REVISITS 645 Revisits:AnOutlineofaTheory ofReflexiveEthnography

MichaelBurawoy University of California, Berkeley

This paper explores the ethnographic technique of the focused revisit—rare in soci- ology but common in anthropology—when an ethnographer returns to the site of a previous study. Discrepancies between earlier and later accounts can be attributed to differences in: (1) the relation of observer to participant, (2) theory brought to the field by the ethnographer, (3) internal processes within the field site itself, or (4) forces external to the field site. Focused revisits tend to settle on one or another of these four explanations, giving rise to four types of focused revisits. Using examples, the limits of each type of focused revisit are explored with a view to developing a reflexive ethnography that combines all four approaches. The principles of the fo- cused revisit are then extended to rolling, punctuated, heuristic, archeological, and valedictory revisits. In centering attention on ethnography-as-revisit sociologists directly confront the dilemmas of participating in the world they study—a world that undergoes (real) historical change that can only be grasped using a (constructed) theoretical lens.

ackingbackwardand forward cipline of anthropo logy. After four decades through 40 years of field work, Clifford of expansion, starting in the 1950s, there are Geertz (1995) describes how changes in the now many more anthropologists swarming two towns he studied, Pare in Indonesia and over the globe. They come not only from Sefrou in Morocco, cannot be separated from Western centers but also from ex-colonies. their nation states—the one beleaguered by a They are ever more skeptical of positive sci- succession of political contestations and the ence, and embrace the interpretive turn, it- other the product of dissolving structures. self pioneered by Geertz, that gives pride of These two states, in turn, cannot be separated place to culture as narrative and text. “When from competing and transmogrifying world everything changes, from the small and im- hegemonies that entangle anthropologists as mediate to the vast and abstract—the object well as their subjects. Just as Geertz’s field of study, the world immediately around it, the sites have been reconfigured, so has the dis- student, the world immediately around him, and the wider world around them both— Direct all c orrespondence to Michael there seems to be no place to stand so as to Burawoy, Department of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 (burawoy@ Hanks, Gail Kligman, Louise Lamphere, Steve socrates.berkeley.edu). This paper was launched Lopez, Ruth Milkman, Sabina Neem, Sherry in a dissertation seminar where it received spir- Ortner, Mary Pattillo, Melvin Pollner, Leslie ited criticism from Bill Hayes, Linus Huang, Salzinger, Ida Susser, J oan Vincent, Loïc Rachel Sherman, and Michelle Williams. Since Wacquant, Ron Weitzer, and Erik Wright. I also then I have taken it on the road and picked up thank the four ASR reviewers, in particular Diane comments and suggestions from many, including Vaughan, whose inspired commentary led to ma- Julia Adams, Philip Bock, Patricia Clough, jor revisions, and Reviewer D, whose persistent Mitchell Duneier, Steve Epstein, Jim Ferguson, critical interventions kept my argument on an María Patricia Fernández-Kelly, M arion even keel. This venture was made possible by a Fourcade-Gourinchas, Herb Gans, Tom Gieryn, year at Academy’s Arcadia, the Russell Sage Teresa Gowan, Richard Grinker, Lynne Haney, Foundation, to which revisits are rightly, but Gillian Hart, Mike Hout, Jennifer Johnson- sadly, barred.

AmericanSociological Review,2003,Vol.68(October:645Ð679) 645 646 AMERICANSOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW locate just what has altered and how” (Geertz terrogation of an already existing ethnogra- 1995:2). This is the challenge of the ethno- phy without any further field work. graphic revisit: to disentangle movements of Colignon’s (1996) critical reexamination and the external world from the researcher’s own reinterpretation of Selznick’s (1949) TVA shifting involvem ent with that same world, and the Grassroots or Franke and Kaul’s all the while recognizing that the two are not (1978) reexamination of the Hawthorne independent. studies are both examples of reanalyses. A With their detailed ethnographic revisits to revisit must also be distinguished from an classic sites, the earlier anthropologists ethnographic update , which brings an earlier tended toward realism, focusing on the dy- study up to the present but does not reengage namic properties of the world they studied, it. Hollingshead’s (1975) empirical account whereas more recently they have increas- of changes in Elmstown is an update because ingly veered in a constructivist direction in it does not seriously engage with the origi- which the ethnographer becomes the central nal study. Gans (1982) updates The Urban figure. They have found it hard to steer a Villagers, not so much by adding new field balanced course. On the other hand, sociolo- data as by addressing new literatures on gist-ethnographers, grounded theorists in class and poverty. These are not hard and particular, have simply ducked the challenge fast distinctions, but they nonetheless guide altogether. Too often they remain trapped in my choice of the ethnographic revisits I ex- the contemporary, riveted to and contained amine in this paper. in their sites, from where they bracket ques- There is one final but fundamental distinc- tions of historical change, social process, tion—that between revisit and replication . wider contexts, theoretical traditions, as well Ethnographers perennially face the criticism as their own relation to the people they that their research is not trans-personally rep- study. While sociology in general has taken licable—that one ethnographer will view the a historical turn—whether as a deprovincial- field differently from another. 2 To strive for izing aid to social theory or as an analytical replicability in this constructivist sense is to comparative history with its own mission, strip ou rselves of our prejudices, biases, whether as historical demography or longi- theories, and so on before entering the field tudinal survey research—ethno graphy has and to minimize the impact of our presence been slow to emancipate itself from the eter- once we are in the field. Rather than dive into nal present. My purpose here is to encour- the pool fully clothed, we stand naked on the age and consolidate what historical interest side. With the revisit we believe the contrary: there exists within sociology-as-ethnogra- There is no way of seeing clearly without a phy, transporting it from its unconscious past theoretical lens, just as there is no passive, into a historicized world by elaborating the notion of ethnography-as-revisit. This, in 2 Or even worse, the same ethnographer will turn, lays the foundations for a reflexive eth- have divergent interpretations of the “same” nography.1 events. Thus, Van Maanen (1988) describes his Let me define my terms. An ethnographic field work among police on patrol successively as a “realist” tale that strives for the “native point revisit occurs when an ethnographer under- of view,” as a “confessional” tale that is preoc- takes participant observation, that is, study- cupied with the field worker’s own experiences, ing others in their space and time, with a and as an “impressionistic” (from the painting view to comparing his or her site with the genre of Impressionism) tale that brings the field same one studied at an earlier point in time, worker and subject into a dynamic relationship. whether by him or herself or by someone Wolf (1992) similarly presents her field work on else. This is to be distinguished from an eth- shamans in Taiwan in three different ways: as nographic reanalysis, which involves the in- field notes, as fictional account, and as profes- sional article. While recognizing the importance 1 A reflexive ethnography can also be devel- of experimental writing and the contributions of oped through synchronic comparisons—compar- the postmodern criticism of ethnography, Wolf ing two factories, communities, schools, and so ends up defending the professional article with on—in different spatial contexts, as well as its rules of evidence and interpretation. Such po- through the diachronic comparisons of the tem- lyphony calls for a vocabulary and framework poral revisit that form the basis of this paper. beyond “replication.” REVISITS 647 neutral position. The revisit demands that we stand up to scrutiny, though, as sociologists be self-conscious and deliberate about the have been doing systematic field work al- theories we employ and that we capitalize on most as long as anthropologists. Franz Boas the effects of our interventions. There is also, began his fi rst field work among the however, a second meaning of replication Kwakiutl in 1886, only a little more than a that concerns not controlling conditions of decade before Du Bois ([1899] 1996) worked research, but testing the robustness of find- on The Philadelphia Negro . Bronislaw ings. We replicate a study in order to show Malinowski first set out for the Trobriand Is- that the findings hold across the widest vari- lands in 1915, and at the same time Thomas ety of cases, that —to use one of Hughes’s and Znaniecki (1918–1920) were collecting (1958) examples—the need to deal with dirty data for their The Polish Peasant in Europe work applies as much to physicians as jani- and America . tors. Replication means searching for simi- A second hypothesis might turn the ana- larity across difference. When we revisit, lytic eye to the present. Anthropologists, hav- however, our purpose is not to seek con- ing conquered the world, can now only re- stancy across two encounters but to under- visit old sites (or study themselves). As in stand and explain variation, in particular to the case of archeologists there are only so comprehend difference over time. many sites to excavate. Sociologists, on the In short, the ethnographic revisit champi- other hand, have so many unexplored sites to ons what replicati on strives, in vain, to re- cultivate, even in their own backyards, that press. Where replication is concerned with they have no need to retread the old. This minimizing intervention to control research second hypothesis doesn’t work either, espe- conditions and with maximizing the diver- cially now that anthropologists have spread sity of cases to secure the constancy of find- into advanced capitalism where they compete ings, the purpose of the revisit is the exact with sociologists (Susser and Patterson opposite: to focus on the inescapable dilem- 2001). Moreover, sociologists are always re- mas of participating in the world we study, turning to the same places to do their ethnog- on the necessity of bringing theory to the raphies, but rarely, it would seem, to revisit. field, all with a view to developing explana- That is, generations of sociologists have tions of historical change. As we shall see, studied Chicago, but never, or almost never, to place the revisit rather than replication at have they systematically compared their field the center of ethnography is to re-envision work with that of a predecessor. ethnography’s connection to social science This brings me to a third, rather bleak, hy- and to the world it seeks to comprehend. pothesis: that the early ethnographies in so- ciology were so poorly done, so ad hoc, that WHATSOCIOLOGYCANLEARN they are not worth revisiting! I hope to dis- abuse the reader of this idea by the time I FROMANTHROPOLOGY have finished. Sociologists have been quite Anthropologists routinely revisit their own capable of superbly detailed ethnography, sites and those of others, or reanalyze canoni- just as anthropologists can be guilty of cal works, while sociologist-ethnographers sloppy field work. Moreover, flawed field seldom revisit their own sites, let alone those work does not discourage revisits, but, as we of their forbears. Even reanalyses are rare. shall see, it often stimulates them! Why should the two disciplines differ so dra- A fourth hypothesis is that the worlds matically? It is worth considering a number studied by early sociologist-ethnographers of mundane hypotheses, if only to dispel dis- have changed so dramatically that the sites ciplinary stereotypes. The first hypothesis, as are unrecognizable, whereas anthropological to why anthropologists are so fond of revis- sites are more enduring. This, too, does not its, is that field work has long been a tradi- make sense. Hutchinson’s (1996) Nuerland tion in their discipline, and they have accu- has been invaded, colonized, and beset by mulated, therefore, a vast stock of classic civil war since Evans-Pritchard was there in studies to revisit. Ethnography is so new to the 1930s, but that did not stop her using sociology that there are few worthy classic Evans-Pritchard as a baseline to understand studies to revisit. This hypothesis doesn’t the impact of decolonization, war, Christian- 648 AMERICANSOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW ity, and transnational capital. Similarly, of survey research and structural functional- Colson (1971) followed the Gwembe Tonga ism—what Mills (1959) called abstracted after they had been displaced by flooding empiricism and grand theory. His point, of from the Kariba Dam. Sociological sites, on course, was that sociology had lost touch the other hand, are not all demolished. To be with social reality. Even before he wrote his sure urban renewal overtook Herbert Gans’s polemic, the Chicago School had taken up West End (Gans 1982), but Whyte’s North this challenge, reconstituting itself under the End (Whyte 1943) is still recognizable de- influence of Everett Hughes but also Anselm spite the changes it has sustained. The drama Strauss into what Fine (1995) has called the of change and the dissolution of old sites do Second Chicago School, creating an alterna- become factors in revisits, but this does not tive to theoreticism and empiricism. To de- distinguish the anthropologist from the eth- ductive grand theory these sociologists nographer-sociologist. counterposed grounded theory discovered in If it is not the nature of the site being stud- the empirical data. To survey research, they ied then perhaps the distinction lies with the counterposed field research based on in situ observer—the anthropologist’s romance observation of the micro-social. Here we with the past or the sociologist’s attachment find the great studies of Goffman, Becker, to the present. One does not have to resort to Gusfield, Gans, Davis, Freidson, and others. such an essentialist and unlikely psychology. They reclaimed ethnography for science, an One might simply argue that anthropologists inductive science of close observation, codi- invest so much in their research site—learn- fied in Glaser and Strauss’s (1967) The Dis- ing the language, the practices, rituals, and covery of Grounded Theory and reaching its so on—that they are drawn back to their own apotheosis in Becker’s (1998) craft manual, sites rather than driven to excavate new Tricks of the Trade. ones. But this fifth hypothe sis doesn’t ex- Forced to carve out its own “scientific” plain the anthropologist’s relish for studying niche, participant observation turned inward. other people’s sites, revisiting other people’s To put their best positivist foot forward, par- studies. ticipant observers (1) pretended to be neutral Perhaps the answer lies with the disciplin- insiders and thus silencing the ways field ary projects of anthropology and sociology. workers are irrevocably implicated in the So my sixth hypothesis is that anthropolo- world they study, (2) repressed preexisti ng gists have been trained to study the “other” theory as a dangerous contamination, (3) as exotic (or they came to anthropology with sometimes even eclipsed processual change this in mind) and they are therefore more re- in the search for singular descriptions of mi- flexive—more likely to ask who they are and cro-situations, and (4) suspended as unknow- where they came from. Sociologists, because able the historical and macro-context of the they study the familiar (i.e., their own soci- micro-analysis. 3 In studying ethnographic ety), are less reflexive, less likely to think revisits I will provide corrective s along all about themselves and their traditions. But four dimensions—themat izing (1) the ob- here too the difference is not clear—sociolo- server as participant, (2) the reconstruction gists have a trained capacity to exoticize of theory, (3) internal processes, and (4) ex- those they study, as though they come from ternal forces—thereby establishing the four a different world, even if they are next-door principles of reflexive ethnography. 4 neighbors. Indeed, some would say that was their craft—mak ing the normal abnormal 3 Abbott (1999, chap. 7) argues that the Chi- and then making it normal again! cago School ethnographies were “historical” in Still, in turning to the discipline for an ex- that they were concerned with process. In my planation, I think one may be getting nearer view, Chicago ethnographies were largely bereft the mark. Ethnography in American sociol- of process, let alone history. If process or history ogy has followed a twisted road. It began as entered the Chicago School it was in the form of the general cyclical theories of social change as- the dominant approach in the field when the sociated with Robert Park. Chicago School prevailed, but with the 4 These four principles are also the defining mo- spread of sociology and the expansion of the ments of the extended case method (Burawoy university, it succumbed to the twin forces 1998; Burawoy, Burton et al. 1991; Burawoy, REVISITS 649

My criticism of sociologist-ethnographers ciology returns again and again to Marx, should not be misunderstood. There is much Weber, and Durkheim, so anthropology has be studied and gleaned from the present. The returned to Boas, Mead, Malinowski, long tradition of community studies, domi- Evans-Pritchard, Radcliffe -Brown, and the nated by the Chicago School, has made enor- rest—and will continue to do so as long as mous contributions to our understanding of they defin e the an thropological tradition. urban life. The symbolic interactionists and When the very possibil ity of ethnography the ethnomethodologists have deployed par- was threatened by anticolonial revolts, an- ticipant observation to great advantage, sus- thropology reverberated in shock. Acknowl- taining this marginal technique in face of the edging how dependen t they were on forces ascendancy of quantita tive research. As an they no longer control led, anthrop ologists embattled minority, participant observers in- willy-nilly became exceedingly conscio us sulated themselves both from changes in the of the world beyond their field site. They discipline and from changes in the world. revisited (and reanalyzed) the innocent Today, when historical sociology is main- studies that were their canon and that, so stream, when grand theory is no longer so often, had been conducted under the protec- imperial, when survey research is itself in- tive guardianship of colonialism—con di- creasingly concerned with longitudinal tions that remain ed silent in the origin al analysis, when globalization is the topic of studies. The isolation of the village, of the the day, participant observation should come tribe, was a conjuring act that depended on out from its protected corner to embrace his- the coercive presence of a colonial adminis- tory, context, and theory. 5 In this project so- tration (Asad 1973). Simultaneous with this ciologists have much to learn from anthro- heightened historical consciousness came a pologists, from both their insights and their questioning of the anthropological theories oversights: Anthropologists offer an inspira- that emerged from these hithert o unstated tion but also a warning, conditions, and of the way their texts al- Within anthropology the trajectory of eth- ready contained within them particular rela- nography has been very differen t. Its ca- tions of colonial domination (Clifford and nonical texts were ethnographic. Just as so- Marcus 19 86). Thus, h istory, theory, and context came to be deeply impressed upon the anthropologist’s sensibility (Comaroff Blum et al. 2000). Reflexive ethnography and the extended case method, however, differ in their and Comaroff 1991, 1992; Mintz 1985; emphases. The extended case method stresses the Vincent 1990; Wolf 1982). augmentation of social processes studied through While the anthropologist was thrown into participant observation with external forces and a turbulent world order, the sociologist-eth- the reconstruction of theory; reflexive ethnogra- nographer retreated into secure enclaves in phy stresses the dialogue between constructivism both the discipline and the community. The (observer as participant and reconstructing sociologists threw up false boundaries theory) and realism (internal processes and exter- around their sites to ward off accusat ions nal forces). In other words, the extended case that they did not practice “ science,” while method and reflexive ethnography share the same four constitutive elements, but these elements are the anthropologists forsook science as they brought into a different relation with each other. opened the floodgates of world history. Once 5 At least in one area ethnography has em- the ex-colonial subject was released from braced history, theory, and context. The ethnog- anthropological confinement and allowed to raphy of science began as a reaction to grand traverse the world, the trope of revisit be- Mertonian claims about the normative founda- came as natural to the practice of the anthro- tions of scientific knowledge. It then turned to pology as it was to the movements of its sub- the daily practice of laboratory life (Latour and jects. Taken-for-granted by the anthropolo- Woolgar 1979)—a resolutely micro-analysis gist, it takes a sociologist to exhume the sig- drawing on strains of ethnomethodology. These nificance and variety of revisits. laboratory studies then relocated themselves in the wider context that shaped science and its his- In the remainder of this essay, I design a tory, but without losing their ethnographic foun- framework to critically appropriate the clas- dations (Epstein 1996; Fujimura 1996; Latour sic revisits of anthropology and to bring so- 1988). ciology-as-ethnography out of its dark ages. 650 AMERICANSOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

DISSECTINGTHEFOCUSED had planned to do a revisit I could not have REVISITÑMANUFACTURING chosen a better predecessor than Roy—the CONSENT exhaustive detail, the brilliant use of events, his familiarity with industrial work, his rich Revisits come in different types. However, portraits of shop floor games. 7 the most comprehensive is the focused re- In fact Roy’s findings were so compelling visit, which entails an intensive comparison that I was at a loss to know what more I of one’s own field work with a prior ethnog- could contribute. For all the talk of science, raphy of the same site, usually conducted by I knew that to replicate Roy’s study would someone else. Like the focused interview not earn me a dissertation, let alone a job. before it (Merton, Fiske, and Kendall 1956), As Merton (1957) confirmed long ago, in the focused revisit takes as its point of depar- academia the real reward comes not from ture an already investigated situation, but one replication but from originality! 8 My first that takes on very different meanings because instinct was reactive—to denounce Roy as a of changes in historical context and the inter- myopic Chicago participant observer, inter- ests and perspectives of the revisitor. ested in promoting human relations on the The scheme of focused revisits I develop shop floor, who did not understand the work- here derives from my own serendipitous re- ings of capitalism or the way state and mar- visit (Burawoy 1979) to a factory studied by ket impressed themselves on shop floor re- Donald Roy, one of the great ethnographers lations. But if external context was so im- of the Chicago School. Roy (1952a, 1952b, portant in shaping the shop floor, then one 1953, 1954) studied Geer Company in 1944– would expect changes in the state and the 1945, and I studied that same factory 30 market to produce different experien ces in years later in 1974–1975, after it had be- 1974 compared with 1944. But everything come the engine division of Allied Corpora- seemed to be the same! Or was it? tion. Like Roy I was employed as a machine I painstakingly examined Roy’s (1952b) operator. For both of us it was a source of dissertation and discovered, indeed, a series income as well as our dissertation field of small but significant changes in the fac- work. As I grew accustomed to the work- tory. First, the old authoritarian relation be- place, I was reminded of other piecework tween management and worker had dissi- machine shops, not the least Roy’s classic pated. This change was marked by the dis- accounts of output restriction (Roy 1952a, appearance of the “time and study men,” 1953, 1954). 6 There were the machine op- who would clock operators’ jobs when their erators on piece rates, working at their ra- backs were turned, in pursuit of piece rates dial drills, speed drills, mills, and lathes, while the auxiliary workers (inspectors, set- 7 According to Chapoulie (1996:17), Everett up men, crib attendants, dispatchers, truck Hughes considered Roy’s dissertation “one of the drivers) were on hourly rates. I observed the best he had supervised.” 8 same piece work game of “making out” When a finding is controversial, replication (making the piece rate), and the same pat- might pay off. A case in point was the heated and seemingly everlasting debate between pluralist terns of output restriction, namely “gold- and elite perspectives on community power. bricking” (slowing down when piece rates Hunter (1953), whose reputational study (an eth- were too difficult) or “quota restriction” (not nography of sorts) of Atlanta in 1950 led the busting rates when they were easy). In turn- charge for the elite perspective, revisited Atlanta ing to Roy’s (1952b) dissertat ion I discov- in the early 1970s to confirm his original finding ered a series of remarkable coincidences that (Hunter 1980). The very different conditions he left me in no doubt that I had miraculously found in Atlanta (emergence of a black elite, ex- landed in his factory 30 years later. What pansion of the downtown, importance of infor- made it even more exceptional was the rare mation technology, etc.) made the replication all the more persuasive. The more diverse the con- quality of Roy’s 546-page dissertation. If I ditions under which a finding holds, the more ro- bust it becomes. Because the conditions of Roy’s 6 I was familiar with a number of other studies and my ethnographies were so similar, replica- of piece rates that showed similar patterns of tion was less interesting than was the explana- “output restriction” (see, esp., Lupton 1963). tion of small changes. REVISITS 651 that could be tightened. Second, if vertical work because both of us observed every tension had relaxed, horizontal conflicts had other operator on the shop floor going intensified. Instead of the collusion between through the same shared and common expe- operators and auxiliary workers that Roy de- rience, regardless of their habitus, their lo- scribed, I observed hostility and antagonism. cation, or their race. Work was organized as Truck driver s, inspectors, crib attendants a collective game, and each worker evalu- were the bane of my life. As we reported ated others as well as themselves in terms of them, Roy’s and my experiences were dif- “making out.” We all played the same game ferent, but what to make of those differ- and experienced its victories and defeats in ences? I now consider four hypothetical ex- the same way—at least that was what both planations for our different experiences, al- Roy and myself gleaned from all the emo- though at the time of my study I considered tional talk around us. only the fourth one. Reconstructing Theory ObserverasParticipant If it was not the different relations we had to My first hypothesis is that Roy’s and my ex- those we studied that shaped our different periences at Geer and Allied, respectively, experiences of work, perhaps it was the differed because we had a different relation theory we each brought to the factory. Un- to the people we studied. After all, Roy was doubtedly, we came to the shop floor with not new to blue-collar work like I was; he different theories. Roy was a dissident within was a veteran of many industries. He was the human relations school. He argued accepted by his fellow workers as I—an En- against the findings of the Western Electric glishman and a student to boot—could never Studies that restriction of output was the be. Perhaps his blue-collar pride flared up product of workers failing to understand the more easily at managerial edicts; perhaps he rules of economic rationality. To the contrary, could more effectively obtain the respect Roy argued, workers understoo d economic and, thus, the cooperation of auxiliary work- rationality much better than management, ers? Our divergent biographies and resulting which was always putting obstacles in the habiti, therefore, might explain our different way of their “making out”— obstacles opera- experiences, but so might our location in the tors cleverly circumvented in order to meet workplace. I was a miscellaneous machine managerial expectations without compromis- operator who could roam the shop floor with ing their own economic interests. If rates ease, while Roy was stuck to his radial drill. were impossible to make, workers would sig- No wonder, one might conclude, he, more nal this by slowing down. If piece rates were than I, experienced management as authori- easy, workers would be sure not to draw at- tarian. Finally, a third set of factors might tention to the fact by rate busting for fear it have intervened—our embodiment as racial- would lead to rate cutting. Not workers, but ized or gendered subjects. Although many management, it turned out, was being irratio- have criticized Manufacturing Consent nal by introducing counterproductive rules (Burawoy 1979) for not giving weight to that impeded the free flow of work. race and gender, it is not obvious that either Like Roy, I was a dissident, but within the were important for explaining the discrepan- Marxist tradition. I tried to demonstrate that cies between Roy’s experiences and mine, as the workplace, rather than the locus for the we were both white and male. Still, in my crystallization of class consciousness hostile time whiteness might have signified some- to capitalism, was an arena for manufactur- thing very different because, unlike Roy, I ing consent. I showed how the political and was working alongside African Americans. ideological apparatuses of the state, so fondly This racial moment may have disrupted lat- theorized by Gramsci, Poulantzas, Miliband, eral relations with other workers and bound Habermas, Althusser, and others, found their me closer to white management. counterpart within production. It was here on I argue that none of these factors—neither the shop floor that I found the organization habitus, location, nor embodiment—could of class compromise and the constitution of explain the difference in our experience of the individual as an industrial citizen. Bor- 652 AMERICANSOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW rowing from Gramsci, I called this the “he- our accounts to reflect attributes of the world gemonic organization of production,” or the being studied (rather than products of our “hegemonic regime of production.” theoretical or practical engagement with the If our theories were so different, could site). Like constructivist explanations, real- they explain our—Roy’ s and mine—differ- ist explanations are also of two types: The ent experiences of the workplace? Certainly first attribut es divergence to “internal pro- different theories have different empirical cesses,” and the second to “external forces.” foci, select different data. But at least in this Is it possible to explain the shift from des- case theoretical differences cannot explain potic to hegemonic regimes of production by why I experienced more lateral conflict and reference to processes within the factory? Roy more vertical conflict, why he battled Roy (1952b) did observe internal processes with time and study men whereas in my time of a cyclical character. Rules would be im- they were nowhere to be found. If theory posed from above to restrict informal bar- alone were the explanation for our different gaining and collusion, but over time workers accounts, then Allied Corporation would would stretch and circumvent the rules until look the same as Geer Company if examined another avalanche of managerial decrees de- through the same theoretical lens. When I scended from on high. Could such cyclical focus my theory of hegemony onto Geer change explain a secular change over 30 Company, however, I discover a more des- years? It is conceivable that the shift from potic workplace than Allied, one that favors despotism to hegemony was an artifact of our coercion over consent, with fewer institu- different placement in the cycle between bu- tions constituting workers as individuals or reaucratic imposition and indulgency pattern. binding their interests to the company. But this explanation does not work, because Equally, were Roy to have trained his human I too observed a similar oscillation between relations lens on Allied he would have per- intensified rules and their relaxation during ceived a more participatory management my year on the shop floor. So this rules out culture. Whereas at Geer, wo rkers were the possibility that Roy and I were simply at treated as “yardbirds,” Allied’s management different points in the cycle. Besides, the expanded worker rights and extended more shift over 30 years cannot be reduced to the human respect, and in exchange obtained application or nonapplication of rules but more worker cooperation. Differences re- also involved the introduction of completely mained, therefore, even as we each take our new sets of rules regarding the bidding on own theory to the workplace of the other. jobs, grievance machinery, collec tive bar- I am not saying that theories can never ex- gaining, and so on. Annual cyclical change plain discrepancies in observations made by could not explain the overall shift in the 30 two researchers, but in this case, work was years. We must turn, therefore, to external so tightly structured and collectively orga- factors to explain the secular shift to a hege- nized that our lived experiences were largely monic regime. impervious to the influence of consciousness brought to the shop floor from without, in- ExternalForces cluding our own sociological theories! The shift from despotism at Geer Company to hegemony at Allied Corporation is com- InternalProcesses patible with a shift reported in the industrial So far I have considered only constructivist relations literature. The system of internal explanations for the difference in our expe- labor markets (both in terms of bidding on riences—that is, explanations that focus on jobs and the system of layoffs through bump- the relations that Roy and I had to our fel- ing) as well as the elaboration of grievance low workers (whether due to habitus, loca- machinery and collective bargaining became tion, or embodime nt), or explanations that common features in the organized sectors of focus on the theories we used to make sense American industry after World War II. These of what we saw. I now turn to the realist ex- changes were consolidated by the pattern planations for the differences we ob- bargaining between trade unions and leading served—that is, explanations that consider corporations within the major industrial sec- REVISITS 653

Table 1. Possible Explanations for the Divergence between Roy’s Original Ethnography and Burawoy’s Revisit

Explanations Internal External

Observer as Participant Reconstructing Theory

Constructivist (a) Habitus (work experience) Human relations (b) Location (in production) vs. Marxism (c) Embodiment (language, race, age)

Internal Processes External Forces

Cyclical imposition (a) Absorption of factory Realist and relaxation into monopoly sector of rules (b) Secular national shift in industrial relations Sources: Burawoy (1979); Roy (1952b). tors. I drew on the literature that documented mined from the perspect ive of participant the more corporat ist industrial relations to observation alone but, in addition, require explain what had happened on the shop floor the adoption of a theoretical framework for since Roy’s field work. While the overall their delimitation and conceptualization. transformation of the system of state-regu - But theory is necessary not just to grasp the lated industrial relations was one factor gov- forces operativ e beyond the site; it is also erning the move from despotism to hege- necessary to conceptualize the very distinc- mony, the absorption of the independent Geer tion between internal and external, lo cal Company into the multinational Allied Cor- and extra-local. F or example, Marxist poration was the second factor. Allied’s en- theory directs one first to the firm and its gine division had a guaranteed market and labor process (the lo cal or internal), and was thereby protecte d from competition— then to an environment (the extra-loc al or the very pressure that stimulated despotism. external) composed of markets and states. Here then were my twin explanations for the The “internal” and the “external” are com- shift from despotism to hegemony: (1) Geer bined within a more general theory of the Company’s move from the competitive sec- development of capitalism. In sum, theory tor to the monopoly sector, and (2) the trans- is a sine qua non of both types of realist ex- formation of industrial relations at the na- planation for change between successive tional level. Both of these forces originated ethnographies of the same site. from beyond the plant itself. Table 1 assembles the four hypothe tical What do I mean by “external forces”? I explanations for the discrep ancy between use the term “external forces,” rather than, Roy’s (1952b) and my own account of the say, “external context,” to underline the way Geer/Allied shop floor. Along one dimen- the environment is experienced as powers sion I distinguish between constructivist emanating from beyond the field site, shap- and realist explanations—the former focus- ing the site yet existing largely outside the ing on changes in knowledge of the object control of the site. These forces are not fixed (whether due to different relations to the but are in flux. They appear and disappear field or alternative theory), and the latter in ways that are often incomprehensible and focusing on changes in the object of knowl- unpredictable to the participants. External edge (whether these changes are due to in- context, by contrast, is a more passive, ternal processes or external forces). The static, and inertial concept that misses the second dimensio n refers to the distinction dynamism of the social order. between “internal” and “external” explana- This bring s up another qu estion: From tions of change—between relations consti- among the myriad potentia l external forces tuted in the field and theories imported at work, how does one identify those that from outside, or between internal processes are most important? They cannot be deter- and external forces. 654 AMERICANSOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

CritiqueandAuto-Critique If there are limitations to Roy’s Chicago method, there are also limitations to my use In claiming “external forces” as the expla- of the Manchester method. 10 Even though I nation for the discrepancy between my own still believe that “external forces” offer the account and Roy’s (1952b), I am not saying most accurate explanation for the discrepan- that the other three dimensions are unimpor- cies between our accounts, in hindsight the tant. Far from it. The impact of those exter- way I conceptualized markets and states was nal forces—changing state and market con- deeply problematic. 11 I was guilty of text of the company—could only have been reifying “external forces” as natural and observed through participant observation, eternal, overlooking that they are themselves could only have been detected with the aid the product of unfolding social processes. of some theoretical framework, and could Here I was indeed shortsighted. Markets and only have had their actual effects via the states do change. Indeed, soon after I left mediation of social processes with in the Allied in 1974 the hegemonic regime came workplace. My approach here, however, is under assault from (1) the globalization of very different from the Chicago School’s, markets (which in fact led to the disintegra- exemplified by Roy’s (1980) review of tion of Allied) and (2) the Reagan state’s of- Manufacturing Consent (Burawoy 1979). fensive against trade unions. In forging class Roy was curiously uninterested in explain- compromise and individualizing workers, ing changes and continuities in the organi- the hegemonic regime made those very same zation of work, or in placing our labor pro- workers vulnerable to such offensives from cesses in their respective economic and po- without. If I had been more attentive to litical contexts, or in evaluating how our re- Marxist theory I would have recognized that spective theoretical frameworks shed differ- states and markets change. More than that, I ent light on what had happened over those would have noticed that the hegemonic re- 30 years. For Roy, our two studies merely gime sowed the seeds of its own destruction showed that there are different ways to “skin by disempowering the workers whose con- a worker.” He evinced no interest in the fac- sent it organized. The hegemonic regime that tors that might explain why “skinning” took I saw as the culmination of industrial rela- one form earlier and another form later. 9 tions in advanced capitalism was actually on the verge of disappearing! 9 Similarly, Becker (1998:89 ) reduces my re- The problem was not with the choice of visit to studying the “same problem” under “new “external forces” as the explanation of conditions.” In so doing he misses the distinc- change from Geer to Allied but my failure to tiveness of my extended case method. First, I take sufficiently seriously the other three el- didn’t study the same problem but the opposite problem. That is, he ignores my inversion of ements in Table 1. I should have deployed Roy’s theoretical framework (from the human re- “theoretical reconstruction” to recognize lations question—why people d on’t wo rk possible “internal processes” (e lsewhere harder—to the Marxist question—wh y people within the economy or state) that might have work so hard). Second, he misses the historical produced those “external forces.” Further- focus of the study, namely my attempt to explain more, had I problematized my own embod- changes on the shop floor between 1944 and ied participation at Allied I might have ap- 1974. Therefore, third, he overlooks my exami- preciated the peculiarities of manufacturing nation of external forces as the source of such change. The problem with both Roy and Becker that were being replaced by ascendant vari- is not their critique of Manufacturing Consent eties of newly gendered and racialized labor but their anodyne assimilation of the study to a methodology it opposes: the methodology of each varies from place to place. Hughes (1971), thematized by Becker (1998), 10 I am here referring to the Manchester School that searches inductively for what is common to of Social Anthropology and its extended case the most disparate of cases rather than explain- method (Van Velsen 1967). ing divergences. To be sure there are insights to 11 There have been numerous criticisms of be gleaned from showing the similarity between Manufacturing Consent , most recently in a sym- janitors and physicians, but there is also much to posium edited by Gottfried (2001). These and be gained by examining why medical and janito- other criticisms include excellent reanalyses, but rial services have each changed over time or why few bear directly on my revisit to Geer. REVISITS 655

Table 2. Typology, and Examples, of Classic (Focused) Revisits

Explanations Internal External

Type I: Refutation Type II: Reconstruction Constructivist (a) Freeman (1983) ® (a) Weiner (1976) ® Mead (1928) Malinowski (1922) (b) Boelen (1992) ® (b) Lewis (1951) ® Whyte (1943) Redfield (1930)

Type III: Empiricism Type IV: Structuralism (a)Lynd and Lynd (1937) ® (a) Hutchinson (1996) ® Realist Lynd and Lynd (1929) Evans-Pritchard (1940) (b)Caplow (1984) ® (b) Moore and Vaughan (1994) ® Lynd and Lynd (1929) Richards (1939) processes. The lesson here is that revisits de- ethnographers we are only part of the world mand that ethnographers conside r all four we study. That is, we face human limitations elements of Table 1. on what we can study through participant observation, which makes the distinction be- internal external FromElementstoTypesof tween and inescapable. Once again, cross-classifying these two di- FocusedRevisits mensions, we get four possible ways of ex- The four elements in Table 1 define reflex- plaining the discrepancy between an origi- ive ethnography, that is, an approach to par- nal study and its revisit. It so happens that ticipant observation that recognizes that we actual focused revisits tend to emphasize one are part of the world we study. Reflexi ve or another of these four explanations, giving ethnography presumes an “external” real rise to four types as shown in Table 2. world, but it is one that we can only know Not only do focused revisits tend to fall through our constructed relation to it. There into one of four types but each type assumes is no transcendence of this dilemma—realist a quite distinctive modal character. and constructivist approaches provide each Type I revisits focus on the relations be- other’s corrective. 12 Following Bourdieu tween observer and participant and they tend (1990), I believe that interrogating one’s re- to be “refutational.” That is to say the suc- lation to the world one studies is not an ob- cessor tends to use the revisit to refute the stacle but a necessary condition for under- claims of the predecessor. Such is Freeman’s standing and explanation. 13 In particular, as (1983) denunciation of Mead’s (1928) Com- ing of Age in Samoa , and Boelen’s (1992) 12 Abbott (2001, chap. 3) has written a delight- vilification of Whyte’s (1943) Street Corner ful account of how construc tionism and realism Society. reproduce each other. Each is incomplete with- Type II revisits focus on theoretical differ- out the other; each corrects the other. ences, and they tend to be “reconstructive.” 13 It should be clear that, like Bourdieu and That is to say the successor uses the revisit Wacquant (1992) or Morawska (1997), I do not reduce reflexive ethnography to the relationship to reconstruct the theory of the predecessor. between observer and informant (as Rabinow Such is Weiner’s (1976) feminist reconstruc- [1977] and Behar [1993] do in their accounts). tion of Malinowski’s (1922) Argonauts of First, a reflexive ethnography is reflexive not the Western Pacific and Lewis’s (1951) his- only in the sense of recognizing the relation we toricist reconstruction of the Redfield’s have to those we study but also the relation we (1930) Tepoztlán: A Mexican Village . have to a body of theory we share with other Type III revisits focus on internal pro- scholars. Second, a reflexive ethnography is eth- nographic in the sense that it seeks to compre- cesses, and they tend to be “empiricist.” That hend an external world both in terms of the so- is, the successor tends to describe rather than cial processes we observe and the external forces explain changes over time. Such is Lynd and we discern. Lynd’s (1937) revisit to their own first study 656 AMERICANSOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

Middletown: A Study in Modern American often more bellicose; far from their cel- Culture (Lynd and Lynd 1929), and the sub- ebrated sexual liberation, Samoans prized sequent revisit to Middletown by Caplow and virginity, among them adultery excited rage, his colleagues (Bahr, Caplow, and Chadwick and rape was common. Samoan adolescents, 1983; Caplow and Bahr 1979; Caplow and Freeman claimed, were as delinquent as Chadwick 1979; Caplow et al. 1982). those in the West. Type IV revisits focus on external forces, How could Mead (1928) have been so and they tend to be “structuralist.” That is, wrong? Freeman (1983) had a long list of they rely on a configuration of external indictments. Mead knew little about Samoa forces to explain the discrepancy between before she arrived; she never mastered the the two studies. Here my two main examples language; she focused narrowly on adoles- are Hutchinson’s (1996) revisit to Evans- cents without studying the wider society; her Pritchard’s’ (1940) The Nuer and Moore and field work was short, lasting only three Vaughan’s (1994) revisit to Richards’s months out of the nine months she spent on (1939) Land, Labour and Diet in Northern Samoa; she lived with expatriates rather than Rhodesia. with her informants; she relied on self-re- porting of the teenage girls, who later de- FOCUSEDREVISITSOFA clared that they were just teasing her. Mead was naive, inexperi enced, unprepared, and CONSTRUCTIVIST KIND finally hoaxed. 14 Worse still, and here we see The distinguishing assumpti on of the con- how theory enters the picture, Freeman ac- structivist revisit is that the site being stud- cused Mead of dogmatic defense of the cul- ied at two points in time does not itself tural researc h program of her supervisor, change, but rather it is the different relation Franz Boas. Showing that the trauma of ado- of the ethnographer to the site (Type I) or lescence was not universal, Mead was lend- the different theory that the ethnographer ing support to the importance of culture as brings to the site (Type II) that accounts for opposed to biology. But the evidence, said the discrepancy in observations. It is our Freeman, did not sustain her claims. knowledge of the site but not the site itself This attack on a foundational classic of that changes, in the first instanc e through cultural anthropo logy reverberated through refutation and in the second instance through reconstruction. We call these revisits con- 14 This strategy of indicting one’s adversaries structivist because they depend upon the in- by stressing their extra-scientific motivation or volvement or perspective of the ethnogra- their nonscientific practices is not confined to the pher, that is upon his or her agency. social sciences. In Opening Pandora’s Box , Gil- bert and Mulkay (1984) show how biochemis ts, entangled in disputes about “the truth,” deploy TypeI:Refutation two types of discourse: an “empiricist” discours e Perhaps the most famous case of “refuta- that deals in “the facts,” and a “contingent” dis- tion” is Freeman’s (1983) revisit to Mead’s course that attributes “errors” to noncognitive (social, political, and personal) interests. Scien- (1928) study of Samoan female adolescents. tists apply the empiricist discourse to themselves In her iconic, Coming of Age in Samoa , and the contingent discourse to their opponents. Mead claimed that Samoans had an easeful, We find the same double standards in Type I re- placid transition to adulthood, marked by a visits. The revisitor’s research is beyond re- relaxed and free sexuality, so different from proach, while the predecessor’s research is the anxious, tension-filled, guilt-ridden, and marred by flawed field work, by biases due to rebellious adolescence found in the United habitus, location, or embodiment. In these cases States. Based on multiple sources—accounts of refutation, as for the scientists studied by Gil- of missionaries and explorers, archives and bert and Mulkay (1984), revisitors exempt them- selves from such biases or inadequacies in their his own field work in 1940, 1965, 1968, and own field work—but the grounds for such ex- 1981—Freema n claimed Samoans were a emption are more presumed than demonstrated. proud, vindictive, punitive, and competitive Critics easily turn the tables on the revisitor by people. Far from easygoing, they were defi- playing the same game and revealing his or her ant individuals; far from placid, they were biases. REVISITS 657 the discipline. 15 Social and cultural anthro- posed a richer theory of Samoan ethos than pologists regrouped largely in defense of did either Mead or Freeman. Mead. While recognizing possible flaws in Others have tried to resolve the contradic- her field work, and tendentious interpreta- tion in a realist manner, proposing that Mead tions of her own field notes, they turned the and Freeman were studying different “Samo- spotlight back on Freeman. Refutation in- ans.” In refuting Mead, Freeman was forced spired refutation. Critics found his citations to homogenize all Samoa. He did not distin- of sources opportunistic, they wondered how guish the Samoa colonized by the Dutch from he (a middle-aged white man) and his wife the Samoa colonized by the Americans. Data might have been more successful in discov- collected from anywhere in Samoa between ering the sex lives of female adolescents 1830 and 1987 were grist for his refutational than the 23-year-old Mead. They accused mill. Yet, even Mead herself recognized ma- him of relying on informants who had their jor changes that overtook Samoa during this own axe to grind, making him appear either period, and suggested that the period of her more gullible than Mead or simply cynical. field work was especially harmonious. They complained that he said little about his Weiner (1983) argued that Samoan character own relations to the people he studied, ex- varied with the influence of missions. In the cept that he knew the language better than area studied by Freeman, competition among Mead did. They were skeptical of his claim several denominations led Samoans to be that being made an honorary chief meant more defiant than in Mead’s Manu’a, where that Samoans trusted him more than they did there was only a single mission. Such real Mead. His critics considered him to have differences between the c ommunities, been gripped by a pathological refutational Weiner claimed, went a long way to recon- frenzy that lasted from first field work until ciling the divergent accounts. We are here he died in 2001. moving in the direction of realist revisits. Freeman brought further vituperation In short, Freeman’s obsessive focus on upon himself by refusing to offer an alterna- refutation, based on the distorting relations tive theory of adolescence, biological or of ethnogra pher to the field, occluded both other, that would explain the data that he had the reconstruction of theory and historical mobilized against Mead. He followed Pop- change as strategies to reconcile predeces- per, to whom he dedicated his 1983 book, sor and successor studies. The same narrow but only half way. Popper (1962) insisted “refutational” focus can be found in that refutations be accompanied by bold con- Boelen’s (1992) revisit to Whyte’s (1943) jectures. For Freeman to have done that Street Corner Society . Based on a series of would have entailed moving to a Type II re- short visits to Cornerville in the 1970s and visit—theory reconstruction. Other anthro- 1980s, Boelen accused Whyte of all manner pologists have come up with such recon- of sins—from not knowing Italian, ignoring structions, partial resolutions of the contro- family, not understanding Italian village life, versy. Thus Shore (1983) argued that Sa- and poor ethics, to defending flawed Chi- moan character was ambiguous, displaying cago School theories of gangs. Unlike Mead, Mead-type features in some situations and who died 5 years before Freeman’s book was Freeman-like features in others. He pro- published, Whyte was still alive to rebut Boelen’s accusations (Orlandella 1992; Whyte 1992). In Whyte’s account, he knew 15 Journals devoted special sections ( American Italian better than did the gang members, he Anthropologist , 1983, pp. 908–47; Current An- did not consider the family or the Italian vil- thropology, 2000, pp. 609–22), or even whole is- lage as immediately relevant to street corner sues (Canberra Anthropology , 1983, vol. 6, nos. society, his ethical stances were clear and 1, 2; Journal of Youth and Adolescence , 2000, beyond reproach, and, finally, his theory of vol. 29, no. 5) to the controversy. A number of the slum, far from embracing Chicago’s dis- books have appeared (Caton 1990; Freeman 1999; Holmes 1987; Orans 1996), a documentary organization theories, was its refutation! film was made (Heimans 1988), and a fictional- Like Freeman, Boelen was fixated on refu- ized play was produced of this high drama in the tation without proffering her own theory or academy (Williamson 1996). considering the possibility of historical 658 AMERICANSOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW change between the time of Whyte’ s study One cannot be surprised that feminist and her own observations. theory is at the forefront of theoretic al re- Boelen’s (1992) critique of sociology’s construction of the classic ethnographies. iconic ethnography barely rippled the disci- There have been feminist reanalyses of ca- plinary waters, in part because ethnography nonical works, such as Gough’s (1971) fa- is more marginal in sociology than in anthro- mous reconstruction of Evans-Pritchard’s pology and in part because the critique was work on the Nuer. The classic feminist re- poorly executed. Even if Boelen had ap- visit, however, is Weiner’s (1976) revisit to proached her revisit with Freeman’s serious- Malinowski’s (1922) study of the Trobriand ness, she would have had to confront a so- Islands. Malinows ki did his field work be- ciological establishment mobilized to defend tween 1915 and 1918, and Weiner did hers its archetypal ethnography. As a graduate in a neighboring village in 1971 and 1972. student, and female to boot, she would have Although by no means the first to revisit this been at a severe disadvan tage. As Freeman sacred site, Weiner’s is a dramatic recon- discovered, it is always an uphill task to re- struction from the perspective of Trobriand fute an entrenched study that has become a women. Where Malinowski focused on the pillar of the discipline, and in Mead’s case, rituals and ceremonies around the exchange a monument to America’s cultural self-un- of yams, Weiner dwelt on “mortuary cer- derstanding. One might say that Freeman emonies,” con ducted by women after the had to develop a pathological commitment death of a kinsman, at which bundles of spe- to refutation if he was to make any headway. cially prepared banana leaves and skirts In the business of refutation the balance of (also made out of banana leaves) are ex- power usually favors the predecessor, espe- changed among the female kin of the de- cially if he or she is alive to undermine or ceased. While men worked in the yam gar- discredit the refuting successo r. 16 The evi- dens, women labored over their bundles. dence brought to bare in the refutation must These two objects of exchange represented be either especially compelling or resonant different spheres of power: control of the with alternative or emergent disciplinary intergenerational transfer of property in the powers. Rather than cutting them down to case of men, and control over ancestral iden- size or trampling them into the ground, it is tity in the case of women. Thus, the rituals often easier to stand “on the shoulders of gi- of death similarly divided into two types: ants,” which is the strategy of the next set of those concerned with reestablishing inter- revisits—the reconstruction of theory. generational linkages through the distribu- tion of property, and those concerned with repairing one’s “dala” identity, or ancestry, TypeII:Reconstruction by distributing bundles of banana leaves. We h ave seen how some refutational re- Women monopolized a power domain of visitors, not content to highlight the distort- their own, immortality in cosmic time, while ing effects of poorly conducted field work, they shared control of the material world also claimed that their predecessors im- with men in historical time. ported arbitrary theory at the behest of an Weiner (1976) committed herself to repo- influential teacher or as a devotee of a fa- sitioning women in Trobriand society, and vored school of thought. In the examples by extension to all societies. Hitherto anthro- above, the revisitors failed, however, to put pologists had reduced gender to kinship or up their own alternative theory. They pur- seen women as powerless objects, ex- sued the destruction of theory but not its re- changed by men (Lévi-Strauss 1969). In tak- construction. It is reconstruction that distin- ing the perspective of these supposed objects guishes Type II revisits. (i.e., in subjectifying their experiences), Weiner sh owed them to wield significant 16 In her comments as a reviewer, Diane Vaughan made this point. So too did Richard power, institutionalized in material practices Grinker in private remarks to the author. Grinker and elaborate rituals. Her revisit, therefore, (1994, 2000) revisited the Central African sites served to reconstruct a classic study by of- of the famous and controversial anthropologist, fering a more complete, deeper understand- Colin Turnbull. ing of the power relations between men and REVISITS 659 women. While Weiner may have been in- their discrepant portraits of Tepoztlán. spired to develop her reinterpretation by vir- Rather Lewis criticize d Redfield’s folk–ur- tue of being a woman and living with ban continuum—the theory that historical women, these were not sufficient conditions change can be measured as movement from for her gender analysis; we know this from folk to urban forms. While Lewis did grant the women anthropologists who preceded some validity to Redfield’s theory—commu- her. The turn to her particular understanding nities do become more secular and individu- of gender was shaped by feminism. Rather alized over time—he held the folk–urban than impugn Malinowski’s (1922) field work continuum responsible for Redfield’s senti- as limited by his focus on men and a myriad mental portrait of Tepoztlán. His criticisms of other foibles that could be gleaned from were multiple: The idea of a folk–urban con- his diaries, she attended to its theoretical tinuum creates a false separation of town and limitations. country and an illusory isolation of the vil- At the same time, Weiner’s (1976) study lage; it overlooks the internal dynamics and is curiously ahistorical in that she made no diversity of villages, and most important, ig- attempt to consider what changes might have nores the impact of broader historical taken place in the 55 years that had elapsed changes; and Redfield substitutes position between her own study and Malinowski’s. on a continuum from rural to urban for the Determining change might have been diffi- study of real historical change. Thus, in the cult for Weiner, as Malinowski had paid so final analysis, Lewis attributed Redfield’s little attention to mortuary rituals. It would romanticization of Tepoztlán to his myopic have required her, therefore, to first recon- theory of history. 17 struct Malinowski’s account of the Trobriand For Lewis (1951) to stop here would leave Islanders as they were in 1915—a daunting his revisit as Type I, but he advances to Type task, but one that, as we shall see, some Type II by providing his own broadly Marxist IV revisits have attempted. theory of social change. He situated Tepozt- Still there are Type II revisits in which the lán within an array of historically specific successor reconstructs the theory of history external influenc es, such as new roads and used by the predecessor, i n particular improved transportation, commerce, land re- Lewis’s (1951) classic revisit to Redfield’s form, new technology, and the expansion of Tepoztlán (Redfield 1930). Redfield studied schooling. Like Weiner (1976), Lewis did Tepoztlán in 1926, and Lewis studied the not use Redfield’s (1930) study as a base- village 17 years later, in 1943, ostensibly to line to assess so cial change. F or him discover what had changed. But he became Redfield’s ethnography was based on a mis- much less interested in studying the change guided theory of history, which he, Lewis, in Tepoztlán than in taking Redfield to task replaced with his own context-dependent un- for his portrait of an integrated, homoge- derstanding of history. neous, isolated, and smoothly-functioning The story does not end here. In The Little village, glossing over “violence, disruption, Community, Redfield (1960:132–48) subse- cruelty, disease, suffering and maladjust- quently offered a reanalysis of Lewis’s ment” (Lewis 1951:428–29). Lewis stressed (1951) focused revisit! He agreed with the individualism of the villagers, their po- litical schisms, their lack of cooperation, the 17 Vincent (1990, chap. 4) situates Lewis’s cri- struggles between the landed and landless, tique of Redfield in much broader moves toward and conflicts among villages in the area. In- historical analysis that preoccupied postwar an- stead of upholding Redfield’s isolation of thropology in both England and the United Tepoztlán, Lewis situated the village in a States. I also note, parenthetically, that Redfield web of wider political and economic forces was deeply influenced by the Chicago School of and traced features of Tepoztlán back to the urban ethnography, at that time dominated by Robert Pa rk and Ernest Bu rgess. Indeed, Mexican Revolution. Redfield married Park’s daughter and started out How did Lewis (1951) explain the differ- studying Mexicans in Chicago under the direc- ences between his account and Redfield’s tion of Burgess! So one cannot be surprised by (1930)? First, he ruled out historical change his ahistorical, acontextual approach to histori- over the 17 years as sufficient to explain cal change. 660 AMERICANSOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

Lewis: Historical change cannot explain the (Gluckman 1961) that would be adopted as discrepancy between their two portraits of a mythology of development. Rather than Tepoztlán. But he denied the relevance of subscribing to a theory of underdevelopment the folk–urban continuum because he hadn’t and decline, however, Ferguson refused any even developed the theory at the time he theory of history for fear of generating a new wrote Tepoztlán. Instead he attributed their mythology. Although there are realist mo- differences to the question each posed: “The ments to his ethnography, and the data he hidden question behind my book is, ‘What offers could be reinterpreted through a real- do these people enjoy?’ The hidden question ist lens, Ferguson replaced Manchester behind Dr. Lewis’ book is, ‘ What do these School teleology with an anti-theory that people suffer from?’” (Redfield 1960:136). disengaged from any causal account of so- And, Redfield continued, this is how it cial change. In other words, his revisit went should be—we need multiple and comple- beyond pure refutation (Type I) to theory re- mentary perspectives on the same site. Each construction (Type II), but the new theory is has its own truth. 18 We are back to a Type II the apotheosis of constructivism , explicitly reanalysis. But this misses Lewis’s point— repudiating the realist endeavor. Construc - that questions derive from theories, and tivism, brought to a head, now topples over. some theories are superior to others. Even if the folk–urban continuum did not spring FOCUSEDREVISITSOF fully formed from Tepoztlán, its embryo was AREALISTKIND already there in the early study, casting its spell as an inadequate synchronic theory of To the simpleminded realist, focused revis- social change. 19 its are designed specifically to study histori- When Lewis (1951) claimed some theories cal change. We have seen, however, that re- have a better grasp on social change than visits may never mention history, or mention others, he was undoubtedly heading in a re- it only too discount it. Constructivist revis- alist direction. Today we find anthropolo- its pretend there is no change, and the dif- gists tak ing a constructivist turn, locking ferences between predecessor and successor themselves into Type II revisits that rule out accounts are due to the ethnographers’ par- explanatory history altogether as either im- ticipation in the field site or to the theory possible or dangerous. In the late 1980s, they bring to the site. The revisits I now con- Ferguson (1999) revisited the Zambian sider start out from the opposite presump- Copperbelt, some 30 years after the famous tion—that discrepant accounts are due to studies of the Manchester School. In his ac- changes in the world, but as we shall see, count of deindustrialization, retrenchment, they are often modified by considering the and return migration to the rural areas—the effects of the ethnographer’s participation result of plummeting copper prices, Interna- and theory. The constructivist perspective tional Monetary Fund– sponsored structural brings a needed note of realism to the realist adjustment, and a raging AIDS epidemic— revisit by insisting that we cannot know the Ferguson discredit ed the Mancunians’ tele- external world without having a relationship ology of urbanization and industrialization with it. In what follows, constructivism dis- turbs rather than dismisses, corrects rather 18 In a further revisit to Tepoztlán in 1970, than discounts, deepens rather than dis- Bock (1980), focuses on the continuing potency lodges the realist revisit. of the symbolic life, generating yet another Type I divide realist revisits into two types: II revisit, reconstructing the interpretations of Type III revisits, which give primary atten- both Redfield and Lewis. tion to internal processes, and Type IV re- 19 In 1948, Redfield (1950) actually conducted visits, which give more weight to external his own revisit to a village he studied 17 years forces. This is a hard distinction to sustain, earlier. A Village That Chose Progress reads like a Durkheimian fairy story of a community mov- especially when the time span between stud- ing along the folk-urban continuum or, as ies is long. Only if the revisit is an empirical Redfield puts it, taking “the road to the light” description , cataloging changes in a com- chap. 7, p. 153), the light being Chicago! This is munity’s economy, social structure, culture, an unreal realist revisit of Type III. and so on, can a purely internal focus be sus- REVISITS 661 tained. I, therefore, call these revisits “em- unsatisfactory and require incorporation into piricist.” As soon as the focus shifts to ex- Type II revisits of reconstruction, so Type III plaining social change, the ethnographer is revisits that dwell on internal processes are almost inevitably driven to consider forces equally unsatisfactory by themselves, requir- beyond the field site. 20 Even the most bril- ing incorporation within Type IV revisits liant ethnographers have failed in their en- that thematize “external forces.” deavors to reduce historical change to an in- ternal dynamics. Thus, Leach’s (1954) ac- TypeIII:Empiricism count of the oscillation between egalitarian gumlao and hierarchical gumsa organization A compelling empiricist revisit is hard to in Highland Burma and Barth’s (1959) ac- find, but Lynd and Lynd’s (1937) revisit to count of the cyclical movement of concen- their own study of Middletown is at least a tration and dispersal of land ownership partial case. Insofar as they described among the Swat Pathans have both come un- Middletown’s change between 1925 and der trenchant criticism for ignoring wider 1935, they confined their attention to the forces.21 Revisits that thematize the configu- community, but as soon as they ventured ration of “external forces,” whether eco- into explanation they were driven to explore nomic, political, or cultural, I call structur- forces beyond the community. Without so alist revisits. But the emphasis on “external much as recognizing it, they reconstructed forces” should not come at the expense of the theory they had used in the first study— the examination of internal processes. The a reconstruction that can be traced to their mark of the best structuralist revisits is their own biographies and their changed relation attention to the way internal processes me- to Middletown. In other words, their revisit, diate the effect of external forces. ostensibly an investigation of internal pro- Sustaining the distinction between “inter- cesses, bleeds in all directions into Type I nal” and “external” compels us to problem- and II constructivist explanations as well as atize it but without relinquishing it. Just as Type IV structuralist explanations. Type I refutational revisits by themselves are The first M iddletown study (Lynd and Lynd 1929), which I call Middletown I, was

20 most unusual for its time in focusing on so- Even apparently robust internal explanations cial change. Taking their base-line year as of social change, such as Michels’s ([1910] 1962) “iron law of oligarchy,” have been subject 1890, the Lynds reconstructed the interven- to punishing criticism for bracketing historical ing 35 years from diaries, newspapers, and 22 context. Schorske (1955), for example, showed oral histories. To capture a total picture of how the bureaucratic tendencies of the German Middletown, they adopted a scheme used by Social Democratic Party, the empirical basis of anthropologist W. H.R. Rivers that divided the iron law of oligarchy, were a function of a community life into six domains: getting a range of forces emanating from the wider politi- living, making a home, training the young, cal field. Coming closer to ethnography, I organizing leisure, religious practices, and (Burawoy 1982) inveighed against Gouldner’s community activities. They argued that the (1954) classic case study of the dynamics indus- long arm of the job increasingly shaped all trial bureaucracy for bracketing the external eco- nomic context of his gypsum plant. other domains. The expansion of industry 21 Nugent’s (1982) reanalysis of The Political entailed deskilling, monotonous work, un- Systems of Highland Burma showed that changes employment, and declining chances of up- in the region were a product of political instabil- ward mobility. Employment lost its intrinsic ity in neighboring China, changing patterns of rewards, and money became the arbiter of long distance opium trade, and contestation be- consumption. The exigencies of industrial tween British and Burmese armies as much as production led to new patterns of leisure (or- they were a product of internal processes. Before ganized around the automobile, in particu- Nugent, Asad (1972) had shown the limitations lar), of homemaking (with new gadgets and of Barth’s Hobbesian model of equilibrium poli- tics by refocusing on class dynamics, in particu- fewer servants), the rise of advertising (in lar the secular concentration of landownership and how this was shaped by colonial forces be- 22 Below I call this type of historical digging yond the immediate region. an “archeological revisit.” 662 AMERICANSOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW newspapers that had expanded their circula- women gained employment and men lost tion). The pace of change was greatest in the prestige; the expansion of education; the economy, which set the rhythm for the other stratification of leisure patterns; the continu- domains—leisure, education, and home un- ity of religious practices that provided con- derwent major changes, while religion and solation and security. government changed more slowly. So much for the Lynds’ empiricist ac- In all realms, Lynd and Lynd (1929) dis- count. But there is a second register, an ex- cerned the profound effects of class. The planation of the changes, interwoven with previous 35 years had witnessed, so they the description. Capitalist competition and claimed, a growing division between a work- crises of overproduction produced (1) the ing class that manipulated physical objects disappearance of small businesse s, making and a business class that manipulated human the power of big business all the more vis- beings (stretching all the way from the low- ible; (2) uncertain employment for the work- est clerical workers to the highest corporate ing class, which was living from hand to executive). They discovered a growing class mouth; (3) diminished opportunities for up- divide in access to housing, schooling, wel- ward mobility as rungs on the economic lad- fare, medical services, in patterns of the do- der disappeared; resulting in (4) a more mestic division of labor, leisure, reading, re- transparent class system. The two-class ligious practices, and in influence over gov- model had to be replaced by six classes. Al- ernment, media, and public opinion. The ready one can discern a change in the Lynds’ business class controlled ideology, promot- theoretical system: In Middletown I, change ing progress, laissez faire, civic loyalty, and came about “internally” through increases in patriotism, while the working class became the division of labor; in Middletown II, ever more atomized, bereft of an alternative change was produced by the dynamics of symbolic universe. capitalism bound by an ineluctable logic of If we should congratu late the Lynds on competition, overproduction, and polariza- adopting a historical perspective, we should tion. The influence of Marxism is clear, but also be cautious in endorsing their study’s unremarked. Market forces were absorbing content, especi ally after histor ian Thern- Middletown into greater America, the fed- strom (1 964) demoli shed a similar retro- eral government was delivering relief, sup- spective history found in Warner and Low’s porting trade unions, and funding public (1947) study of Yankee City. This is all the works, while from distant places came radio more reason to focus on the Lynds’ revisit transmissions, syndicated newspaper col- to Middletown in 1935, Middletown in umns, and standardized education. Middle- Transition, which I call Middletown II. town was being swept up in a maelstrom be- Robert Lynd returned to Middletown with yond its control and comprehension. a team of five graduate students but without The Lynds (1937) could not confine them- Helen Lynd. The team set about examining selves to internal processes, but how self- the same six arenas of life that structured the conscious were they of the shift in their first book. With the depression, the domi- theoretical perspective? Two long and strik- nance of the economy had become even ingly anomalous chapters in Middletown II stronger, but Lynd was struck by continuity have no parallels in Middletown I. The first rather than discontinuity, in particular by anomalous chapter is devoted to Family X, Middletowners’ reassertion of old values, which dominated the local economy, govern- customs, and practices in opposition to ment, the press, charity, trade unions, and change emanating from outside. Lynd docu- education. Yet Family X was barely men- mented the emergence and consolidation of tioned in Middletown I, although its power, big business as a controlling force in the even then, must have been transparent to all. city; the expansion and then contraction of The second anomalous chapter deals with unions as big business fought to maintain the the “Middletown Spirit,” examining the rul- open shop in Middletown; the stranglehold ing-class ideology and the possibilities of a of big business on government and the press; counter-ideology based on working-class the growth and centralization of relief for the consciousness. If Middletown I was a study unemployed; adaptation of the family as of culture as social relations, Middletown II REVISITS 663 became a study of culture as masking and than a whiff of Type I, II, and IV revisits in reproducing relations of power. Different this ostensibly Type III revisit to Middletown. theoretical perspectives select different em- If the Lynds were never the empiricists pirical foci: Instead of the inordinately long they originally claimed to be, the second re- chapter on religion we find one on the hege- visit (Middletown III), conducted between mony of Family X! 23 It’s not just that 1976 and 1978 by Caplow and his collabo- Middletown had changed—the Lynds, or at rators, did attempt a purely empirical de- least Robert Lynd, had modified their theo- scription of changes within Middletown. retical framework. While the researchers did spend time—seri- But why? Did the refocused theory simply ally—in Middletown, their results were mirror changes in the world? In other words, largely based on the “replication” of two sur- does the world simply stamp itself onto the veys the Lynds administered in 1924—one sociologist who faithfully reports change? of housewives and the other of adolescents. That was the Lynds’ position in 1925 when Leaving aside possible changes in the mean- they described themselves as simply record- ing of questions or the differential bias in the ing “observed phenomena” with no attempt samples themselves, Caplow and his col- to “prove any thesis” (Lynd and Lynd 1929: laborators concluded that values had not 4, 6). The intellectual ambience of Middle- changed much over 50 years and that the life town II was entirely different. Robert Lynd styles of the working class and the business started out by declaring research without a class had converged (Bahr, C aplow, and viewpoint as impossible, and that his view- Chadwick 1983; Caplow and Bahr 1979; point was at odds with the people he studied. Caplow and Chadwick 1979). In their best In those 10 intervening years Lynd had be- known volume, Middletown Families , come persuaded that laissez faire capitalism Caplow et al. (1982) noted that despite was unworkable, that planning was neces- changes in the economy, state, and mass me- sary, and that trade unions should be sup- dia, the family maintained its integrity. ported. He had begun to participate in the Caplow et al. (1982) debunke d the idea New Deal as a member of the National Re- that the American family was in decline, covery Administration’s Consumers Advi- but they were not interested in explaining sory Board, and he had been influenced by its persisten ce—how and why it persisted what he regarded as the successes of Soviet alongside changes in other domains. Nor planning (Smith 1994). As we know from his were they interested in explaining the sig- Knowledge for What (1939), Robert Lynd nificant changes in the family that they did took up an ever more hostile posture toward observe, namely increased solidarity, capitalism. In 10 years, he had come a long smaller generation gaps, and closer marital way from the declared empiricism in Middle- communication. Such a task might have led town I, and his revisit was shaped by his own them to examine the relations between fam- transformation as much as by Middletown’s, ily and other spheres, or to investigate the by his adoption of a theory of capitalism that impact of forces beyond the community. In thematized the power of forces beyond choosing to focus on replicating the Lynds’ Middletown and patterns of domination (1929) Middletown I surveys, Caplow et al. within Middletown. In short there’s more necessarily overlo oked questions of class domination at the center of Middletown II, 23 Another explanation for Lynd and Lynd’s and in particular the power of Family X. 24 (1937) focus on Family X is that Robert Lynd was Indeed, lurking behind their empiricism criticized by residents for omitting it from was a set of choices—choices made by de- Middletown I. Bahr (1982) goes so far as to im- fault, but choices nonetheless: techniques of ply that Lynd drew his ideas about the importance investigation that define the researcher’s re- of Family X from a term paper written by a resi- lation to the community, values that deter- dent of Middletown, Lynn Perrigo, that was criti- cal of the first Middletown study. Merton (1980) wrote a letter to Bahr, questioning his insinua- 24 The original surveys in Middletown I were tions of plagiarism and suggesting alternative rea- not replicated by Robert Lynd in Middletown II, sons for Lynd’s change of focus in Middletown II in part, I suspect, because of the absence of (also see, Caccamo 2000, chap. 4). Helen Lynd. 664 AMERICANSOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW mine what not to study, theories to be re- isolated and small Polynesian island that he futed and reconstructed. 25 first studied in 1928–1929 (Firth 1936) and Caplow and his collaborators shed further to which he returned in 1952. Like the light on the distinction between replication Lynds’ in their revisit to Middletown, Firth and revisit, for their return to Middletown was not about to deconstruct or reconstruct was indeed a replication that attempted to his own original study. Rather he took it as a control the relation of observer to partici- baseline from which to assess social change pant. That is, they asked the “same” ques- over the 24 years that had elapsed between tions under the “simulated” conditio ns of a the two studies. Having constructed Tikopia “parallel” sample of the population—all for as an isolated and self-sustaining entity, the the purpose of isolating and measuring impulse to social change came primarily changes in beliefs, life style, and so on. 26 from without. Indeed, Firth arrived just after The trouble is, of course, as in the natural a rare hurricane—an external force if ever sciences (Collins 1985; Collins and Pinch there was one—had devastated the island, 1993) one never knows to what extent re- causing widespread famine. As a counterpart sponses to a survey reflect something “real” to the depressions that hit Middletown, the that can be used to test a hypothesis or to hurricane became Firth’s test of the resil- what extent they are a “construction” of the ience of the social order, a test which for the survey instrument. Making no pretense to most part was met. But Firth was more con- control all conditions, the focused revisit cerned to discern long-term tendencies, in- confronts these questions of realism and dependent of the hurricane and the famine it constructivism head-on . There is a second provoked. He emphasized Tikopian society’s sense, however, in which the replication selective incorporation of changes emanat- studies of Middleto wn III are limited, and ing from without—labor migration to other that is in their failure to explain what has or islands, the expansion of commerce and a has not changed. That would mean recon- money economy, the influx of Western com- structing rather than refuting theories, and of modities, the expansion of Christian mis- course, it would entail going beyond sions, the intrusion of colonial rule. In the Middletown itself. This brings us conve- face of these irreversible forces of “modern- niently, and finally, to Type IV revisits. ization,” the Tikopian social order still re- tained its integrity. Its lineage system attenu- TypeIV:Structuralism ated but didn’t disappear, gift exchange and barter held money at bay, residence and kin- Parallel to the Lynds’ return to Middletown, ship patterns were less ritualized, but the is Firth’s (1959) classic revisit to Tikopia, an principles remained in spite of pressure on land, chiefly power was less ceremonial but 25 As Robert Lynd (1939) himself wrote: “The also strengthened as the basis of colonial current emphasis in social science upon tech- rule. In short, an array of unexplicated, un- niques and precise empirical data is a healthy explored external forces had their effects but one; but, as already noted, skilful collection, or- were mediated by the social processes of a ganization, and manipulation of data are worth no more than the problem to the solution of homogeneous Tikopian society. which they are addressed. If the problem is More recent structuralist revisits problem- wizened, the data are but footnotes to the insig- atize Firth’s assumptions. They examine the nificant” (p. 202). Smith (19 84) reviewed the contingency of external forces as well as the Middletown III studies as betraying Robert deep schisms these forces induce within so- Lynd’s project of critical sociology. Caplow cieties. They think more deeply about the (1984) responded that he and his colleagues were implication of the original ethnographers liv- just good social scientists, examining hypotheses ing in the world they study, and even their put forward by the Lynds, and describing the impact on the world that is revisited. 27 complex social changes since 1924. 26 In the extensive literature on “replication,” of particular interest is Bahr, Caplow, and 27 Macdonald (2000) writes about the effects Chadwick’s (1983) discussion of the problems of of Firth himself on her own revisit to Tikopia. replication with respect to their own Middletown The Tikopians would cite Firth back to her as the III studies. authentic interpretation of their society, and they REVISITS 665

Hutchinson (1996) and Moore and Vaughan the West became a bastion of resistance to (1994) replace Firth’s homogeneous society Islamicization from the North. Still, even undergoing modernization with societies be- there, despite being swept into war, markets, set by domination, contestation, and indeter- and states, the Nuer managed to maintain minacy. These revisits reflect the profoundly their cattle-based society. Exchanging cattle, different theoretical lenses that the ethnogra- especially as bridewealt h, continued to ce- phers bring to their field work. ment the Nuer, but this was only possible by Hutchinson’s (1996) revisit is the most regulating and marginalizing the role of comprehensive attempt to study what has money. As the Nuer say, “Money does not happened to the Nuer of South Sudan—those have blood.” It cannot recreate complex kin isolated, independent, cattle-minded warriors relations, precisely because it is a universal immortalized by Evans-Pritchard in his clas- medium of exchange. Rather than cattle be- sic studies of the 1930s (Evans-Pritchard ing commodified, money was “cattle-ified.” 1940, 1951, 1956). Hutchinson did her first As in the case of bridewealth, so in the case field work in 1980–1983, just before the out- of bloodwealth, cattle continued to be means break of the second civil war between the of payment. In Nuer feuds, cattle were for- “African” South and the “Arab” North. She feited as compensation for slaying one’s en- returned to Nuerland in 1990, while it was emy. When guns replaced spears or when the still in the midst of the devastating war. Nuer began killing those they did not know, Hutchinson took Evans-Pritchard’s accounts bloodwealth was still retained but only of the Nuer as her base-line point of refer- where it concerned the integrity of the local ence and asked what had changed over 60 community. years of colonialism, with the succession of Change may have taken place within the a national government in Khartoum (North- terms of the old order, but nonetheless it was ern Sudan), and then two civil wars. Her intensely contested. As war accelerated Nuer questions were entirely different from those integration into wider economic, political, of Evans-Pritchard. Where he was interested and social structures, Nuer youth exploited in the functional unity of the Nuer commu- new opportunities for mobility through edu- nity, viewing it as an isolated order, insulated cation. An emergent class of educated Nuer from colonialism, wars, droughts, and dis- men, bull-boys as they were called, threat- eases, Hutchinson focused on the latter. ened the existing order by refusing scarring Where he looked for the peace in the feud, marks of initiation (scarification). Initiation the integrative effects of human animosities lies at the heart of Nuer society, tying men to and ritual slayings, she focused on discord cattle wealth and women to human procre- and antagonism in order to understand the ation. Thus the newly educated classes were transformation of the Nuer community. at the center of controversy. Equally, cattle Instead of reconstructing Evans- sacrifice was contested as communities be- Pritchard’s original studies, relocating them came poorer, as Western medicines became in their world-historical context, Hutchinson more effective in the face of illness and dis- deployed the clever methodological device ease, and as the spreading Christianity sought of comparing two Nuer communities—one to desacrilize cattle. The SPLA promoted in the western Nuer territory that more Christianity both to unite the different South- closely approximated Evans-Pritchard’s en- ern factions in waging war against the North, closed world and another in the eastern Nuer and as a world religion to contest Islam in an territory that had been more firmly inte- international theatre. Finally, the discovery grated into wider economic, political, and of oil and the building of the Jonglei Canal cultural fields. Administered by the (that could environmentally ruin southern Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), Sudan) increased the stakes, and thus the in- tensity of war. Indeed, southern Sudan be- came a maelstrom of global and local forces. treated her as his daughter. The chiefs in particu- lar embraced the portrait Firth had painted of a Rather than reifying and freezing “ exter- proud and independent people, captured in the nal forces,” Hutchinso n endowed them with title to his first book, We , the Tikopia (Firth their own historicity, following their unex- 1936). pected twists and turns but also recognizing 666 AMERICANSOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW the appearance of new forces as old ones re- elude the control of their overlords, whether ceded. Uncertainty came not only from with- that control be to extract taxes or tribal obli- out but also from within Nuerland, where so- gations. So it was said by Bemba chiefs and cial processes had a profound openness—a colonial administrators alike—citimene was cacophony of disputi ng voices opened the responsible for the decay of society! future to multiple possibilities. Unstable Richards not only reproduced the reigning compromises were struck between money interpretation but gave ammunition to suc- and cattle, Nuer religion and Christianity, cessive administrations, which wished to prophets and evangelists, guns and spears, stamp out citimene. Land, Labour and Diet all with different and unstable outcomes in was forged in a particular configuration of different areas. The radical indeterminacy of social forces and extant knowledge, and then both external forces and internal processes contributed to their reproduction. As a par- had a realism of terrifying proportions. ticular account of Bemba history it also be- For all its indeterminacy, Hutchinson’s came part of that history. (1996) revisit is realist to the core. She does The conventional wisdom Richards (1939) not try to deconstruct or reconstruct Evans- propagated—that Bemba society was in a Pritchard’s account. Our next revisit, how- state of “breakdown”—was deployed by co- ever, does precisely that—it problema tizes lonial and postcolonial administrations to the original study much as Freeman did to justify their attempts to transform Bemba Mead and Weiner did to Malinowski. In agriculture. Even as late as the 1980s, the Land, Labour and Diet in Northern Rhode- Zambian government’s agrarian reforms as- sia, another of anthropology’s African clas- sumed that citimene was moribund. It re- sics, Richards (1939) postulated the “break- sponded to the Zambian copper industry’s down” of Bemba society as its men migrated steep decline by encouraging miners to re- to the mines of southern Africa in the 1930s. turn “home” (i.e., to rural areas), where they She attributed her postulated “breakdown” were offered incentives to begin farming hy- to the slash and burn agricultu re ( citimene brid maize. Moore and Vaughan (1994) system) that could not survive the absence show how it was this return of men (not their of able-bod ied men to cut down the trees. absence) that led to impoverishment as the Moore and Vaughan (1994) returned to the farmers now demanded enormous inputs of Northern Province of Zambia (Northern female labor, delive red at the expense of Rhodesia) in the 1980s only to discover that subsistence agriculture and domestic tasks. the citimene system was still alive, if not In particul ar, this compulso ry labor caused well! Why was Richards so wrong and yet women to wean their children prematurely, so widely believed? leading to higher infant mortality. It was not Moore and Vaughan’s (1994) first task was the cash economy, citimene, or male absen- to reexamine Land, Labour and Diet in the teeism that threatened Bemba livelihood, as light of the data Richards (1939) herself Richards and conventional wisdom had it, compiled and then in the light of data gath- but the regulation of female labor by male ered by subsequent anthropologists, includ- workers returning from the Copperbelt. ing themselves. Moore and Vaughan discov- This is a most complex revisit. On one ered that Bemba women were more re- hand, Moore and Vaughan (1994) did to sourceful than Richards had given them Richards (1939) precisely what the Lynds credit for being—they cultivated relish on did not do to themselves and Hutchinson did their own land and found all sorts of ways to not do to Evans-Pritchard—namely, to locate cajole men-folk into cutting down trees. This the original study in the social context of its was Richards’ sin of omission—she over- production, recognizing its contribution to looked the significance of female labor and the history the successor study uncovers, its power of adaptation. Her second sin was drawing out the link between power and one of commission; namely, she endorsed knowledge. On the other hand, unlike Free- the obsession of both Bemba chiefs and co- man (1983), who also proposed ways in lonial administrators with the citimene sys- which Mead shaped the world she described, tem, an obsession that stemmed from the Moore and Vaughan did not sacrifice history. way the Bemba used shifting cultivation to They were still able to offer an account of REVISITS 667 the transformation of Bemba agriculture to reification without possibilities. In all from the 1930s, taking their reconstru ction cases, the problem was the undertheorization of Richards’s classic study as point of depar- of external forces. We need to deploy our ture. But here is the final paradox: Moore theories to grasp the limits of the possible and Vaughan did not consider the ways their and the possibilities within limits. own analysis might have been one-sided, governed by specific feminist and EXTENDINGTHEREVISITTO Foucauldian assumptions, and thereby con- ALLETHNOGRAPHY tributed to discourses that would shape the Bemba world of future revisits. While they We are now in a position to extend the analy- located Richards in the world she produced, sis of the focused revisit to other dimensions they did not locate themselves in their own of ethnogra phy. But first to recap: The fo- relation to the Bemba. Indeed, they write all cused revisit entails a focused dialogue be- too little about their own field work, their tween the studies of the successor and pre- own interaction with the Bemba. In restor- decessor. From this dialogue I have eluci- ing Richards to history, ironically Moore and dated four explanations for the divergence of Vaughan placed themselves outside history. accounts of the “same” site at two points in Moore and Vaughan (1994) did not take time. I distinguished revisits based on the final step toward grounding themselves whether they were constructivist (i.e., fo- because they did not engage in any self-con- cused on the advance—refutation or recon- scious theorizing. They had no theory to struction—of “knowledge of the object”) or help them step outside themselves. As in the whether they were realist (i.e., focused on indeterminacy of outcomes in Nuerland, the historical change in the “object of knowl- openness of the future stems from a refusal edge”). of theorization, beyond orienting proposi- In the constructivist class, I distinguished tions about gender, power, and knowledge. Type I from Type II revisits. Type I revisits Both these revisits contrast vividly with my focus on a claimed distortion in the original own structuralist study in which I viewed the study brought about by the relation of eth- hegemonic organization of work as the “end nographer to the people being studied. These of history” and had no conception of rever- revisits aim to show how misguided the first sal or alternative paths. Where I froze exter- study was, thereby discrediting it without nal forces to produce a structural over- substituting an alternative interpretation. determination , Hutchinson (1996) and The peculiarity here is refutation without re- Moore and Vaughan (1994) left external construction. The Type II revisit focuses on forces in the hands of the gods to produce a the theory brought to bear by the original structural underdetermination . My error was ethnographer and replaces it with an alterna- the opposite of theirs, but the source was the tive theory. In neither case is the revisit it- same—an ignorance of the processes behind self exploite d for its insight into historical the external forces. I did not examine the change, which is the focus of Types III and processes behind state transformation or IV. Type III revisits concentrate on internal market globalization; Hutchinson did not processes of change. Such a confinement study the strategies of war in the Sudan or proves possible only in so far as there is no the World Bank’s development schemes; attempt to explain change, that is only if we Moore and Vaughan did not attempt an limit ourselves to describing it. Finally, Type analysis of the declining copper industry or IV revisits admit external forces into the the Zambian state’s strategies of rural devel- framework of explanation. Here ignorance opment. The revisits to the Nuer and the of those external forces—their appearanc e, Bemba reversed the determinism of their and disappearance, and their dynamics— predecessors, whether it be the static func- leads either to structural determinacy or, tionalism of the one or imminent breakdown more usually, to historical indeterminacy, to of the other. These anthropologists’ aversion which even the effects of the original study to explanatory theory led to an empiricism may contribute. without limits, just as my failure to take I have argued that the nine revisits dis- Marxist theory sufficiently seriously led me cussed here tend to fall into, rather than 668 AMERICANSOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW across, the four types. This suggests that the titioners of other sociological methods have dimensions I used to define the four types no reason to gloat—the same dilemmas also have a certain robustness with respect to the apply to them, they are just less glaring and actual practice of focused revisiting. Still the less invasive. Reflexive ethnography clari- distinctions are far from watertight. Take the fies and anticipates the methodological chal- more imposing distinction between con- lenges facing all social science. Ethnogra- structivism and realism. While our con- phers can say to their scientific detractors: structivist revisits seem to be able to suspend “De te fabula narratur!” historical change, that precisely is their Having demonstrated the principles of re- shortcoming. On the other hand, I have flexive ethnography at work in the focused shown how realist revisits continua lly face revisit, which is still rather esoteric for soci- constructivist challenges, underlining the di- ologists, can these principles be applied to lemmas of participating in a world while ex- other aspects of field work? Can ethnogra- ternalizing and objectifying it. If there is phy be conceptualized more broadly through bleeding across the constructivist-realist di- the lens of the “revisit”? In addition to the mension, the boundary between internal and focused revisit, I delineate five other types external is a veritable river of blood. Refuta- of revisit—rolling, punctuated, heuristic, ar- tion easily leads to reconstruction, and em- cheological and valedictory. Here my intent piricism to structuralism. However fluid and is to show how sociologists have begun to permeable the line between internal and ex- deploy these in their ethnographies, thereby ternal may be, the distinction itself is none- gesturing to, and even embracing, history, theless unavoidable. First, theorizing cannot context, and theory. be reduced to the ethnographer’s relation to tabula the field. Theorizing cannot begin FieldWorkÑTheRollingRevisit rasa with every new field work—it’s not fea- sible for ethnograp hers to strip themselves I begin with the mundane routines of field of their prejudices. Even if it were feasible work, the elementary form of ethnography. researchers wouldn’t get far as a scientific Conventionally, field work is regarded as a collectivity if they insisted always on return- succession of discrete periods of “observa- ing to ground zero— they necessarily come tion” that accumulate in field notes, later to to the field bearing theory. Simply put, the be coded, sorted, and analyzed when all the mutually enhancing dialogue between par- “data” are in. Every “visit” to the field is un- ticipant observation and theory reconstruc- connected to previous and subsequent ones, tion depends on the relatively autonomous so in the final analysis visits are aggregated logics of each. Second, everything cannot be as though they were independent events. In a topic of study: An ethnographer must dis- the reflexive view of field work, on the other tinguish the arena of participant observation hand, “visits” to the field are viewed as a from what lies beyond that arena. The neces- succession of experimental trials, each inter- sity of the demarcation between internal and vention separated from the next one to be external is therefore practical—ethnogra- sure, but each in conversation with the pre- phers are part of the world they study, but vious ones. In this conception, field work is only part of it—but it is represented and jus- a rolling revisit . Every entry into the field is tified in terms of the theories they deploy. followed not just by writing about what hap- In short, reflexive ethnography recognizes pened but also by an analysis in which ques- two dilemmas: (1) There is a world outside tions are posed, hypotheses are formulated, ourselves (realist moment), but ethnogra- and theory is elaborated—all to be checked phers can only know it through their relation out in successive visits. In this rendition, to it (constructivist moment); and (2) ethnog- field notes are a continuous dialogue be- raphers are part of that world (internal mo- tween observation and theory. ment), but only part of it (external moment). In his appendix to Street Corner Society , There is no way to transcend these dilemmas, Whyte (1955) describes the detached pro- and so reflexive ethnography must consider cess of accumulating data, writing down ev- all four moments, even if in the final analysis erything, and sorting it into folders, but he it concentrates on only one or two. The prac- also writes of the conversation between REVISITS 669 theory and data. Thus he writes of the influ- admission, he began his research as a non- ence that the anthropologist, Conrad participating observer and ended as a non- Arensberg, had in encouraging his focus on observing participant! social interaction among particular individu- These then are constructivist moments in als and how that interaction reflected the so- the field. They focus on the way knowledge cial structures in which they were embed- of the field changes, as though the field it- ded. Arensberg provided the theoretical self remains unchanged. The assumption of frame that Whyte was to so famously elabo- a fixed site is a useful but ultimately prob- rate. Accordingly, Whyte’s field notes be- lematical fiction. Fields have dynamics of came filled with detailed events and conver- their own that often erupt with outside inter- sations between particula r individuals. His ventions. Again Whyte (1943) was far ahead epiphany came when he discovered the link of his time in focusing on the dynamics of between performanc e at bowling and posi- the field itself. By studying the rise and fall tion within the gang and later when he re- of the Norton Gang, its relation to the Ital- lated mental illness (e.g., Doc’s dizzy spells) ian Community Club, the evolution of politi- to the disruption of customary roles. He car- cal campaigns, and the continuing struggles ried out experiments in the field to test his over the control of gambling houses, Whyte theories. Thus, he cured Long John of his was able to tease out the relations between nightmares by restoring him to his former individuals and social structures, and among place in the gang. Once Whyte realized what social structures themselves. Human behav- his project was about—after 18 months in ior and the groups to which individuals be- the field he was forced to write a report to long could only be understood, Whyte renew his grant—his field notes did indeed averred, through analyzing their change become more like a dialogue of theory and through time. Largely a function of internal data. It would have happened much earlier dynamics and life trajectories of individuals, if he had subscribed to, rather than stumbled these changes were also affected by such ex- upon, the idea of the rolling revisit. ternal events as election campaigns and po- At the same time that field notes are a run- lice raids. Whyte’s extensions to macro- ning dialogue between observation and structures and history were limited, but he theory, field work is a running interaction definitely pointed to the wider world in between ethnographer and participant. It in- which the gangs were embedded. volves a self-conscious recognition of the Reflexive field work, in short, calls atten- way embodime nt, location, and habitus af- tion to realist as well as constructivist mo- fect the ethnographer’s relations to the ments. It demands that the field be under- people studied, and thus, how those relations stood as always in flux, so that the rolling influence what is observed and the data that revisit records the processual dynamics of are collected. Whyte (1955) was only too the site itself. But, more than that, the roll- aware of the significance of his ethnicity, his ing revisit demands attention to disruptions large physical size, and his relative youth, as of the field from outside, which sh ift its well as his upper-middle-class background character and take it off in new directions. and his connection to Harvard for making Still, remember that this field-in-flux can be and sustaining contact with the various grasped only through theoretical lenses and groups in Cornerville. His relation to the through the ethnographer’s interactions with community changed with his status, when, those he or she studies. for example, his new wife came to live with him. But it also altered as his interests Long-TermFieldResearchÑ shifted from gangs to racketeering and poli- ThePunctuatedRevisit tics. Throughout he was strategic in how he positioned himself within the community, Foster et al. (1979) have advanced the idea acting as secretary of the Italian Community of long-term field research in which ethnog- Club, becoming part of local election cam- raphers, either as individuals or as a team, paigns (one of which led him into illegal re- revisit a field site regularly over many years peat voting), and even organizing a demon- (they arbitrarily say more than 10) with a stration at the mayor’s office. By his own view to understanding historical change and 670 AMERICANSOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW continuity. 28 Their collection of cases of over a 10-year period, plotting the rise and long-term field research ranges from fall of the modern ghetto. He tied changing Lamphere’s (1979) overview of the dense modes of community control (the rise of thicket of Navajo ethnographies to Vogt’s gangs, of informal economy, and of mothers’ (1979) account of the Harvard Chiapas groups) to rising unemployment and the Project (1957–1975). withdrawal of state services (especially the A subspecies of this long-term research is withdrawal of police and the destruction of what I call the “punctuated revisit,” in which public housing). the same ethnographer conduc ts separated Not all punctuated revisits exploit the tem- stints of field work in the same site over a poral extension of field work to study social number of years. Thus, Colson (1989) de- change. Quite the contrary, they are often scribes her own multiple revisits to the used to extract what does not change. Gwembe Tonga of Northern Rhodesia since Horowitz (1983) studied youth gangs in a her first research there in 1956. She and her poor Mexican-American neighborhood of colleague, Thayer Scudder, followed the re- Chicago for three years, 1971 to 1974. Then settlement of the Tonga, after the completion she returned in 1977 to follow their paths of the Kariba Dam in 1959, and subse- into the labor market and to discover how quently studied how the Tonga fared under the gangs had sustained themselves. Reaf- the postcolonial dispensation (Scudder and firming the clash of community culture and Colson 1979). They noted how their rela- the wider individualism of American society, tions with the Tonga shifted as their concern she emphasized stasis rather than change. for the fate of the Tonga intensified but also Even more determined to focus on the con- as they and their informants aged. At the stant, Jankowski (1991) studied 37 gangs in same time, their theoretical framework three cities over a period of 10 years. Stints shifted from a focus on kinship and ritual to of field work were undertaken and data col- the absorption of the Tonga into a national lected as though they were independent ob- and regional political economy, and from servations on a fixed site. Focusing on their there to the broadest analysis of resettlement common organizational form and their com- patterns and refugee problem s in a global munity embeddedness, he was not interested context. All four dimensions of reflexive in how the gangs changed over time or var- ethnography were at work as this project ied between cities or how their ties to the evolved over three decades. political and economic contexts shifted over Most punctuated revisits within sociology time. He deployed his long-term field re- are unashamedly realist. Thus, between 1975 search to reveal the stabilizing effects of an- and 1989 Anderson (1990) studied uneven other constant—the defiant individualism of urban development in Philadelphia within gang members. He dwelt on what stayed the what he called Village-Northton. With the same, despite change and through change. exodus of manufacturing from the surround- Although technically a punctuated revisit, ing area, one side, namely middle-class Vil- Jankowski’s (1991) goal was replication in lage, became gentrified and whiter, while the both constructivist and realist senses. As an other side, lower-c lass Northton, became unobtrusive participant observer, he sought poorer and blacker. Anderson described to establish replicable conditions of research , changing patterns of social control and eti- inducing theory from his neutral observa- quette on the streets, the replacement of the tions. At the same time he decentered the “old heads” by the young drug dealers, study of change, whether through internal changing sex codes, and spillover effects processes or external forces, in favor of rep- from one community to the other. More his- licating the same result across space and torically self-conscious, Venkatesh (2000) time—the wider the range of cases the more studied the Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago convincing the result. One might say, para- doxically, he mobilized reflexivity in pursuit 28 See Phelps, Furstenbe rg, and Colby (2002) of replication. for a parallel collection of studies that engages Although Jankowski made reference to some strikingly similar methodological issues in other studies of gangs, it was not to suggest quantitative longitudinal research. that time and place explained their different REVISITS 671 conclusions. He could, for example, have jects, and by renouncing theoretical recon- drawn on Whyte’s (1943) parallel gang struction in favor of induction. 29 study with similar findings to ask what had My final example of a heuristic revisit changed over the intervening 40 years. adopts a more constructivist perspective. That, however, would have turned his study Salzinger (2003) used Fernández-Kelly’s into a “heuristic” revisit, the antithes is of (1983) pioneering study of women as cheap replication. and malleable l abor in the Mexican Maquiladora industry to frame her own study of the same industry 20 years later. Salzinger FramingthePresentÑ TheHeuristicRevisit discovered a multiplicity of gender regimes where Fernán dez-Kelly saw only one, re- The rolling and punctuated revisits return flecting the expansion of the industry and its ethnographers to the familiarity of their own changing market context. Stressing indeter- field sites. In these revisits, memory plays an minacy of outcomes and reflecting 20 years enormous but rarely theorized role (Mayer of feminist thought, Salzinger also made a 1989). They contrast with the next two types theoretical turn. Her analysis of production of revisit in which ethnographers compare focused on the poststructuralist preoccup a- their own field work to someone else’s re- tion with the constitution of subjectivity search, documentation, or study. The first is rather than on the political economy of gen- the heuristic revisit, which appeals to another der regimes. History moves on, but so does study—not always strictly ethnographic and theory. Their trajectories are intertwined. not necessarily of the same site but of an analogous site—that frames the questions DiggingupthePastÑ posed, provides the concepts to be adopted, TheArcheological Revisit or offers a parallel and comparative account. Most heuristic revisits in sociology, like If the heuristic revisit moves forward in the punctuated revisits, have a strong realist time, from the earlier study to the later one bent. Thus, Pattillo-McCoy (1999) used that it frames, the archeological revisit Frazier’s (1957) Black Bourgeoisie and moves backward in time to excavate the his- Drake and Cayton’s (1945) Black Metropolis torical terrain that gives rise or gives mean- to frame her ethnographic account of the so- ing to the ethnographic present. If not cial, economic, and geographical proximity strictly a revisit—since there is no reference of black middle-class life to the South Chi- study known ahead of time—it is a common cago ghetto. Duneier’s (1999) study of street technique for giving historical depth to eth- vendors in Greenwich Village goes back 40 nography. In the archeological revisit, mul- years to Jacobs’s (1961) Death and Life of tiple sources of data are used, whether retro- Great American Cities , recovering her analy- spective interviews, published accounts, or sis of the same area, and in particular, the archival documents. One could simply trian- role of public characters. Following Jacobs’ gulate and aggregate all the historical data example, Duneier regarded the street vendors from different sources as though they mea- as “public characters” who, contrary to ste- sured a singular and fixed reality. This, how- reotype, stabilize community relations. With ever, would violate the rules of reflexivity, Jacobs as his baseline, Duneier considere d which demand disaggregating “data” to re- the broad changes in Greenwich Village—the flect their relations of production, namely rising inequality, cu ltural difference, and (1) relations between observers and partici- crime—and how it came to be a home for the pants, and (2) the theories observers (jour- homeless. He traced the vendors back to their nalists, officials, witnesses) deploy. previous place in Pennsylvania Station and A number of recent sociolo gical studies uncovered the political forces that led to their turn on archeological revisits. Hondagneu- eviction. He practiced what he called “the ex- Sotelo (1994) explored the historical ante- tended place method”— realist method par excellence—which attempts to remove all 29 Needless to say, Duneier’s engagement with traces of construc tivism by striving for an Jacobs is already a form of theoretical recon- objective record of the behaviors of his sub- struction—an externally imposed lens. 672 AMERICANSOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW cedents of the gendered streams of immigra- between the past she or he uncovers and the tion from Mexico to the United States. To present he or she interprets, rendering all give specificity to the revelations of her field sorts of new insights into both. work in a community in northern California, The archeological revisit can be used to she was led back in time to distinguish im- connect the present to the past, but it may migrants who came before the end of the also be used to compare the present to the Bracero Program in 1965 (the program that past. Thus, Haney (2002) revised our under- channeled single, male migrants into the ag- standing of socialist welfare by stressing its ricultural fields of California) from those extensiveness and its flexibility. Similarly, who came after its end. Through oral histo- Lopez (2003) participated in labor organiz- ries, Hondagneu-Sotelo was able to trace the ing campaigns in Pittsburgh. He asked why consequences of original migration patterns such campaigns were successful in one his- for the domestic division of labor. Similarly, torical conjuncture but not in another. To un- Levine (2001) produced an unexpected eth- derstand the conditions of this differential nography of German cattle dealers in New success, Lopez reconstructed an earlier point York State, refugees from Nazi persecution. in time for each campaign from interviews, To understand their participation in the archives, legal reports and newspapers. He transformation of New York’s dairy industry disentangled how obstacles to organizing she uncovered details of their lives in rural were overcome (or not) as a function of both Germany before they left. Like Hondagneu- the new context and the cumulative effects Sotelo, Levine traced the connection be- of previous campaigns. tween the community of origin and the com- In the sometimes desperate search for his- munity of settlement. 30 torical data, the ethnographer is easily Haney (2002) conducted an ethnography tempted to repress data’ s constructed char- of the social effects of cutbacks in Hungary’s acter. Thus, as I alluded to earlier, historians postsocialist welfare. To understand the re- such as Thernstrom (1964) have been criti- action of the poor women she studied, she cal of how community ethnographers reduce was led back to the socialist welfare state, history to the mythologies of their partici- first to the maternalist welfare regime of re- pants. With theoretical lenses to guide their form communism and then even further back investigations, however, ethnogra phers be- to the societal welfare of the early post- come sensitive to the constructed nature of World War II period. She turned to archives historical narrative. Indeed, they are able to and oral histories to reconstruct the past, dis- exploit its “constructedness.” closing a novel periodization of state social- ism and its aftermath. ReportingBackÑ It is no accident that so many of the eth- TheValedictory Revisit nographies of the market and of democratic transitions become archeological revisits, My last type of revisit is what I call the vale- excavating the socialist antecedents of the dictory revisit, when the ethnographer re- postsocialist order (Burawoy and Verdery turns to the subjects, armed with the results 1999; Kligman 1998; Lampland 1995; Woo- of the study, whether in draft or published druff 1999). As in the case of the post- form. The purpose is not to undertake an- colonial transition, ethnographers have other in-depth ethnography, but rather to as- looked to the character of the previous re- certain the subjects’ responses to the re- gime for the source of disappointed expecta- ported research and, perhaps, to discover tions. The archeological revisit, however, is what has changed since the last visit. Assum- not unidirectional, because of necessity the ing the subjects can be engaged, this is the ethnographer tacks backward and forward moment of judgment, when previous rela- tions are reassessed, theory is put to the test, and accounts are reevaluated. It can be trau- 30 The “archeological revisit” goes back to Thomas and Znaniecki (1918–1920), who used matic for both sides, and for this reason it is letters written to Polish immigrants in Chicago all too rare. to construct the social structure and malaise of Whyte (1955) describes his own valedic- the sending communities. tory revisits to Cornerville to find out what if REVISITS 673 anything Street Corner Society had meant to engineers, and other experts, prompting her the gang members. Doc, his chief informant, to investigate the Columbia disaster. Her showed some ambivalence and embarrass- comparison of the two disasters figured ment about the central role he played in the prominently in the report of the Columbia book; Chick was more upset by the way he Accident Investigation Board. Her valedic- was portrayed; and Sam Franco was inspired tory revisit turned into a focused revisit that to do field research himself. Whyte was not confirmed her earlier conclusio ns, much to led to any reassessment of the study itself, NASA’s chagrin. As in the case of Richards for he had had a relatively smooth ride as (1939), examined above, ethnographies have compared, for example, with Scheper- their own history of effects—ignored at one Hughes (2001). She was drummed out of her moment, invoked at another—drawn in by Irish village, An Clochán, when she returned the play of external forces. 25 years after her original field work. The It is often said that handing back a fin- inhabitants still remembered her. Many had ished product is the responsibility of the eth- not forgiven her for her portrait of their weak nographer. That may be so, but the valedic- and vulnerable community. The hostile re- tory revisit also serves a scientific function. ception prompted her to rethink the argument This final engagement with the people one in a new prologue and epilogue to her book. studies, confronting them with one’s own It was also an occasion to reflect on changes conclusions, deepens both constructivist and that had occurred during the intervening pe- realist insights into the world we study. It riod—the impact of Ireland’s integration into may be traumatic—both for the participant the European Union, the expansion of the and the observer—bu t through pain the tourist industry, and continued out-migra- cause of reflexive ethnography advances. tion. In her case, rejection by the participants led her to qualify her original interpretations WHATANTHROPOLOGY CAN but also propelled her to write an account of LEARNFROMSOCIOLOGY historical change. Her valedictory revisit bor- ders on a focused revisit, covering all four The postcolonial world has driven anthro- principles of reflexivity. pologists back to their early historical and Frequently, the subjects of an ethnography macro perspectives that they lost in the era are simply not interested in what the ethnog- of professionalization. As I have tried to ar- rapher has to say until it comes to the atten- gue here, in its inception these moves be- tion of adversarial forces. Consider yond field work in time and beyond the field Vaughan’s (1996) historical ethnography— site in space were invariably positive. Now, itself an archeological revisit that retraced however, these moves could be taking a self- the steps that led up to the Challenger disas- defeating turn. As anthropologists release ter of 1986. Contesting the conventional their subjects from conceptual confinement story of human error and individual blame, in their villages, they mimic their migratory she uncovered an alternative history of the circuits. Bouncing from site to site, anthro- National Aeronautics and Space Administra- pologists easily substitute anecdotes and vi- tion (NASA), incrementally descending into gnettes for serious field work, reproducing bad judgment and normalizing design flaws. the cultural syncretism and hybridity of the She located the cause of the disaster in the peoples they observe (Hannerz 1996). type of technology, organizational culture, As they join their subjects in the external and external context. Published 10 years af- world, anthropologists have also all too eas- ter the Challenger disaster, her study received ily lost sight of the partiality of their partici- much publicity but not a peep from NASA, pation in the world they study. They begin to the object of her investigation. There was no believe they are the world they study or that valedictory revisit to NASA until Columbia the world revolves around them. Behar’s crashed on February 1, 2003, whereupon her (1993) six-year dialogue with her single sub- Challenger study revisited her , and with a ject, Esperanza, fascinating though it is, vengeance (Vaughan forthcoming). Her brackets all concern with theoretical issues original diagnoses of the problems at NASA and, thus, fails to grapple with change in found a new lease on life among journalists, Mexican society. Her view of reflexivity re- 674 AMERICANSOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW duces everything to the mutual orbiting of vantage. For as they leave their guarded cor- participant and observer. It dispenses with ner they are disciplined by the vibrancy of the distinction between internal and external: sociology’s comparative history and theo- first, in the constructivist dimension where retical traditions. This dialogue within soci- anthropological “theory” is reduced to the ology and with social science more broadly discourse of the participant, and second, in will help the ethnographer-sociologist retain the realist dimension where there is nothing a balance between constructivism and real- beyond “multi-sited” ethnograp hy. Further- ism. Such, indeed, are the benefits of back- more, the very distinction between realism wardness! The ethnographer-anthropologist, and constructivism folds into an autocentric on the other hand, has no such disciplinary relation of ethnographer to the world. protection and, unless new alliances are Geertz (1995), whose recounting of the forged, faces the onrushing world alone. quandary of the changing anthropologist in The divergent orbits of ethnography in so- a changing world introduced this paper, ciology and anthropology reflect the histo- similarly fails to address the dilemmas of re- ries of our disciplines, but they are also re- visits, dissolving his reflections into a vir- sponses to the era in which we live. The spa- tuoso display of literary images. In his hands tially bounded site, unconnected to other ethnography becomes a mesmeric play of sites, is a fiction of the past that is no longer texts upon texts, narratives within narratives. sustainable. Under these circumstances, By the end of its cultural turn, anthropology what does it mean to undertake a revisit, es- has lost its distinctive identity, having pecially a focused revisit? What is there to decentered its techniques of field work, sac- revisit when sites are evanescent, when all rificed the idea of intensively studying a that’s solid melts into air? How, for example, “site,” abandone d its theoretical traditions, might I revisit Allied today—30 years after and forsaken its pursuit of causal explana- my first encounter—if I cannot find it where tion. Theory and history evaporate in a wel- I left it? One possibility, all too popular, is ter of discourse. Anyone with literary ambi- to simply study myself. I could trace my tion can now assume the anthropological own research trajectory from Chicago to mantle, making the disrupted discipline vul- communist Hungary to postcommunist Rus- nerable to cavalier invasion by natives and sia, reflecting on the world-historical shifts imposters. Once a social science, anthropol- of the last 30 years. Moving beyond such ogy aspires to become an appendage of the solipsism, I might follow my work-mates, as humanities. Although this is only one ten- Macleod (1995) did with his two gangs. We dency within anthropology, it is significant might call this a biographically-based re- and ascendant—a warning to ethnographer- visit.31 Or I could study the homeless recy- sociologists as they emerge from their own clers that now, hypothetically, inhabit the wilderness. vacant lot that used to be Allied. We might As the examples above have shown, eth- call this a place-based revisit. Or I could go nographer-sociologists are following anthro- off to South Korea where, again hypotheti- pologists out of seclusion—more cautiously cally, Allied’s new engine division can be but more surely. As I have said, within soci- found. We can call this an institution-based ology, ethnography has had to wrestle with revisit. These different types of revisit might a positivist legacy which was also reduction- all coincide if we were studying the same ist—a tradition that reduced the external to enclosed village or the old company town, the internal (theory induced from observa- but with globalization they diverge into three tion, context suspended to insulate the mi- profoundly different projects. The only way cro-situation) at the same time that it privi- 31 leged realism over constructivism (the world Or since most have retired, perhaps I should is purely external to us). As anthropologists study the occupations of their children in a generationally based revisit? This is what veer toward the center of the universe look- Sennett implicitly does when he moves from his ing out, ethnographer-sociologists are com- account of blue-collar workers in Hidden Injuries ing from the margins and looking in. Eth- of Class (Sennett and Cobb 1972) to studying the nographer-sociologists may be latecomers to new service workers in the Corrosion of Charac- history and theory, but therein lies their ad- ter (Sennett 1998). REVISITS 675 of connecting them is to look upon each as a quire resituating the company of 1973–1974 product of the same broad historical process, in its global market, in the global connec- examining, for example, the implications of tions between the engine division and other the shift in the United States from an indus- divisions, in the global imagination of its trial to a service economy. This could inter- workers and managers—before I could un- connect biographies of workers and their dertake a parallel investigation. This is how children, the redeployment of place, and the Nash (2001) turned a focused revisit into a fleeing of capital to other countries. global ethnography of the Zapatista move- But we can no longer stop at the national ment. Every summer between 1988 and 1993 level. Today the recomposition of everyday she returned to Chiapas—the site of her own life is also the product of transnational or 1957 study—with a team of students. While supranational processes. A comprehensive acknowledging the shortcomings of the de- revisit might involve following individual scriptive anthropology extant in the 1950s, biographies, institutional trajectories, and namely the tendency to insulate communi- the reconstitution of place, locating them all ties from their determining context, she in regional, national, and also global trans- nonetheless partially recuperated that insula- formation. Verdery (2003) conducted such a tion as a political struggle to defend au- complex of nested revisits in her ethnogra- tonomy. In the early 1990s, such defensive phy of decollectivization in Aurel Vlaicu—a maneuvers were no longer effective. In the Transylvanian village she studied under face of the North American Free Trade communism and then again during the post- Agreement ( NAFTA), the rollback of land re- communist period. She followed individual form through privatization, the erosion of kin members, specific groups (insiders and subsistence agriculture, the attrition of state outsiders), the village land restitution com- welfare, and the violation of human rights, mittee, and different economic organizations Chiapas autonomy could no longer be de- (state farms, cooperatives, and individual fended by withdrawal and insulation. It re- production), all in relation to the transforma- quired aggressive political organization and tion of property relations, which itself only the development of an indigenous movement makes sense within the local political of national focus and global reach. Nash economy, the national law of privatization, demonstrated that without history to ground the conditionalities of the World Bank, and it and theory to orient it, global ethnography the IMF, and the global spread of market is lost. fundamentalism. With so many parts of the The time is nigh for the sociologist-eth- world dissolving, reconfiguring, and recom- nographer to come out of hiding and join the posing under the pressure of their global rest of sociology in novel explorations of connections and, at the same time, other history and theory (Adams, Clemen s, and parts stagnating because of their global dis- Orloff forthcoming). We should not forget connections, ethnographic revisits with a that Marx, Weber, and Durkheim grounded global reach become irresistible. The more their history, as well as their theory, in an irresistible is the global revisit, however, the ethnographic imagination, whether of the more necessary is theory to track and make factories of nineteenth-century England, the sense of all the moving parts. religious bases of economic behavior, or the Privatization and market transition push rites and beliefs of small-scale societies. ethnography to global extensions, which re- Foucault founded his originality in a virtual quire not only theoretical frameworks for ethnography of prisons and asylums, De their interpretation but also historical depth. Beauvoir and her daughters set out from the The only way to make sense of global forces, privatized experiences of women, while connections, and imaginations is to examine Bourdieu launched his metatheory from the them over time. In other words, global eth- villages of Algeria. Thus, not only does re- nographies require focused, heuristic, punc- flexive ethnography require the infusion of tuated, and particularly archeological revis- both theory and history, but theory and his- its to excavate their historical terrains torical understanding will be immeasurably (Burawoy, Blum et al. 2000). Approaching a advanced by the conceptualization and prac- global ethnography of Allied today would re- tice of ethnography as revisit. 676 AMERICANSOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

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