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A STUDY in FALSE OPPOSITIONS' Katherine Newman Department of Anthropology University of California Berkeley, California

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A STUDY in FALSE OPPOSITIONS' Katherine Newman Department of Anthropology University of California Berkeley, California 4 4 ETHNOSCIENCE VS. CULTURAL MATERIALISM: A STUDY IN FALSE OPPOSITIONS' Katherine Newman Department of Anthropology University of California Berkeley, California The complex and sometimes bitter debate be- grammar of behavior for particular social systems. tween proponents of "idealism" and advocates of Just as linguistic grammars provide rules for the "materialism" has long been with us in Anthropol- production of acceptable utterances, so a cultural ogy. The conflict between these two perspectives grammar guides the social actor in the production centers on theoretical and political differences too and interpretation of socially appropriate behavior. numerous to detail. However, an examination of a The cultural grammar itself, the cognitive rules particular instance of this general debate may shed which were thought to underlie social interaction, some light on the sorts of issues involved. Specifi- was to be the focus of the so-called New Ethnog- cally, this paper attempts to analyze the basis of raphy. Moreover, this new orientation toward cul- the dispute between the two subdisciplines of ture was intended to replace, rather than merely Anthropology known as ethnoscience and cultural complement, what the early ethnoscientists felt materialism, which represent the idealist and were the inadequate and unscientific definitions materialist traditions respectively. At varying used by more traditional anthropologists. points in time, both ethnoscientists and cultural "Classical" ethnoscience had a distinctively materialists proclaimed their theoretical and meth- progammatic quality about it. "Transcultural odological contributions as the foundation of Studies in Cognition," the special publication of a "new" anthropology, thus rejecting as inadequate the American Anthropologist dedicated entirely to what had come before (Sturtevant 1964; Harris cognitive anthropology, announced to the field 1968, 1975; Goodenough 1970; Kottak 1975). that the new approach was the wave of the future: However, a closer examination of the differences Ethnoscience shows promise as the New Eth- between cultural materialism and ethnoscience nography required to advance the whole of suggests that to view them as competing paradigms cultural anthropology. (Sturtevant 1964: 101) is to create an unjustified and false dichotomy. The insistence that culture be studied as a cognitive It may be useful to approach the dispute be- grammar evoked criticisms from all sides. Anthro- tween cultural materialists and ethnoscientists pologists schooled in the tradition of participant- from the vantage point of the following three ques- observation argued that people seldom follow the tions: 1) What is the proper domain of study for "cultural rules" imparted to anthropologists during Anthropology? 2) In what way does the analysis interviews. The whole point of the fieldwork em- of this domain contribute to an understanding of phasis was to reveal "what was really going on," causality in social evolution? and 3) What are the something which the native of the culture was appropriate methods for the investigation of this thought not to be fully aware of (Rappaport 1967; domain? Cultural materialists and ethnoscientists Vayda and Rappaport 1968). Thus, some individ- offer very different answers to each of these ques- uals attacked the major premise of ethnoscience, tions. However, I shall argue that their differences, namely, that the native is the most reliable author- while profound, are theoretically compatible. ity where underlying rules of behavior are con- Classical ethnoscience, as it was developed by cerned. individuals such as Frake, Goodenough, Conklin, Adherents of the humanistic, wholistic view of Sturtevant and others, had as its major focus the anthropology complained that the new view of discovery and description of culture. This is not culture was devoid of the essential spirit of the a particularly earth-shattering proposal since the discipline, which is its concern with the human ex- study of culture has always been a major concern perience and all of its problems: within anthropology. However, the early ethno- . I think . that much of the current scientists had developed a new, though certainly effort . has the effect of sacrificing the in- not unanticipated, sense of what culture was. They sight into the nature of human behavior proposed that culture be regarded as a shared which is the ultimate aim of all ethnography. 4 5 It results in astoundingly pallid, sterile, and pology to the question of causality in social evolu- fragmentary ethnography. It is effectively a tion, we may find the root of the cultural mater- retreat to method without sufficient reference ialists' misinterpretation of the ethnoscientific to goals. [Berreman 1966] quest. The key word to consider is causality. We However, the most vehement critics of early generally expect theories of social change and ethnoscience were the cultural materialists, led by evolution to provide more than just a sequence of the well-known Columbia anthropologist, Marvin historical stages in the development of societies or Harris. The cultural materalists' critique focused on culture areas. Evolutionary theories also must the issue of the proper domain of study for anthro- attempt to supply an explanation for the under- pology. Harris did not deny that cognitive systems lying causal mechanisms which "push" social existed, nor did he suggest that these systems were evolution in a certain direction. not involved in the production of social behavior. Harris maintained that ethnoscience, as an out- What the cultural materialists did balk at was the growth of idealism, was particularly incapable of apparent exclusion of non-cognitive, and especially providing an adequate theory of techno-economic non-linguistic, realities: technological development, and social evolution. In fact, in The Rise of An- the organization of production, and other material thropological Theory, Harris suggested that enthno- constraints on the content of cognitive codes. They science was an anthropological descendant of the argued that whether or not such basic economic classical idealism of Hegel, who proposed a theory facts were part of "culture," these facts certainly of evolution based upon the unfolding of reason should be included in any ethnography. Perhaps (Harris: 1968; Hegel: 1956). On Harris' first point more importantly, cultural materialists insisted I would certainly have to agree; ethnoscience, like that the examination of the "substructural" com- all other subdisciplines interested in the "native ponents of social systems had to take priority in worldview," is not well suited for (or, for that any causal understanding of social evolution. matter, particularly interested in) providing evi- Here I come to the crux of the matter insofar as dence for causal mechanisms of social evolution. the initial question is concerned. According to the In fact, during the early days of ethnoscience, classical ethnoscientists, the subject matter of scarcely any attention was paid to the whole issue Anthropology was particular native semantic sys- of evolution. tems. Cultural materialists, on the other hand, pro- On the second point, however, I must disagree posed that anthropology return to its original 19th with Harris. Hegel and his intellectual descendants century focus on evolutionism, the "science of in the idealist tradition did have a theory of social history" (Harris 1968). This renaissance of interest evolution which saw the development of reason as in the topic of social evolution was to be under- the guiding force behind change. Ethnoscience taken from a particular point of view, namely, a does not now, and never did to my knowledge, par- neo-Marxian perspective which strongly empha- take of this theory of evolution. Nowhere in the sized economic imperatives as the driving force literature of cognitive anthropology do we see a behind social change. Thus, at the very outset, theory of causality in social change, and certainly ethnoscience and cultural materialism took entirely not a theory which could be construed as being in different stands on the question of what anthropol- opposition to a materialist one. Harris, and other ogy was all about. Each was equally adamant about critics of the ethnoscientific movement, assumed the importance of reorienting the field around its that because ethnoscience and the idealist tradition own particular interests. This insistence on a uni- have certain common interests, they overlap in all lateral "program" for anthropology won both of their theoretical assumptions. This simply is not subdisciplines substantial criticism from colleagues the case. As I pointed out earlier, the classical outside either orientation. However, for the pres- ethnoscientists were not concerned with the topic ent purposes it will be argued that these two pro- of evolutionism. posals were only contradictory in the sense that Precisely the reverse is true of contemporary the total amount of resources expended in the ethnoscience. Native systems of classification rep- pursuit of anthropological knowledge is finite, and resent one of the primary source materials for the therefore, choosing one strategy over another may study of cognitive culture. As the data base on result in downplaying the value of other theoretical these systems of classification grew, it became clear alternatives. However, this point aside, I would that there were identifiable regularities in the argue that the programs of ethnoscience and
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