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Ontology is just another word for culture.
Motion tabled at the 2008 meeting of the Group for Debates in Anthropological
Theory (GDAT), University of Manchester.
Proposing the motion:
Michael Carrithers (Durham University)
Matei Candea (University of Cambridge).
Opposing the motion:
Karen Sykes (University of Manchester)
Martin Holbraad (University College, London).
Edited by: Soumhya Venkatesan (University of Manchester)
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Introduction: Soumhya Venkatesan (University of Manchester).
In his after-dinner speech at the Association of Social Anthropologists’ decennial
meeting on Anthropology and Science held in Manchester in 2003, Eduardo Viveiros
de Castro identified the cardinal value that, in his view, consistently guides
anthropology: ‘working to create the conceptual, I mean ontological, self-
determination of people[s]’ (2003: 4; 18). This was a big statement that has generated
(and indeed should generate) both uneasiness and excitement. The ‘ontological turn’
in anthropology has since been strongly urged by some scholars who were directly
inspired by de Castro (Henare, Holbraad, Wastell (eds.) 2006, Thinking Through
Things). Henare et al argue that a genuinely ontological approach (one that does not
privilege epistemology or the study of other people’s representations of what we know
to be the real world, acknowledging rather the existence of multiple worlds) does not
render ontology synonymous with culture. Culture, they argue, is equivalent to
‘representation’: there is one world (reality) and many worldviews (cultures). An
ontological approach on the other hand acknowledges multiple realities and worlds.
This distinction between ontology and culture is one of the issues the debate picks up
on.
The fact that the editors of Thinking Through Things feel the need to disassociate
their project from the culture concept partly stems from the way in which ontology
sometimes seems to appear in anthropological conversations as a trendy alternative to
culture (Holbraad discusses this in his presentation, as does Candea). Alternatives to,
and criticisms of, culture as a workable concept are legion. Nevertheless, the culture
concept (as Carrithers shows) remains useful for all that the word is treated with a
certain degree of suspicion, especially when mobilised as explanation. But, as Latour
(2005) argues, any concept that is rendered by social scientists into a kind of ‘stuff’
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and mobilised as explanation should be treated with suspicion. He himself focuses on
another anthropological staple: the social. It is certainly possible to misuse the term
‘ontology’ in the same way. Should we then abandon any concept that becomes a
thing?
There is another issue. Notwithstanding the lack of consensus among
anthropologists on what constitutes culture the word has nevertheless become
common fare outside the discipline. This has caused anthropologists some concern. A
similar concern was raised about ‘society’ in the 1989 meeting of the Group for
Debates in Anthropological Theory, which debated the motion: ‘the concept of
society is theoretically obsolete’. This is not simply because we feel we are in a game
of catch up – even as the ‘natives’ use ‘our’ concepts for ‘their’ own purposes
(representation, explanation, performance), we need to move on and find other
concepts that have not yet entered common parlance ‘here’ or ‘there’. Rather, as
Marilyn Strathern, John Peel, Christina Toren and Jonathan Spencer showed at the
1989 meeting, important consequences ensue from the way in which anthropological
concepts and analyses are taken up in other kinds of projects.
A question we might ask is: from where do anthropological concepts come and
what are their limits? Is ‘ontology’ to be found at the limits of ‘culture’ (this is taken
up in the discussion following the presentations; for a discussion on the limits of
concepts also see Corsin Jimenez and Willerslev, 2007)? Strathern (1987) provides
one kind of answer to this question: anthropology’s analytical constructs and concepts
come from the Euro-American tradition of which the discipline is a product (indeed
this is what make the concept of ‘anthropology at home’ more complex than is
immediately apparent). She also raises in this same paper the question of the
anthropologist’s audience and why this matters. In relation to this, and keeping in
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mind Vivieros de Castro’s identification of the cardinal value of anthropology
(discussed earlier), we might further ask, what is the purpose of anthropology and
how do the kinds of questions anthropology poses differ from other non-
anthropologists’ question? Sykes in her presentation focuses on the importance of
questions, i.e. on the interrogative project, rather than the representational or
descriptive project of scholarship.
In their push for an ontological anthropology Henare, Holbraad and Wastell (2006)
make two serious claims. Firstly, that the purpose of anthropology is the generation of
concepts. Secondly, that an ontological approach, more than any other within
anthropology, takes things encountered in the field ‘seriously’ without seeking to
explain or contextualise. This latter is simultaneously a political and methodological
claim. A focus on multiple realities and multiple ontologies can, it is claimed,
generate new concepts that go beyond those that come from ‘our’ ontology. This
claim raises some interesting problems about the relationship between knowledge
systems, ideas about the nature of reality and being and ways of doing.
In We have never been modern Latour (1993) traces the emergence of the modern
ontology which makes a clear separation between persons and things and nature and
society. This separation, however, does not prevent the proliferation of hybrids, which
cross categories and act in the world. Modernity then rests on two pillars, purification
(or categorical separation) and translation or mediation (wherein these categories are
breached). Focusing purely on purification (the ontological realm), then, would render
invisible the translation and mediation that are crucial to acting in the world. We find
similar dilemmas elsewhere. Goswamy (2004) writes that in the second half of the
19
th
century the colonial administration in India was extremely surprised to find
Indians of different castes eager to travel on the newly introduced trains. They had
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assumed that caste-based prohibitions would mean that the trains would mainly carry
goods instead of passengers. Louis Dumont and Andre Beteille’s disagreements on
caste in India turn on this distinction between the ideological and ontological bases of
caste and practice on the ground (see for example, Khare (ed.), 2006). A.K.
Ramanujam asks: is there an Indian way of thinking? There might be, but how does
this inform ‘Indian’ ways of acting and what counts as ‘an Indian way’ or not?
Ontologies, theories of being and reality, have histories (and genealogies). They
are also not necessarily transcontextually stable. Who among us has not shouted at a
car or a printer for ‘deliberately’ breaking down when one is racing to make a
deadline (see for example Gell, 1998)? This is notwithstanding a clear distinction
between intentional persons and inanimate things within the Euro-American modern
ontology. Indeed, as Candea shows, Viveiros de Castro himself is not unreservedly
enthusiastic about the term ‘ontology.’ Likewise, people using the culture concept
also feel a certain amount of reservation. As Sahlins (2002) points out however, this
does not stop it from being useful.
This then brings us to the motion tabled at the 2008 meeting of the Group for
Debates in Anthropological Theory:
Ontology is just another word for culture.
A provocative statement, to be sure (especially given the presence and location of
the word ‘just’), but one that invites critical engagement with both terms and the work
that they do in anthropology. While I do not want to summarise the presentations as
the speakers do their ideas and words the most justice, I will make a few observations.
The debate is, by definition, a highly polarised form of engagement. Notwithstanding
this, there were some commonalities in the opposed positions. Among the themes that