Cross-Cultural”

HISTORICIZING “CROSS-CULTURAL”

BENJAMIN PENNY

In 2000, a few years into the 10-year his- in recent changes in the state of the world tory of the ANU’s Centre for Cross-Cultur- and of academic disciplines, it is clear that al Research, a new field of research for the “transaction and translation between cul- Centre was announced: “Conceptualising tures” has been going on for as long as Cross-Cultural Research”, which in later there have been people, and the “tracing years became “Interrogating Concepts of of patterns” in this process is by no means the Cross-Cultural”.1 The 2007 iteration only a recent phenomenon. The essays in of the website summarizes it in this way: this volume are concerned with examining how such patterns were traced before the By "cross-cultural research" we middle of the twentieth century, when the mean scholarship that is oriented term “cross-cultural” was coined. They towards tracing patterns of trans- therefore involve studies both of particular action and translation between encounters between people of different cultures. Methodologically, such cultures and investigation of the disciplin- scholarship transcends convention- ary categories in which those studies took al national and area studies frames place. of reference by recognising the The literature of encounter between increasing porousness of cultural people from different cultural back- boundaries. This program exam- grounds is, of course, vast and the essays ines both the disciplinary and in- here only address a few examples of the terdisciplinary ramifications of the rich legacy of work left by generations of term "cross-cultural" in Humanit- explorers, traders, missionaries and consu- ies research. It does so by explor- lar officials, as well as people who thought ing the theoretical links between of themselves as scholars. Some small the notion of the "cross cultural" amount of this work is well known but as it has emerged in the disciplin- more of it is much less read than it should ary fields of anthropology, history, be and, in general, deserves rediscovery literary studies and linguistics, and and reassessment. The people who conduc- contemporary conceptualisations ted this research worked within the of "cultural difference" in the paradigms of their owns eras: the ways transdisciplinary fields of postco- they thought through what they saw and lonial, migration and globalisation heard may sound unfamiliar, if not simply studies.2 odd, to a contemporary ear, but such per- Although this description locates the par- plexity is all to the good, as it makes us ticular interest of “cross-cultural research” ponder the earlier forms — indeed, often

1 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 the foundations — of the disciplines that duped by surface similarities or currently hold sway. fictitious analogies, a great deal of labor may lead to incorrect conclu- However, just as the essays in this 3 volume seek to historicize “cross-cultural sions. research”, it is also possible, and illumin- There are two points that I want to focus ating, to historicize the word “cross-cultur- on from this passage. First, Malinowski al” itself, and the major part of this essay saw Frazer, Tylor and Westermarck — he will be concerned with the first significant was probably referring to Westermarck’s academic project to use the term “cross- The History of Human Marriage and The cultural” in its title. It is important to do Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas4 this to expose the difference in concep- — as using comparison to reveal “the es- tions between its use today and what it sential nature” of a particular phenomen- meant at the time of its coining, in order on, much as nineteenth-century classical to lay bare the foundations of the field. philologists sought the underlying Indo- The first citation the Oxford English European language by comparison of Dictionary gives for “cross-cultural” comes known tongues. In such projects, it is of- from Malinowski’s A Scientific Theory of ten the origin or source of a specific cultur- Culture (1941) in a chapter outlining al activity that is the primary goal. This “Concepts and Methods in Anthropology”. presumes, of course, that there is a shared Having discussed “evolutionism” and cultural substratum in humanity; indeed, “diffusionism”, and mentioning function- it may have been argued, that substratum alism in passing, Malinowski says: is made up of those essential characteristics that make us human. Secondly, comparis- Thus there is the comparative on, for Malinowski, meant “cross-cultural method, in which the student is documentations” — but it was imperative primarily interested in gathering that those comparisons be made between extensive cross-cultural document- “really comparable phenomena” specified ations, such as we see in Frazer’s by a “really scientific definition”. He was The Golden Bough, or in Tylor’s obviously reacting against some earlier Primitive Culture, or in the excesses of the comparative method here, volumes of Westermarck on mar- but nonetheless we might baulk, some 65 riage and morals. In such works years after Malinowski’s death, at the no- the authors are primarily inter- tion that cultural phenomena can be ested in laying bare the essential defined with such accuracy and precision, nature of animistic belief or magic- and at the tendency towards circularity al rite, of a phase in human culture in so reducing the set of items we might or a type of essential organization. compare to only such things that we define Obviously, this whole approach as being “really comparable” in the first presupposes a really scientific place. definition of the realities com- pared. Unless we list, in our ex- Even so, it is important to recognize haustive inventories, really com- that at its appearance in academic writing parable phenomena, and are never at least, “cross-cultural” collocated most

2 Historicizing “Cross-Cultural” comfortably with the idea that insights cent fields, were practically inac- into the nature of the human condition cessible to them. Working in the could best be drawn through comparing laboratory, the clinic, or the com- the various forms that particular features munity, the psychologists, sociolo- of people’s lives took in different places gists, and others made frequent and, as we shall see, at different times. The requests of the cultural anthropo- OED’s definition for “cross-cultural” indic- logists for comparative data on ates that it appeared before 1940 and, in- various aspects of behavior among deed, in 1937 Yale University launched a primitive peoples. Sometimes they major project under the name of “The wanted perspective, sometimes Cross-Cultural Survey”, later incorporated suggestions, sometimes a check on into the Human Relations Area Files.5 This their own scientific formulations. survey, headed up by George Peter Mur- In trying to assist them, the anthro- dock (1897–1985), produced both the pologists found that they could Outline of Cultural Materials, with its first usually cite a limited number of edition in 1938, and the supplementary cases from their own knowledge Outline of World Cultures, first published and give an impressionistic judg- in 1954. Both works continue to be revised ment as to the general status of and published and are now available elec- ethnography on the question. For tronically. Murdock explained the genesis scientists, however, this was often of the project in an article from 1940: not enough. What guarantee was there that the remembered cases For a number of years, the Insti- were representative, or the impres- tute of Human Relations at Yale sions valid? What was needed was University has been conducting a access to a dependable and object- general program of research in the ive sample of the ethnographic social sciences, with particular evidence. Only rarely was it pos- reference to the areas common to, sible to refer the seeker to an ad- and marginal between, the special equate summary of the evidence; sciences of sociology, anthropo- in the great majority of instances, logy, psychology, and psychiatry. he could satisfy his scientific curi- In 1937, as one of the specific re- osity only by resorting to the vast search projects on the anthropolo- descriptive literature itself and gical and sociological side of this embarking on a research task of program, the Cross-Cultural Sur- discouraging magnitude.6 vey was organized. A year of previous experience To overcome this problem, Murdock estab- in collaborating with other social lished the Cross-Cultural Survey, which scientists in research and discus- was designed to be “a representative sion had made it clear to the an- sample of the cultural materials on the thropologists associated with the various societies of the world…organized Institute that the rich resources of for ready accessibility on any subject”.7 ethnography, potentially of ines- This was an encyclopaedic project; one timable value to workers in adja- that sought an Olympian view of all hu-

3 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 manity, a kind of grand ethnographic will be a fair representation of the panopticon with each discrete unit of cul- historical civilizations of the past, ture defined and arranged for easy compar- of modern folk cultures, and of the ison. The foreword to the first edition of communities studied by contem- the Outline of Cultural Materials states that porary sociologists.10 it was “designed primarily for the organiz- The single-minded collection of data was ation of the available information on a not something that Murdock simply deleg- large and representative sample of known ated to his staff. An obituary by John cultures with the object of testing cross- W.M. Whiting, one of his former students, cultural generalizations, revealing deficien- in the American Anthropologist recalled cies in the descriptive literature, and dir- that, ecting corrective fieldwork”.8 By the third edition, the goal was significantly When I was a graduate student at more ambitious: the “large and represent- Yale in the 1930s, Pete [as he was ative sample of known cultures” had be- known to friends and family] come, by 1950, “a statistically representat- would spend nearly every week- ive sample of all known cultures, primit- day night from 8.00 p.m. to 5.00 ive, historical, and contemporary”.9 Thus, a.m. in the Yale library examining there were two processes necessary for every possible source of ethno- this project to be fulfilled. First, materials graphic information, identifying needed to be gathered; secondly, they the group described and listing all needed to be classified. Murdock ex- the references. As a consequence plained the progress in collection in 1940 he was able to publish a listing of in this way: all known cultures of the world — The Outlines of World Cultures. Since the publication of the This served as an approximation manual, in 1938, the staff of the of the universe of known peoples Cross-Cultural Survey has been of the world, which was necessary engaged in the actual assembling if the aim of the files was to pro- of materials. To date, the descript- duce a representative sample of ive data on nearly a hundred cul- this universe.11 tures have been abstracted, classified, and filed. It is hoped ulti- The completeness of Murdock’s files is mately to assemble and organize indicated by his description of the meth- all the available cultural informa- ods of collection: tion on several hundred peoples, For each of the cultures analyzed, who will be adequately distributed the entire literature is covered, in- with regard to geography and cluding manuscript materials when fairly representative of all major available. In some instances, more types and levels of culture. Al- than a hundred books and articles though primitive cultures will have been combed for a single preponderate numerically, because tribe or historical period. All ma- they reveal the widest range of terial in foreign languages has human behavioral variations, there

4 Historicizing “Cross-Cultural”

been translated into English. The ilarly, there can be no special cat- information, if of any conceivable egory like “Christianity,” pertain- cultural relevance, is transcribed ing to only a limited number of in full — in verbatim quotations cultures, but only general categor- or exact translations. The object ies like 779 (Theological Sys- has been to record the data so tems).14 completely that, save in rare in- The editors remark that, “any element of stances, it will be entirely unneces- culture may have as many as seven major sary for a researcher using the files facets any one of which may be used as to consult the original sources.12 the primary basis of classification”, and Classification of the data was according to proceed to list these facets as being: two broad criteria. The first was geograph- 1. a “patterned activity” (travel, conver- ical: the world was divided into continents sation, crime), or their equivalent, then countries or large 2. only occurring under certain circum- portions of countries, then specific groups. stances (rest days and holidays, dis- Thus, Australia is found under Oceania, asters, menstruation), with the sub-classifications: “Australia [in 3. being associated with a particular general], Historical Australia, Norfolk Is- subject (division of labour by sex, land, Prehistoric Australia, Australian sibs, priesthood), Aborigines [in general], Andedja, Arabana, 4. being commonly directed towards Aranda, Barkindji, Dieri, Kabikabi, Kamil- some object (poultry raising, kin rela- aroi, Karadjeri, Kariera, Kawadji, Kurnai, tionships, child care), Murngin, Narrinyeri, Tasmanians, Tiwi, 5. being accomplished by some external Ualarai, Wikmunkan, Wogait, Worimi, means (telephone and telegraph, Yiryoront, Yungar”.13 The second cri- weapons, mutual aid, agency), terion was according to content and is 6. being normally performed with a much more complex. In a system reminis- purpose or goal (mnemonic device, cent of Roget’s Thesaurus, the entirety of sorcery, techniques of inculcation), human activity is broken down into 79 7. having a concrete result (shipbuild- sections and 619 subsections. The editors ing, sanctions).15 of Outline of Cultural Materials write: Systems of classification are, of course, The reader must expect to find challenging to develop but this one does classified under the same heading seem both arbitrary and, in the character such superficially divergent phe- of those examples thrust together in paren- nomena as the Indian medicine theses, to approach self-parody.16 How- man and the modern psychoana- ever, even if we discount the problems lyst under Category 756 (Psycho- associated with developing a taxonomy, therapists), and the primitive the subsequent process of classification of quarrying of flint and the contem- any given cultural phenomenon is itself porary activities of the Anaconda often complex, difficult and as arbitrary Copper Company under Category as the classificatory categories them- 316 (Mining and Quarrying). Sim- selves.17

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However, for the present purposes the 1. Monotheism is positively related to details of the classification scheme that the presence of a hierarchy of three Murdock and his colleagues developed are or more sovereign groups in a soci- less important than the fact that he did ety. attempt to encompass “the universe of 2. There is no relationship between the known peoples of the world” and to pro- number of sovereign groups in such duce “a representative sample” of them a hierarchy, and the likelihood that for the purposes of making comparisons. the monotheistic deity will be seen This striving towards a rigorously defined as active in earthly affairs including taxonomy of the entirety of human exper- the support of human moral relation- ience was by no means a new goal. Mur- ships. High gods do tend to be active dock and his colleagues were clear meth- in societies having two or more sover- odological descendents of Edward Tylor, eign communal groups. whose “On a Method of Investigating the 3. A variety of other indices of social Development of Institutions; Applied to complexity are not related to the Laws of Marriage and Descent” provided presence of monotheistic beliefs in a the model for this variety of research. As society. George Stocking remarked, in relation to 4. The data seem to run counter to the Herbert Spencer’s Descriptive Sociology, expectation of certain anthropologists “Spencer may thus be regarded as the ulti- that a highly developed monotheism mate source of the later Human Relations would be likely to appear in the Area Files; Tylor, of the systematic compar- simplest and most isolated societies.20 ative cross-cultural study of the data they During the late 1930s and 1940s others contain.”18 The purpose of comparison used “cross-cultural” in this same sense, underlying the Cross-Cultural Survey was notably Margaret Mead,21 and after the to find systematic correlations between Second World War its use spread widely cultural variables, as Tylor had done. in Anthropology, Psychology, Education Thus, to take one example, for Guy E. and related fields. At some point in the Swanson to answer the question “From mid-1950s another sense of “cross-cultur- what experiences do the ideas of the super- al” started to appear. Rather than standing natural and its myriad forms arise?”, he for a type of work that surveyed a range analyzed data from a “randomly” selected of cultures for examples of a particular set of 50 societies from Murdock’s list, phenomenon, it focused on differences correlating various aspects of social organ- between the perceptions two particular ization with particular varieties of reli- peoples held of each other, or the percep- gious belief: monotheism, polytheism, an- tions two particular peoples had of some cestral spirit belief, reincarnation, the im- specific event, or set of circumstances, or manence of the soul, witchcraft and the object. Thus, for example, the two theses interaction of the supernatural and moral- “Military Government and the German ity.19 His conclusions — in the case of Press: an Experiment in Cross-Cultural monotheism — are indicative of the style Institutional Change” and “The Japanese of the whole: Student’s View of America: a Study in Cross-Cultural Perception” were both ac-

6 Historicizing “Cross-Cultural” cepted in 1954, the former from Columbia comprised works with a strong comparat- University and the latter from Ohio State ive and statistical bias, notably four University.22 volumes of Philip M. Parker’s Cross-Cul- This new meaning of “cross-cultural” tural Statistical Encyclopedia of the World, arguably marks the origin of its use in the or studies of cross-cultural communication context of the encounter between two — for instance, Cross-Cultural and Interdis- peoples of different cultures. In the post- ciplinary Aspects of Teaching Languages for war world that saw the start of long-term Professional Communication and Cross- Cultural Communication and Aging in the occupations of defeated countries by their 23 victors — and the continuing presence of United States. It is interesting, however, their military bases — the increasing that lurking amongst these titles, one book presence of foreign students and staff in undoubtedly hailing from the humanities the universities of the first world, the appears: Claudio Gorlier and Isabella Maria formation of initiatives such as the Peace Zoppi’s edited volume Cross-Cultural Corps and the burgeoning of disciplines Voices: Investigations into the Post-Colonial. like Social Psychology, discussions of how Despite its title, the essays in this book people of different cultures understood actually differ little from the traditional each other gained a new relevance. One study of “Commonwealth Literatures”; manifestation of this interest was the de- indeed, one of its editors disclaims any velopment of the field of “cross-cultural desire to enter “into the heart of the vital and multi-faceted debate concerning a training” in the late 1960s and early 1970s, 24 where people about to be posted to anoth- ‘post-colonial discourse’”. However, the er country were sensitized to the different mere juxtaposition of “cross-cultural” and ways their new hosts perceived the world “post-colonial” marks a shift to another and behaved. variety of “cross-cultural research” — the kind the Centre for Cross-Cultural Re- As the decades progressed, there were search pursued over the decade of its life- two fields in which the term “cross-cultur- time. One of its five “key programs” was, al” became preponderant in book titles: in fact, “Postcolonialism and Cultural one represented the stream concerned with History”.25 Another, as I noted at the be- cross-cultural comparison and the other ginning of this essay, was “Interrogating was represented by applied studies of en- Concepts of the Cross-Cultural”, the rubric counter situations. The first was found in under which the original series of seminars medical research where particular diseases on “Historicizing Cross-Cultural Research” or treatments or syndromes were studied, was given that led to this volume of es- often statistically, in different parts of the says. world for the purposes of comparison; the second is apparent in the field of “cross- cultural communication”. By 1997, the year the ANU’s Centre for Cross-Cultural Research was founded, the books with “cross-cultural” in their titles in the Lib- rary of Congress catalogue still largely

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ENDNOTES 16 And, indeed, to echo Borges’s taxomony of anim- als from the “Celestial Emporium of Benevolent 1 Knowledge” (famously cited by Michel Foucault in I would like to thank Henrika Kuklick for her the preface to The Order of Things): “(a) those that helpful suggestions in the preparation of this essay. belong to the Emperor, (b) embalmed ones, (c) those 2 http://www.anu.edu.au/culture/research/interrog- that are trained, (d) suckling pigs, (e) mermaids, (f) ating.php (accessed 7.4.07) fabulous ones, (g) stray dogs, (h) those that are in- 3 cluded in this classification, (i) those that tremble as Malinowski, B., A Scientific Theory of Culture and if they were mad, (j) innumerable ones, (k) those Other Essays (Chapel Hill: The University of North drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (l) others, Carolina Press, 1944), p.18. (m) those that have just broken a flower vase, (n) 4 Westermarck, E.A., The History of Human Marriage those that resemble flies from a distance.” (J.L. (London: Macmillan, 1891) and subsequent editions; Borges, “The Analytical Language of John Wilkins”, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas (Lon- in Other Inquisitions 1937–1952, trans., Ruth L.C. don: Macmillan, 1906–08) and second edition. Simms (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1964), p.103.) 5 In 1971, when he was at the University of Pitts- 17 burgh, George Murdock and others founded the So- For a critique on these grounds, see Köbben, A.J., ciety for Cross-Cultural Research, under whose aegis “New Ways of Presenting an Old Idea: The Statistical the journal Cross-Cultural Research is published. The Method in Social Anthropology”, in Frank W. Moore website of the society says: “Whereas early members (ed.), Readings in Cross-Cultural Methodology (New were heavily involved in hologeistic research, often Haven: HRAF Press, 1966), 166–92. in conjunction with the Human Relations Area Files 18 Stocking, G.W. Jr., Victorian Anthropology (New (HRAF), the methodological perspectives of the York: The Free Press, 1987), p.316. membership have broadened over the years to in- 19 clude a wide range of cross-cultural interests and Swanson, G.E., The Birth of the Gods: The Origin approaches” (http://www.sccr.org/description.html, of Primitive Beliefs (Ann Arbor: The University of accessed 13.4.07). Hologeistic — “whole world” — Michigan Press, 1966, first ed. 1961), p.1. For detailed research is usefully discussed in Richard W. analysis of four other studies from this school — Thompson and Roy E. Roper, “Methods in Social Murdock’s own Social Structure (New York: Macmil- Anthropology: New Directions and Old Problems”, lan, 1949), D. Horton’s “The Functions of Alcohol in American Behavioral Scientist 23, 6 (July/August, Primitive Societies”, Quarterly Journal of Studies in 1980), 905–24, pp.907–11. Alcohol, 4 (1943), C.S. Ford’s A Comparative Study of 6 Human Reproduction (New Haven: Yale University Murdock, G.P., “The Cross-Cultural Survey”, Press, 1945) and L.W. Simmons’s The Role of the Aged American Sociological Review 5, 3 (June 1940), in Primitive Society (New Haven: Yale University 361–70, p.361. Press, 1945) — see Köbben, “New Ways of Presenting 7 Murdock, “The Cross-Cultural Survey”, p.362. an Old Idea”, pp.180–91. 20 8 Murdock, G.P., et.al., Outline of Cultural Materials Swanson, The Birth of the Gods, p.81. Swanson’s (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1945), p.v, re- “certain anthropologists” are Father Wilhelm Schmidt printing the foreword to the first edition of 1938. and his followers: the work Swanson refers to in 9 particular is Schmidt’s The Origin and Growth of Re- Murdock, G.P., et.al., Outline of Cultural Materials, ligion, Facts and Theories, translated by H.J. Rose 3rd revised ed.(New Haven: Human Relations Area (London: Methuen and Co., 1935). Files, Inc., 1950), p.xii. 21 10 Thus, for instance, “The importance of cross-cul- Murdock, “The Cross-Cultural Survey,” pp.362–3. tural comparisons in helping to clarify, sharpen, 11 Whiting, John W.M., “George Peter Murdock limit, and enlarge the instrumental concepts which (1897–1985)”, American Anthropologist 88, 3 are being used in the analysis of our own society”, (September, 1986), 682–6, pp. 684–5; my emphasis. in Mead, M., “Public Opinion Mechanisms among 12 Primitive Peoples”, The Public Opinion Quarterly, 1, Murdock, “The Cross-Cultural Survey,” p.363. 3 (July 1937): 5–16, p.5. 13 Murdock, G.M., Outline of World Cultures, 3rd 22 Hurwitz, H.J., Military Government and the revised ed. (New Haven: Human Relations Area Files, German Press: an Experiment in Cross-Cultural Insti- Inc., 1963), pp.125–7. tutional Change, Masters Thesis, Columbia Univer- 14 Murdock, Cultural Materials, p.xviii. sity, 1954; H. A. Gould, The Japanese Student’s View of America: a Study in Cross-Cultural Perception, 15 See, Murdock, Cultural Materials, pp.xix–xx. Masters Thesis, Ohio State University, 1954.

8 Historicizing “Cross-Cultural”

23 Parker, Philip, M., Cross-Cultural Statistical En- cyclopedia of the World (vol.1, Religious Cultures, vol.2, Linguistic Cultures, vol.3, Ethnic Cultures, vol.4, National Cultures) (Westport: Greenwood Press,1997), Daniela Breveníková et al. (eds.), Cross- Cultural and Interdisciplinary Aspects of Teaching Languages for Professional Communication (Bratislava: Ústav jazykov Ekonomickej univerzity v Bratislave, 1997), Hana S. Noor Al-Deen (ed.), Cross-Cultural Communication and Aging in the United States (Mah- wah, N.J.: Erlbaum, 1997). 24 Gorlier, Claudio and Isabella Maria Zoppi (eds.), Cross-Cultural Voices: Investigations into the Post- Colonial (Rome: Bulzoni, 1997), p.13. 25 http://www.anu.edu.au/culture/research.php (accessed 7.4.07)