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Look to Suffering: Look to Joy Robert Redfield and Oscar Lewis Restudied

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Look to Suffering: Look to Joy Robert Redfield and Oscar Lewis Restudied 1978INo. 7 by Richard Criitchfield Look to Suffering: Look to Joy North America [RC-1-'781 Robert Redfield and Oscar Lewis Restudied Part I: ~epoztldn1926-1956: Hidden Answers The disagreement about Tepoztlan debate over Mexican village life. Part My answer is that we are both inves- began 50 years ago. Two American II, The World: Hidden Answers, tigating the human whole. Anthro- anthropologists went at different spans the past 20 years and concerns pology today, particularly American times to live in the same Mexican the formulations of Redfield's theory anthropology, has developed from village. The first found life in of the "peasant view of the good the study of small, isolated primitive Tepoztlan happy and satisfying. The life" and Lewis's theory of the "cul- tribes to the study of just about second found it unhappy and filled ture of poverty. Part I also contains everything human. The anthro- with fear, envy, and mistrust. excerptsfrom a letter from Mrs. Ruth pologist, although using a much M. Lewis, the author's widow, and more systematic and scientific Part II includes some remarks from approach, attempts, like the journal- Daniel P. Moynihan, who challenged The controversy did not stop there. ist, to characterize a person, a village, Lewis's theory in the late 1960s, and Each of the men went on to distin- a city, a people, a nation, or even a this writer's own provisional con- guish himself in the field of social civilization. ceptual model of the "universal anthropology and in time to peasant culture," based partly on the formulate his own theory on the way Most anthropologists have done work of Lewis and Redfield. Part Ill and views of life of poor people all their field work in villages (or in the describes Tepoztlan as it is today, over the world. These theories re- urban neighborhoods that are their and discusses the true identities of tained much of the essential charac- counterpart), and my own method the hitherto anonymous "Sanchez" ter of the original Tepoztlan impres- beginssimilarly. That is, when I go to family, including some remarks from a village I start with its ecological and sions they had formed as very young actor Anthony Quinn, who will play men. Both men are no longer living. economic system, or agriculture; the the leading role in a new film, The plowing, sowing, weeding, harvest- Their prolonged debate would Children of Sanchez. merely be of academic or historical ing, and threshing of the basic crops. interest did not their contradictory Since hard physical labor is the cen- views still significantly influence the The purpose of this Report is to try tral activity of traditional village life, I way we perceive the world's poor. and shed a little more light on how also engage in it alongside my This writer, a reporter by trade, we perceive the poor, who make up peasant subjects. This is the quickest stands outside the anthropological the vast majority of humankind, and way I have found to win their friend- arena. But as the first American to see what practical lessons for our ship and acceptance and also to get journalist to specialize in reporting future use can be drawn from the the feel of life in any rural commu- peasants, in their villages or uprooted long Redfield-Lewis dialectic now nity. If the villagers relax by drinking in cities, he shares some common that it is securely in the historical in the evening, as many do, I join interest with the two scholars, one past. them! I almost always use an inter- the American pioneer in peasant preter, preferably from the village studies and the second our pioneer in Anthropologistsvs. Journalists itself, whether I speak the language studies of the urban poor. Hence, I In further preface, I should like to de- or not. I find the presence of an have chosen to subtitle this fine what I see as the difference associate who shares the local three-part Report, Robert Redfield between theanthropological and the culture helps me to form a greater and Oscar Lewis Restudied. journalistic approaches to studies of sense of objective detachment. I also villagers or urban slum dwellers. The try to make stenographic notes of as anthropologist has the right to ask much dialogue as I can, preferring The first part, Tepoztlhn: Hidden why a reporter should be raking up the natural unfolding of information Questions, which covers the years the ashes of an old professional through normal conversation rather 1926 to 1956, is about the original debate at all. than written or tape-recorded inter- views. Even the best intentioned interviewer tends to "lead," con- sciously or unconsciously, his sub- ject along preconceived paths. In this fashion, a look at agriculture naturally leads to an understanding of systems of marketing and con- verting crops to food for the family. From agriculture one also moves naturally into social life and religion and the way a certain people think and feel. So far the investigation does not differ much from that of the anthropologist. Like the anthropolo- gist, I also have had to study the Winnowing wheat in Mchoacan. larger civilization in which a village with Bedouin shepherds, primitive characterizations of the journalist all finds itself, its history, religion, agriculturalists, and highly sophis- that imprecise. Factual accuracy is philosophy, art, literature, and ticated modern farmers, and visited just as important to them. But as a present-day politics and economics. archaeological sites in Khuzestan journalist writing about villagers, I do Where possible, I also try to inter- province of southwestern Iran, once try to communicate the nature of a view the nation's political leader. the eastern edge of the greater certain way and- view of life, its Mesopotamian Plain, to learn more essence if you will, by choosing cer- The difference comes in the more about the origins of settled villages, tain fact, detail, and dialogue for technical aspects. Anthropologists the historical development of agri- emphasis, and then modifying them usually begin a village study with a culture and irrigation, and the devel- and rearranging them in ways that conceptual model to guide their opment of the first Elamite and satisfy my own intuitive feelings that choice and arrangement of the facts. Sumerian cities? the arrangement brings the overall They are likely to use technical pro- portrait closer to reality and truth. As cedures, such as any of a wide A second kind of village study can be a journalist, without any scientific variety of scientifically accepted undertaken to understand a complex claims or training but with a good psychological tests. They may use region not so much historically but as deal of practical experience with questionnaires to gather statistics to its contemporary condition. In peasants and the differences be- from a broad sampling of the village spring 1970 1 undertook this type of tween their culture and our own. I do people. Whatever their specific tech- study in northern India's Punjab a kind of verbal portraiture of village niques, they will follow a path of state to learn more about the impact life. This is not science. But it can get understanding marked "theoreti- of the so-called Green Revolution of one equally close to truth. The dif- cal," or "scientific," or "scholarly." new high-yielding dwarf wheat in ference is one of degree since southern ~sia.~ anthropologists also mix some art Journalists, with their different inter- with their science. As should be- ests, training, and variety of aca- A village can also provide a con- come evident, Robert Redfield was demic attachment, will follow venient focal point from which to as much a humanistic philosopher as another kind of search for under- study a special problem, as I did on an anthropologist and the power of standing. They, too, may study a the southern Indian Ocean Island of Oscar Lewis's later work owed as village as an ecological system, or as Mauritius in 1969. The World Bank's much to his artistry as his science. a social structure, or develop a case population experts had described Both reporter and anthropologist, in study of an individual or a family, or Mauritius as perhaps suffering the writing about villages, try to econo- study the characterization of a world's "first true Malthusian break- mize on their characterizations to the villager as one generalized type of down," and as a veritable laboratory point where a reader finds within human being, or to perceive an out- and "microcosm" of the global their portrayal some all-pervasive look on life, or view the village study problem of overpopulation4 qualities that identify it and as a history; all things anthropolo- distinguish it. gists do. But while an anthropologist or a journalist undertakes such studies All study of human beings lies in a They may study a village or another for similar purposes, both the borderland between science and art. form of small community to try to methods and results are very But both anthropologists and jour- gain understanding of the history of different. nalists, if they are honest and respon- that kind of community in a specific sible to the facts, aim to increase part of the world. In 1971, for Good anthropologists, of course, are understanding with as true a portrait example, I spent some weeks each not mere statisticians nor are the or as scientifically acceptable a study as they are able to perceive and write. As such, both are mutually complementary and equally valu- able. Social Anthropology The study of peasants and their vil- lages is something quite new.
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