had to be helped in its agricultural and industrial development. From a geopolitical point of view, Indonesia had to be mobilized as part of a ‘great wall’ again the expansion of Soviet Communism. For a general assessment of US-Indonesian relations during the postwar period see Roadnight Citation2002; Fakih Citation2020. USD250K in 1952 roughly correspond to USD2,7M in 2023. See n.w.a., ‘Java 'Middletown’ To Undergo Study; Nine Americans to Carry Out 18-Month Survey Financed by Ford Foundation’, The New York Times, October 5, 1952, p. 3.12 I will use as an outline for this section a letter from Clifford Geertz to Victor and Millah Ayoub, April 18, 1953 (CGP, box 6, folder 1), an extraordinary document where Geertz summarized most of the events from the fall of 1951 to April 1953.13 Hildred Geertz to Parents [Walter Rendell Storey and Helen Anderson Storey], February 1952, CGP, box 5, folder 8.14 Clifford Geertz to ‘Mom’ [Lois Brieger], October 24, 1952, CGP, box 6, folder 1; Hildred Geertz to Parents, October 25, 1952, CGP, box 4, folder 7.15 Hildred Geertz to ‘Folks’, November 14–16, 1952, CGP, box 4, folder 7.16 Clifford Geertz to George Geiger, December 5, 1952, CGP, box 6, folder 1.17 Clifford Geertz to Utomo, November 15, 1952, CGP, box 6, folder 1; Clifford Geertz to ‘Jack’ [John M. Roberts], December 28, 1952, CGP, box 6, folder 1.18 Clifford Geertz to ‘Pangalima Tertingg’ [means ‘honorable supreme’, i.e. Rufus Hendon], January 20, 1953, CGP, box 6, folder 1; Hildred Geertz to ‘Hil and John’, February 20, 1953, CGP, box 4, folder 7. Clifford Geertz to Ruth Hollis, February 20, 1953, CGP, box 6, folder 1; Hildred Geertz to Mom and Pop, March 22, 1953, CGP, box 4, folder 7.19 On this, see Clifford Geertz to Mr. and Mrs. Corey, January 4, 1953, CGP, box 6, folder 1; Hildred Geertz to Warren Storey, February 28, 1953, CGP, box 4, folder 7.20 Hildred and Clifford Geertz to ‘Arnie’, November 20, 1952, CGP, box 6, folder 1; Hildred Geertz to Family, April 7, 1953, CG, box 4, folder 7.21 Hildred Geertz to ‘Lea’ [Williams], March 29, 1953, CGP, box 4, folder 7.22 Hildred Geertz to ‘Lea’ [Williams], March 29, 1953, CGP, box 4, folder 7.23 Hildfred Geertz to Family, March 29, 1953, CGP, box 4, folder 7. Hildred Geertz to ‘Mom and Dad’, April 30(?), 1953, CGP, box 4, folder 8. Clifford Geertz to ‘Mom’ [Lois Brieger], March 31, 1953, CGP, box 6, folder 1.24 Clifford Geertz to Victor and Millah Ayoub, April 18, 1953, CGP, box 6, folder 1; Hildred Geertz to Family, May 9, 1953, CGP, box 4, folder 7.25 Geertz Citation1989, 340. They were admitted at Harvard on June 7, 1950 (UAV 801.2010, box 6, DSR Correspondence etc. 1950–1951, F-J, folder ‘Graduate students, General 1950–1951’). See also the document on ‘Qualifying Examinations, Fall Term 1950–1951’ (UAV 801.2138, HD/DSR, box 1, folder ‘1950–51’), and the minutes of the DSR Committee on Higher Degrees, June 13, 1951, where both Geertzes are reported to having passed their Qualifying Examinations with distinction (UAV 801.2005, DSR, box 1, Book minutes 1950–51).26 Clifford Geertz to ‘Jack’ [John M. Roberts], December 28, 1952, CGP, box 6, folder 1; Clifford Geertz to Victor and Millah Ayoub, January 9, 1953, CGP, box 6, folder 1.27 See Evon Z. Vogt to Clyde M. Kluckhohn, May 1, 1951, CKP, HUG 4490.5, box 27, folder ‘E.Z. Vogt 1947–1951’.28 Hildred Geertz to Family, February 1952, CGP, box 5, folder 8.29 As was customary at the time, some of the male members of the Harvard-MIT group were accompanied by their wives (Anola Ryan, Anne Jay, and Jane Hendon), but the latter were not enrolled in the PhD program and were marginal members of the team (Dewey Citation1962, xiii). See also Clifford Geertz to Victor and Millah Ayoub, December 15, 1952, CGP, box 6, folder 1. The theme of the role and contribution of wives in early ethnography should receive more attention. See, among others, Wolf Citation1992, and the monograph section in an old issue of Cross-Cultural Research, 2(2), 1967.30 Geertz’s papers include two memos summarizing the decisions taken by the group. See Clifford Geertz, Untitled memo, January 17, 1953, CGP, box 6, folder 1; Hildred Geertz, ‘Division of Labor in a Cooperative Project’, January 17, 1953, CGP, box 6, folder 1.31 Clifford Geertz to Mom, March 31, 1953, CGP, box 6, folder 1. See also Clifford Geertz to ‘Dave’ [probably Laudry], December 1, 1952, CGP, box 6, folder 1; Clifford Geertz to Victor and Millah Ayoub, December 28, 1952, CGP, box 6, folder 1.32 Clifford Geertz to George Geiger, December 5, 1952, CGP, box 6, folder 1. In 1953 Pare had a population of around 20,000 individuals. With all due differences, Newburyport, where Warner brought some eighteen fieldworkers, counted only 17,000 citizens.33 Clifford Geertz, Jr., to Clifford Geertz, Sr., January 2, 1953, CGP, box 6, folder 1. See also Hildred and Clifford Geertz to ‘Arnie’, November 20, 1952, CGP, box 6; folder 1.34 See Paul Citation2014, 363 ff.; Paul Citation2019, 9 ff., and the papers collected in the same volume.35 In reviewing the pros and cons of cross-disciplinary collaboration, sociologist Joseph W. Eaton (Citation1951, 708–709) wrote that creativity depended on solitary work, and that being part of a team would confront the scholar with problems of adjustment, recognition, and psychological stress. See also Leighton Citation1949, 145 ff. On the enduring connection between solitude and scholarship see, among others, Shapin Citation1991 and Mayrl and Wilson Citation2020.36 On the persistence of these tropes into the twenty-first century see at least Di Leonardo Citation2006; Weston et al. Citation2015; Holtorf Citation2016.37 Clifford Geertz, Untitled memo, January 17, 1953, CGP, box 6, folder 1.38 Both the introduction and the conclusion (where Geertz discussed the work of Robert Redfield on great and little traditions) were not included in the published version of the dissertation: compare Geertz Citation1956 and Geertz Citation1960.39 As underlined by Neil Gross (Citation2008, 269) and Herman Paul (Citation2014, 355, 362, 367), the various elements of this self-concept and the commitment to a multiplicity of goods have a ‘potential to influence’ actual behavior. See also Guetzkow, Lamont, and Mallard Citation2004. A letter from Clifford Geertz to Victor and Millah Ayoub dated December 15, 1952 (GCP, box 6, folder 1), represents his most thorough (early) reflection on a wider understanding of what ‘being an intellectual’ and ‘being a social scientist’ means.40 Geertz is ironically quoting from Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish.41 Correspondence, phone calls, and the exchange of drafts and other written material are but a poor ersatz for face-to-face interaction. Interestingly, the texts on training in anthropology from the 1950s surveyed above often present an irreflexive understanding of solo fieldwork as an analogue to medical internships (which is in fact the supervised practice par excellence): Leighton (Citation1942) used the analogy in an article on the prospects of the social sciences written during the war; Mead (Citation1952) repeated it in her intervention at the 1951 AAA annual meeting; and Lévi-Strauss (Citation1954) employed it (along with a risky parallel between fieldwork and psychoanalysis) in his chapter for the UNESCO report on the teaching of the social sciences.42 A quick survey on ethnographers memoirs across the twentieth century seems to validate this point, which undoubtedly needs more research. See Jongmans and Gutkind Citation1967; Spindler Citation1970; Freilich Citation1970; Golde Citation1970; Watson Citation1999; Hewlett Citation2020.43 The accounts collected by Roger Sanjek (Citation1990) on the practice of writing, using, and (not) sharing fieldnotes might be seen as a perfect representation of this professional anomie.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the University of Padova (grant number BORT_BIRD23_02).","PeriodicalId":46201,"journal":{"name":"History and Anthropology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6000,"publicationDate":"2023-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"History and Anthropology","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02757206.2023.2275787","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ANTHROPOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe paper details how, during the 'Modjokuto Project' of 1952–1954, Hildred and Clifford Geertz embodied in their decisions and actions the ‘Malinowskian palimpsest’ of the lonely ethnographer, thus creating a series of oppositions between their individualistic understanding of the ethnographer and the needs of teamwork in the field. Apart from the historical record, this reconstruction aims at focusing on several questions in the history of cultural anthropology and the social sciences: How do ethnographers come to understand their professional role and the specific scientific virtues attached to it? How are scholarly personae and other cognitive-normative schemas put to the test (and modified) during fieldwork? How does the lack of methodological reflection on the ways of the anthropologist impact on the completion of specific research projects and, more generally, the reproduction of professional lore and structures?KEYWORDS: Scholarly personaethnographyClifford GeertzHildred GeertzteamworkCold War social science AcknowledgementsThanks to the participants in the George W. Stocking, Jr., Symposium (Seattle, 12 November 2022), the members of the Anthropology group of the Consortium for History of Science, Technology, and Medicine (1 February 2023), and two anonymous reviewers from History and Anthropology. I would especially like to acknowledge the help of Karen Blu, Freddy Foks, Matt Watson, Alice Kehoe, Herb Lewis, Jason Pribilski, Tullio Viola, Stephen Foster, Stephen Turner, Gary Alan Fine, David H. Price, Hans Bakker, Harlan Stelmach, Bijan Warner, Andrea Cossu, Gerardo Ienna, Giovanni Zampieri, and Zhe Yu Lee. Archival materials are cited by courtesy of Karen Blu and the Harvard University Archives. This article is dedicated to the memory of Hilly Geertz, whom I had the fortune to meet for one last interview in September 2021.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 I wrote this article using mainly letters written by Clifford and Hildred Geertz to friends and relatives in America and preserved as part of the Geertz Papers (henceforth CGP) at the Special Collections Library of the University of Chicago. Their copious fieldnotes from the period were checked to confirm my hypotheses, but were not incorporated into the text as a deeply reflected-upon decision on my part. The letters that ethnographers write home might have different functions, especially if fieldwork is conducted in a faraway land and relatives, friends, and colleagues might have expressed their worry about, or even opposition against, the trip. Letters might thus involve (and almost certainly do) a Goffmanian front/backstage dynamic, where ‘the personal, the familiar, the intimate’ (Dobson Citation2009, 57) are intertwined with encouraging words written in order to reassure the receiver. To make a careful selection and hierarchization of the sources it becomes crucial to understand the reciprocal positioning of senders and addressees. In the case at hand, the recipients included at least three groups of people: parents, close relatives, and the occasional family friend; fellow graduate students in anthropology, professors, and administrative staff at Harvard or the MIT; other significant individuals, such as George R. Geiger, Clifford’s mentor at Antioch College. After comparing the letters addressed to different categories of acquaintances, it seems clear to me that the most interesting were those written to colleagues and peers. In the communications exchanged with the members of a peer group who shared similar aspirations, training, attitudes, goals, and grievances, the Geertzes needed not hide their innermost feelings as they would when writing to worried parents or grim supervisors. As Roger Sanjek (Citation1990, 111) would say, these letters were ‘a first step in committing headnotes to paper’. Given the Geertzes’ positioning as graduate students (a particularly ambivalent condition, swinging rhythmically between excitement and misery, then as now), it is clear that often their correspondence with their peers—and especially the exchanges between Clifford Geertz and the Ayoubs—had the pace and the flavor of a continuous therapeutic session on various levels (methodological, organizational, disciplinary, normative, and personal, to say the least) where meaning, identity, and solidarity were not only expressed, but constructed via the very acts of writing, narrating, reading, and reacting (on narrative and the scholarly self see Gross Citation2008, 269 ff.). It is not clear if the letters sent by the Geertzes circulated beyond the specific individuals to whom they were addressed, but one might easily imagine their content becoming the object of prolonged gossip and discussion among those who were still (or already) ‘at home’. On the other hand, while (some) letters might not be fully transparent or truthful, fieldnotes seem to be too idiosyncratic (and often chaotic) to become a reliable source for historical research. In this case, the absence of any methodological reflection on the use of fieldnotes as empirical or archival data for the history of anthropology and ethnography does not help.2 Quotes (verbatim) from Clifford Geertz to Victor and Millah Ayoub, December 28, 1952, CGP, box 6, folder 1; Clifford Geertz’s fieldnotes, fn#70.5, p. 232, CGP, box 10, folder 1. The move was also recounted in Clifford Geertz to ‘Dave’ [probably Laudry], December 1, 1952, CGP, box 6, folder 1; Hildred Geertz to Family, December 9–10, 1952, CGP, box 4, folder 7.3 Clifford Geertz to Victor and Millah Ayoub, December 28, 1952, CGP, box 6, folder 1. As it will be clear later in the paper, the Geertzes were never really ‘alone’, for they formed a couple of equals. This, however, does not invalidate my claim on the influence of the Malinowskian palimpsest, for the latter was for the most part a symbolic and regulative model.4 I will use the words ‘anthropologist’ and ‘ethnographer’ as synonims throughout this paper, but see the last section for an assessment of this decision.5 In this paper, I will use ‘iconic’ and related terms in a technical sense. According to Dominik Bartmanski and Jeffrey C. Alexander (Citation2012, 2), ‘icons are cultural constructions that provide believer-friendly epiphanies and customer-friendly images’. As such, they allow members of groups (and sometimes entire societies) ‘(1) to experience a sense of participation in something fundamental whose fuller meaning eludes their comprehension and (2) to enjoy the possibility for control despite being unable to access directly the script that lies beneath’. On the specific topic of iconic social thinkers see Bartmanski Citation2012, which includes a section on Malinowski.6 It was clear that studying Javanese society put into question any artificial distinction between ‘primitive’ and ‘urbanized’ societies. A trace of this reflection (which will be the topic of another paper) can be found in the unpublished version of Clifford Geertz’s dissertation (Geertz Citation1956).7 In the United States the number of institutions offering instruction in anthropology tripled between 1894 and 1917, grew fourfold by 1940, and then doubled again before 1948 (Voegelin Citation1950, 351; UNESCO Citation1954, 177 ff.).8 As shown by Steven Shapin (Citation2008, ch. 6), in the 1950s an intense discussion on the pros and cons of teamwork in the natural sciences revolved around the paramount values of the independence and personal genius of individual scientists. The bias in favor of the individual scholar I am sketching here thus seems to be connected to a broader conception of the scientific ethos. This said, it seems that the importance attributed to being able to ‘see the whole’ and its intrinsic relationship with being alone in the field is a constellation of requisites/virtues that was typical of the discipline of anthropology.9 The 1949 USD100K grant roughly corresponds to USD1.2M in 2023.10 John Robert’s letter to K. Spencer of September 9, 1949 (HUG 4490.20, Clyde Kluckhohn Papers, Harvard University Archives) is quoted in Powers Citation1997, 1965. On Roberts see Goodenough Citation1995.11 As far as I know, the economic and political goals of the Modjokuto Project were never explicitly formalized. At the same time, it was well-known that Indonesian markets were crucial for US import and export, so that the young postcolonial republic had to be helped in its agricultural and industrial development. From a geopolitical point of view, Indonesia had to be mobilized as part of a ‘great wall’ again the expansion of Soviet Communism. For a general assessment of US-Indonesian relations during the postwar period see Roadnight Citation2002; Fakih Citation2020. USD250K in 1952 roughly correspond to USD2,7M in 2023. See n.w.a., ‘Java 'Middletown’ To Undergo Study; Nine Americans to Carry Out 18-Month Survey Financed by Ford Foundation’, The New York Times, October 5, 1952, p. 3.12 I will use as an outline for this section a letter from Clifford Geertz to Victor and Millah Ayoub, April 18, 1953 (CGP, box 6, folder 1), an extraordinary document where Geertz summarized most of the events from the fall of 1951 to April 1953.13 Hildred Geertz to Parents [Walter Rendell Storey and Helen Anderson Storey], February 1952, CGP, box 5, folder 8.14 Clifford Geertz to ‘Mom’ [Lois Brieger], October 24, 1952, CGP, box 6, folder 1; Hildred Geertz to Parents, October 25, 1952, CGP, box 4, folder 7.15 Hildred Geertz to ‘Folks’, November 14–16, 1952, CGP, box 4, folder 7.16 Clifford Geertz to George Geiger, December 5, 1952, CGP, box 6, folder 1.17 Clifford Geertz to Utomo, November 15, 1952, CGP, box 6, folder 1; Clifford Geertz to ‘Jack’ [John M. Roberts], December 28, 1952, CGP, box 6, folder 1.18 Clifford Geertz to ‘Pangalima Tertingg’ [means ‘honorable supreme’, i.e. Rufus Hendon], January 20, 1953, CGP, box 6, folder 1; Hildred Geertz to ‘Hil and John’, February 20, 1953, CGP, box 4, folder 7. Clifford Geertz to Ruth Hollis, February 20, 1953, CGP, box 6, folder 1; Hildred Geertz to Mom and Pop, March 22, 1953, CGP, box 4, folder 7.19 On this, see Clifford Geertz to Mr. and Mrs. Corey, January 4, 1953, CGP, box 6, folder 1; Hildred Geertz to Warren Storey, February 28, 1953, CGP, box 4, folder 7.20 Hildred and Clifford Geertz to ‘Arnie’, November 20, 1952, CGP, box 6, folder 1; Hildred Geertz to Family, April 7, 1953, CG, box 4, folder 7.21 Hildred Geertz to ‘Lea’ [Williams], March 29, 1953, CGP, box 4, folder 7.22 Hildred Geertz to ‘Lea’ [Williams], March 29, 1953, CGP, box 4, folder 7.23 Hildfred Geertz to Family, March 29, 1953, CGP, box 4, folder 7. Hildred Geertz to ‘Mom and Dad’, April 30(?), 1953, CGP, box 4, folder 8. Clifford Geertz to ‘Mom’ [Lois Brieger], March 31, 1953, CGP, box 6, folder 1.24 Clifford Geertz to Victor and Millah Ayoub, April 18, 1953, CGP, box 6, folder 1; Hildred Geertz to Family, May 9, 1953, CGP, box 4, folder 7.25 Geertz Citation1989, 340. They were admitted at Harvard on June 7, 1950 (UAV 801.2010, box 6, DSR Correspondence etc. 1950–1951, F-J, folder ‘Graduate students, General 1950–1951’). See also the document on ‘Qualifying Examinations, Fall Term 1950–1951’ (UAV 801.2138, HD/DSR, box 1, folder ‘1950–51’), and the minutes of the DSR Committee on Higher Degrees, June 13, 1951, where both Geertzes are reported to having passed their Qualifying Examinations with distinction (UAV 801.2005, DSR, box 1, Book minutes 1950–51).26 Clifford Geertz to ‘Jack’ [John M. Roberts], December 28, 1952, CGP, box 6, folder 1; Clifford Geertz to Victor and Millah Ayoub, January 9, 1953, CGP, box 6, folder 1.27 See Evon Z. Vogt to Clyde M. Kluckhohn, May 1, 1951, CKP, HUG 4490.5, box 27, folder ‘E.Z. Vogt 1947–1951’.28 Hildred Geertz to Family, February 1952, CGP, box 5, folder 8.29 As was customary at the time, some of the male members of the Harvard-MIT group were accompanied by their wives (Anola Ryan, Anne Jay, and Jane Hendon), but the latter were not enrolled in the PhD program and were marginal members of the team (Dewey Citation1962, xiii). See also Clifford Geertz to Victor and Millah Ayoub, December 15, 1952, CGP, box 6, folder 1. The theme of the role and contribution of wives in early ethnography should receive more attention. See, among others, Wolf Citation1992, and the monograph section in an old issue of Cross-Cultural Research, 2(2), 1967.30 Geertz’s papers include two memos summarizing the decisions taken by the group. See Clifford Geertz, Untitled memo, January 17, 1953, CGP, box 6, folder 1; Hildred Geertz, ‘Division of Labor in a Cooperative Project’, January 17, 1953, CGP, box 6, folder 1.31 Clifford Geertz to Mom, March 31, 1953, CGP, box 6, folder 1. See also Clifford Geertz to ‘Dave’ [probably Laudry], December 1, 1952, CGP, box 6, folder 1; Clifford Geertz to Victor and Millah Ayoub, December 28, 1952, CGP, box 6, folder 1.32 Clifford Geertz to George Geiger, December 5, 1952, CGP, box 6, folder 1. In 1953 Pare had a population of around 20,000 individuals. With all due differences, Newburyport, where Warner brought some eighteen fieldworkers, counted only 17,000 citizens.33 Clifford Geertz, Jr., to Clifford Geertz, Sr., January 2, 1953, CGP, box 6, folder 1. See also Hildred and Clifford Geertz to ‘Arnie’, November 20, 1952, CGP, box 6; folder 1.34 See Paul Citation2014, 363 ff.; Paul Citation2019, 9 ff., and the papers collected in the same volume.35 In reviewing the pros and cons of cross-disciplinary collaboration, sociologist Joseph W. Eaton (Citation1951, 708–709) wrote that creativity depended on solitary work, and that being part of a team would confront the scholar with problems of adjustment, recognition, and psychological stress. See also Leighton Citation1949, 145 ff. On the enduring connection between solitude and scholarship see, among others, Shapin Citation1991 and Mayrl and Wilson Citation2020.36 On the persistence of these tropes into the twenty-first century see at least Di Leonardo Citation2006; Weston et al. Citation2015; Holtorf Citation2016.37 Clifford Geertz, Untitled memo, January 17, 1953, CGP, box 6, folder 1.38 Both the introduction and the conclusion (where Geertz discussed the work of Robert Redfield on great and little traditions) were not included in the published version of the dissertation: compare Geertz Citation1956 and Geertz Citation1960.39 As underlined by Neil Gross (Citation2008, 269) and Herman Paul (Citation2014, 355, 362, 367), the various elements of this self-concept and the commitment to a multiplicity of goods have a ‘potential to influence’ actual behavior. See also Guetzkow, Lamont, and Mallard Citation2004. A letter from Clifford Geertz to Victor and Millah Ayoub dated December 15, 1952 (GCP, box 6, folder 1), represents his most thorough (early) reflection on a wider understanding of what ‘being an intellectual’ and ‘being a social scientist’ means.40 Geertz is ironically quoting from Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish.41 Correspondence, phone calls, and the exchange of drafts and other written material are but a poor ersatz for face-to-face interaction. Interestingly, the texts on training in anthropology from the 1950s surveyed above often present an irreflexive understanding of solo fieldwork as an analogue to medical internships (which is in fact the supervised practice par excellence): Leighton (Citation1942) used the analogy in an article on the prospects of the social sciences written during the war; Mead (Citation1952) repeated it in her intervention at the 1951 AAA annual meeting; and Lévi-Strauss (Citation1954) employed it (along with a risky parallel between fieldwork and psychoanalysis) in his chapter for the UNESCO report on the teaching of the social sciences.42 A quick survey on ethnographers memoirs across the twentieth century seems to validate this point, which undoubtedly needs more research. See Jongmans and Gutkind Citation1967; Spindler Citation1970; Freilich Citation1970; Golde Citation1970; Watson Citation1999; Hewlett Citation2020.43 The accounts collected by Roger Sanjek (Citation1990) on the practice of writing, using, and (not) sharing fieldnotes might be seen as a perfect representation of this professional anomie.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the University of Padova (grant number BORT_BIRD23_02).
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“24小时的工作”。Hildred和Clifford Geertz第一次涉足这个领域以及人种学家的学术角色
摘要在1952-1954年的“Modjokuto计划”中,Hildred和Clifford Geertz如何在他们的决策和行动中体现了孤独的民族志学者的“马林诺夫斯基式重写”,从而在他们对民族志学者的个人主义理解与该领域的团队合作需求之间形成了一系列对立。除了历史记录之外,这种重建的目的是关注文化人类学和社会科学史上的几个问题:民族志学家如何理解他们的专业角色以及与之相关的特定科学美德?在实地考察中,学者角色和其他认知规范图式是如何进行测试(和修改)的?缺乏对人类学家方法的方法论反思对具体研究项目的完成有何影响,更普遍地说,对专业知识和结构的再现有何影响?感谢George W. Stocking, Jr.研讨会(西雅图,2022年11月12日)的参与者,科学、技术和医学史联合会人类学小组的成员(2023年2月1日),以及两位来自历史和人类学的匿名审稿人。我要特别感谢Karen Blu、Freddy Foks、Matt Watson、Alice Kehoe、Herb Lewis、Jason Pribilski、Tullio Viola、Stephen Foster、Stephen Turner、Gary Alan Fine、David H. Price、Hans Bakker、Harlan Stelmach、Bijan Warner、Andrea Cossu、Gerardo Ienna、Giovanni Zampieri和喆Yu Lee的帮助。档案资料由卡伦·布鲁和哈佛大学档案馆提供。这篇文章是为了纪念希利·格尔茨,我有幸在2021年9月与他进行了最后一次采访。披露声明作者未报告潜在的利益冲突。我写这篇文章的主要依据是克利福德·格尔茨和希尔德里德·格尔茨写给美国亲友的信件,这些信件被作为格尔茨论文(以下简称CGP)的一部分保存在芝加哥大学特别藏书图书馆。我检查了他们那一时期丰富的实地记录,以证实我的假设,但并没有作为我深思熟虑后的决定纳入正文。民族志学者给家里写的信可能有不同的功能,特别是如果田野调查是在一个遥远的地方进行的,亲戚、朋友和同事可能会表达他们对这次旅行的担忧,甚至反对。因此,信件可能涉及(而且几乎肯定会)戈夫曼式的前台/后台动态,“个人的、熟悉的、亲密的”(多布森引文2009,57)与为了安慰收信人而写的鼓励话语交织在一起。为了对信息源进行仔细的选择和分级,了解发送者和收件人的相互定位就变得至关重要。在这个案例中,接受者至少包括三组人:父母、近亲和偶尔出现的家庭朋友;哈佛大学或麻省理工学院的人类学研究生、教授和行政人员;其他重要人物,比如克利福德在安提阿学院的导师乔治·r·盖格。在比较了写给不同类别的熟人的信之后,我发现最有趣的是那些写给同事和同龄人的信。在与有着相似志向、训练、态度、目标和不满的同龄人交流时,Geertzes夫妇不需要像写信给忧心忡忡的父母或严厉的主管那样隐藏他们内心深处的感受。正如Roger Sanjek (citation1990,111)所说,这些信件是“将批注写在纸上的第一步”。考虑到格尔茨夫妇作为研究生的定位(当时和现在一样,这是一种特别矛盾的状态,在兴奋和痛苦之间有节奏地摇摆),很明显,他们与同龄人的通信——尤其是克利福德·格尔茨和阿尤斯夫妇之间的交流——通常具有在不同层面(方法论、组织、纪律、规范和个人,至少可以说)上进行持续治疗的速度和风格,在这些层面上,意义、身份、和团结不仅是表达,而且是通过写作、叙述、阅读和反应的行为来构建的(关于叙述和学术自我,见Gross Citation2008, 269 ff.)。目前尚不清楚格尔茨夫妇的信件是否在特定的收件人之间流传,但人们很容易想象,这些信件的内容会成为那些仍然(或已经)“在家”的人长期八卦和讨论的对象。 克利福德·格尔茨致“Pangalima Tertingg”(意为“尊贵的至尊”,即鲁弗斯·亨顿),1953年1月20日,CGP,第6箱,第1文件夹;希尔德丽德·格尔茨致“希尔和约翰”的信,1953年2月20日,CGP,第4框,第7文件夹。克利福德·格尔茨给露丝·霍利斯,1953年2月20日,CGP, 6号盒子,1号文件夹;关于这一点,请参见克利福德·格尔茨给科里夫妇的信,1953年1月4日,CGP,第6箱,文件夹1;1952年11月20日,Hildred Geertz和Clifford Geertz写给“Arnie”,CGP,第6个盒子,第1个文件夹;希尔德雷德·格尔茨致家人,1953年4月7日,CG,盒子4,文件夹7.21希尔德雷德·格尔茨致Lea [Williams], 1953年3月29日,CGP,盒子4,文件夹7.22希尔德雷德·格尔茨致Lea [Williams], 1953年3月29日,CGP,盒子4,文件夹7.23希尔德雷德·格尔茨致家人,1953年3月29日,CGP,盒子4,文件夹7。1953年4月30日,希尔德丽德·格尔茨致《爸爸妈妈》,CGP,第4盒,第8文件夹。克利福德·格尔茨给“妈妈”[洛伊斯·布里格],1953年3月31日,CGP,第6箱,文件夹1 24克利福德·格尔茨给维克多和米拉·阿尤布,1953年4月18日,CGP,第6箱,文件夹1;Hildred Geertz致家庭,1953年5月9日,CGP,第4箱,7.25文件夹Geertz Citation1989, 340。他们于1950年6月7日被哈佛大学录取(UAV 801.2010,方框6,DSR通信等1950 - 1951,F-J,文件夹“研究生,一般1950 - 1951”)。另见关于“资格考试,1950-1951秋季学期”的文件(UAV 801.2138, HD/DSR,框1,文件夹“1950-51”),以及DSR高等学位委员会1951年6月13日的会议记录,据报道,两位教授都以优异的成绩通过了资格考试(UAV 801.2005, DSR,框1,Book minutes 1950-51)克利福德·格尔茨致“杰克”[约翰·m·罗伯茨],1952年12月28日,CGP,第6箱,第1文件夹;克利福德·格尔茨给维克多和米拉·阿尤布的信,1953年1月9日,CGP,第6栏,文件夹1.27见埃文·z·沃格特给克莱德·m·克拉克霍恩的信,1951年5月1日,CKP, HUG 4490.5,第27栏,文件夹e.z沃格特1947 - 1951的陈霞Hildred Geertz致Family的信,1952年2月,CGP,盒子5,文件夹8.29按照当时的惯例,哈佛-麻省理工团队的一些男性成员是由他们的妻子(Anola Ryan, Anne Jay和Jane Hendon)陪同的,但后者没有参加博士课程,是团队的边缘成员(Dewey Citation1962, xiii)。另见Clifford Geertz致Victor和Millah Ayoub的信,1952年12月15日,CGP,盒子6,文件夹1。早期民族志中妻子的角色和贡献这一主题应该得到更多的关注。参见Wolf citation(1992)和《跨文化研究》(Cross-Cultural Research)旧刊的专著部分,1967年第2期(2)。Geertz的论文包括两份备忘录,总结了该小组所做的决定。见Clifford Geertz,《无题备忘录》,1953年1月17日,CGP,第6框,第1文件夹;Hildred Geertz,“合作项目中的劳动分工”,1953年1月17日,CGP,盒子6,文件夹1。另见Clifford Geertz致“Dave”[可能是Laudry], 1952年12月1日,CGP,第6箱,第1文件夹;克利福德·格尔茨给维克多和米拉·阿尤布,1952年12月28日,CGP,第6箱,第1箱。1953年,帕雷的种群数量约为2万只。华纳带来了18名田野工作者的纽伯里波特,尽管存在着应有的差异,但只有17000名市民小Clifford Geertz写给老Clifford Geertz, 1953年1月2日,CGP,第6箱,第1文件夹。另见Hildred和Clifford Geertz对《阿尼》的评论,1952年11月20日,CGP,第6栏;文件夹1.34参见Paul Citation2014, 363 ff.;保罗引文2019,9后。和收录在同一卷里的论文在回顾跨学科合作的利弊时,社会学家约瑟夫·w·伊顿(Citation1951, 708-709)写道,创造力依赖于单独的工作,而作为团队的一部分,学者将面临适应、认可和心理压力等问题。参见Leighton Citation1949, 145 ff。关于孤独和学术之间的持久联系,见Shapin Citation1991和Mayrl and Wilson Citation2020.36关于这些比喻在21世纪的持久性,至少见Di Leonardo Citation2006;Weston等人。Citation2015;Clifford Geertz, Untitled memo, 1953年1月17日,CGP, box 6, folder 1.38引言和结论(Geertz在其中讨论了Robert Redfield关于大传统和小传统的工作)都没有包含在论文的出版版本中:正如尼尔·格罗斯(Neil Gross, Citation2008, 269)和赫尔曼·保罗(Herman Paul, Citation2014, 355,362,367)所强调的那样,这种自我概念的各种要素以及对多种商品的承诺具有“影响”实际行为的“潜力”。参见Guetzkow, Lamont, and Mallard Citation2004。 克利福德·格尔茨1952年12月15日写给维克多和米拉·阿尤布的一封信(GCP,第6栏,文件夹1),代表了他对“作为一个知识分子”和“作为一个社会科学家”的更广泛理解的最彻底(早期)的反思格尔茨讽刺地引用了米歇尔·福柯(Michel Foucault)的《纪律与惩罚》(Discipline and punishment)。通信、电话、草稿和其他书面材料的交换,都是面对面交流的蹩脚替代品。有趣的是,上面调查的20世纪50年代关于人类学培训的文本经常表现出一种不经思考的理解,即把单独的实地考察作为医学实习的类似物(实际上是有监督的实践):莱顿(Citation1942)在一篇关于战争期间社会科学前景的文章中使用了这种类比;Mead (Citation1952)在1951年美国汽车协会年会上重申了这一点;lsamvi - strauss (citation, 1954)在其为联合国教科文组织撰写的关于社会科学教学的报告一章中使用了这种方法(并冒险地将实地考察与精神分析相提并论)对20世纪民族志学家回忆录的快速调查似乎证实了这一点,这无疑需要更多的研究。参见Jongmans and Gutkind citation; 1967;斯宾德勒Citation1970;Freilich Citation1970;Golde Citation1970;沃森Citation1999;Roger Sanjek (Citation1990)收集的关于写作、使用和(不)分享田野笔记的实践的记录可能被视为这种专业失范的完美表现。本研究由帕多瓦大学资助(授权号BORT_BIRD23_02)。
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来源期刊
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期刊介绍: History and Anthropology continues to address the intersection of history and social sciences, focusing on the interchange between anthropologically-informed history, historically-informed anthropology and the history of ethnographic and anthropological representation. It is now widely perceived that the formerly dominant ahistorical perspectives within anthropology severely restricted interpretation and analysis. Much recent work has therefore been concerned with social change and colonial history and the traditional problems such as symbolism, have been rethought in historical terms. History and Anthropology publishes articles which develop these concerns, and is particularly interested in linking new substantive analyses with critical perspectives on anthropological discourse.
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