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Communicating Cultural Difference and Identity: Ethnicity And COMMUNICATING CULTURAL DIFFERENCE AND IDENTITY Ethnicity and Nationalism in Mauritius Thomas Hylland Eriksen Department of Social Anthropology University of Oslo Oslo Occasional Papers in Social Anthropology, No. 16 1 Habit of seeing opposites. — The general imprecise way of observing sees everywhere in nature opposites (as, e.g., «warm and cold») where there are, not opposites, but differences in degree. This bad habit has led us into wanting to comprehend and analyse the inner world, too, the spiritual-moral world, in terms of such opposites. An unspeakable amount of painfulness, arrogance, harshness, estrangement, frigidity has entered into human feelings because we think we see opposites instead of transitions. —Friedrich Nietzsche, Der Wanderer und sein Schatten, § 67 «It takes at least two somethings to create a difference. (...) There is a profound and unanswerable question about the nature of those 'at least two' things that between them generate a difference which becomes information by making a difference. Clearly each alone is — for the mind and perception — a non- entity, a non-being. Not different from being, and not different from non-being. An unknowable, a Ding an sich, a sound from one hand clapping.» —Gregory Bateson, Mind and Nature, p. 78 2 COMMUNICATING CULTURAL DIFFERENCE AND IDENTITY Ethnicity and Nationalism in Mauritius By Thomas Hylland Eriksen TABLE OF CONTENTS List of tables and figures..........................................................v Acknowledgements...............................................................vi Preface.................................................................................vii Map of Mauritius..............................................................................viii 1. PRELIMINARIES.........................................................10 Mauritius...............................................................................1 History — Division of labour — Languages — Ethnics — Change — International links Aims and preliminary concepts.............................................13 Competing concepts of ethnicity — Multiple identities — A problem of definition? 2. FIELDS, LEVELS AND SOCIAL PERSONS...........27 Fields and scale — Structural levels — Structure and culture 3 Persons, fields, statuses.....................................................31 Three examples — Fields in Mauritian systems of action 3. THE COMMUNICATION OF DISTINCTIVENESS....49 Highest common denominators — The local codification of ethnicity Taxonomies, stereotypes and their application......................53 Taxonomies — The practical foundations of taxonomies — Stereotypes as shared representations and as sources of conflict Organisation and identity.....................................................72 Ethnic-specific career strategies: Fields iii-iv — Ethnics in occupational hierarchies, monitored in fields iv-vi — Language in ethnicity — Religion in political and cultural ethnicity — Organisation and identity Creole identities................................................................109 Black Creole identity — Social mobility — Coloured cultural identity 4. SOME ALTERNATIVES TO ETHNICITY................125 The cultural communication and social organisation of non- ethnic models...................................................................126 Class organisation — Rural-urban opposition — Locality-based unity — Feminism — Youth — Intermarriage Preliminary conclusions: Common denominators of Mauritian ethnicity...........................................................................155 Elements of ethnicity — Forms of ethnic organisation — The significance of identity 5. NATIONALISM...........................................................166 The search for national symbols.........................................169 Independence celebrations in the plural society — Ramgoolam's funeral — A non-ethnic political party? The case of the MMM Languages in nationalism..................................................185 Linguistic diversity in primary education — Kreol as a potential national language Ethnicity, nationalism and social change.............................197 Tourism, industrialisation and bureaucracy in the national state — The Mauritian and the world: «We» and «us» 4 APPENDICES................................................................214 Appendix 1: A note on Kreol...............................................214 Appendix 2: Abbreviations used in the text..........................218 Appendix 3: Some ethnic terms..........................................220 Appendix 4: The course of investigation..............................222 Bibliography.......................................................................227 Index..............…………………………………………………… LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1. Unofficial ethnic composition of the Mauritian electorate, 1983.............................................................................................5 2 Table 2. Ethnic stereotypes............................................................63 Table 3. Ethnic perceptions of resources in the labour market...........74 Table 4. Ethnic membership of high-ranking public servants.............82 Table 5. Languages in Mauritius......................................................91 Table 6. Classes according to the Mauritian Left.............................133 Table 7. Rural-urban dichotomies..................................................138 Table 8. Participation in public hearing on language instruction in public schools.............................................................................187 5 Table 9. Languages and contexts.................................................191 Table 10. Normative connotations of French-Kreol diglossia...........193 Table 11. Alternative connotations of French-Kreol diglossia..........195 Table 12. Varieties of spelling in Kreol........................................... Fig. 1. A fairly comprehensive ethnic classification scheme...............54 Fig. 2. Tamil taxonomy....................................................................55 Fig. 3. Aristocratic Franco taxonomy................................................56 Fig. 4. Model of the correlation between class and ethnicity in Mauritius according to the Left......................................................134 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Fieldwork was carried out in Mauritius from February through November, 1986. During the period, I received financial support from the Norwegian Council for the Sciences and Humanities (NAVF). In an earlier phase of the work, a grant enabled me to spend a month at the 6 Scandinavian Institute for African Studies in Uppsala, Sweden. I am grateful to both institutions. Thanks are also due to Adam Kuper in London, Alexis Gardella in Haiti, Larry Bowman in Connecticut, Arlette Kouwenhoven in Leiden, Jean Benoist in Aix-de-Provence, Christiane Landner in Stockholm, and the staff and fellow students at the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo; particularly Axel Sommerfelt, Harald Eidheim and Eduardo Archetti — for their encouragement and criticism. However, none of this would ever have been possible without the cooperation of hundreds of Mauritians from all communities, who readily accepted my presence and assisted me in most conceivable ways. Mauritius is truly a researcher's paradise, inhabited by a people immensely hospitable and helpful in every fashion. I am greatly indebted, personally and intellectually, to the entire Mauritian people. Professionally, however, I have benefitted greatly from discussions with, among others: Vinesh Hookoomsing, Ramesh Ramdoyal and Dev Virahsawmy of the Mauritian Institute of Education, Gilbert Ahnee of the Nouveau Militant, Sydney Selvon of Le Mauricien, Sylvio Michel of l'Organisation Fraternelle, P.P. Veerapen of the University of Mauritius, Doris Chan of the Institut de Développement et Progrès, Uttama Bissoondoyal and S. B. C. Servansing of the Mahatma Gandhi Institute, the staff at CEDREFI of Rose-Hill, and — last, but not least, Marie Benoît and Raj Virahsawmy of the University of Mauritius, as well as Elisabeth Boullé, whose manifold contributions to my fieldwork cannot possibly be overestimated. Finally, a special expression of gratitude — personal and professional — goes to my friends Amrita Suntah and Malenn Oodiah. Oslo, October 1987 Thomas Hylland Eriksen 7 PREFACE The present work is a revised version of my dissertation for the Cand. Polit. degree at the University of Oslo, originally entitled Ethnicity in Mauritius. Its meaning, organisation and relevance. Every section of the text has been modified to a greater or lesser degree; hardly a single page of the original manuscript remains unchanged. Apart from these innumerable minor improvements, additions include a new section on religion and new appendices (2, 3 and 4). Further, I have clarified my theoretical concepts and applied them in a (hopefully) more consistent manner. Notably, I have made many of the previously implicit theoretical references explicit, particularly those originating from systems theory. The main argument, nevertheless, remains largely unchanged. No dramatic change has taken place in Mauritian society during the seventeen months which have elapsed since I left Mauritius. General Elections were peacefully arranged in late August 1987, and the coalition government, led by Prime Minister Anerood Jugnauth of the MSM party, was re-elected. This, along with statistics indicating sustained
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