#Clifford Geertz

[deadpoetscrusade]

reading geertz’s notes on the Balinese cockfight means cringing several times over as this man uses that word in such a giddy manner you’d think he was pubescent middle school boy and not a 50 year old anthropologist at the time he wrote it.

[yr-bed]

Sickness for* the thickness*

From "A Novelist of Privileged Youth Finds a New Subject," Katy Waldman, The New Yorker:

In his book “The Interpretation of Cultures,” from 1973, the anthropologist Clifford Geertz argued for the value of an ethnographic method he called “thick description.” Geertz believed that culture was not a “power, something to which social events, behaviors, institutions, or processes can be causally attributed” but, rather, “a context, something within which they can be intelligibly—that is, thickly—described.” The role of the ethnographer was to apply layered, intricate, densely interpretive language to everyday life. According to Geertz, the cakey brushstrokes of social science had a paradoxical effect: instead of rendering their subjects opaque, they made them more transparent. “It may be in the cultural particularities of people,” he insisted, “that some of the most instructive revelations of what it is to be generally human are to be found.”

From "Thick Translation," an essay by Kwame Anthony Appiah:

I had in mind a different notion of a literary translation; that, namely, of a translation that aims to be of use in literary teaching; and here it seems to me that such "academic" translation, translation that seeks with its annotations and its accompanying glosses to locate the text in a rich cultural and linguistic context, is eminently worth doing. I have called this "thick translation"; and I shall say in a moment why. [...] Utterances are the products of actions, which like all actions, are undertaken for reasons. Understanding the reasons characteristic of other cultures and (as an instance of this) other times is part of what our teaching is about: this is especially important because in the easy atmosphere of relativism-in the world of "that's just your opinion" that pervades the high schools that produce our students one thing that can get entirely lost is the rich differences of human life in culture.... there is a role here for literary teaching also, in challenging this easy tolerance, which amounts not to a celebration of human variousness but to a refusal to attend to how various other people really are or were. A thick description of the context of literary production, a translation that draws on and creates that sort of understanding, meets the need to challenge ourselves and our students to go further, to undertake the harder project of a genuinely informed respect for others. Until we face up to difference, we cannot see what price tolerance is demanding of us.

To stress such purposes in translation is to argue that, from the standpoint of an analysis of the current cultural situation-an analysis that is frankly political-certain purposes are productively served by the literary, the text-teaching, institutions of the academy. To offer our proverbs to American students is to invite them, by showing how sayings can be used within an oral culture to communicate in ways that are complex and subtle, to a deeper respect for the people of pre-industrial societies.

* Interest in ** Of communication

[jonathan-parra-acero]

[direwolfrules]

“Something that meaningful to us cannot be left just to sit there bathed in pure significance, and so we describe, analyse, compare, judge, classify; we erect theories about creativity, form, perception, social function; we characterize art as a language, a structure, a system, an act, a symbol, a pattern of feeling”— Clifford Geertz “Art As A Cultural System”

[protoslacker]

In finished anthropological writings, including those collected here, this fact-that what we call our data are really our own constructions of other people's constructions of what they and their compatriots are up to-is obscured because most of what we need to comprehend a particular event, ritual, custom, idea, or whatever is insinuated as background information before the thing itself is directly examined.

Clifford Geertz in Preface (PDF). The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays

The Interpretation of Cultures

[poesiecritique]

Les nomades du fer, Eleanor Arnason, Argyll, 2023 (1991), trad. Patrick Dechesne

C'est une longue fresque, une longue épopée, 568p. ou 586p, traduit de l'anglais et du temps, première publication en 1991, première traduction en français par Patrick Dechesne publiée en 2023, par ou pour ou depuis les éditions Argyll, qui bossent, on peut pas dire, depuis trois ans, ça bosse.

Au dos, une petite phrase de Jo Walton, connaissez-vous Jo Walton ?, c'est une autre autrice de science-fiction, je n'ai pas tout lu, mais j'aime beaucoup, j'ai commencé par Mes vrais enfants, un trouble de la cognition, elle dit "confuse", un trouble venant à un âge certain, la question de l'âge est si peu traitée dans les récits de science-fiction, ça n'est pas tout à fait vrai, mais c'est plus généralement pour dépasser le temps, le dompter, en sortir vainqueureuse. Bref, Jo Walton adoube Arnason, qui est aussi comparée à Ursula Le Guin.

Ursula Le Guin, je l'ai déjà écrit ailleurs, est un vieux compagnonnage. Ca date depuis plus de 20 ans, ce n'est pas dans l'effervescence actuelle que Le Guin, tout à côté de Mead, sont proches et fantomatiques. Je l'ai déjà dit aussi, ce qui m'intéresse tant chez Le Guin c'est la visée anthropologique de son œuvre. Elle invente des mondes aux règles sociales, aux philosophies, aux langages, aux religions différentes. Il n'est pas question de transposer les problèmes actuels dans un autre décor. C'est autre chose.

C'est aussi ce que fait Eleanor Arnason. Dans Les nomades du Fer, il y a plusieurs personnages principaux : Nia, une habitante d'une planète dont le nom est omis, et qui appartient au clan du Fer, duquel elle a été chassé ; il y a Li-sa, une ethnographe qui se place résolument du côté de l'ethnographie : elle arrive d'un autre monde ; comme Derek, un autre ethnographe (il y a en beaucoup d'autres, mais seul.e ces deux là parviennent à rester) ; il y a l'esprit de la cascade, un homme qui un oracle. Les chemins de ces quatre là vont se nouer, se tresser, d'abord les deux femmes, puis Derek, puis l'oracle. Une tresse à quatre brins pour aller vers le nord, vers le clan de Nia, un clan qui l'a chassée parce qu'elle était trop étrange.

Nia a vécu une histoire, une histoire d'amour, une histoire d'amour avec un homme et a eu deux enfants. C'est le fait étranger pour lequel Nia est chassée. Sur cette terre, les clans sont des clans de femmes, où sont aussi les enfants et les vieillard.es. Mais les hommes valides vivent seuls, dans les montagnes, ailleurs, peu importe, loin. L'amour n'est pas l'amour romantique, et ce sentiment, dans ce monde, dans ce livre n'est jamais le ressort dramatique qui permet que l'intrigue avance. Plus, il n'est jamais là. Cet amour qui chez nous toujours noue quelque chose n'existe pas. Ni plus, ni moins. Sauf pour Nia, et Eunshi. Je ne raconterai pas la suite de leur aventure, ce n'est pas la peine ici. C'est une histoire dans l'histoire, mais une petite histoire, finalement dans la grande épopée que ces deux extra-terrestres ethnographes, nous, et les deux habitant.es de la planète vivent.

Cette épopée, c'est le récit de l'arrivée de ces ethnographes, qui essaient de s'intégrer. Li-sa rencontre Nia, qui tête de mule, décide de partir du clan dans lequel elle habite, où elle a trouvé refuge, le clan du cuivre. Li-sa la suit. Puis Nia l'accompagne pour que Li-sa puisse rejoindre le lieu d'atterrissage de la fusée du Kollontaï (au passage, on apprécie le choix de ce nom de baptême bien féministe et bien marxiste). Puis Derek, puis l'oracle. Et plein de rencontres et d'aventures, qui permettent de saisir les enjeux civilisationnels, depuis un point de vue relativement ethnographique (mais plus que moins). Je ne veux pas non plus raconter cela, qui fait le sel du livre.

Dans cette approche ethnographique, l'attention ethnoliguistique m'a particulièrement touchée et, plus que la multiplicité des langues articulée à une langue commune, dite langue des cadeaux, partagée par tous les clans (qui jamais, ces clans, ne se font la guerre, elles ne connaissent pas, tout en connaissant les armes, et donner la mort), m'a particulièrement touchée l'attention aux gestes. Et encore, ce sont moins des gestes qui sont décrits que l'intention des gestes, des réponses. A tel point que, retrouvant les siens, Li-sa continue à employer ces gestes, qui font partie intégrante des langages de cette terre. Ces gestes permettent de dire les états d'âme, les affects. Vers la fin du livre, un geste humain du même genre est fait. Peut-être un couçi-couça de la main. Quelque chose de dérisoire, mais qui montre la potentialité de ce que pourrait être que de parler avec les mains. Cette approche me fait penser à quelque chose que Eleanor Arnason connaissait peut-être, Les rites d'interaction de Goffman. Eleanor a fait des études d'art vers Philadephie, Goffman c'est plutôt Chicago et la sociologie, quel passage de lui vers elle ?, je ne sais pas. Néanmoins pour Goffman, "le rite ne traduit pas la représentation religieuse de la société sous forme pratique, mais la représentation apparaît dans le cours d’une activité rituelle qui ne vise d’abord d’autre fin qu’elle-même." (Keck, 2004, https://philolarge.hypotheses.org/files/2017/09/01-12-2004_keck_Goffman.pdf) Et je considère, sans démontrer pourquoi, que le langage peut être considéré comme un rite, sans cesse renouvelé surtout s'il s'agit comme ici de dire l'affect, et plus précisément l'affect comme réaction à l'action que l'altérité a proposé. D'autant que ces gestes qui ponctuent s'accordent avec des phrases d'une grande simplicité qui permettent au présent, alors que tout est au passé - Eleanor Arnason écrit en 1991 ou avant, le présent direct, dans la sf, ça n'existe pas, je crois.

Une dernière dimension que je trouve intéressante, et peut être parce que je n'en suis pas spécialiste, c'est la réflexion très critique de l'approche marxiste de l'économie qui en dit tout en même temps ses potentialités. Le post-colonialisme est au cœur de cette réflexion. Cette dimension retend la dernière partie du voyage en laissant dans les mains de la lectrice une situation insatisfaisante, qui m'a plongée dans une suite de spéculations, et m'oblige à ne pas ferme le livre comme ça, juste comme ça, après un voyage civilisationnel dans un monde singulie décrit densément, au sens de Geertz (https://journals-openedition-org.ezproxy.campus-condorcet.fr/enquete/1443) dans un monde singulier.

[perception-1111]

[jovialbasementbouquetblr]

2008: Daoism and Post Cold War Chinese Diplomacy

How much do culture and traditions influence policy?  Is culture simply the water in which we (the fish) swim without being much aware of the water (culture).  Do we recognize historical circumstances as new variations on an old theme?  When Americans see a rising power and consider our military readiness are we worrying about a new “Pearl Harbor” attack? What are the relative weights of…

[accuratepicuresofanthropologists]

Wenner-Gren's 100th symposium, Symbolism Through Time, was a chock-full of Famous Anthropologists.

Here is their caption for the event: "Back: J. Clifford, L. Drummond, J .Fernandez, J. Peacock, J. Boon, E. Leach, P. Burke, V. Valeri, B. Kapferer, N. Watson Front: D. Krupa, D. Handelman, N. Miyata, K. Blu, K. Komatsu, P. Rabinow, M. Sahlins, E. Ohnuki-Tierney, S. Ortner, C. Geertz, F. da Silva, L. Osmundsen"

Another image in which Sahlins is in the front row -- I'm keeping track of that.

via Wenner-Gren.

[yes-06]

La cultura es simplemente el conjunto de relatos que nos contamos sobre nosotros mismos.

-Clifford Geertz

[imissthembutitwasntadisaster]

Sometimes art can be separated from the creator sometimes it can't no there is no coherent division it depends on the vibes alone

[hepbaestus]

I never thought that when reading for my next Intro to Social Anthropology lecture that I'd read the sentence;

"the deep psychological identification of Balinese men with their cocks."

[talisms]

Started a debate this morning with J about religion vs belief. He asked me to define religion and my brain immediately went "Religion is a system of symbols..."

[letters-to-rosie]

Sorry I'm sending so many asks, tho I'm curious if you have any tips on writing race in the Arcane universe. Clearly it's not the same as the real word but it a showrunner were to say point blank that racism doesn't exist in Arcane I think I'd get really mad. Idk, if you're still figuring it out sorry, I I'm just curious

lmao no problem I never stop talking anyway

but not only do I never mind getting asks, I was THRILLED to get this one. this isn't in my wheelhouse. it IS my wheelhouse. it's what I'm getting the phd for so they'll let me teach this sort of shit lol. I was literally so excited when I saw this that I had to make myself get to a certain stopping point on my final paper for my history of race class (how fitting) as a motivation so I could come answer afterward lol

the real key to it is something you've already identified in the ask itself: that it's not the same as the real world, but it's definitely there. and with that in mind we can think of talking about how race comes about

so I'mma break this into two sections. the first is about dealing with race (or racialization) in a fantasy setting like Arcane, and the second will be on how real-world structures still have a bearing on what we write about those fictional worlds and how they're perceived. okay, let's get into it (and let me type properly lol)

Because race isn't rooted in biological reality, it's constantly shifting. It's meanings are never fixed, but because race is a way we naturalize the world around us (much like gender stereotypes), it appears more permanent than it is. Now, this isn't discounting racialized violence any group has endured. But the process of defining who belongs to what group, where the dividing lines are, what racial stereotypes mean, and so on, is ongoing.

Race is a popular way of dealing with difference, but it's far from the only one. So what we have to ask is how a group of people become not just different but fundamentally different in ways you can assign supposed traits and behaviors to them. There are a lot of ways this can happen, and every instance has its own historical specificity. Also, every instance is caught up in a "web," so to speak, of cultural context, understandings, and referents (riffing Clifford Geertz and Stuart Hall a little here) that allow people in that web to make sense of the world around them and to understand themselves. So it's very messy, but often we can find some key events that set the process of making a race, racialization, in motion. A good example IRL is the way that brown people of all backgrounds were racialized as vaguely threatening in post-9/11 America. Another is the Transatlantic slave trade, which gave economic incentives for dehumanizing black people and, eventually in the U.S., created a social structure where people who were only partially black could still be enslaved, which is how you get tan black people like me lol. Another example could be the absorption of various European immigrant groups into whiteness throughout U.S. history, or the effort to separate the Japanese from other East Asians after they beat Russia in a war in 1905.

In general, we're asking "what set racialization in motion?" A war? Colonial expansion? Mass immigration? Capitalism? Usually you don't have just one, and usually race combines with one of those forces to exacerbate a previously-held idea of difference in a society. So all of a sudden those people aren't just different, but they might as well be a different species.

In Arcane, we don't get enough backstory to say anything definitively, but we can assume that the divide between Piltover and Zaun is primarily economic. The game lore suggests some colonization, too. In any case, by the time of the show, there are already:

firmly-established delineations between Piltovans and Zaunites

a stereotyping that hides the complexity of the problems the cities face (see Jayce saying to Viktor that the Zaunites are criminals; of course, he's worried about Jinx, but he's operating on the assumption that the Zaunites are acting up because of their criminality, which hides other motivations for their behavior; in all likelihood, most of them were upset because they couldn't get to work, which would lead to a loss of wages and more economic precarity than they already experience)

a robust system of incarceration, police brutality, and environmental racism leading to disparate health outcomes across groups

and a division of labor that relies on all of the above (though I REALLY wish they'd explain more about the mines I need to KNOW)

So, again, it's not race as such, but it's helpful because we can see that it's not entirely reducible to social class, ether. If it were, Viktor would have had a much easier time, and there would be more economic mobility both up and down the ladder. I think it's more than fair to say that racilization is at work, even though the characters have a wide array of physical features on both sides of the river. Racialization can most certainly happen even when the people involved look mostly alike (see the English and the Irish for the classic example).

Okay, so we've established that some race-y things are going on. What about the second part? What about the real world?

We have to be honest and note that our real-world experiences are going to affect how we engage with these characters. This isn't inherently a bad thing, but it's important that we're aware and cautious, handling the question of race delicately. I, for one, have been really disappointed in some of the audience reception of the show's black characters (and a teeny bit in how I feel like their arcs were rushed compared to the wider cast). I'm not really invested in any ship involving Jayce, not gonna lie (though I will say it takes a lot for me to get invested in a ship in general; I have to really click with it to care), but the hate Mel gets over shipping cannot be separated from mysognoir. It just can't. Likewise, with Ekko, I'm sometimes nervous about descriptions of his body that remind me of the VERY long tradition of fetishizing black men to hell and back. But he also gets the short end of the stick in shipping sometimes, and I think his relatively lower popularity in fandom is likely related to his race.

This is me, a black woman, calling it as I see it. We could also get into Sky, but that's a whole other thing. I think that when we engage with these characters, it's important to note what is actually in the text and what might be a projection of our world's current concepts of race onto the fantasy world.

So, for example, assuming Caitlyn is better at math than Vi because her facial features are East Asian. Vi is Jinx's sister. Vi is better at math, presumably, at least in terms of talent, since Vi wouldn't have gotten to go to school. A way to work in the racialization of the show's setting could be for Vi to express frustration with people think ing she's dumb just because of where she's from, or she could be upset she doesn't know something not because she is a Zaunite but because Zaun is so oppressed that Vi never got a proper education.

Mel is a pretty calm character. If someone wrote her as very angry, for example, I'd be like whoa, sounds like the stereotype that black women are angry is at work here. Mel expresses anger at her mother, but otherwise she's very level-headed. For an example in the setting, perhaps Mel tells a close confidante she's a bit tired of the veneer of civility Piltover can put on. Race works in multiple directions. By saying the Zaunite are the rowdy ones, it's saying Piltovans can't be (not that they actually can't, just under their world's racial logic). How would this play out in Mel's life? Could make for an interesting fic.

One example I can speak on personally, because I'm writing it, is my attempt to engage elements of real-world black radicalism with the Arcane universe. Like, I have lines that Ekko says in one chapter that are deeply inspired by one of the most famous Pan-Africanists in U.S. history. But I can't map that thought onto, say, Mel, just because she's black. Her position in the society is such that real-world blackness doesn't really have anything to do with her outside of her reception by the audience. I do, however, engage that sort of thought with other Zaunite characters, mainly Jinx, despite her being white in the real-world framework. In the setting, she's racialized as a Zaunite, and I'm proceeding accordingly, working with those categories of race instead of the ones I deal with in my real life.

Another thing I'm very wary of is beauty being attached to skin color. I'm a bit wary of skin color being mentioned a lot in fics in general, honestly. In a world where skin color isn't the means by which people are divided, it wouldn't be nearly as worth noting. What about...accents? Perceived intelligence? Did Viktor go to Piltover and have people go "oh, you're so articulate"? I bet he did.

Okay, this is getting very long. Pretty much what I'm trying to say is that the answer is to think about what race does in the real world and then think about how it would work in Arcane or any other fantasy setting. What gets people designated as a race? What stereotypes are associated with them? How do people resist this? and so on.

And on the flip side, we have to be attentive to how race in the real world might be coloring our perceptions of certain characters. By being conscious of this, we can avoid potentially reinforcing real-world racial logic. And by examining what racial logic is and what it does, we can become prepared to deal with it in the real world.

(and yeah I would also not enjoy a showrunner saying it doesn't exist in the universe lol)

[quatregats]

Clifford Geertz out here trying for the world record in commas