The ‘Social Construction’ of David Schneider as ‘A Giant of Anthropology’

David Schneider is widely regarded as one of the great anthropologists of our times. This article questions this opinion. First it shows that his fieldwork on the Micronesian island of Yap evidences ethnographic insensitivity, particularly on the matter of an alleged ignorance of physiological paternity, thus calling into question his supposed concern with getting at native understandings. The alleged ignorance forms the ethnographic basis for his later critique of established kinship studies. This, plus his ignorance of lexical marking, invalidates the critique. Even worse is his study of American kinship and its related theory of culture, both consisting mostly of top-of-the-head impressions unrelated to specific operations.     

The Pillars of “Mahathir's Islam”: Mahathir Mohamad on Being-Muslim in the Modern World

Unlike his bourgeois economic nationalism or diplomatic posturing on behalf of the developing world, Mahathir Mohamad's encounter with Islam remains a largely understudied aspect of his 22-year rule of Malaysia (1981–2003). There is a marked reluctance to take seriously his pronouncements on Islam and engage with his representations of what being-Muslim should entail in the modern world. This essay takes the view that Islam, in fact, represents a significant component of the former Malaysian prime minister's political repertoire, and that an analysis of what may be described as “Mahathir's Islam” can provide a compelling alternative account of his momentous premiership. It argues that while Mahathir's engagement with Islam was fraught with contradictions and has produced a number of negative consequences that affect Malaysian society as a whole, his discourse also contained the ingredients of what Bellah and Hammond (1980) have famously described as civil religion. Mahathir's public representations of Islam – in particular, his championing of the individually responsible believer and interpretation of the message to the Prophet Muhammad as a this-worldly and pro-active “theology of progress” – can thus provide religious validation to the cosmopolitanism of the street that has helped underwrite the social peace of multi-religious Malaysia.     

The Societal Construction of a Criminal as Cultural Hero: The Case of “The Brinks Truck Theft”

This study examines the identification with, and encouragement and admiration of, a celebrated thief among the Internet audience of a popular Israeli web site. A content analysis of audience responses highlights the carnival atmosphere that emerged in Israel as the story unfolded of the exploits, arrest and punishment of this new criminal folk hero, a “trickster” who toppled the social order. Astonishingly, the public mood, as manifest in the online message boards, is mostly supportive of the crime and its perpetrator, with very few condemnations.     

‘It is because of our Islam that we are there’: The Call of Islam in the United Democratic Front Era

Abstract

This article examines the South African Islamic anti-apartheid organisation, the Call of Islam, in order to understand how progressive South African ‘ulama navigated the contested territory of Islam through an interpretation of the Qur'an that demanded a Muslim alliance with the oppressed in the anti-apartheid struggle and a South African Islam. The emergence of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in 1983 in reaction to the apartheid government's Tricameral Parliament created a space in which South African Muslims could enter the national anti-apartheid struggle according to their religious rather than ethnic identity. To illustrate the historical development of the Call of Islam and its affiliation with the UDF, the article will first outline the formation of the UDF in the Western Cape, the geographical area with the largest concentration of Muslims in South Africa. The focus will then turn to the impact of the UDF on the Cape's Muslim community, particularly the divide that developed amongst its ‘ulama over the stance of Muslim participation in the anti-apartheid struggle. The following section will analyse the emergence of the Call and how the questions of its founders concerning the religious Other led to an examination of Islam in its South African context. The final section will then look at the sources that the Call used to show it was indeed because of their South African Islam that they affiliated with the UDF and the oppressed.     

Ways of Knowing in Anthropology: Alexandre Chayanov and the Perils of “Dutiful Empiricism”

For nearly four decades, anthropologists have grappled with the empirical and theoretical implications of the work of the Russian economist Alexandre Chayanov. At the centre of Chayanov’s theory is the premise that the internal dynamics of peasant societies, principally in terms of the ratio of workers to consumers, is the prime determinant of domestic productive intensity. Anthropologists have tested Chayanov’s thesis in a wide variety of ethnographic and historical settings, utilizing a number of methodological approaches. The purpose of this article is to examine the wider theoretical implications of Chayanov’s approach as it has been used in anthropology, especially in terms of the role of empiricism in ethnographic inquiry. The argument presented here is that an overly zealous devotion to “dutiful empiricism”, to use Geertz’s (1961 Geertz, C. 1961. “Studies in peasant life: community and society”. Biennial Review of Anthropology, 2: 1–41.  [Google Scholar]: 18) term, is apt to limit anthropology’s epistemological usefulness.     

The Politics of Knowledge: Anthropology and Māori Modernity in Mid-Twentieth-Century New Zealand

This article argues that growing confidence in anthropology as a tool for managing the adaptation of a resurgent Māori population to modernity shaped a “politics of knowledge” regarding New Zealand's indigenous people in the mid-twentieth century. We examine the relationship between anthropological discourse, state policy, and the Māori struggle to uphold traditional ways, through the prism of Ernest and Pearl Beaglehole's psycho-ethnographic study entitled Some Modern Māoris (Beaglehole, E., and P. Beaglehole. 1946. Some Modern Māoris. Wellington: New Zealand Council for Educational Research). This paper demonstrates that the study was the product of a nexus between concerns for Māori welfare, a perceived need for empirical research that could be applied to the “problem” of indigenous adjustment to contemporary conditions, and American philanthropy. For this reason, and as a detailed record of a small community when Māori society was on the cusp of post-Second World War transformations, we contend that the study deserves to be recovered from historical obscurity.     

In and Out of the Ethnographer's Shadow: “Native” Identity in the Anthropology of China

In the past two decades, many Chinese students have trained as anthropologists in the West. The study of China has been enriched by the contributions of “native” anthropologists, but the “native” is not necessarily native to the site studied; the term may not be entirely helpful in the end. At the same time, complete outsiders can still contribute effective and vivid understandings of China. Ultimately, I argue that the anthropologist's identity may not be an overwhelmingly relevant criterion of a work's value, since there are many aspects to identity in every case.     

The Construction of Soviet Ethnography and “The Peoples of Siberia”

The multi-generation book project "The Peoples of Siberia" enabled a group of Leningrad-based scholars to reshape their museum into a Soviet ethnographic community. This article analyses the face-to-face performances, the legalistic stenographic documentation, the collective crafting of a single authoritative style, and a unique temporal frame as an important background to understand a hallmark volume in Siberian studies. The authors argue that the published volume indexes nearly thirty years of scholarly debates as much as it indexes the peoples it represents. The article concludes with a critical discussion of how this volume was translated and received by a Euro-American readership influencing the perception of Siberian peoples internationally. It also links the volume to contemporary post-Soviet publication projects which seem to retrace the same path. The article is based on extensive archival work and references collections recently discovered and which are presented for publication here for the first time.     

“The Joy of Normal Living” as the Promise of Happiness for Japanese Women and their Families

“The Joy of Normal Living” is at once the motto and the ideology of Kurihara Harumi, Japan’s best-known charisma housewife and icon of domesticity. This article looks at the relationship between “normal living” and the promise of happiness, as formulated in postwar Japan. Beginning with the government’s promotion, in the early postwar period, of the idea of akarui seikatsu (bright new life) as related to the typical suburban middle-class family of salaryman husband and full-time housewife, the article goes on to look at the cultural idea of “being happy as a woman” in contemporary Japan. Based on in-depth interviews with full-time housewives, and an analysis of popular women’s magazines, this article seeks to decipher what constitutes the idea of happiness for these women and for their generation.     

“The Pull of Love”: Mutual Love as Democratic Virtue in Niebuhrian Political Theology

Although Reinhold Niebuhr's account of democracy aims to protect marginalized communities by restraining sin through the diffusion of power, the conceptions of sin and love that inform his political theology have anti-democratic consequences for members of these communities. I address this inconsistency by revisiting his under-developed idea of mutual love and clarifying his account of sin. Mutual love occupies crucial terrain between agape and justice for Niebuhr, and therefore enables moral agents to achieve democratic goals. Given the nature and importance of mutual love, I clarify Niebuhr's account of sin by making his position on “self-love” more moderate than it often appears.